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Relationship with God

A cafe somewhere in the UK. Photographed by myself sometime in 2024

A group of us were talking about our relationship with God and someone had heard a couple of stories from nuns who say that they are so encouraged to think of other people and other people’s needs that they forget that they have a personal relationship with God.

So does that mean we need to be self-centred to have a relationship personal relationship with God?

Well, as I’ve explored before, it does say that we are to “love our neighbour as ourselves” which, I believe, means that we can only love our neighbour as much as we can love ourselves. We can really only give to others what we can give to ourselves. I know many who would say that you see people doing good things for others who are then hard on themselves. But my question would be, firstly, why are they hard on themselves? And also wonder what their motive for being kind to others is?

For some people, and I know because I’ve been there, we are kind to others in the hope that they will like us more, will be kind back to us, others will think we are good people when deep down we know we’re not. For others, like the nuns, they have been taught to value others higher than themselves, even though this isn’t what God is saying – possibly isn’t walking in “The way, the truth and the life”

I got a great example of how we should be with God from my dog. I’d done some housework and was taking a break to finish a book I’d been reading. So I gave him a shout and said I was going up to lie on the bed and read. Well you have never seen anything so excited. He bounded up the stairs, leapt on to the bed, jumped on me when I sat down, and the curled himself up between my legs and was asleep snoring gently perfectly surrounded by me.

Now I think that is what God wants for us, for us to be excited when God says “let’s go hang out together and do nothing”. We should then be rushing to be in that place on God’s lap and then we can just let go of what is going on in our world, trust that God has it covered, whatever else God might be up to. We don’t need to talk to God, ask for things, do things. We just need to contentedly lie with God just like my little dog does with me .

As those who know my dog will know that he is at his most content when he is with me. My husband says if I go out without the dog then he’ll stand and look at the back door and he has to really encourage him to come upstairs and wait somewhere more comfy.

To have this personal relationship with God we need to remember that God doesn’t go out without us, is always there, and for a lot of the time really does just want us to snuggle close and enjoy being together.

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“everything begins in mysticism and ends in politics”

I read this quote this morning in Richard Rohr’s daily meditations. It’s from Charles quote-everything-begins-in-mysticism-and-ends-in-politics-charles-peguy-70-49-53Péguy (1873–1914), who was a French poet and essayist. Also this morning in the Guardian online I read this from Julia Gillard, who was the first woman Prime Minster of Australia, “the rapid media cycle combined with social media had disrupted the rhythm of politics and the perception of politicians.”

“What’s wrong with the world today?” we often hear cry. In fact I was at a meeting talking about doing things with young people and that it is getting harder and harder because their attention spans are becoming shorter – and of course social media took the blame. Is it to blame? Or is it more along the lines of the fact that we have come to accept it and not challenge it. I’m not saying switch it off but I am saying that we need to fit in the mysticism, the praying, the meditation, the thinking about things. We see top level tweet-research-lengthcouncil and government meetings tweeted about as soon as we happen. Donald Trump has bought into the whole social media/tweeting in such a way that he appears to just tweet away so he can keep “in touch” but so much of what he says is rubbish and not even spell checked. As yet our politicians over here have not bought in to it but will that only be a matter of time?

But each of us needs to change this too. We need to slow down and to think. We need to change our worlds but being more meditative before we act. There is a rise in meditation and mindfulness but that seems to me to be in a recreation box not in a “let’s ponder before we act” box. As the general public we need to stop wanting a quick answer to things. And yes public enquiries can take too long – as with Hillsborough – but also answers can be wanted too quickly.

We live in a world that wants answers and wants them now. Human beings have always wanted to know the whys and wherefores of everything but at one time that had to come verucaabout slowly, could not be broadcast the moment someone had had a pondering thought. A lot of what we hear and read is more of a thought than a decision. Decisions come with time, with thought, with tapping into something greater than. And yes I think whether Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jew, Pagan, Agnostic, Atheist, or any of the other religions etc that I have missed out, all want to tap into something more than themselves, whether that is a God, gods, inner self, counsellors, friends, or anything else. But that takes time. It cannot be done in a moment, in 144 characters.

