Author: dianewoodrow

I married Ian in 2007. I have two grown up children, who I home schooled until they were 16. My son has just joined the army, my daughter has just moved to Cardiff.
I have a degree in History and Creative writing and a PGDip in using Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes.
Until Feb 2016 I lived in a beautiful part of England and now I live in a beautiful part of North Wales where my time is filled with welcoming Airbnb rental guests, running writing workshops, writing, serving in my local Welsh Anglican Church, going for long walks with my little dog, Renly, and drinking coffee and chatting with friends

Categories
seeing True freedom

Being True to Ourselves

https://www.sidetracked.com/a-delicate-line/

Exhausted but content. As she realises that the complete journey is almost at an end, that she has done it – and on her own terms, at peace with the choices she has made – she feels the bond with this mountain of spirit growing strong.

https://www.sidetracked.com/a-delicate-line/

This article on Sidetracked is amazing. Not just that Anna Tybor climbs the 8th highest mountain in the world without oxygen and then skis back down again collecting all their equipment from the three camps her and her three companions made between base camp and the summit, but it is that she did it on her own terms. She made choices, like not using the oxygen and collecting their detritus which other climbers would not have done, and it is this that give her peace. It would seem that because of this she feels a bond with the mountain. Read the article because this mountain doesn’t work with her on the trip.

Not all of us are called to climb mountains, even little ones, but all of use are much more at peace when we do things on our own terms.

The more I find my true self the more I know what my terms are and the more I can let those things happen not with force but with gentleness because I know it is what I want deep in my heart. Sometimes that might make things harder for me – like with Anna’s thing of clearing up the mountain behind them – but when I go the way I know my heart feels is right then I connect with something higher/greater than me – whether that is God, The Universe, the environment I’m in or the people around me.

I think when we don’t do what we know to be right for us – and again this comes down to seeing ourselves truly and not seeing ourselves as we think others want us to be – we feel a hurt. Often we dismiss this hurt and move on but it stays with us building into something bigger. Then we scream at someone for pulling out in front of us, leaving the top off the toothpaste, etc etc. Often it is that we’ve let those things that aren’t right for us build.

I’ve been running writing workshops for the last 7 1/2 years. Over that time I’ve learned that the ones that work best for the participants are the ones where I am true to myself in them. I run the writing groups that work for me. I do them on my own terms and that gives me peace and causes harmony within the group. When I try to run a group to please someone else then I feel the tension in me and those groups fold.

So practically how can we be true to ourselves and be at peace with our decisions and choices? I will always say that the first way is to get some healing and see what the blocks are that stop us from being true to ourselves, and sometimes that can be not knowing ourselves. Think back to those times when you felt totally at peace and see what you did/didn’t do.

I also think we need to slow down and not just into things. Emails and text messages and phone calls shout at us to do something now but it is ok to wait, to say to the caller “I’ll get back to you” or just leave the text or phone call. I find even if my heart says “yes” I will still wait in case actually I’m going back to people pleasing rather than my own terms.

As a Christian I would say that my final thing with making a decision is that I allow “the peace of God that transcends all understanding to guard my heart and mind” and from there I can go with my peace.

Important note – what I believe to be the right decision is the right decision, the right choice for me, and the more healed I become, the more at peace with myself I become, I can let other people find their own peace and make their own choices on their own terms.

Categories
seeing six: the musical solidarity

Six: The Musical

Saturday my friend and I went to see Six: The Musical. If you get the chance go and see it. It is high energy, high emotions and totally amazing songs and dances for 90 minutes. We came out with tears down our faces and emotionally trembling.

But as I tried to sleep it got me thinking how this musical fitted in with so much of what I have been pondering around seeing and being seen which is why I’ve put it as third and didn’t post it on Sunday. [though am writing it Sunday whilst it is still fresh in my head]

Here were these six young women. And yes we do forget that they were all young. Yes Catherine of Aragon hung around until she was 50 but the other five were young enough to give Henry VIII an heir. And by the time he got to wife number three he was gout ridden, had a vicious temper, had syphilis of sleeping around and wasn’t a nice person.

