Category: truth

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joy truth

Gifts of …

part two of thoughts from The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe Musical

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/narnia-peters-susans-lucys-father-137608235

Father Christmas gives the Pevensie children gifts which he says are gifts of “joy and truth” – which is interesting as they are weapons but I’m not going down that one. Though after reading Richard Rohr’s latest about how direct non-violent action is about

redistribut[ing] the tension that is already there and puts it back where it belongs—at the source.

https://cac.org/daily-meditations/peacemaking-is-not-niceness/

maybe swords and arrows are a good representation of joy and truth but also of hope, peace and freedom?

But these gifts need to be used. Peter couldn’t kill the wolf if he kept his sword in his scabbard. Lucy couldn’t heal unless she used drops of her potion. In Prince Capsian the children couldn’t have come back if the horn had not been blown.

I believe all of us have been given gifts to make this world a freer, more peaceful, more joyful, safer place and yet too often there is the cry of “why don’t they do something” when it could be us.

Ok so I’m not going to be Prime Minister or anything major in business, in technology, on leadership worldwide, but I can via using my gifts of encouragement, of writing, of being able to chat to people, change one person at a time, who would then go on to change someone else and so on and so forth.

It is said there are only six degrees of separation between one person and the next – ie that each of us are only six people away from connecting with each other. And some of us are even closer. My next-door neighbour was telling me how when she was visiting a new friend she looked at her wedding photo and saw one of her close friends on that photo. Turns out my neighbour’s friend had been close to her new friend when her new friend got married.

So think this through – this means that each of us are six people or less, away from someone of influence. So if we are kind and helpful to the person in the park, they can take that kindness and encouragement to the next person in their sphere and so on. Very much the change the world one starfish at a time [this is an interesting read because it talks of the origins of this story too!]

So today I pledge to go out and use my gifts of chat, of encouragement and of words to help those in my sphere to know freedom from fear, know hope, know peace, know joy and trust. And from there to be able to fully live their lives as they are called to do so they can use their gifts for joy, trust, hope, peace and freedom.

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truth vulnerable

Truth Window

For a while, but definitely since the “Unite the Kingdom” marches in London on Saturday, I’ve been wanting to write a post with my thoughts around it. Then this morning I read this great piece by Messy Nessy about the 13 Things they’d found on the internet recently and the first one, the Truth Window, jumped out at me.

A truth window is an opening in a wall surface, created to reveal the layers or components within the wall. A small section of a wall is left unplastered on the interior, and a frame is used to create a window which shows only straw, which makes up the inside of the wall. The possible vulnerability of a truth window to moisture intrusion is sometimes raised as a concern.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_window

For me it is that idea of being able to see what something/someone is made of and this idea of being vulnerable that I found exciting and interesting and much needed. We all need to know what is really going on inside people, inside ourselves, and be willing to be vulnerable both by what we show and what we see. Too often all we see, and all we show, are those outer walls that we have build and thickened and made strong because we think it makes us safe when it is our vulnerability with each other that truly makes us safe and truly makes us united.

I hope as I share on here and on my Substack I show a little of my truth window, my vulnerability. But also I hope I am willing to notice other people’s truth windows and see what they are really made of inside and not what they have plastered themselves over with in the hope of staying hidden and supposedly safe.

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The Jesus Way truth

I Am The Way, The Truth and The Life – Part Two

Early morning beach walk photographed by myself January 2025

Of course part two is “Jesus is the Truth” but what does that mean in our post modern world?

Again ask different Christian groups, especially on subjects like same sex relationships, sex outside marriage, abortion, even how much and how to tithe, what is the truth that Jesus want for us in these areas, and each group would give different answers.

My friend was telling me the other day how her 11 year old niece is now idenitfying as a boy. That is the truth, they say, about themselves.