To be able to change this world we need to take time, need to as Kate Tempest said “look at the faces” and “see peace in the faces”. Peace and hope and knowing where to stand. The catchphrase/gateway to silence/meditation point with Richard Rohr this week is “Give me a lever and a place to stand” – based on how Archimedes believed that a lever put in the correct place on the correct fulcrum in space could move the world. For me 13948111896_7fc79a239dthis has set me off on thinking about where is the lever I’m meant to be standing on, where is the correct place for me to stand and what in my world am I changing. Being the person I am it is hard for me to stop and think and wonder about that. I do want to be rushing about doing but I know that I will not know where it is unless I spend time praying, pondering, journaling, talking to friends, reading, watching, thinking and then …

So to change this world, to see the peace in people’s faces, to really know what is going on and what people think about it we need to slow down, to move into meditation not as a place so we can sleep more but as a place where we can become more effective. We need to also stop expecting our leaders to give us answers now.

16137685007_6dd7e27e5f_zGive me a lever and a place to stand

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Encourage Each Other To Be Rebellious

This is another thought that arose in my head from the Lapidus conference on Saturday 10th December. It came about when we were asked to give words about what Lapidus was all about but again I felt, like Ubuntu, that is related as much to Christianity as it did to therapeutic writing for well-being.

not_of_this_world__by_kevron2001-d77ytspJesus said we were meant to be “in the world but not of the world” which sort of, to me, means that we are to be rebellious to the things that the world can take for granted – like putting self first, wanting for us, fear, anxiety, etc. I am not going to put down Christians who worry or are anxious because I know way too many who really are amazing followers of Jesus but who do worry, suffer from anxiety and from depression, have to deal with fear on a regular basis. But I also see these many of these people fighting it all the way. They don’t lie down to the fact that they suffer with these things but they work toward it not happening. I also see this in people who are not followers of God too, who will not let these things overwhelm them even if they are bed-bound, taking tablets, struggling. They are rebelling all the way against these things.

We all need to be rebelling against injustices, fears, greed, the negative things that stop 5c021dcf4ca432874eab2b4b8db7efd5others and ourselves from reaching our potential. I suppose it is why I want to encourage others with using words for well-being. I want to show how this can be a tool to help rebel against the world.

I feel like there is a bit of a rebelling against the system going on with the way people are voting at the moment; with this lean to the far right. How should we respond to this rebellion? Not by ignoring it. Not by being fearful of it. Not by being rude to those who vote this way or think this way. To rebel against this we need to be moving in the opposite spirit. We need to be modelling love, acceptance, justice, peace.

So I go back to my first point – as Christians we should be encouraging each other to be rebellious. Too often we don’t. Too often we hide in our churches – whether big or small, loud or quiet – and keep going with the same old same old. I know I am guilty of this. I 6218447need to encourage my fellow Christians, with the tools I have – which is my writing – to think about how they look at others, to be welcoming, to not fear, to be supportive, to be counter-cultural. Sometimes I think there are more people who do not attend church and are not followers of God who are more counter-cultural than Christians. Many are out there feeding people not just over Christmas by all year, are working on ways to support others, to share news openly of the good as well as the bad that goes on, who have time to stop and chat to the old, the lonely, the smelly and the sick.

So I will do my bit over this season. I am hoping that the words we are using in the play I have instigated to be performed at our local church will make people think about how they really view Christmas. It is the bit I can do. And I do hope that I can encourage people to rebel a bit and change the world one little piece at a time with the talents they have. We can’t all invite homeless people to our houses, not just cos not everyone has the space, but some of us just aren’t able to do it because we aren’t made that way. But another way of rebelling, I think, is to not feel condemned that I’m not doing that but to make sure I use the talents I have, the time I have, the situation I am in, to rebel just a bit from the culture I am in.

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In Or Out – that is the question

eu-you-decide-logoSo tomorrow Britain goes to the polls to decide whether it wants to stay in the European Union or leave. By Friday lunchtime – less than 48 hours away – we will know. I am not going to say what I’m voting but I know that I too have been sway by who is voting for what and how it will affect me personally. If we are honest who isn’t?

A comedian said something along the lines of “why should we be having to vote over this? Surely we vote in our politicians – and yes ok sometimes we don’t get who we voted for – but these are people who dedicate their lives to trying to sort out what is best for our country and we have to trust them with that. This voting is saying we want a say in it but we are not willing or able to commit ourselves full time to what is best for all.”

