loving kindness – Aspirational Adventures

As always things seem to run together and I thought I would share.

I felt yesterday’s Loving Kindness blog didn’t come to a full end well I think I’ve found the end from today’s Bible Society reading for Lent.

It has been looking at the book of Ruth and in today’s it says that

One of the themes of the story of Ruth is ‘hesed’; the word appears three times in this short book … It is translated as loving kindness or steadfast love and faithfulness in many English versions. It describes a people in covenant with God, who love unconditionally, not only doing what is required by the law but going the extra mile. It is this word that the biblical writers use when speaking of God’s unfailing commitment to his people (regardless of what a mess they are in).

It goes on to say how ‘hesed’ is how Ruth treats her grumpy mother-in-law, how Boaz goes the extra mile for Ruth, and how these are forerunners of how Jesus lived out ‘hesed’ in his healings, caring for, feeding, lifting up the marginalised.

So loving kindness that we are to allow to flow from us is not just ‘being nice’ but it is about going that extra mile, going beyond what is required of us to be good. But it has to start with us. If I don’t have loving kindness for myself then I do not have the energy to flow through me. So in whatever we do we need to get to that safe place that we love ourselves unconditionally then we can love others unconditionally.

I also that even though God loves us unconditionally anyway we too often don’t see that until we show ‘hesed’ [loving kindness] and unconditional love to ourselves.

Self-care = self-loving kindness which = peace which = being able to “love our neighbour as ourselves/love ourselves so we can love our neighbour”

Loving Kindness

Renly just emanating love and kindness especially after being released from under the throw on the spare room couch!!! Photographed by myself 1st March 2024

Yesterday I spoke on using creative writing for therapeutic purposes at an event on self-care. It finished with a meditation of which the key words that stood out for me were “loving kindness“. Loving kindness to ourselves, to our families, to our friends, to the random people we come across in our daily lives.

A lot of what I caught of the day was of how the energy we emit affects those around us. So if I feel at peace I emanate peace and so hand on peace to others. Again if I emanate fear then that is what I will pass on to others. That was along with like grounding ourselves, realising our own energy, loving ourselves, knowing our own power, trusting in our hearts, listening to guides.

It has always been something I have believed for a long time and the more I read and study the Bible see all the above as a total God/Jesus thing.

Yet it is so rare to hear talks in Churches or with other Christians about their energy, of living out their beliefs, of trusting that still small voice, of being grounded and connected with Earth and Spirit, when I think those things should be paramount.

I truly believe that if we could talk more about this and explored it from a non-judgemental stand-point we would understand it better. And then we would believe more about how connected we are to God and their Universe in a more holistic way. I think, again if we were open and non-judgemental when we talked with others about these things more people would see the connection of all this amazing stuff they are exploring with the God who created the Universe who loves each of us unconditionally.

So to give the Creator of the Universe a bit of a chance in this world that is looking for that connected unconditional love we need to believe it more. Also Christians need to stop seeing these lovely people I mixed with yesterday as outsiders who need to be converted to the Christian “norm” of whatever theology we believe. Instead we need to get into dialogue with them, and with others who have no spiritual leanings at all, again in the non-judgemental way. I think this will lead to us growing and learning and realising how diverse God actually is. And maybe it would increase our faith?

With all things we must put LOVING KINDNESS at the centre of all we do and say and believe so that this is what springs from us and flows to others.

To hear some Christians talking outside of the religious box and sharing deep connected beliefs in our modern world check out Christine Sine’s Liturgical Rebels podcasts