In the Alpha booklet it says about intellectual truth [head knowledge] and experiential truth [heart knowledge]. I think even that is open to interpretation since learning all these things through Gabor Mate [Body Keeps The Score], other doctors exploring that field, and through what I’ve learned about myself through QEC and writing my story. Both our intellectual truth and our experiential truth are faulty. They are open to interpretation depending on how we have remember situations, how we’ve dealt with things, what has been hooked on to our DNA, who we are trying to please.

So what does Jesus mean by this?

I think firstly we do need to do work on our own hearts and our own ways of looking at life. I was with a group of people the other day and at one point I took a breath because I realised we were all trying to put our truth forward and our truth, even our truth about how we see Christianity worked out, was all to do with how we had reacted to certain things because of the traumas and worldviews we all had.

An example comes to mind of how, many years ago, at a large charismatic Christian event the speaker said something along the lines of “I can see Jesus wanting to enfold you in his arms”. Well the person I was with walked out. Turned out she’d been abused and the idea of Jesus just randomly coming up and wrapping arms around her frightened her. Now if someone had said Jesus wanted to come and have a gentle chat with her she would have been up for that. I’m sure the speaker would have been very upset to know they had upset someone like that. So again one person’s heart truth is not the same as another’s.

Do I have a rounding-off final paragraph for “what is it Jesus means when he says “I am the truth”?” No I don’t. But what I do think is that we all need to take our hurts and our traumas to God, to Jesus, and be willing to let them take our traumas, etc. We need to let got of our idea of what is truth and what is right because we don’t know because we have all been hurt. And I think once we are ready to do that then we might get close to know what Jesus means when he said “I am the Truth”.

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Love truth

Service

Snowdrops hidden in the woods. Photographed by myself 26th Jan 2024. Spring is coming

What does Service mean? To you? To me?

In Josh Luke Smith’s latest email he says that we all want Meaning. Relationships. Service. I do agree but I think for years I got what service meant wrong. And I think I was encouraged to keep believing in the wrong either because other people had got it wrong or because it supported others.

Before meeting with God thirty+ years ago I pleased myself and I don’t think I really served others. Though I probably did. I worked in hospitality, had friends round for parties, meals, etc. But I thought I was just doing things that everyone did and that was it.

So when I met with God the church talked a lot about service and about serving God. Serving God seemed to mean doing something in church as a volunteer which for me was children or youth stuff. So I was always busy busy in church doing stuff and I would get fed up with it all and that, amongst other things, was what stopped me wanting to attend church. [Yes there are other reasons but I think this whole thing of feeling that to belong I had to be volunteering got me down]

But it wasn’t just church. Lots of places talk about serving which again seems to be doing things for nothing to further that organisation. But now I’m not so sure. And I would say as I read these daily emails I’m not the only one.

I’m not in regular paid work at the moment and will continue like that because I’m 62. That doesn’t mean I’m doing nothing though. But I have realised what I do day in day out is service. From walking my dog, looking after my home and feeding my husband, though to chatting with friends and acquaintances, to running the workshops I do, to reading books, to writing stories people may never read, to writing this blog. All these things are acts of service but, I think, because they are things I enjoy and they are not for some church or other organisation I don’t see them as service.

I am now thinking that service is actually me just being the truest me I am and allowing that to flow into the earth in the only way I can let it. So I clean up my act and get healed so my energy is purer, less polluted, less me expecting something from what I do – which I do wonder if a lot of our “serving” is actually serving our own ego! I listen to my heart, to God, to the Universe, to my gut, and only do what I am at peace with. And through that I am so much more than if I was serving for servings sake.

I believe again it comes back to that whole “Love your neighbour as you love yourself” [or as I like to see it “totally love yourself so you can then love others] and then you are serving in ways that others truly need with no agenda for yourself to be bless. But that does take some work to get to that place, some clearing away of traumas and other crap, and being fully free.

know the truth [about yourself and your motives] and the truth will set you free

John 8:32]
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Me Too truth

The Truth Will Set You Free

A view to the Llyn Peninsular taken on a day out with my daughter July 2022

I cried when I heard the result of the RoevWade outcome. How could a country that calls itself civilised take such a backward step? Not only is it saying that women cannot choose but that it is saying women are not able to choose. Then I hear our government saying that abortion doesn’t need to be on The Bill of Rights! Again a major step backwards.