In the musical the six women have decided to have a contest to see which is the “best” of the queens. The themes they use to explore this covered physical appearance, emotional trauma, abuse, infidelity, the patriarchal system, which still is in evidence today, especially with how we regard the physical appearances of women. All the time bitching to each other of which one had the hardest time with Henry and all the while selling themselves short. All of them crying out “see me” I felt.

Then Katherine Parr slows things down and to my mind says basically “we can’t see each other properly because we are in competition rather than in solidarity with each other.” She goes on to remind them that even though Henry VIII did many things he is mainly famous for having six wife and that it is these six women that made him such a figure in history.

In following on from the last two posts I think too often we are busy trying to compete with each other – whether openly or within our own heads. We want to be seen but we don’t want to see. We are afraid if we see others then we will lose something of ourselves – which I felt did come over in most of the songs.

So we need to come together in solidarity to truly see each other and let go of the things that could divide us. As Velveteen Rabbi says we can only build community if we do it together acknowledging our differences.

Acknowledging our differences is truly seeing each other.

Categories
hospitality seeing

Seeing part II

Renly deciding he should be navigating. Because I know his limitations I had to move him to the back seat.

Seeing someone for who they truly are doesn’t mean that we let them do what they want. But also it doesn’t mean we penalise them for things they don’t yet know.

As always when God wants to highlight something for me it comes at me from all sides. I’ve been reading Henri Nouwen’s daily meditations and there has been a recurring theme of letting go of one’s own fear to really see and accept others as they are. Here is today’s piece:

Hospitality means primarily the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines. . . . The paradox of hospitality is that it wants to create emptiness, not a fearful emptiness, but a friendly emptiness where strangers can enter and discover themselves as created free; free to sing their own songs, speak their own languages, dance their own dances; free also to leave and follow their own vocations. Hospitality is not a subtle invitation to adore the lifestyle of the host, but the gift of a chance for the guest to find his own.

https://henrinouwen.org/meditation/

It is about truly seeing each other and truly allowing each other that space to explore. In the story in Acts 3 John and Peter gave the man what he wished for – being able to walk. They did not try and covert him. In fact when there is a bit within the early church of trying to get people to conform that is when issues occur. Jesus didn’t want his church to be homogeneous but did want them to be loving and accepting.

In this week’s Velveteen Rabbi Rachel talks about Exodus 25:1-8 where all the Israelites bring different things to build the temple and of how this creates community. And she goes on to say that even when a community disagrees about major issues each still needs to come together as they are in God.

When we hold space for our differences, we make community holy.

Community Means .. .. Velveteen Rabbi

So hold space for our differences, give hospitality to explore and to fully be within those difference but do it all with the love and respect of God and of our love for each other as a whole.

Truly see each other and truly accept each other and then, like the lame man, we can be truly healed and then go on to heal our world

Categories
healing seeing

Seeing

Daffodils and snowdrops out at the same time. Photographed Thursday 15th February 2024 on my river walk at St Asaph

I read this great Substack post by Fiona Koefoed-Jespersen the other day about “The real miracle is seeing” which looks at the story from Acts where John and Peter heal the lame man by the Beautiful Gate [Acts 3:1-10] in which she says that the real miracle is that all three of them, John, Peter and the lame man, all actually see each other for the first time.

She says

What if the biggest miracle of this story is not the healing of a man born lame, but that three people separated by physical ability and difference, by religious interpretation of that difference, and by so many other economic and social realities, actually pause long enough to look each other in the eyes.

And

What if walking the Way of Jesus becomes an inability to ignore, to pass hasty judgement, to believe the propaganda or the toxic theology?

What if three plus years of being discipled by a poor Palestinian Jewish rabbi had led them to this greatest miracle: recognising their common humanity with the person in front of them?

