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
The other day I learned that original meaning of the word “Inspiration” was defined as the “immediate influence of God” and the idea was closely linked to writing (rather than other art-forms) as it described how those who wrote holy books were influenced by a higher power to do so – according to the lovely Grace of Wordfoolery.
She goes on to say about how it comes from Old French and Latin to blow into or breathe upon, and figuratively to excite or inspire somebody.
She does say more about how it came into its modern usage but you can read that. What inspired me was this whole thing of this immediate influence of God, especially to writing, and this whole breathing upon or blowing into.
I just love the idea of God blowing on to my writing – whether it is these random ponderings on here or the stories, etc I write. For me God inspired writing does not have to just biblical based or mentioning God. Or even things like CS Lewis or Tolkien allegories. I think God inspired writing can be anything and for me this definition of the word “inspiration” means God can breath into or blow upon anything whether I, or other writers, acknowledge their influence.
I often do some breathing exercises before I write because it helps me focus, but I think now I might do some with intention to get some of that “immediate influence of God”.
This is what has been going on in my house over this weekend as Wales get battered by Storm Darragh.
Compared to many places across the globe the UK gets off lightly with extremes of weather. Oh we get weather and don’t we Brits like to talk about it. Even if you have nothing to say to anyone as you pass in the street you can always say things like “nice day” “bit cloudy/windy/rainy/sunny” “bit cold/hot/wet/dry” “its come early for winter/spring/summer/autumn” Always a something and generally a disgruntled something.
Well for the first time I think we’ve had a red weather warning. Our local Victorian pier is breaking up with the battering it is getting. Trees are coming down. Roads are blocked. Electricity is down. Christmas markets are cancelled and we’ll all be late doing our Christmas shopping!!!
But it isn’t like some places even in America where twisters and floodings and fires are becoming a thing. I was amazed at the lack of news about the fire in Ventura, California, which happened during the US elections. I only knew about it because one of the houses destroyed belonged to friends. I wonder how many other environmental disasters there are that we never hear about?
Yes environmental disasters! Because that is what this extreme weather is – an environmental disaster brought on by climate change.
I would say this isn’t normal but I think it is going to become the new normal. But also it is to be expected.
6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 7 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of birth pains.
9 “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. 10 At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, 11 and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. 12 Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, 13 but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.
Matthew 26:6-13
Ok so it doesn’t mention floods and uncontrolled fires and extremes of weather, etc, but that sort of thing does appear in poetic form in the Book of Revelations later in the Bible. Worth a read as you look at these global weather phenomenons.
I’ve been doing some pondering around being a Christian, Jesus, and the whole suffering thing – encouraged by a friend last night as we were driving home. She was saying about trusting God in the storm [we were driving back from a concert as Storm Darragh was approaching North Wales] but I was then saying how many Christian friends or friends of friends I’d known who’d died in car accidents, etc. They died. We suffered grief. God didn’t stop it from happening.
Interestingly in the above verses it doesn’t say God will stop it from happening. In fact it says these things MUST happen. Too often, especially the evangelical charismatic branch of Christianity, has said God will stop us suffering. But this isn’t what Jesus says to his followers just before he dies and before the authorities turn against his followers. He says that it is only the one who stands firm who will survive.
Now I don’t think that means that we won’t get hurt, battered, lose things and people important to us. I think it means that we must stand strong in the faith that the Creator of the Universe and the one who is allowing all this chaos because they knew why loves us all unconditionally and will give us the peace and joy that transcends all understanding.
So I am grateful that I have a lovely warm solid house to be sheltered in, that we have lots of food, that we live in a town and so don’t have to get the car out, but above and beyond all that I am grateful that The Creator of The Universe loves not just me but all my family, friends, acquaintances, and even people I don’t like and don’t know, unconditionally.
[Though of course my very human side also wishes that we could have a weekend where we didn’t have to worry about the weather and could just go for a nice long walk and lunch out!!! 🙂 ]
Renly accepting that he has to be wrapped up in a towel after he’s been outside in the rain. Photographed by myself November 2024
I was chatting with a friend the other day about how she realised that she had to accept the limitations of what she was going through – her health, her personal situation, etc – and only through that could she feel at peace.
We talk about the Peace or Joy of the Lord [depending on translations] being our strength but very rarely do we look at what that entails – to settle into the peace and/or joy of the Lord during tough situations. But it struck me as we were chatting that accepting things instead of fighting against them makes such a difference.
