Tag: Bible

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Bible imagining

Jesus Was A Carpenter

Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Pexels.com

I often think when we read the Bible we don’t engage with it as we would a regular book. I do wonder if it is because we’ve heard the stories too often, or they are shared as a part of a sermon to show something else, or as children we’ve already seen the simplified pictures. When I read a book I am lost in it. I empathise with the characters, decide if I like them or not, create images in my head of what they look like. I am part of that book and, especially if it is a good book, I devour it. It is also why those of us who are intense readers find it hard to watch the film of the book because the director and producer’s ideas of what people look like, how they react to things, is often different to ours.

I do my best with many Bible story to engage with them though actually the Bible is written in a form that, even though I like writing it, I struggle to read – the short story. The Bible is a series of short stories or pontificatings. It is not a novel one that stays on a single story for 300+ pages.

I’ve just randomly opened my Bible in the gospel of John. In a double page spread there are 5 different stories or themes. If I want to make the most of it I have to spend 5 different periods of time really getting lost in that. Something I’m not good at but also something I think we all, in our instant McDonald’s culture, struggle with.

To make the most of these vignettes of not just Jesus’s life but lives of all those in the both the Old and New Testaments we need to fill in the backstory, the emotions, the “what comes next”, the whys, the scenery, who else was there, etc, etc, etc. We get this with a novel, and even a short story. The author does that for us. But in the Bible no one does that and then a preacher will pick out bits to make a point but will not often flesh out the story. But even if they do it isn’t ourselves doing that in our own imaginations for ourselves.

Though that word is often a frowned on word to use by some denominations when reading the Bible – Imagination! For some it is as if the words are set in stone. Though what stone can often be a challenge if you dared ask the question. [I have posted on this before in various places. Here’s one of them]

I’ve been told that The Chosen is a great series to watch which does flesh out the Bible stories. I have to be honest and say I haven’t yet seen it. Though I wonder if some of that is me just being reluctant to watch the film about a good book I’ve read in case the production disagrees with my interpretation? I’m sure there will come a point when I know it is the right time to watch it

Tomorrow I’m going to reveal why I picked the above as the title for this piece. I want to go no further with this thought at the moment.

Categories
leaders to boldly go

Zacchaeus

Trees over the road from my house. Were the people of Jericho lined up on a street siilar to mine? And did Zacchaeus climb a tree similar to one of these? Photographed by myself May 2024

As you can tell from previous posts I like to imagine myself in the Bible stories. For me it helps me to ask questions of what was really going on, which leads me to question many of the things that get taught from “up the front”.

The story of Zacchaeus [Luke 19:1-10] did this to me along with something my husband said about a talk that he’d heard on this story, amongst other things.

The story in a nutshell is about a greedy tax collector climbs a tree to see Jesus. Jesus sees him and invites himself to Zacchaeus’s house, which upsets the local people and then Zacchaeus repays the money he has exhorted from the people.

Note –

  • Zacchaeus was a Jew working for the Romans and not just taking taxes but ripping off his countrymen, some of whom would have been his relatives. That’s something we forget in our society where so many of us live so far from our parents, children, relatives.
  • When Jesus says “I want to stay with you today” or in some versions “eat with you today” it wasn’t just Jesus. It would have been his whole entourage. Imagine says the King coming to your town, noticing you and saying he was going to eat with you. You would then be having to provide food for about 20+ people not just a tete-a-tete with King Charles
  • Many sermons talk about how amazing Zacchaeus was to give back for times what he had taken. That wasn’t a revelation to Zacchaeus. That was him fulfilling the law. The giving half his wealth to the poor was the awesome bit. – Do you ever wonder what those people who were repaid did with the 4 times repayment? Did they then squirrel it away or were they generous with it?

As I pondered this story I wondered how much time Jesus and Zacchaeus actually spoke to each other. I got to wondering whether as the entourage of disciples, etc were settling into Zacchaeus’s house whether Matthew [an ex-tax collector] came along side Zacchaeus and had a chat about Jesus, forgiveness, a freer way of life, and all the other benefits he had discovered of letting go of that old life of cheating, of fear, of being ostracized, etc. I wondered if it was through that conversation with someone who had “walked the walk” that converted Zacchaeus?

By this point Jesus had sent out the 72 in groups of 12 [Luke 10:1-23] – 2 disciples and 10 others possibly – to “heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’” [Luke 10: 9] So all the disciples and at least 60 others from the group were evangelising and healing. So why would Jesus then take back the reins when he had already sent them off on their own?

Well I don’t think Jesus did take back the reins. I believe he was secure in his identity and his calling that he didn’t feel the need to always be in control. I really do believe that he allowed the conversation to flow and to see what happened. It was obvious Zacchaeus was starting on that journey of wanting to change when he climbed the tree to get a better look at Jesus and, I think, Jesus knew that.

