Tag: accepting

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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

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Ashes Beauty

Finding Beauty Everywhere

A fallen tree in my local park taken by myself 12th Feb 2022

I don’t know about you but when someone points something out you start to notice it more. In Godspace for this season they are talking about Finding Beauty in Ashes during the Lenten season and so when I went on my walk yesterday I was drawn to noticing beauty in ashes.

This tree was one of three conifer trees that were standing in a row until Storm Arwen passed by towards the end of 2021. All three went down. I presume that the furthest one fell and then pushed the other two over with the force of its falling and the wind behind it. How often does that happen – that something or someone starts to slide and takes others down with them who are close by? Also with trees their roots are intertwined so they can communicate with each other so all it needs is one lot of roots to come out and they will take others with them. Again another interesting comparison with our lives. Though also people or trees standing strong can help to keep each other up when storms come.

What fascinates me here is the little beetle hole in the centre of the tree. Now this would not have been visible when all the trees were standing and can only be fully seen because of where the chain saw has passed through. I’m not a naturalist so could not tell you what creature lived there and is now homeless but I can see something was there. And to me that is the beauty.

The beauty is the amazingness of this creature to burrow through the bark, find the right spot and make its home. But we can only get to see it because of the storm.

I wonder how often beauty is hidden or that we are too busy rushing on past to notice. I only noticed this because I was on a “writing walk” which means that I walk slower, notice things, jot them in my notebook, and like with this, photograph them. Generally I am rushing on past with collar turned up to get back home again.

I believe that too often we can only find beauty in ashes if we slow down and take them time to look at the ashes. And like with our hurts and things that have happened to us, we do only see the beauty in the pain, the hurt, the ashes, if we take time to look closely, to look properly. To have time and not to be rushing on to the next thing, to be not trying to hide from the “ashes” but to just see the beauty and be grateful.

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accepting humble Talent

Talents

A photo of a boot print in soft sand with a piece of seaweed nearby. photographed by Diane Woodrow
Taken by myself on Conwy Beach in September 2021

This post is really a follow on from my post on 7th Oct about Sharing One’s Achievements. It’s taking it one step further and unpacking it more

My poem was one of the top 7 poems pick from hundreds and hundreds – so many in fact that they needed to extend the decision date – from the Science Museum’s National poetry competition. You can find it here – https://www.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/blog/celebrating-national-poetry-day/

Of course I was very pleased and have been moving into sharing my achievements rather than keeping quiet about them and hoping others just happen to come across them, which is what I used to do. Then I would get upset that friends and family didn’t know what I’d done. But of course I hadn’t told them. So I shared far and wide, and my mum and others shared onwards too. A comment from one of my Mum’s friends was “What a clever lady, just to look at an object like that and then give it a voice” My response was to say that I “found it a natural thing to give the pot personality. I do it with all sorts of random objects.” But it got me thinking about how my Mum’s friend and others don’t do that sort of thing. And yes I do do it was all sorts of things.

It got me wondering about how many things we can just do we take for granted rather than celebrate. For instance my seeing inanimate objects with personalities, being able to cook up an amazing meal from random ingredients, people being comfortable sharing their stories with me. And I am sure there are things about me that others see which again I just think that’s “normal”.

My husband retains facts and is a whizz at University Challenge, complicated maths equations, learning new things on the IT/engineering front that I can’t tell you about because I don’t understand them. He takes it as obvious and will say something really sciencey and then say to me “isn’t it?” and I just have to look back dumbly. But also he can’t remember where he left his keys or his phone!!!

But I need to not be upset that I don’t know all these techy, clevery sciencey things the same as he should not be upset that he can’t do somethings too. We all need to celebrate who we are and what we can do.

I did a post ages about about being humble, which I can’t find, and explored how when we are told in the Bible, or elsewhere, to “be humble” it isn’t about being self-effacing but it is about honouring our achievements. It is ok to boast and say “I’m good at putting character to intimated objects” or “I’m good at learning technical things”. The same as it is good to say “I don’t get technical things and often think it is working in the dark arts” or “I really don’t see how you can give a pot a personality”.

