Tag: acceptance

Categories
others self

Letting Go Of Self

How many times in a conversation do you get frustrated when you want to unload about something and the other person butts in with their unload? Or how often are you talking with someone and you realise that either they or you have turned it round to self? Or how often do you get upset when things don’t go your way? Or don’t happen as you want them too?

I think one someone dies we grieve for ourselves rather than for them. If someone doesn’t get healed we take responsibility worrying that we didn’t “pray hard enough”.

Each time we do that we are putting “self” , our ego, at the forefront.

How often do I want a dry day, at least for those times when I’m out dog walking without any regard for what my country really needs? Or get narky because a friend is busy when I’d like to see them? Or the traffic is snarled up and I want to get home early?

Jesus tells us to “die to self” – which I think just means letting go of wanting to control the world.

I like to control my world. It makes me feel safe. I’m sure that is the same for all of us. We don’t like to not have a handle of things.

My friend in AA says one of the biggies is when they reach the step that talks about letting go of needing to be in control/letting go of self.

Only when we let go of self and our need to control a situation can we really let God/The Universe/A Higher Power than ourselves into the situation; into our lives.

It is scary letting go of self.

More and more I’m learning to let go of self and let God, but often this means more times I have nothing to do. This is because I don’t go looking for work or actively volunteering for things or even actively finding things to do. I now sit and wait and listen. Though often I spend times distracting myself from the listening by playing games on my phone, reading books, even reading the Bible can be just a distraction to be busy rather than finding what God really wants me to do in that moment.

I think most people are scared to let go and wait and trust in God. I wonder if it is back to that thing of not knowing we are loved unconditionally just for who we are and feeling like we have to work at being loved by God?

One reason I think is that if you aren’t filling your life and your head with other things you get time to ponder and then you see things in the “unseen” world.

Two you have nothing to tell anyone when they ask you “what did you do today?” How often do we all greet each other with “what have you been up to today/yesterday/last week/last month/etc?” Those yearly newsletters which have to put in what we have been up to. It is rare for someone to say “how are you really feeling today?” and really want to listen.

I think that brings us to the third reason why we don’t want to let go of self, of being in control. Don’t want to wait. If we stop rushing around being busy – which I think is what holding on to self equates to – then we get to think how we really feel about a situation, our lives, our towns, our relationships, our relationship with God. And then maybe we might see the gaps, what’s lacking.

Maybe too by letting go of self we won’t just be putting God/The Universe/A Higher Power first but will start putting each other first.

What would a conversation look like if I bit my tongue and really listened to the other person?

What could the world look like if we took the time to really hear what each other was saying without thinking how that relates to us and jumping in with our anecdote?

Categories
oughts writing

Walking Away from “Oughts”

Write from your Passion

First published on Godspacelight 9th July 2024

Writing workshop about dragons and myths run by myself – Barefoot At The Kitchen Table – June 2024

In Christine Sine’s newsletter to those of us who write for Godspacelight she talked about writing into her passion. This is probably one of the bests prompts I’ve had in ages. I have tried writing what I ought to write. I even set up a Substack account to write about writing for well-being but it’s failed. Why? Because, much as I love free writing for my own well-being, I wasn’t writing into my passion. I was trying to be something I wasn’t. I even tried putting in a regular structure to when I blogged but I’m afraid that isn’t me. 

How often do we do that – try to be something we are not? Whether it is in what we write or what we do? I think of many times when I have done something – job or ministry – that is so significant but isn’t me. Too many times to remember. It could even be something I’m good at, have talents in, but it isn’t my passion. I suppose if one jargoned it up I could say it wasn’t “my calling.”

As I’ve got older I’ve learned more and more not just what my skills and talents are but what I am passionate about. I love people, though I need time alone with a book too. If I’m honest my perfect day would be to go for a dog walk, coffee and breakfast with a friend and have a rolling, random conversation that covers deep and meaning as well as trivial and silly; come home and write a blog piece on something that either the conversation has triggered or that was buzzing in my head; and finish the afternoon on the couch to have a read of a good book, then maybe some intense Netflix drama with a glass of red wine to finish the day. Somewhere in that I’d like to ponder writing a short story or flash fiction, though maybe never get to write it; I’d like to email someone I enjoy writing to; run a writing workshop where I encourage others to get the most from putting pen to paper; and probably free write or journal myself. 

But I can get into thinking I “ought to” write X, Y or Z; I “ought to” be connecting with a certain person or group and “ought to” be doing something with them. But that is my “oughts and shoulds” and not my passion coming through. 

I’ve just read Timothy Keller’s The Prodigal God in which he talks of the older brother attitude being the one that says “it’s not fair” when God doesn’t do as we think they should do because we were “good Christians”. My “ought to” comes, I think, from a place that is where I’ve decided what a  “good Christian” or a “good writer” would/should do. It isn’t coming from a place of my passion. 