Ok so I’m not sure if I agree with all he says but I do know that I haven’t given much time

high_1456225442brexit-uk-and-eu-flag
A printing company making money from both sides

to really really looking into what will benefit this country as a whole. I have looked at what works for me, for mine and for those I know about. I do not know what will be the best outcome for banks, for farmers, for those in inner cities, for Brits living in Europe. And yes I do get sway by what my friends say on line or to my face, and to which personalities are on which side. People will decide from what they read in their favourite newspaper and all media has a bias of one way or another. It has been said that the BBC has not been impartial in it’s broadcasting but it is in crisis with budgets being cut and is going to be looking to what form of broadcasting works best and helps them to stay in business as will all other media outlets.

If I was a politician I would be dedicating my time to trying to work out what is best for my country and those in my constituency. I am hoping the politicians that are speaking out have done the same – which then makes it all very confusing as to what is right and not. jo-cox-tributes-10But also, as was seen with Jo Cox, there is a possibility that one can be killed or as many other politicians, stalked and sent hate mail not just to them but to their families. I know that would sway how I spoke out.

To me what all this has made me see is that there is a lot of fear on every side and when there is fear there is fighting. Someone else said to me it is like the country is in civil war mode and I would agree. It has become a subject one cannot discuss politely as both sides are heated and it has divided families.

My hope/prayer for this polling day is that peace will arise whatever the outcome. That Britain will be a country that can welcome the widow, orphan and outcast, and love its buddhaquotes3neighbour and be reconciled with itself. There has been talk of a third world war if …. but I just hope that we can all let peace reign no matter what happens tomorrow.

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Presumptions

Wow! Have I been learning about presumptions of late! As you know we are renting rooms via Airbnb which is a very open site which says encourages people to give a profile about themselves so both host and guest sort of know what they are letting themselves into. patentlawpic858Well when we had a Malaysian girl staying for a month and working at the local hospital I had decided she must be a nurse. No she was a trainee doctor and a fascinating person too. Just last week we had a French guy book in for him and his girlfriend so I just presumed they were both from France. No she was from Russia and he was studying in UK. Again a mistake made. Then our latest guest, I could not quite make out the name but for some reason had decided that we had a man staying. Imagine my surprise when I met this lovely woman.

I am never sure how I make these presumptions but I know we all do. We have boxes we put people in and for some reason that is how we view the world. I am sure some of it is because it makes life easier in the broad sense. But I also think this is where we can make so many mistakes. I have often had people say to me that I am nice for a Christian or that I don’t behave like a Christian. I remember once when living in Belfast and going to a lovely church that was really into reaching out to the people who lived in the more deprived part, which was actually where we lived, one of the ladies being supported saying that she couldn’t believe I was “church” as she said. Why? It was her presumptions. I couldn’t be a Christian, be “church”, if I lived where she lived, spoke like she did, let my kid play with hers maybe. But that was something that was holding her back, and many like her from getting to know God.

I also think in this run up to this EU referendum we have to down to personalities and that euthen gives rise to presumptions. If Boris supports Leave then it will look like “x” but if Patrick Stewart supports Remain then it will look like “y”. Why do we think that? Because our preconceived ideas cannot cope with certain people being in certain camps and then us joining with them.

How do we get beyond that? I think we need to be aware of it. So I need to be aware when I make a presumption about one of our guests that I have done that. I need to look at why I my first thought for a Malaysian girl coming here to work in a hospital was that she must be a nurse, that I couldn’t imagine a French person going out with anyone other than another French person, and that somehow the wording on things make me decide gender.

Just recently Airbnb has been pulled up because of prejudices from its hosts – which actually is a silly thing to pull the company up for. It is basically a forum to help people find cheaper accommodation not an employer. And also its host rating system is based on those who stay not on those who don’t. There are a few people I would have liked to have given 1 stars to who never got back to me, or who stayed with us but did not do reviews for us, but that is not how the system works. Ok so its not foolproof but the ratings do work ap22304414966_wide-555ee6d2536f14d3ced3468bd4730e9843676057-s400-c85for when people stay so … But the point is we do not know where the prejudices from these hosts who have refused come from. Perhaps when they see that someone is of a different colour, race, religion, sexual orientation they have some presumption of the character of that person. Should legislation force them to have these people in their homes? I don’t think so. We cannot change people’s hearts by forcing them. I know if I was forced to have someone in my home I did not feel comfortable with for whatever reason I would not behave well. I have had one or two that I have wondered about beforehand but have let them stay and all has been fine. But that was my choice not a law telling me I had to.