So my suggestion today is to look at what comes naturally to you, realise this is a talent that you have, then tell yourself how amazing you are to be able to that. Then if bold enough tell others that you can do X and realise however small it is a talent. Remember the story of the talents in Matthew 25:14–30. Everyone had a different number of talents and the only reason the person with one got in trouble was because they didn’t use that one talent.

So get out there boast about that talent, share that talent and who knows we could start a talent revolution, changing the world one confident step at a time.

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accepting Feelings

A Feeling Is Just A Feeling And It Will Pass!

Diane Woodrow's fridge sticker "a feeling' just a feeling and it will pass" from Little Meerkat's big panic.
Stuck on my fridge. Sent to me by my dear friend, Jane Evans

Monday would have been my sister’s 58th birthday. It is strange that I felt so low about it because I cannot remember the last time I celebrated her birthday with her. I don’t remember doing anything for her 18th or 21st. Yes I’m old enough to have had both an 18th and 21st birthday party!!! But by the time my sister was 18 our parents had separated. In fact even by her 16th they were apart. But even before that I don’t remember her birthdays unless I look at photographs and then I’m sure it is more perceived memory rather than really remembering. My sister has been dead now for over 9 years and of course I still miss her. It is hard work being an only child now after having had a sibling for 49 years.

But anyway Monday I felt this overwhelming sadness mixed with other emotions of guilt, regret, fear, anxiety. I checked dates, remembered the significance, and accepted how I felt. Our bodies are so much better at remembering things than our heads. We so often need to bypass our heads and listen to our hearts and bodies. Something I am learning often. And we need to accept that a feeling is just a feeling and it will pass.

If we have lived a long and full life there will be many days where we remember things with sadness, with loss, with regret, with grief, and I am learning that this is alright. It is how I feel. It is a feeling from what was, but it is just a feeling. It is not the “now” of my life.

So when I realised the source of my sadness I journaled it, walked the dog and pondered it, accepted it, and placed it in a safe place. Not buried but not somewhere where today would fall over it. I got on with my day, checked out my heart regularly, was kind to myself – because I think often we can tell those feelings of loss, grief, anger, fear, anxiety, that they are negative and so shouldn’t be a part of our lives. But that is so untrue. Feelings are not negative or positive. Yes some are easier to sit with than others. Some we prefer, especially in others, than we do other ones. But they are just feelings.

Our feelings colour our memories and we need to accept that. We also need to accept that we won’t have a photographic memory of the past, no matter what some people tell themselves they do. What we do have is a memory of an event coloured with our feelings at the time overlaid with our feelings of where we are now.

So Monday I accept that I was feeling what I was feeling. Kept my thoughts to my journal. Waited till the feeling had got to a more settled place to be able to share on this blog. And it did as the sticker on my fridge said it would. It passed. I now have other feelings about other things but I know they are my feelings and are not the fact of the event.

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2020 accepting Covid-19 different Jesus Listening lockdown mental health issues privilege

Privileged?

Photo by myself – Reykjavik Iceland early morning Oct 2016

One of the big things that is taught about how to look after your mental health is not to compare yourself to others because your trauma, your issues, your situation, is yours and it is hard for you. It may appear easier than someone else’s but that doesn’t matter. As lockdown has eased there have been more articles appearing about how those born from about 1990’s are struggling with lockdown and those born before 1965 are wondering what all the fuss is about.

I have been trying to write a blog post about rights and privileges but it hasn’t been coming. I did do one just after the Brexit vote which flowed but this one was not coming. Lots of drafts but nothing that made sense to what I wanted to write. Then, after receiving a forwarded article from a friend from her local vicar, and going for a long walk on the beach with the dog, it all fell into place.

In this article, from my friend’s vicar, he talks of all the major historic events that happened for those born in 1900 compared to those born in 2000. And yes those born this century have not had to deal with 2 world wars, plus 2 minor wars that the West was involved in, major economic crashes, and the Spanish flu, amongst other things. And yes those things are horrendous and are not comparable to not being able to go to school, not being able to hang out with friends, not knowing if you can go abroad on holiday, of having to wear masks, of being confined at home, miss out on growing and developing as an adult at university. No they do not compare but they are the issues that young people are having to walk through and it does not make them any less traumatic.