But I also think too often we have church leaders who want not just be the one who says “wow that is awesome. This person has found freedom in Jesus” but they want to control the whole thing. They want to be the ones to take the credit and to make sure things are done “the right way”. I don’t think Jesus cared about “the right way” at all. I believe Jesus was all about the “heart way”

I think Jesus knew we can only fully change and fully come to know him and truly following him if we chat and get to know people who’ve been in our position. The reason that Alcoholics Anonymous is so successful in helping people be free of alcohol is that it is run by those who understand the problems that come with alcohol and how easy they found it to be addicted. It also works because there are no leaders. Each person is encouraged to lead a meeting after a certain period of being “dry” and all are always able to tell their story and their journey. And it is that which helps others in the group, no matter what stage they are at, to continue in their healing.

I can support friends who’ve been through similar journeys to myself and can be supported by friends who “get it”. All of us struggle when someone comes in to “put us right” or as Christine Sine says “to demolish rather than renovate” us

I also think we too often hide behind leaders and will say “they didn’t say to do it” rather than be led to do it. Sue Sinclair of Christian Watchmen Ministries says “An intercessor … actually a ministry for every one of us.” but how often do we bemoan that there’s “no one praying” or “no one telling us to pray”.

I don’t think Jesus told his disciples what to do. I think he showed them the way but let them outwork it within their own personalities and own recovery and own life experiences. But I do think he expected them to do. As I write this I wonder if when he picked “the 12 apostles” he picked them from a larger group who had been following him because they were the ones who didn’t wait to be told to do but just got on and started talking to people because they had picked up Jesus’s heart?

So from this I know I need to walk out in who I am and talk to those that I connect with, who understand me and I understand them, but also I need to always be connecting with Jesus so I know his heart for each and everyone of the lovely people that pass my way.

So let us all be bold and step and stop waiting for some leader to tell us what to do!

Categories
good friday Holy Week

Good Friday

Photo by eberhard grossgasteiger on Pexels.com

In the gospel of Matthew [Matt 27:46] Jesus is quoted as saying Psalm 22 “My God, my God, why did you forsaken me?” which has allowed for many debates, books, and sermons about what was really going on that this moment of Jesus’ crucifixion and why Jesus said those words and why he felt/was abandoned by God.

But what if he didn’t actually say those words! Have a conversation with someone and then an hour later both of you sit down and write down what was said. I bet both accounts are different.

Here’s a thing – when one writes historical fiction the writer only has so much to go on and so will, using the information they have from many sources, will put words into the historical character’s mouths. These are real people who did say real things but maybe not as is written in the books.

But what if that is the same with Jesus? Jesus, I believe, is a real historical person who really did stuff, who really died and really did rise again. But I’m not 100% sure he said what he is quoted as saying.

Each of the gospel writers has an audience they are writing for so each pulls in from difference sources the message they want to convey; the same as all writers do. Also every thing about Jesus came from memory because I don’t think anyone understood really who he really really was until after his resurrection.

To go against this feeling of God forsaking him on the cross Henri Nouwen says

Jesus suffered and died for our sake. He suffered and died, not in despair, not as the rejected one, but as the Beloved Child of God. From the moment he heard the voice that said, “You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests,” he lived his life and suffered his pain under the Blessing of the Father. He knew that even when everyone would run away from him, his Father would never leave him alone.

Henri Nouwen DAILY MEDITATION | MARCH 20, 2024

I think instead of saying “this is what Jesus really said” we need to say “this is what the gospel of Matthew quotes Jesus as saying” and we then wonder what Matthew’s reasoning behind that was. Did Matthew feel that way when Jesus was crucified?

Nouwen is saying, and does in many of his meditations, that once one knows one is a beloved child of God, loved unconditionally, then one knows that even when one screws up God doesn’t leave. Read Job. He knows that no matter what God is God doing God stuff that Job will never understand.

Maybe Matthew misquoted or had an agenda in his gospel writing that we do not know today. Don’t you wish you could talk to the gospel writers, all of them even the ones the early church didn’t put in the Bible, and ask them why they wrote what they wrote and what it meant to them?

Categories
hope plans

What Plans?

Where are we going? says the little dog trusting that his owners will not let him down. Clwyddian Hills 17th March 2024 Photographed by myself

I will come to you and fulfil my good promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,’ declares the LORD, ‘and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places

Jeremiah 29: 10-14

This came up in a Bible reading the other day it and got me thinking. So often we hear sermons or have a poster with the highlighted bit – “I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future” – or a version of that. And we see it as God having some great plan for us that we need to seek out and only when we find this right plan will be prosper, have hope and a future.

I hate to say it but whatever we do we have a future. There is no choice is that one. Also having hope, I believe is a state of mind. You can be in the perfect place, with the perfect weather, with those people who are kind and supportive, with the best of the best around you, but you can still feel like you are missing something, that things are not hopeful. Just look at all the famous successful people who take their own lives to have evidence of that. But also look at those people on holiday who just look a bit sad. Hope comes from the inside.