That isn’t to say we settle back and go “oh well that’s it and I won’t try any more” or as I’ve found from certain people “you can’t expect me to do that because I’m an X personality” or “because I’m such and such diagnosis”
But it is being honest about the situation and saying “this is where it is and I am going to learn to live with that as best I can. I am going to accept the limitations of that [mental health issue, physical health issue, relationship that isn’t going as I’d like, insert your own] and am going to rest in that Higher Power and see what they want to do with me.”
From this place will come peace and that deep joy that transcends understanding.
We all know people who are going through some real tough times but they radiate something that is so gentle, so peaceful, that we want some of it. And we also know people who are going through things that you have to gird yourself up to see because you know you should because they are going through stuff but, boy, are they giving off some negative energy.
Having been through some tough stuff I’m not coming from a place of not knowing. But I also know there have been times when I gave off total negative energy and blamed and hated what I was going through and the whole world. But I also know there have been times when I have been sad and hurting but have lent in to something/someone beyond myself and trusted. Not so much that they would change the situation but that they would hold me through the situations. Whenever I do that I know I feel better, more peaceful, more calm, less blaming, and I’m sure those around me can feel that energy shift.
I don’t say it is easy but I do say it is worth it.
I’ve pondered this many times before. If you do a search of “joy” you will find many other posts linked to this one.
My blogs will always be free because I want to share them with as many people as possible but if you fancy it you could Buy Me A Coffee via this link.
I was challenged by a friend about my origins of Stir Up Sunday from yesterday’s post. This is what comes, on my part, from going with tradition and hearsay rather than doing a bit of research myself. It wasn’t like I didn’t have the time as we still hiding inside from Storm Bert – which even though it sounds like a benign uncle caused a lot of damage and flooding across Wales. Even in our park the wind had pushed over 3 little fir trees which a friend and I helped to become upright again this morning.
Anyway it turns out the Stir Up Sunday originated from the 1549 Book of Common Prayer Collect for that day
Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
But by the mid eighteenth century this Sunday had become the traditional Sunday for families to make their Christmas puds. Tradition states that all the family got together to do this. A real family affair before getting caught up with the busyness of Advent. It was also where the adults taught the children their family’s traditional Christmas pudding recipe. As with all things each family always puts their own twist on things.
I think this is a lovely mixture of being Jesus and family together. Too often in the Church we can almost separate families or at least family life. We come together to look at a person at the front tell us how we are meant to be with Jesus/God and often the children are whisk away to Sunday schools, along with the adults who will run those groups, and there is a separation between family tradition and hanging out with God.
So even though this might look like another thing that could be seen as secularisation I do wonder if it was more about keeping family connected and also keeping God in the centre of the family. I wonder if there was chat about that day’s sermon, or whether that gave family members, old and young, a chance to ask those awkward questions. I know my kids used to ask all sorts when either we were in the car [no eye contact] or cooking together. I ran a youth group where we used to play lego or do craft things and the subjects those young people were questioning and questioning where God fitted into them was amazing.
Sad statistic –
In a 2013 survey, two-thirds of British children reported that they had never experienced stirring Christmas pudding mix
So I do wonder if Stir Up Sunday, with the stirring of the puddings was a great way of “bringing forth the fruit of good works” and learning about what a life with Christ as King looks like for the whole family? And I wonder what we could put in now to replace that?
We went out in the snow and then the following day in Storm Bert and this is the little dog afterwards wrapped in his drying robe! Neither picture has anything to do with the blog content 🙂
Today is Christ The King Sunday. I know this because my mum sends me her zoom links for her early morning church service, which I then forget to click on to but I still read the liturgy!
I love on the Sunday that many denominations acknowledge Christ as King it is also Stir up Sunday. No this isn’t a day for stirring up the congregations to become more Christ-like, to put Christ more in the centre of their lives, to give them a poke to get them out of their comfort zones. No! Stir Up Sunday was the day when all the women of the parish would stir up their Christmas puddings to get the alcohol evenly distributed so the puddings would taste great for Christmas day!
Fascinating that they are on the same Sunday!!!
But it got me thinking about a question that came up on the study we were doing with the youth group. The study had been about the Book of Revelations and the question was “what could you do to help make God’s kingdom come?”
Some of the answers were – giving toys to HomeStart charity, being kind to school friends, saying thank you, or for myself, writing.
It got me thinking about how we should be using our gifts and talents because I still think that it isn’t what we do but how we are that makes God’s kingdom come and I think that comes about when we know our talents, our strengths, our weaknesses, and take our areas of healing to God so they can heal us.