As another retired friend of mine said that even though she misses her friends and her clubs, etc, she has had a life that she can look back on when she’s at home on her own. There is the phone to call people and she’s getting the hang of video calling too. But as she says, she’s had her life. Even for myself, I missed seeing people for those first couple of months but now I can go visiting and am even off to England to see family. I’m even restarting horse riding today. I have reached a stage in my life where I don’t want much but that is because I have done things, travelled, partied, had freedom to come and go as I like, in my teens, 20s and 30s.

Also I believe our media has spent that this century pumping anxiety into us from climate change to Brexit to terrorism. We live in fear and are constantly in flight or fight mode but can do nothing to change it. So our young people have been born into this high anxiety media storm with social media and image over riding so much. So no it isn’t a World War pr any of the things listed above, but this lockdown is riding on the back of traumas, anxieties and much more. As well as the media portraying the pandemic as possibly never ending.

So let us be kind to those who look at some of things that we might see as privileges as their right. Let us try and understand why they feel this way and not just tell them that “it was harder in my day“. That really isn’t helpful. That piles on the guilt which makes anxieties even stronger. It becomes not just “what is wrong with the world” but “what is wrong with me“.

I’m sure Jesus would have listened to both the young and the old and all those in between without judgement or condemnation. Shall we give it a go?

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accepting boundaries Grace gratitude growing up honest

Leaving With Grace

DSCN0826 (1)I was a volunteer at a local restoration project. I was working very hard. I had reached a point where I was tired of doing it all for nothing. The Christian expression that a friend uses a lot is “the grace had gone”, which means the love, the joy, the being able to put the work at the castle first, not needing rewards apart from the joy of being, wasn’t there any more. It meant I was getting grouchy about it all and wanting to see wrong in it and everyone there. My husband said that it is psychologically proven that when people want to leave something – a job, project, relationship, town, etc – they find fault with it. But you see I didn’t want to leave not liking it there. I can see the castle from my study window. I also walk my dog in the grounds. I did not want to stop looking at it, stop going there, stop encouraging other people to go there. I didn’t want people to hear my bad mouthing it. So what to do?

Well, being a Christian, I spent a long time in prayer over how I would resign my post. Yes it wasn’t just that I was a volunteer but that I had a key post. I tried to not do anything and to say I was busy in the hope that they would get mad at me and ask me to leave. It didn’t work. It was time for me to grow up and take control. In the end I did manage to step down gracefully and leave as a friend. It does mean at times that I am called back to help – with events, with late evening lock ups, can still run my writing groups up there. It means I can still walk there, see the people involved and have a chat.

Then the other night I was at Dan Snow’s History Man event at a local theatre. At the end dan-snow-a5-2019-dates-lo-722x1024of every evening he always shares something on the local history of the area. Well one of the two places he picked was the castle where I used to volunteer. And he especially picked out the young man who runs the Trust and is the driving force in the restoration. Because I had left with grace and kindness, when I saw it and the things Dan Snow said about it my heart swelled with pride. Not because I had been a part of it but because I knew the person being honoured. I was proud of him. He is my friend. I was proud to hear him honoured. Proud that the place I used to be very involved in was one of only two places singled out in this area for Dan Snow to talk about. All this came about because I grew up and left with grace not with anger.

I am hoping I can take this onward as a life lesson for whatever I do next.

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accepting choice counter-cultural deciding God heart Jesus peace taking thoughts captive thoughts

Taking Thoughts Captive

aid3019-v4-728px-Spear-a-Fish-Step-1-Version-2I have heard so many preaches about “taking every thought captive” and think from one I gained an image of spearing the thoughts like they were fish and casting them away. But I think that is not the point. I don’t think that is what Paul meant when he said

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

2 Corinthians 10:5

My thoughts are not wrong and do not need to be killed. Yes they do need to be captured and shown in the light of Christ, in the love of God. They need to be acknowledged and accepted as my thoughts.

In an Abbey of The Arts online mediation course she talks about focusing on your thoughts, feelings and emotions:

… allowing some time to move your focus and attention to your body. Allow some time to breathe and connect with what you are experiencing. Notice both physical pain as well as emotions. Bring your full awareness to whatever the experience is, without trying to change it. Notice how you experience this in your body. If you feel sad, how is that manifested in your body? Don’t try to change anything. Just stay present.