There is that big argument that the child that is aborted could grow up to change the world. Well what if they don’t? What if the child that does not get aborted is brought up in a household on a low income with many different partners in the mother’s life? What if the child is brought up and hated because of what the mother could not do? One cannot talk of “what ifs” when one does not talk about choice.

Did you know it is only recently that Christians believe a person did not become a living being until God breathed life into them at that moment of birth

“I think we know that prior to the Lord putting breath of life into Adam he had a heart, he had a brain with vessels, and these vessels and heart were filled with blood just as the vessels and heart of a fetus are filled with blood. However, Adam did not become a living soul until after the Lord breathed into him the breath of life.

—Robert L. Pettus Jr., MD, As I See Sex Through the Bible, 1973

And “Rabbis have long written that the soul enters the body at birth, with the first breath. For breath is the gift of life from the one who created us. From the God who is both our origin and our destination.”

–

I know medical science can now keep a baby alive from very early in gestation. I have had friends who have been blessed by this new technology. But that was their choice and that choice has effected their lives since.

I have just read a great article by Nadia Bolz-Weber entitled Stories>Opinions [basically our stories are greater than someone’s opinions] In it she tells her own story of her own abortion, which is very similar to mine, except that she did have a partner with her and friends supporting her. For me, I was in an odd place, sleeping around and did not know who had fathered my child. I was, like Nadia, on a low income and also not in a place to have a child. [I once told this story in a Christian youth group and got cross questioned by the young people, which actually was great because it made me think about what I had done, and I know I did the right thing at that moment in time] Would I have been a good mother then? Who knows. But I chose not to be a mother then.

Later I got my life a bit more sorted and have since had two amazing children. Children that actually I would not have had if I had not aborted the earlier one. Strange that. As someone in my writing group once told me “each choice we make determines where we are today.”

Jon Kuhrt wrote a blog piece a while back on Francis Spufford’s book “Perpetual Light”, which is a story about the children that died in a WWII bomb on a Woolworth’s in London, and what their lives would have been like if they had lived. This got me thinking about what my life would have been like if my first child had lived. I don’t know but I know it would be very different and I know I would not have the children I have now, or the husband I have now, or the life I have now. It would have been different.

When people say about the life of the aborted child they never seem to talk about the life of the mother who has that child, or the father who has to decide what he will do. Also too often the mother is seen as the enemy, as a bad person, who isn’t really thinking properly. I do not know of anyone who did not think through their decisions carefully and how it would impact them and their unborn child. It is not a decision to be taken lightly. But then I did not take it lightly to keep my next two babies. But having an abortion is a taboo subject very rarely talked about in Christian circles openly. Why is that? God knows what I’ve done and still thinks I am amazing. I know this because my first God encounter was of being covered in what felt like a warm, visceral glittery substance and being told I was loved just as I was – unmarried mum who’d had an abortion. I’m not sure what my church would have thought of me if they’d known. I wonder if I will now be asked to stop helping with the youth group that I volunteer at now?

Please can we stop being ashamed of what we’ve done. Please can we start being open about every part of our lives and not just keep God for the clean and tidy bits and pieces. God is the God of the whole of my life – the good and the bad, the times I’ve got it right and the times I’ve got it wrong – and I am loved by God no matter what. That is totally amazing.

And now let us stand together and support those who have had an abortion, who are thinking of having abortions, and also those who think the whole this is an anathema. We are all made in the image of God no matter what we’ve done or what we think. And are loved because of and in spite of all that.