So how do we change people’s preconceived ideas? We can’t. As with everything we can only change our own. But then we can share with others in a kind way. We are part of a Bible study group that have their own presumptions about things. We cannot tell them they are wrong but we can say about those we know who are different colour, race, religion or sexual orientation to us, but also we have to accept these people as lovely people and not be prejudice against them. In fact I think this is one of the hardest things to deal with – not being prejudiced against people who have prejudices we disagree with. If we do not love the gun toting right wing fundamental then how can they ever change?

My presumptions could lead to prejudices which could lead to me not allowing people into mayaangelou101310my home, not let me speak to people in a supportive way, and I need to be aware of that. The only person I can really change is me but the only way I can do that is by being aware.

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In Different Light

abergele-2000-si-panton-r00322582x
It’s the tall post behind the cafe that I registered for the first time yesterday

I think this part of my journey is about perspectives and today I have been thinking about different lights. The joy of living by the seaside, especially in Britain, is that the sky is always changing and the light is different every day. Yesterday I was walking, a walk I do most mornings, and saw a tall structure that I am sure I had never seen before. On closer inspection it had been there for a while. It was a tall street light!

When I look out to see some days I will see the wind turbines, other days not; some days a few of them, other days lots of them. Yesterday there was an amazing bank of cloud just behind them so that it looked like they were at the bottom of a cliff. The other day the cloud was around their bases so all that could be seen was the blades. The light on my walk

pensarn20quay
where the rain goes

and on my view has very little to do with what the weather is. Where we live often the clouds pass over us to rain on Snowdonia National Park. We are in what is called a “rain shadow” which seems a silly name. I think it should be a “rain’s bypass” 🙂

But the more I thought of light the more I could see that it is to do with what is being revealed, that different place of standing, that different perspective. And I can choose whether I notice or don’t. I can get caught in my own thoughts and miss what the light is doing for today. I have to choose to look, to observe, to remember, and then actually to let it go. No day is better or worse than the other. Each day has its own light – a lot or a little. I have to choose to enjoy the lack of light when the storm clouds are gathering, as much as I enjoy the bright light wishing I had got around to buying those sunglasses.

Glowing personVelveteen Rabbi talked of our light in “Letting Your Light Shine” in which she expounds how before Adam and Eve ate the apple they were just light and that God had to cloth them with skin after they had sinned to conceal their light. As I read it in the context of the journey I am on and with other things I am exploring within in my understanding of God, we can now almost choose how much light we reveal and also how much light we see in others. There are days when I am walking with God and I know that people see His light, or rather my true God-image light, shining through, whereas there are other days when my light is well and truly hidden. I suppose that goes back to the sermon I heard on Sunday about getting rid of habits and hurts so that we reflect God. And actually I think that is what we should be going – reflecting God – rather than trying to “be good Christians”. It’s up to Him not me. I just need to make the space and let the light shine.

But also I can choose how I view the light in others. I can choose how I want to view them.4355a8803ddad25cf59dedb89c2f1a10 And people will give out a little light or a lot but I can miss both if I am not really looking. As with the different skies each day on my walk, that I can choose whether I engage with or not, I can do the same with people. I can choose to engage with them and maybe then, like the the tall street light, see  something in them that I had not seen before even though I had known them a long time.

And often that means we need to let go of past hurts from that person – or who that person reminds us of 🙂

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Are You Ready?

Oh my! I’ve just managed to do a huge mistake and have lost a whole post. I will try to 2722781233_31c8f5e721rewrite but am not sure if the words will come again 😦

It is based around these song lyrics.

 I see the King of Glory coming on the clouds with fire
Are you ready
are your lamps filled with oil
have you some in reserve?

clay-grafted-lamp-jar-oil__71949_1and the feeling that at times I feel like I am ready but am not sure I have anything in reserve, but as I wrote the piece that I have lost I have realised that I have more in reserve now I don’t have boundless energy than I did when I could keep going for days.

I am learning that the only way I will be truly ready is to have things in reserve but I need to know where those reserves come from. Since my last post things have been ridiculously busy. As well as back to back Airbnb guests we’ve also had friends and family staying and in the gap in between we went car and furniture shopping. By Friday I felt like I had nothing left but I had to look at what held me.