So I am capturing all my thoughts but not like the spearing fisherman to then discard them but to accept that these are my thoughts. I think making our thoughts “obedient to Christ” means that we learn to accept who we are, what we think and then give it to God. Not to fix, not to change, but to accept.

Here is an excerpt from a fictional piece I wrote around that:

She took a breath and tried to relax. Then all the thoughts and worries and things to do came rushing to the surface of her mind. She held their joys, their fears, their richness and their frustrations. Then she let them go. They rushed onward to the surface of her mind. Each task, each important concern, each trivial chore, believing it should take priority of her time. She let them go. This was the thrum of her existence. This was the pulsating of her life. She smiled. Instead of fighting it she must learn to relax into it and be lifted up on the current of her life.

Being a follower of Christ, I believe, isn’t all about “getting it right” so that God loves us, but is about believing that we are really alright people just as we are accepted and loved by God. And really it is about time we got on a loved and accepted ourselves as He does.

On Thursday I was having some healing prayer and God called me His little princess and showed me a picture of me sat on a rug with Him behind me. He had me between his legs pulled back close to His chest. As anyone, child with parent or with a lover, has sat huglike that, this is where you can feel someone’s heartbeat. I haven’t done anything momentously good. In fact I’d gone for the prayer because I was feeling seriously grouchy with a lot of things and God didn’t tell me to take capture all those thoughts and get rid of them and start doing things right. No! He showed me that He just wanted to be close to me and to hug me just as I was.

So taking those thoughts captive – I truly believe means accepting when we’re down as well as up, when we’re depressed as well as joyful, when we’re anxious as well as calm, when we’re angry as well as understanding, when we’re fed up of the world as well as when we’re content with the world. It is about accepting not rejecting who we are and how we feel. So I’m not going to throw away those thoughts because also some of my so-called “negative” thoughts are actually a great help to me in understand how I am, why I am and what I’m meant to be doing next.

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accepting being me carpe diem christmas faith family friendship God grief hope Jesus mindfulness poem relationships sad well-being writing

Christmas is a good time to think about Words for Well-Being

Christmas is an odd time of the year. It seems to focus so many feelings, and seems to encourage the time to put on those tinted glasses. Not just the rose-coloured ones where montage-1024x812we may view our childhood Christmases or the darkened ones where we may remember things with despair.

For me I think of those people I haven’t received a card from – the sister of my step-father who was always the first card to arrive but she is now dead, the friend of my mum’s who was often the second card to arrive who has had a fall and has been on life support in hospital and at the moment cannot move or speak, the friends who have moved and we’ve lost touch, the family of ex-husbands who no longer keep in touch – and one often wonders if they have died, the always late and badly written card from my sister which of course will  not come now – and never one from her husband who is now remarried or her 25 year old son who is a typical 25 year old boy when it comes to keeping touch. It can bring me down and make me wish I had know when it was going to be those last Christmasses. Would I have done anything different in December 2011 when we’d gathered with my sister’s family? I’m not sure I would have. Would I have phoned my step-father’s sister more often if I’d know when she’d not be with us? Would Christmas 2012 have been any different knowing that by Christmas 2013 by father-in-law would not be with us? To be totally honest I don’t think it would have been.

I had an email from a older friend of mine who says she finds it hard visiting as she sees glass-be-gratefulthe deterioration in many of her friends and wonders if it will be their last Christmases together. So she does make a difference; she makes sure she turns out over the Christmas holidays to see them, puts it in her diary to visit more often, and most importantly is grateful that she is still fit and well and able to get about and prays that it will continue.