So even if we are being all out evangelical and preaching Jesus to people if we are not doing it from a healed, safe place but doing it because we ought to, or are fearful of what will happen to them if they don’t meet with Jesus, then people won’t notice. Great though it is giving toys to those children who don’t have enough if we do it with resentment or even with hoping we look good then we aren’t doing it with the right spirit, with the right energy.
I believe it is all about the energy that comes from us.
In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul says that if we do things without love we are like a clanging bell, an out of tune bell. In terms I understand I would say he is saying that if we do things with the wrong energy, with the “trying to look good” energy, with the “still hurting inside” energy, with the “needing to be needed” energy, then we are like an clanging empty out of tune bell. We hit the wrong note with others.
So I think whether today we are stirring puddings, trying to bring forward God’s kingdom, acknowledging Christ as king, or like one friend has just shared on FB, speaking gratitude over her battered kitchen, if we do it with the wrong energy then it will be clanging, but if we do those things and even the most benign things with the energy of love and acceptance things will change.
As you know I love the monthly Upper Room gatherings we have in our home. We can very easily get drawn down that “good tree/bad tree” – knowledge of good and evil route – trying to decide which denomination is “closest to God’s ideal” and then picking out the bits that aren’t.
One of our number pulled us up short. She said that for her all the different denominations are like the different art styles [she is an artist]. None of them are wrong but some of them we prefer more than others, some suit us more than others.
I also know of people who have to create in a certain way because they need to make money. It is not their chosen style but they go with and hang out with it because, for that moment, it is helpful to them to progress in their field.
I think lots of us have hung out in different denominations that haven’t really suited us but that moved us onwards and closer to who God created us to be.
So we need to always remember that different doesn’t mean wrong. Let’s stop judging and start eating from the Tree of Life.
Back in 2013 both Damson and Renly “helping” with present unwrapping!!!
I’ve a sister-in-law who thinks it is too early to mention the Christmas word but with food and family to think of it is floating in my mind. The shops are ready and it is starting to appear on mailing lists. But here is the dilemma – where should one get one’s presents from?
I will definitely not do commercial stores or plastic tat. I get annoyed with those last minute presents bought from a supermarket on Christmas eve. But there are still dilemmas!
Do I get from a local business and support them with their income? Do I buy from a charity shop and so give money to their cause? Do I not buy any presents but do those gifts where one sends a goat or blankets or whatever to someone in the developing or war-torn world?
All three of those things are viable and all three of them are supportive. But which should I do?
I must say I do love a good Christmas market and can come home with lots of soaps and jams and cakes and things. I do love seeing someone opening a gift I have got for them. But also there are so many needs out there in the world, not just at Christmas, but throughout the year.
Where should I give my money? And who out of those I give gifts to should I get what for? Because I do know a few who would prefer something in their hands than something for someone else. I do know friends who run their own businesses who could do with me spending money on their stock.
Or do I just by lovely things for myself and decide I am the one who needs good cheer?
It is interesting the response from the losing side when there is a referendum or an election. In the UK I’ve heard calls for proportional representation, or after the Brexit vote how it shouldn’t have been a 50/50 split, and today was reading about the way Trump has won in the US.
Democracy in the modern world is still newish. Yes it comes from Ancient Greek but really that was mainly the elite in the city state. And until recently most of the Western world only let those who owned property and were male vote, or over a certain age. Voting for every adult no matter what their status in the UK only came into being in 1969 – a mere 55 years ago! So we are all still new at it.
I’m picking up lots of newsfeeds, etc from people I know or know of, in the US and they are depressed, upset, confused and more. But then I am only reading ones from people who are like me. I’m suspecting that, if I followed those who did vote Trump I would hear a very different story. I do need to remember that what I hear is only from those I follow who are more like me than not.
One thing though I have been thinking about is prayer. Now I know lots of people who were praying for the US elections. I’m not sure how many were praying “let your will be done, Lord”, how many were praying “God protect our land” or something similar or how many had their own agenda. And I am sure that people on both political camps were praying too. Does this mean God was being dragged back and forth not sure what to do because Democrats were asking for a different result to Republicans?
But this got me to thinking, if we pray for something, are we trying to manipulate God to do our will or are we trusting they will do as they know to be best because they can see the bigger picture.?
If the Creator of the Universe can see the beginning and the end and middle and whatever then do we have to trust, especially when we pray for big things, that all will be as it will be.