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Brigid candlemass Celtic saint Celtic spirituality facts faith hope imbolc Jesus prayer presented at the temple temple truth

Imbolc – 1st February

February 1st-2nd marks a confluence of several feasts and occasions including: the Celtic feast of Imbolc, St. Brigid’s Day, Candlemas, Feast of the Presentation, and Groundhog Day! Of all these things what do we know to be fully true? Or what, like the stories of the Celtic Saints are not meant to be literal or historical, but spiritual, mythical, archetypal, and psychological, resonating with the deepest parts of our souls.

I wonder how often we fight to make things factual. Yes not necessarily “true”, whatever that means, but factual. I know I’ve said it before about someone, and I thought it was CS Lewis but can’t find the actual quote, who says that “the Bible is true” but not factual.

Imbolc is said to be the day when sheep start lambing and when the days start to get noticeably longer; Brigid was allegedly a powerful abbess showing that Celtic Christianity was pro-women; she is also connected with the pantheon of ancient Celtic gods and goddesses; Candlemas is celebrated as the day Jesus was present at the temple in Jerusalem and recognised by Anna and Simeon, yet also within the bible narrative he was in Egypt at this point; and Groundhog day is to do with the shadow of a groundhog and how long winter will last, although we use the meaning for “Groundhog day” more in keeping with Bill Murray’s movie.

But as one thinks over these feasts and occasions with their elements of “truth” we need to realise how much we need them. As women we need a powerful woman, whether saint or goddess, to encourage us as we deal with our homes, our children, partners, and the mundane of life, because no matter how you jazz it up housework, daily feeding of a family, etc are boring and repetitive. But to have a supernatural woman to turn to then it helps.

To have something like groundhog day when, as we step tentatively out of winter and into spring we are reminded that it may either getting better immediately or not. And not just the weather. As we step into another month of the ever extending lockdown here in the UK, I believe, it is good to be able to think that, at the turn of a groundhog’s shadow things could change rapidly or continue for longer. I am wondering if we need to put in some superstition to help us through this lockdown time, something we can turn to that might just help us keep on keeping on? Something that gives us hope but in a “well if it doesn’t happen then it will in time” type of hope.

Hope isn’t instant. Sometimes hope unfurls slowly and only when it has fully come to fruition do we recognise it for what it is. Sometimes what we are hoping for unfurls in a very different way to what we wanted. Which then leads us to Jesus being presented in the Temple and the two old people, who had been waiting their whole lives, recognised him for who he truly was. Factually he was a small baby, child of two not overly well-off parents, but these two old people knew him for what he truly was – the saviour of the world. But the only way they knew was because they had been praying their whole lives. Are we willing to pray our whole lives to see change? To see something amazing unfold?

Even though, as I saw that original sentence on the Abbey of The Arts newsletter I thought the events were unconnected as I have explored through this post I can see that they all fit together like a well-made glove. And this makes me willing to pray for the future. A future I may only glimpse that that will benefit the whole world.

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2020 Abergele accepting adventure Airbnb anniversary Barefoot At The Kitchen Table being me belief Books boundaries change choice christian coronavirus Covid-19 dog expectations faith family friendship future God GodspaceLight heart hope horse hospitality Jesus joy joy of the Lord life lockdown mixed emotions new normal pandemic peace plans QEC rabbit reading trust truth walking the dog writer writing

2020 Review

Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

Normally I would do my end of year review to coincide with Christmas cards I was sending, whether physical or electronic, but this year I have decided to wait until 31st December to post, and am even tempted to wait until midnight just in case. It is not that I am fearful but this has been an “unprecedented” year.

At the time I would normally have done this post I was still laid up with bruised ribs from falling off that horse though was starting to plan what I would write, and I suppose even Different Christmas was a lead up to that. But then just as I was in the planning stages for that my husband got shingles and has been very sore with that. Then on Saturday 19th Dec Wales announced that all was change for Christmas and we were going into lockdown again – though from the volume of traffic I would say that only means that pubs and cafes have now closed. Not sure if I can see much other difference on the roads. It is definitely not back to April’s sparse traffic volume. But then on Sunday my daughter announced that she had tested positive to covid and so, even though she wasn’t coming up here for the holidays it did mean she was going to have to spend it home alone! All this in just a week!