So how will writing help? Well instead of bottling up those feelings write. Write to those people who aren’t with you any more – whether dead or alive. Tell them what you think of them and how you are feeling with them not being around. Tell them how much you’ve done in the last year. Read it out to them as thought they are sitting with you. Who knows they might even be listening? Write down all the good things you remember and don’t worry if the rose-tinted glasses are on. Enjoy the good memories. Again read it out loud. Say thank you to whatever you believe maybe listen – God, the dog, the chair, Mother Earth, etc. Write down a list of things you are grateful for this year – even if it is that you can write things down. When you think of the impossible write it down too and again speak it out. There’s nothing journal-writing-2-300x225wrong in hoping for what might not happen but don’t let it make you overwhelmed by what will not be. Write what your perfect Christmas would be then even look at what things you can do to make that happen. Remember that you cannot make everyone cheerful but you can make sure you don’t let their grumps get you down. And if they do take yourself off and write about it.

Make this Christmas a time when you compose some cool poems that talk of the joy and sadness of your Christmas – past, present and future. Use that notebook that some well-meaning person got you years ago that you’ve never thrown away and just write and see how that will change things for you. 3ab6538e0c445f0b29935d3a718972c3

As we were reminded in our Advent reading this morning Jesus didn’t come down to change things but to walk with us in them.

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accepting being me gratitude mindfulness money

Enough Money

enoughmoneyWhat is enough? This fits in with my post on Success a while back.  What is enough money? I have always had enough money. I’ve never been really rich but have been really poor. I was on income support, the lowest level of benefit in the UK and yet I always had enough. It was in the days when one got a giro cheque and went to the Post Office to cash it. I would get it in small denominations and then have pots on shelf in my kitchen for various things; food, rent, electric, other household bills, clothes, books, trips and holidays. Holidays were always quite a priority. And I would put these little sums of money into these various pots and save up. We ate well and my kids were never hungry. I home schooled and they use to have swimming lessons and French lessons and we’d go off on trips and on holidays. In fact during this time we even went back packing around Greece. None of this was luxury. We had a railcard. We stayed in basic lodgings, ate basic food and had some fun. I had enough.

I have some friends who are in their late 40s/early 50s who have never had children, both piggy-bankworked in well paid jobs, have a house with land in Surrey/Hampshire, must have pensions – probably salary linked ones – and yet they worry about their retirement that they will not have enough. Yes they do go on holiday and have nice things but they worry. They don’t have enough. I also know people on benefits who don’t have enough, who get into debt, who’s children go hungry.

On both ends of the financial scale there are those who have enough and those who don’t. In this I am not condemning those with money or those without. Also I have not always been so content with money. There are times I lie in bed and night and worry about whether we will have enough if … And it is that “if”. In fact we were talking the other day and conversation moved round to “we should rent that other room if I’m not working any more.” But he is working and when/if he isn’t then we shall worry about it then. I suspect we will just change what we spend money on.

Well off is a state of mind not necessarily to do with how much money you have. As a follower of Jesus I think I should learn to be content with what I have, generous whether I 77d5537cfb83c3b1e0edb8a96cbe4c06have much or little. I’m not sure I am and sometimes when I have more then I worry about having enough more than when I have little.

What I would love to do is to know how to contain this feeling of satisfaction with what I have but also be able to pass it on to others.

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accepting EU referrendum faith God politics

The Day After …

tumblr_static_eli55hk87s8oos8gckg0sgowoWell I cannot believe what I am reading. I know that some of my friends voted to remain and some voted to leave but I cannot believe the vitriolic comments I am reading on various sites from both sides – vitriolic anger from the Remains and vitriolic glee from those who won. What is the matter with people!!! And also the level of sadness, verging on depression, from those who lost.

My thoughts  – we live in a democratic country. 76% of the population voted which brilliant. There was only 4% difference in the outcome which actually I do not think is a big enough difference to make such a monumental change on. David Cameron has resigned. I think that is terrible. We do seem to live in a culture that when people lose, or regarding celebrate-the-international-day-of-democracy-step-9football teams, the team loses, those in charge step down. David Cameron put forward this idea of a referendum on Europe surely a real leader should be willing to help whatever the outcome was. In my opinion, humble as it is, I feel that he should be willing to help and support the change that he ensued.

So the two things I am saddened by are that the man who led us into this referendum is not hanging around to help sort out the mess he has made; and the other that people are so angry that democracy did not go their way.

16227As some on the Northumberland Community facebook page said “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” And for all whether believer in the Lord or not we do all need to work out how we can sing and live in this strange new land rather than rant or sulk about it.