I think for all of us there are times when we do not run with our passions for many reasons; a need to fit in, a fear of missing out, having been told by a parental figure that life isn’t meant to be about fun, or whatever. I’m sure we all, if we allow ourselves to really hear our hearts, can come up with many reasons why we don’t follow our passions in work, in writing, in church stuff, in life in general. All of them have some truth in them but remember the devil goes around like a angel of light. The one who keeps us away from our true selves does it subtly not overtly. If it was overtly we would notice and rise above it. But it is filled with limited truths and comes from people who do care for us and want the best for us. But it is still lies if it keeps us from our passions and our true selves. 

I’m grateful to all the healing that I’ve received so I can hear God clearly, hear my heart clearly, and be bold enough to step out into my passions. I’m also bold enough now to walk away from when I’ve try to do something that looks good but isn’t me; when I’ve done an “ought”. But this has come about because I know God loves me unconditionally all the time – not just when I get it right/write 🙂 

Categories
death elderly

Why do you care for those you care for?

Types Old Believers Maxim Dmitriev by J. Paul Getty Museum is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0

This quote from Henri Nouwen’s meditation for today really brought me up short today and got me thinking. There is always something thought provoking in them but, for myself as a youth and children’s worker, made me ponder.

To care for the elderly means then that we allow the elderly to make us poor by inviting us to give up the illusion that we created our own life and that nothing or nobody can take it away from us.

Meditations – 26th June 2024

How much of any church outreach is directed towards the elderly? The focus is generally on the young with the tag of bringing in new people and families; often with the hope that they will then volunteer to do things and so ease the burdens of church ministry.

Working with young people does help to give a young attitude to life but can it also help us pretend we’re still young, and not having to admit to the inevitability of death. . There’s that phrase about being “seventy years young” or whatever, rarely admitting to the fact that life is passing us by and we aren’t going to live forever.

I know there are some people who will feel this is not a “good” topic to speak of and that we are to almost pretend it won’t happen rather than be preparing towards it. I know people in their 70s and 80s who still don’t have a funeral plan or have put in people to be powers of attorney over their estates, as if by not doing it one can avoid the conversation.

Even as I got more and more involved with youth work I did wonder why there was never much out there for older people. Most of the charismatic churches I was involved in had no elderly ministry at all. And even some of the more established denominations, even though they did many funerals and taking communion to the housebound, had no form of outreach to the elderly. Nothing where they were taking Jesus to those whose end of life was definitely getting closer.

I love Nouwen’s idea that by caring for the elderly we minister to ourselves by helping each of us realise that we “create our own life” and that “nothing or nobody can take it away from us.” That we can do all these mediations, well-being courses, fitness regimes to “stay young” as if that is going to stop you from eventually getting old and dying.

Perhaps as well as keeping our bodies and minds as fit as we can we also need to be keeping our spirits and souls clean and ready to meet with God. As I watch my mother’s husband descend into dementia and his body deteriorate it does make me think about how, before that happens to myself and to those I love, I want to be “right with God”. I want to have a pure heart and clean hands [Psalm 24:4] so that whatever happens I am ready to meet with my God.

I may carrying on doing the youth and children’s work that I do and may not get into working with the elderly but I do hope that I can let go of “the illusion that [I] created [my] own life and that nothing or nobody can take it away from [me]” and can keep God dead centre no matter what.

Categories
loving kindness self-care

Loving Kindness follow on

Photo by NastyaSensei on Pexels.com

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”

Categories
connected loving kindness

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

Categories
letting go Slow down

Letting Go

First published on Thursday 22nd February 2024 on Godspace Light – Letting Go

Christine’s post Relinquish, Let Go  and Lily’s post on Jesus going into the wilderness, I think, sit hand in hand. Letting go of things is like going into the wilderness. We’ve got used to what we do and we do it well, so why let go? Some of the reason can be that, like with Christine, new projects call us and there are only so many hours in the day. Some of the reasons are that even though we might have the time and the energy they are not what God has for us. Now that can be a hard one. It’s one I’m going through so I can speak from experience. I was doing a few writing workshops and projects and working with children, which I am also good at and love. In fact I wasn’t doing as much as I used to do in my 40s and I still had the energy to do it, but something was niggling in the back of my head/heart. 

You know that feeling when God’s still small voice is pulling on you. Those things you love are not giving you the joy they used to. You put it down to needing more zinc, hormones being out of sync, partner/children not pulling their weight, seasonal light deficiency. So you change your diet, get a SAD lamp, sort out a chores list for the family, but still something isn’t quite right. 

For me God got fed up of me not listening and it was my 84 year old mother’s health scare that brought things to a grinding halt. No worries she is fine now she’s slowed down a bit and decided she isn’t 30 any more. But the worry of her not being around and me being so busy that I didn’t have time to drive down country for 6 hours to see her. So it caused me to have to rethink things and hold things lightly.

But isn’t it a shame that I didn’t hear that still small voice in my heart that was trying so hard to tell me not necessarily to slow down but that there are things that I was doing that I am not meant to be doing. Interestingly in everything I do now those I work with know that if there is another health scare I will drop everything and just go. And of course, because I’m only doing the things God wants me to everyone I work with is content with that. 