This has been the strangest of years. Even to the point that our cat went from eating biscuits to demanding that we feed her cat meat from a tin. She now has meat twice a day and ignores the biscuits that sit waiting for her to be hungry enough. If it hadn’t been for the local cat rescue places being closed all the tins that had been in the cupboard for the last few years would have gone to them but now she’s eaten them all.

Talking of pets – our crazy rabbit died in the summer, happily of a possible heart attack whilst he was sunbathing before begining yet another digging project. He was buried inside his own warren of tunnels that he had constructed over the four years he had been living here. He is still very missed and the amount of veg peelings in our food recycling bin has increased.

As with everyone 2020 started normally enough, though it was odd for us because my husband chose to stay home for New Year’s instead of going to a youth hostel with old university friends. So actually even the start of the year was different for us with us being together when we woke on 2020. We went away as always for our wedding anniversary at the end of January, which was followed by my husband going off for a week of intensive Welsh learning on the Llyn Peninsular. He managed to get away climbing with friends in Scotland at the start of March, but by the time he went away then things were starting to change and covid was being muttered about. We had two Airbnb guests, both in the medical profession, who went from saying it was nothing to worry about to slowly getting more and more concerned about it, to our guest from Burma having to cut short his stay so he got home before all airports were closed.

I was supposed to go on my regular March writing retreat but felt uneasy about going which was just as well because suddenly things got serious. So instead of being in Gwynedd I went Cardiff to bring my daughter to stay with us when the pubs closed. We bought her some walking boots the day before the country went into full lockdown. We thought we were going to be walking all over North Wales, but then the 5 mile rule was introduced and we finished up doing lots of walks around where we live. We have seen my daughter more this year, probably a good 4 months of the year, than we have since she went off to university about 7 years ago. I picked her up yesterday, now that she is over her coovid isolation time and will spend New Year with us and stay until this lockdown lifts. So even though we have seen so much more of her this year when it comes to everyone else – my son and our mothers and our friends – we’ve seen them less than normal.

My husband changed jobs at the start of lockdown and has now been working for his new company for 8 months and never seen the inside of his office or met any of his colleagues face to face. We are so grateful for our lovely big house and him being able to work upstairs in his own office. But his is the only work going on in the house because, with all the guidelines and restrictions, it is not safe to run our house as an Airbnb rental home for the time being. Read more about that on Humility. And since not having guests coming and going it has changed how I see the house and what it is for. For now I’m not making any decisions how things will look regarding Airbnb and room rentals in 2021, but I do know I see this place much more as a family home now than a business.

We did manage to get away for a flying visit to Somerset to see our mums and a couple of friends at the beginning of August and my son and his fiancee came up to us for a long weekend in mid August. Both times we were blessed with great weather. And we managed 6 days in Northumberland in late September, though because Northumbeland went into tier 3 we were not able to see one friend who had moved there a couple of years ago, and also a friend’s 50th wedding anniversary party was cancelled. But we did manage 6 days of walking, reading, and resting together.

As well as Airbnb all my work has stopped – no more writing groups, no more schools work, no more workshops in the library. All very strange. But I have been doing a lot of my own writing and a few of my blogs from here are being published on Godspacelight.com which is quite exciting. I have also been working with a young illustrator and we have a book called The Little Yellow Boat which is with BumbleBee Publishing in the process of being put together and published later in 2021. I will tell more about that once it is out in the big wide world. My plans for 2021 are to work on more short stories and other ideas and of course to blog more. I do not want The Little Yellow Boat to be my only publications. I have also been working towards an MA in Celtic Studies and have loved the modules about the Mabinogion, especailly the Four Branches. I am thinking of doing some stores around the women from the Four Branches.