There are a number of things: one is that I do have to remember to move into the Presence of God because that is where I do get refreshed and when things are busy it is hard. I need gods-presenceto remember that I am an introvert and so being with people will exhaust me and I need to take time to be alone. It is one reason why I love the Anglican service because it does just do the same old same old and it can wash over me and revive me. I also need to realised that I have friends I can check in with.

I have been invited in by a couple of people to get into what I love – spiritual mapping and intercession. Yes I am well ready for that but I felt something wasn’t fitting. And the above song lyrics kept buzzing in my head. So I again remembered that I have friends in reserve so I emailed a couple. They are wise people and they know me. Their response was not to say that I wasn’t ready but that to deal with the issues we were thinking of looking at we needed a larger company. In reality to fight a battle you need the whole army involved, or as this is more a spying out the land you still need the

142088680-tm8ugsfl-ph2
26th battalion Middlesex regiment – photo from 19th century called “spying out the land”

whole company of scouts otherwise things will get missed and the enemy could come up from behind. It wasn’t that I wasn’t ready or that I didn’t have things in reserve but that it would be foolish to go without the whole company.

See this is what I came to. That I do have loads in reserve but those reserves make me move slower than I use to. Before I would go crashing about, feel that I was being held back, not appreciated, but now I am content within myself to wait. Like I said at the beginning I feel like actually there is more in reserve because I have the maturity (?)/humility(?) to be wise and know that I am ready with more in reserve to stand the course. 120104_1timothy6_12

 

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Why do I believe in God?

So there I am this morning at 6am on a windy hilltop in Ireland with a bunch of other Hill of Tara March 2016Christians waiting for the sun to come up, praying and declaring stuff over the whole of Ireland and a question someone asked me a while ago, connected to some of the atrocities in the world that are committed in Jesus’ name came to me: “How can you believe in God?” and was then followed by a “Don’t even try to tell me” comment. I deleted the email and then tried to forget about it. And was doing good till feeling slightly sleep deprived, hungry and a bit cold it came back into my head.

So I believe in God because I’ve encountered Him. Our first proper meeting was amazing. There was me, a single mum in my early 30’s, still doing a bit of drug, still sleeping around a bit, still drinking enough, smoking, and just a bit unsure of my life, and I turn up at this small house church that was meeting on the council estate (social housing project to my American friends) where I lived and God just met me there. All I can say was that something was said during the talking/sermon bit about God’s love and suddenly I could feel myself being covered in what seemed like a thick oil with glitter in it and knowing thatheart3 God loved me totally unconditionally and totally as I was there and then. It wasn’t a text book conversion. It took a long time, a lot of talking with God and Christians, a lot of reading both the Bible and study books, and even now it is still a journey which just involves me going deeper and deeper with God.

I’ve seen money and houses and furniture and stuff just provided where no coincidence can explain it. I’ve seen people healed and lives changed. I have also seen people not healed and die, had my eye sight totally healed but by a surgeon not by some miraculous encounter. Yes I have seen my friends die from cancers, from suicides, from unhealthy lifestyles they cannot leave. Yes I have seen prayers not get answered as I would like. Yet still I pop up to gatherings at the moment and pray.Why?

I’m not sure I know. I know I’m here with this group this week because I believe it’s where God wants me to be. I’m not one of those who brings along things to pray with or even

medicine-bottle-11-with-green-black-herringbone-interweave
I turn up because I’m one of the threads. Without me it would not be complete

mighty words but I’m here. In fact just recently a new acquaintance, who I hope will become a friend, asked me what my role was in this group. I said “I just come to make up the numbers” which actually isn’t belittling but sometimes I think that is what we are meant to do. It is about being faithful in the small things.

So how do I know this is where God wants me? Well I suppose it comes full circle – I believe He talks to me. I believe He has said for me to come. I believe He hears are crazy early morning prayers on the side of a mountain and it does change things. This faith. I cannot tell this person why. I just do. I cannot tell her why God allows these things to happen that do, horrendous awful things, or why members of my family and friendship groups had to die. I don’t know. But I do know God is real because I’ve met Him. And really until she is willing to meet Him she won’t be able to believe.

Actually I think that is why I go off to these places to pray – because until people are introvertwilling to turn and actually meet with God they will not know He exists. Once they have met with Him then they can ask Him all those questions; all the why questions. I believe that when I gather with my friends and pray across the hills as the sun comes up recreating something that happened hundreds of years ago things do get opened in the heavenlies, blind eyes get a chance to see, deaf ears a chance to hear, lives can be changed. Svulnerability21o I will turn up as often as I believe He is asking me to. Does it strengthen my faith? Sometimes. Sometimes it makes me doubt even more. But you know even when I doubt God exists
then it’s Him I go to to find out.