Not just in the “big wide world” but in Church circles there is so often that push to be busy. The question “what have you been up to this week/today?” comes up when you meet. “Where have you been worshipping/serving God?” And if one hasn’t got a full schedule one feels like one could be missing out on some form of service/ministry/doing! Added to that the inner jealousies that other people have “ministries” and you’re just bumbling about drinking tea!

Jesus going into the wilderness just after he’d been baptised and God had affirmed him as his son was not a good PR move. In our fast paced world his “team” would have told him to grab the opportunity immediately because if he didn’t someone else might. But Jesus was secure in not just who he was but in what he was meant to do. 

Did you know that if you acted out the gospels and all the things Jesus did and said in them it would not last that long at all? Jesus had lots of down time, lots of time that was not worth recording in any of the gospels, lots of time just being, not just with God but with his disciples, his friends and even, I think, his family. 

Hanging out not just for the sake of “friendship evangelism” or as a “teaching opportunity” but, I think, he was hanging out to enjoy other people’s company. We can learn so much from hanging out with other people and also find out more about ourselves. We also need quiet time not just for praying, not studying, not reading but just being and letting the world flow past. 

So perhaps we all need some time over this Lenten season to stop, to think about whether the things, whether many or few, are what God really wants us to be doing. And then be brave enough to have gaps in our lives where there is nothing to do!

And I’ll finish with Christine’s poem from Monday’s meditation

Stay close to your inner world,
Travel slowly through the hidden corridors
Of your heart.

Listen quietly not for answers,
But for the questions
Hiding beneath the stress,
Of your uncertainty.
Do not be afraid,
Of what you will uncover,
Of what you might relinquish,
If you become honest
With yourself.

Categories
forgiveness sorry

Say You’re Sorry

My dog on our local beach back in Feb 2018. When Google photos showed me this memory I had to say sorry for moaning about it being a wee bit windy and chilly today. Definitely not as cold as it was 6 years ago!

Not sure if you had it when you were a kid but I know I did and I know I did the same with my children – “Say sorry” and then “tell them you forgive them” followed by “now go and play together nicely”. As if the perpetrator saying sorry made things alright and the one who had had wrong done to them just had to accept that.

In a book I was reading recently this young couple go from hating each other to not being able to get enough of each other when both say sorry and accept the others apology and forgive them. But I also have a friend who was in a bad accident in which he over took three cars and then hit a tractor that was the lead vehicle which was turning right. Either the tractor was not indicating or my friend did not see the indicator. As he says the road was long and safe for the overtake he just did not think the tractor was going to turn. So yes he was in the wrong and has apologized but the person he hit, he feels, has been antagonised by his apology. The tractor driver’s response has upset my friend greatly.

My friend is very genuine in his apology but I think the person he ran into was so badly shaken by the accident that he is not yet in a place to accept the apology.

I do wonder if, especially as Christians, we think that if we say sorry that will ease the situation but sometimes it makes it worse. I don’t know the driver of the tractor but I wonder if he’s thinking “it might be ok for you to be sorry but I could have had your death on my conscious for the rest of my life. And also I’ve now got to wait for the insurance company to sort things out before I can carry on with my job” I don’t know if that is what he’s thinking of if it is just a “f**k you” response because he is still shaken by it, still dealing with his trauma.

Jesus says we should forgive seventy times seven [Matthew 18:21-22] and forgive us our sins as we forgive others who have sinned against us [Matthew 6:12-14] – these verses are about asking God to forgive us not another human being. God, I think, is amazing and forgives us all things if we are genuinely sorry, but that’s because God doesn’t have all sorts of issues lurking about in God’s psych that inhibit that. All of us human beings come with traumas, hurts, played out scenes that our primordial brain goes to first and we react from there. We run through scenarios that often we don’t even realise we are doing but our primordial brain [elephant brain] does not forget and then tells our conscious brain how to react. From there we go into fight, flight, fawn, freeze, etc [meerkat brain] and from there react.

Some people will respond to an innocent request with anger because it has trigger something deep inside that they don’t even know about. So when we say sorry for something we don’t know what we are triggering within the person we are speaking to.

So I think we need to yes ask for forgiveness but then leave it there and not get upset if the person doesn’t respond to how we would like. Almost like leaving it in their porch and they can decide if they want to open it or not. And then we go to God to ask them to forgive us and to search our hearts. And maybe we also need to then forgive the person who did not accept our apology as we would have liked.

So we clear everything away from our hearts, give it all to God, realise it is about forgiveness rather than just saying sorry then who knows how much calmer and more peaceful we will feel?

keeping the door ajar for forgiveness
Categories
seeing True freedom

Being True to Ourselves

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Categories
hospitality seeing

Seeing part II

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

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

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

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

https://henrinouwen.org/meditation/

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

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

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

Community Means .. .. Velveteen Rabbi

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

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

Categories
healing seeing

Seeing

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

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

She says

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

And

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

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

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

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

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

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

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