But I also think there was something in the lame man that made him actually see John and Peter properly too. This lame man had been there for years. I often wonder if Jesus had walked past him. In fact I often wonder how there were still people who needed healing in all of Jerusalem and Galilee after three years of Jesus’ ministry on earth.

So after pondering this I think that it takes both sides to be doing the “seeing”. If the lame man had not really looked up at John and Peter he would not have asked them to really heal them. Something went on on both sides of this interaction for the true healing to take place.

I was thinking of this with people I know. Yes I can fully see them and build relationship from my side but if they don’t want to, or can’t, fully see this with me then we cannot build together. It takes two.

Actually this happened to me over this weekend with a friend who I felt hadn’t fully seen what I was feeling but then later in the conversation I said something to which her response was “oh I get what you’re saying now”. Once I felt truly seen I felt barriers go down that I wasn’t even sure I had put up.

So yes we do need to get beyond toxic theologies and prejudices and yes we need to fully see each others humanity. But things will only come together in peace if both sides are willing to do that. And as in all relationships it needs to be a regular daily thing. Not just a one off.

Categories
Ash wednesday Valentines Day

Ash Wednesday/Valentine’s Day

kissclipart-ash-wednesday-2017-clipart-lent-ash-wednesday-holy-6287a2d08c995d91

After writing yesterday’s post I got thinking about how this year Valentine’s Day falls on Ash Wednesday [or visa versa] and what that could signify or how it could be brought into something tangible.

So yesterday I talked about how Valentine sacrificed himself for love and really that is what Ash Wednesday starts to ask the Christian Church to look at; 40+ days of moving towards and preparing our hearts towards Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. So there is a time of repentance, a time of reflection, a time of being still and just being. I wondered what that would be like in our relationships, especially our married ones.

Do we ever really take time off to repent, to reflect, to just be still as couples? We give flowers, chocolates, cards, presents, go out for meals, have holidays together, but do we really do what is encouraged from Ash Wednesday – and really delve into those relationships?

So concentrating on the Ash Wednesday/Valentine’s Day connection – how often do we take any regular time out to look at our marriages, to be honest about our marriages, to really repent and really forgive for the hurts we’ve given and received over the however many years we’ve been together?

But then I do wonder if even as Christians we do that whole repenting, pondering, etc stuff of Lent in a superficial way. Or is that just me??

Categories
sacrifice Valentines Day

Valentine’s Day

Here’s my little love. What I love about my dog is how compliant he is. This morning we bumped into friends so instead of doing just a mile walk we did three. He did not complain at all.

Sometimes we think of love as being easy going, about holding hands, about flowers and chocolates and meals out, and just being “nice” to one another. But Valentine, who the day is named after, wasn’t easy going, was not compliant, would not have accepted a bunch of flowers, box of chocs or even a lovely weekend away as a sign of love. For Valentine he was super tough in sharing the message of God’s unconditional love and of how Jesus had loved us all so much he was willing not just to have died for us but to have led his whole life in sacrifice to bring us back to relationship with God.

The being the saint of lovers comes from the belief that Valentine married people against the Emperor’s wishes and took secret messages between jailed lovers.

For some reason in the Middle Ages St Valentine’s day became associated with courtly love; sending knights off on adventures and daring-dos! So even though it has moved into more romantic love it is still about sacrifice and showing one is willing to risk one’s life for those one professes to love.

Whether we give or don’t give, receive or don’t receive, like or dislike the whole thing of Valentine’s day, how many of us are willing to sacrifice for those we love? Let alone how many of us are willing to sacrifice for those we don’t know that well?

[An aside – Valentine is also the saint of epilepsy and beekeepers!!! Hummmm!!!]