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Really?

I started a blog post with this quote below, wrote for nearly half an hour then some how it all vanished. The fascinating bit was that it was all about asking God to give us tasks too hard for us to cope with so that we come back to Him! Hummm!! But now I will fill my post full of Eleanor Roosevelt quotes 🙂

Eleanor Roosevelt

“Our Father, who has set a restlessness in our hearts and made us all seekers after that which we can never fully find, forbid us to be satisfied with what we make of life. Draw us from base content and set our eyes on far-off goals. Keep us at tasks too hard for us that we may be driven to Thee for strength. Deliver us from fretfulness and self-pitying; make us sure of the good we cannot see and of the hidden good in the world. Open our eyes to simple beauty all around us and our hearts to the loveliness men hide from us because we do not try to understand them. Save us from ourselves and show us a vision of a world made new.”

So I will still post the quote and try to remember some of what I wrote. I don’t know about other bloggers but once I’ve written it is like its gone from my brain!

It was to do with being challenged about our move to Wales and being asked if either I was running away from the pain of the last 3+ years and then also I was “truly healed” to  be able to go,  and me feeling like I would never be truly healed but that that was ok. That I want to be up for leaning on God not on being totally healed.

We are not going to open this house to others so that they come and give us what we want to get healed. We want to open our home to others so that through our experiences and our scars we can show others that life isn’t hopeless. It’s not even to heal but to encourage, to give hope, vision and purpose. It’s about learning to live with the scars of life not to feel sorry for ourselves but to show we can keep going, can still not just dream dreams but make them happen, to show that there is life beyond.

To quote Richard Rohr:

The huge surprise of the Christian revelation is that the place of the wound is the place of the greatest gift. Our code phrase for this whole process is “cross and resurrection,” revealing that our very wounds can become sacred wounds, if we let them.

And this is the thing, we want to let our scars become sacred wounds that God can use to bring something to the rest of the world. Ok so maybe not the rest of the world but those people He will bring across our path. And not for us to heal them because the task is to big for us, and we have learned that, but for Him to do as He wills with each one of them.

So we take our scars, our far off goals, our restlessness and we let God have it all as we continue on this journey – not just to Wales but to all that He has for us. We are not healed, a long way from it, but we moved into a deeper relationship with God not based on what we do or what He does but on who we are and who He is.

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Greenbelt Reflections 2015 – A Bright and Soggy Field

It’s always hard to do a reflection of Greenbelt. It is so eclectic and focuses more, for me, around my time volunteering in The Tank and catching up with friends. This year it has also been followed by my mother-in-law’s 70th birthday picnic and meeting my son’s new girlfriend; both of which came hot on the heels of a busy weekend so my thoughts become befuddled.

Highlights:

catching up with a long term friend, Kate,

yearly coffee with blogging friend, Paul,

listening to bands in my tent because my feet will no longer hold my weight – Polyphonic Spree, Unthanks, and others who’s names didn’t know

happy hours working in The Tank, both allocated hours and extra ones, and catching up with other Tank regulars

living in a Tangerine Fields tent for 3 nights and not having to worry about putting it up or taking it down

volunteer’s food vouchers and finding the best deals

Dr Chris Meredith of Winchester University making me/us think and question what we think we truly know about the Bible

hearing the truth about the atrocities that those fleeing war zones have to face when they arrive on British shores

portaloos with hand sanitizer and toilet paper

being without mobile signal and internet and the freedom and frustration that brings

challenges to my way of thinking that I want to hold on to and blog some more about

This is what I love about Greenbelt. It is a mishmash of deep and trivial, challenges and settling of things. A place to share 21068331525_c1a82dfd4e_mdreams and to hear of others dreams, to laugh with strangers and to have fun. This year my daughter didn’t come with me so that gave things a different perspective; like the fact that I had to decide for myself where I went and who I saw. This is my sixth Greenbelt, fifth volunteering, and second without my daughter. I do hope there are many more to come, with or without her. As things settle and I find time to breath, and to sleep – I am still really tired because of not quite having time to stop as yet – there will be more to write, more to think about. In fact in my unpacking I have found my Sunday morning service sheet with thoughts scribbled across it which may become blogs. Who knows?