How often have you or I prayed for something and it hasn’t worked out as we’d like, even to the point of someone dying, and some well-meaning, slightly insensitive Christian says “that must be God’s will”?
Henri Nouwen talks for how when we pray we shouldn’t come with a list of instructions for God but should come with a list of problems, issues and worries and then spend our prayer time handing them over to God and trusting that God will do as God will do and that our role is just to love and trust our Creator more and more.
So with that in mind, even though I do find the US results strange and unsesttling, though not unexpected, instead of being angry I am willing to spend time in prayer and be asking “what are you trying to show us, God?” and also moving into a place where I can trust that a Higher Power knows so much more than little old me.
Baby seals at Angel Bay, Conwy. Photographed by myself Oct 2024
The seals, whether with babies or alone, always make me smile. There is something hopeful about them. I’ve been told that their numbers started to increase when the wind turbine were put in the sea because this made it harder for big fishing trawlers and so the fish population could increase and so things like seals could increase too.
At our last Upper Room gathering we finished up, after many roundabout routes, looking at the verse
Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you – 1 Peter 3:15
But what is our hope? Is it just that we believe we’ll go to heaven when we die? I don’t think that’s what was meant. To be something that people will ask us about our hope has to be visible. It has to be a hope that we have enough time, energy, money but it has to be more than that. I know lots of people who don’t have a faith in God that believe that, especially after they’ve done some inner healing.
As I write this I can feel myself struggling to know how to put the hope I feel inside. It makes me realise why believers need to gather together. When we were all sat around the table together we could encourage each other and remind each other what our hope is, what goes on in our lives that we lean on God for, what goes on that we know without it we couldn’t make it.
One of the Alcoholics Anonymous steps is to give things to a higher power. Most addicts say that once they can pass things to a higher power, whether they call that power God or not [and sometimes names are not important] they let go of trying to fix things their way. Their hope for their future was placed in the hands of a higher power.
Someone recently suggested that even if we are not addicted to something noticeable we are too often addicted to our own way of doing things. They were working through the twelve steps replacing the word “drink” with “think” and handing over their thinking to a higher power.
I believe that hope comes when we fully acknowledge ourselves, fault, failings and all, and hand them over to a higher power. As I’ve said before we must not pretend we haven’t suffered because suffering is what produces the hope inside.
So if I was asked I could, hopefully say, that the hope I have inside comes from knowing that I can hand everything over to a higher power, to the Creator of the Universe, who will help and guide me, heal me and help me become all I was meant to be, and loves me unconditionally even if I get lost along the way. And that I don’t need to go back to those old ways of survival but am, is it says in the Bible, “born again“, which as I’ve said before I don’t think is a one off experience.
My hope is that even if I mess up I’ve not severed communication with the Creator of the Universe, I don’t have to go back to my old ways, but can grab on and hand things over again and again and again, and move to that place of acceptance of myself as who I truly am.
Aberlleiniog Castle, Anglesey. Photographed by myself October 2024
I am not going to attempt to unpack the story about Jesus cursing the fig tree [Mark 11:11-25] though too often it has been used to say that we should be fruitful in all seasons. Well just is daft.
The trees in this picture are coming to the end of their fruitful season. There berries are being eaten by birds and other wildlife, their seeds falling to the ground either to be stored by squirrels or to maybe grow into new trees. They will soon lie fallow with no leaves and nothing much going on that we can see. Though as we all know a lot goes on with both ourselves and wildlife when it looks as if we’re sleeping. Then the spring will come and leaves will slowly appear and soon the trees will be covered in leaves and flowers or catkins or something that attracts the pollinators. They are still not fruitful. It is a very short period in a tree’s life cycle when it is fruitful.
So if The Creator of The Universe made the natural world like that why on earth do we, in our busy 21st Century minds, think we should be fruitful 24-7-365? Surely The Creator intends for us to have fruitful periods and fallow periods, periods of rest and periods of growth? Isn’t that what being “natural” looks like? And I don’t know about you but I would like to look as natural as possible.
But to be natural we need to be like the trees and plants and animals and be in touch with our bodies and what they are asking of us. And because we are human beings too we need to be in touch with our hearts and be able to hear what they are saying without all the dross of “shoulds” and “oughts” of upbringing and culture.
So let us all be brave and be restful when we should be, bursting with new growth when we should be, and then, I think when it is time of us to be fruitful we can be totally committed to being fruitful because we’ve done the rest and the new growth we were meant to do beforehand.
Aspirational Adventures 