Categories
Courage optimist

‘It takes courage to make the right decision’

Title taken from ‘It takes courage to make the right decision:’ Artemis 2 astronaut explains why moon mission was delayed to 2025 (exclusive)

Renly trying to decide whether to stay on the windswept beach or run back to the car 🙂 Whatever decision will be the right one and I will love him no matter what. Photographed by myself Nov 2023

I love the above statement. In the article that follows it is about saying things aren’t ready for takeoff yet. It got me thinking with this year of elections coming up – how many of our leaders have the courage to make the right decisions and how many will promise us things they cannot deliver? How often do we promise we will do something because we do not have the courage to upset others because we are too busy people pleaseing? And also to make this positive step along the way with a project rather than coming over negatively.

It is the courage to say No that I love about this story. No it isn’t safe. No it isn’t ready. Just no not yet. Not no forever but just wait. This project will have to wait because I don’t have the energy/time/resources/support to get it done.

I think too often one is encouraged to push through and get things done rather than be courageous enough to say “wait” and “not quite yet”. The Artemis 2 people aren’t say Never but are saying Wait. Wait till it’s safe. Wait till we know more.

I think about the meeting where I bemoaned the need for some people to show they were busy, in that there was just this need to “get the job done” “get the money spent” and when someone was brave enough to challenge that, all though they appeared to be listened to, were actually ignored because no one there was courageous enough to say things like “oh you could be right let’s wait a while“.

The courage to make the right decision is so much more than pushing through regardless. It is so much more than putting in those extra hours to keep someone else happy. It is the courage to look at the whole situation and then be willing to say Wait. Sometimes it might even be the courage to scrap it completely.

I will paraphrase something I heard on a TV program last night “This life is all we have and it is alright to make mistakes along the way so long as one has the courage to admit to them, pick oneself up and go off to see what happens next”.

Not “don’t make mistakes” and not “oh that hurt so I won’t step out again” but to boldly go and courageously see what happens next.

Categories
restoration trust

Busy!

For those who know my dog he does sleep as well as he does busy. Though for him busy is sniffing on a walk, having a shorter and shorter zoomy with his doggie friends as he gets older, and rushing to find a treat. He then does rest and recover very well. So why can’t we as human beings desire more and more to do this.

I am sooooo fed of reading things that will make me more efficient with my time, will make me more productive and thus will give me more money to do more things with. But this seems to be what too many human beings think they want. Rest and recuperation, are things that get timetabled in rather than a priority that we work around.

I read somewhere that to be truly creative, not just in one’s writing, painting, etc but in coming up with solutions on how to live your life, how to find out how to stop climate change, how to change the world, one needs to sit about doing nothing. Not as in a “planning to think about” exercise but in a “letting ones mind drift and see what the universe drops into it.” Apparently all the great inventors spent time just staring into space, getting into those alpha ways, getting tuned into what might just be floating around.

But we encourage each other and our children from an early age to be busy, to look busy, to be productive, to not waste time, to be doing something. So we all grow up with a fear of staring out the window, of wasting time.

I’ve a couple of friends how actually do just that. When the weather is like it is now [pouring with rain] if they have no work they don’t get dressed, they don’t see anyone, they don’t do anything. I would like to say that they then achieve great things but they don’t. But they do enjoy their sitting around being time. Interestingly both of them get led to pray for things that surprise them because they hadn’t planned to. So really then one can they that they are following God’s lead on what God wants prayed about.

But busyness gets rewarded. I was at a meeting the other day in which it got down to people boasting about how busy they were, how they gave their time for free for the good of whatever, how they had so little time. And then they got “rewarded” by being given more to do. And they all looked so pleased with it.

Interestingly I didn’t get given anything. And what little it looked like I might be doing got taken away from me. I suspect it is because I am now sending out those vibes, that energy, to say “I only want to do what I’m meant to do”. Also I no longer need other people’s affirmation that what I do with my day is worthwhile. I know it is whether it is staring out the window, cooking tea, keeping house, running a writing workshop, finishing a story and bravely sending it out for a competition, reading a book or watching TV. All those things are my worthwhile day.

Why? Because they kept me healthy – because I’m not needing someone else to affirm me. But also because what I do I can do to my full energy and give it my all because I’m not planning on the next thing.