Every year we do not know what is going to happen, but I think 2021 is probably the one where we have the least idea. Will the vaccine prove effective enough to bring back “normal” life? Will we have enjoyed some of the changes and not want “normal”? For some their business will never be the same again. Many will be bankrupt. For others there plans will be delayed and will be able to move forward a year or two later. But also within that not knowing are things we do have control over. I plan to continue with the Quantum Energy Counselling healing work I’ve been doing. I will work on my own writing and develop a body of work and look at being published. I will meet up with people when I walk with my dog and have great conversations. I will email my friends. And I will carry on reading. All these I have control over. As to whether I’ll start Airbnb rental again or whether I’ll be able to restart writing workshops and schools work, that I have no control over, so will hold lightly. Also I do have control over how I behave towards what is going on around me and I hope I can hold Joy and Hope in the right place and walk as God wants me to through whatever is thrown my way.

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accepting Barefoot At The Kitchen Table being me belief empowering facts faith Jesus said ... Learning always True freedom truth

Writing Your Life Story

truth.jpgMy group asked me the other day about how to use real people in their memoir writing. I wish I had found this quote when I was looking for information to share with them.

Mark Twain said,

If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.

So obvious and so true, but how often it is hard for people to hear. I have been trying truth telling but often feel unheard.

Another suggestion I tell my group is that it is their truth and may not be someone else’s. Another quote:

Keep in mind that memories are subjective and tend to evolve over time.
[http://helensedwick.com/how-to-use-real-people-in-your-writing/ found 30th July 2018]

That is not to say that the truth changes but how you view the truth changes. There are facts that never change however. Things like “yesterday I went to see a waterfall with my in-laws.” That is truth. But then things like how busy it was, how warm/cold it was, whether it was a good time, bad time, etc become subjective. Even things like “your mum was really happy there” can be subjective. In reality she seemed happy to me but to other members of the family she could have looked sad, angry, distant, crazy, etc. Even thingswhat is truth like “Bob is an alcoholic” is not a truth unless Bob has told the family. So one could say “Bob appears to drink a lot and I am concerned that he is an alcoholic” or “Bob says he is an alcoholic”. Both statements are true because one is that I have seen Bob drink a lot and he has said he is an alcoholic. The concerned bit is my opinion. So with “your mum” I could say she seemed happy to me because that is my opinion.

So even though Mark Twain says tell the truth what is the truth is not as clear. Also as the second quote says our memories evolve over time. Emily Dickenson has a lovely poem:

Tell all the truth but tell it slant By Emily Dickinson
Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —

So facts are facts and are unchangeable but our personal truths of what happened to us to change and evolve depending on what story we tell. There are people who say that the truth of their story doesn’t change but I don’t think that is true 🙂 We are an evolving people and so how we remember things will change.

Another quote that came to me as I wrote this was

Jesus said “know the truth and the truth will set you free” John 8:32

Now I wonder with this if Jesus meant that as we grow and evolve our theology will change and alter. Hopefully grow. He was talking to Pharisees who had spent years looking at the scriptures and working out the truth of them. Jesus says it is those who are his disciples and who follow his teachings who will know the truth and be set free by it. For myself I find that understand that how I perceive a series of facts is not how truth_set_freesomeone else might perceive them then I do feel freer to know that what I understand is what I understand and not to have to spend time browbeating the other person to believe in things how I see them. So going back to “your mum was really happy there”. That is my truth. Another family member could say “mum was really upset there” and that is there truth. Maybe we need to ask mum and see what she thinks? But then maybe mum was happy at the waterfall but upset as she walked back. Maybe both things are true and each person saw her at a different time (Note this is made up to help with a point and not factual 🙂  )

It is not about having different morals as is feared by some with the post-modern conversation, but it can be that all truth is subjective to who I am, my experiences, where I am as I tell this tale.

So my hope is, with my memoir writing group, that they can be free to write their story in their words with their memories of the facts that happened in their lives, as each of us should be free to.