In this meeting some had leave early because they were off to other meetings, some were doing other work during the meeting, and like I say many of them were saying how they had just rushed from something and had more to do.

So I want to live out the rest of my life to the full but I do not want “the full” to be busy busy busy, but to have time to chill in front of the TV, read books I like, chat with friends, be flexible when the weather halts things, be free to stare out the window and watch those raindrops falling and to see they joy in them because ….. just because

Categories
blessing joy

February

My dog’s response when I told him it was February! Photographed by myself 1st Feb 2024. He doesn’t care what day of the week or day of the month or whatever it is!

No I’m not going to start a series of months of the year. Or I don’t think so. Who know where my mind might take me this year??

St Brigid’s day. Imbolc. Candlemass. Groundhog day. Halfway between winter solstice and the spring equinox. All different names to celebrate the 1st and 2nd February. Or as many people like to say or feel “thank goodness we’ve made it through January, the longest month of the year“.

Here the sun has shone for the last two days after a Monday, 29th Jan, where it poured with rain all day solidly. It feels like spring is coming. There are snowdrops and even some hardy daffodils showing their heads. On the grass over the road from my house the crocuses that were planted by someone long before we moved in are showing their heads.

So this is a post with no deep meaning but just to say “Hello February” and “I’m pleased you’re here and looking good.”

photographed by myself 25th January at Rhuddlan nature reserve

Categories
doors open/closed

Doors!

photographed at my friend’s house April 2022. I was the first one up enjoying the warmth of the conservatory and the bird songs and fresh breezes of the morning

Is this door half open or half closed?

Someone was saying about a sermon they which combined open and closed doors and was wondering about its meaning.

Well this got me thinking! Too often we ask for doors to be opened as a good thing and doors to be closed as a not so good thing. But I remember my sister getting her fingers caught in the back door of our house because the front door was open too and a through draft caused the back door to slam.

Along most streets front doors are kept closed. When I lived a back-to-back houses part of Belfast it was said that if the key was in the door [hence door closed but unlocked] you let yourself in and the owner of the house would make you a cup of tea, but if the door was open a slight bit that meant the person had gone out for a bit and so if you did go in you’d have to put the kettle on yourself.

On a metaphorical level not all open doors are ones we are meant to through. I realised this with my job last year. Because of the skills I have, and the need for people in that sector, I can walk into the sort of job I was doing with ease. But that doesn’t mean that I should go through it.

As with the doors in the area of Belfast I lived in, just because they had keys in or were left a jar that didn’t mean I could walk into them. I was an English person, a new person to the area. I was not family or friend of many years. It would have been presumptuous of me to just walk in and I never did. The same as if I had started that same custom with the keys etc the neighbours would not have just walked into my house because of our lack of longevity in relationships.

So I think not all open doors are a good thing and not all closed doors are a bad thing. We need doors to close so we don’t get our fingers caught in them, but also so that we can move on through the next door. If doors are always open we’ll be dithering about and not being sure where to go and what to do.

But also, I think, we need to fully know who we are – our love ourselves as we are and know our strengths, our likes, our weaknesses and things we are willing to say we don’t like. Then we can look at a door whether it is wide open, open a little bit, is closed with the key in or is fully shut, and decide if we want to really give it a try.

There are doors I have walked through because I have had metaphorical big boots open that actually I didn’t really want to go through but they were open a wee bit and so I pushed. Thankfully I’ve been able to get out of them by learning more about who I am and what I love doing – my passions and my “vocation” so to speak. There are also doors that stood open that I was afraid to go through for various reasons and some of that could have been that even though the door was open it wasn’t my right door at that moment in time.

So there is no good and no bad [back to those Two Trees in the Garden again] but, I think, there is a “know the truth and the truth will set you free” [John 8:32]. The truth of who you are and where you would like to go in your life. Then you can walk through the door with boldness with God, the Creator of the Universe who loves and cares for you unconditionally, and see what happens next.