But also look at what Jeremiah says around those verses that so many know so well. It says that God will bring us back from a place where we have felt deserted, where we have allowed the worries of the world to overwhelm us. I do think “captivity” is being caught up in the worries of the world and not living in hope, not realising that no matter what’s happen the Creator of the Universe loves each one of us. That doesn’t mean outside circumstances will be great but inside of us we can call on the Lord and be heard. We can be freed from the captivity of our own making.

But here’s the catch – we need to seek God with all our hearts. Not just the bit that wants the Creator to make things right for us, but that is willing to say “here’s my heart. Even the grumpy bits. But even those bits are seeking you because I know you love the out-of-sorts parts of me as much as the parts I show to the rest of the world when I’m trying to show I’m doing ok.”

So are we willing to seek God with all our hearts so God can release us from our own captivity. [Remember at this point in the history of Israel they were in exile because they put things before God] and trust that whatever we do – whether that is chatting to someone in the park or sorting out climate change – that this is the plan God has for us and through that we have hope because hope in inside of us because we hang out with God?

I also think plans God has for us are also the things that make our hearts sing and so we don’t have angst and beat ourselves up but we need to slow down and listen to our own hearts. But of course that means we need some silence, some trust, and maybe that hope!

Categories
2020 vision apocalyptic

Apocalyptic Times

Llyn Crafnant 3rd March 2024 photographed by myself

Yes apocalyptic can look as much like a sun-kissed Welsh llyn [lake] as it can those “end of the world” movies some of us love to watch.

Do you get it sometimes when you’re listening to something and someone says something and you want to jump up and down and tell the world? This is my space to tell the world – or at least you my dear subscribers. Some posts I really really hope get out there to loads of people and some I’m a bit embarrassed by and some, like this one, I am writing because I cannot contain what is going on in my head and cannot yet find a way of bringing it up when out dog walking 🙂

I was listening to Drew Jackson [yes I have been banging on about Drew and the podcast on Godspace but, for me, it has been amazing]. There is one point, in talking about his poetry that he calls it apocalyptic, and then says that we are living in apocalyptic times. He then explains that, for him, apocalyptic times mean “unveiling times” and not so much as we’ve come to think of them as “end of the world as we know it times” – though it is a bit like that too. But it is much more about things, structures, being unveiled.

I was so excited because I had written around this from 2020 onwards in various forms, and keep saying to my husband when another “unveiling” of something corrupt comes on the news that, I think, the whole of the 2020s – until the end of 2029 – will be a time of unveiling, a time of relooking at things and saying “that’s not right” – governments, health care, education, racism, sexism, gender issues, climate change, nature issues, homelessness, poverty, materialism, the whole Israel/Palestine, Russia/Ukraine, and more that are not coming to mind at the moment. And more that I’m sure you can name.

This is what the book of Revelation talks about, what Jesus talked about when he said about the end times. It may not mean the world is going to end and we will all go off to heaven, or wherever. It means, as Drew said, apocalyptic times are times of unveiling, times of revealing what’s wrong in our systems. A time to change.

At the event I was at last week one of the women speaking said about how things are changing with regard to clairvoyants and how the understanding of spirituality is changing. She said how she believed that the control of religious structures was lifting and people are starting to explore different ways of being. All the way through that day there was an understanding that people are starting to realise that we buzz with energy, and that we do affect others by our energy and other people’s energy affects us. A lot of QEC is about changing your energy as you are healed from your traumas.

Again these things are unveilings, are changes, are seeing things that were there all along but were hidden. As Christians we need to make sure we don’t stay in our safe boxes but that we get rebellious, get out there and explore what is being unveiled. Get out there and really live in these apocalyptic times without fear. I believe it is what God talks of in the Bible but there has been a fear about it. Instead we need to view it as exciting, as change, as seeing things differently.

Also the reason for the above photo is that the sun still shines, the lakes are still beautiful, families still go out and walk their dogs. Things being unveiled does not mean the end but the in-between space before we go into a new beginning.

But again for me personally the most exciting thing from all this was that Drew was saying what I had been thinking. So if he is and I am and things on Christine’s Liturgical Rebels podcasts are saying things then … let’s be awake and aware and responsive.

Categories
enough joy peace

You Don’t Need To Do It

My dog’s biggest decision/resolution for any day of the week is what toy shall he play with from his two new ones. And each decision is “new every morning”

On a Facebook group I’m part of my QEC practitioner suggested instead of feeling like we are being forced into New year resolutions – that most of us feel guilty about breaking by mid-January – why not QEC a vision of Peace, Joy and Plenty for 2024. This is working with that principle that what we believe will come to pass will come to pass. This isn’t a “pollyanna” “pie in the sky” way of thinking. This isn’t saying that we will be protected from bad things happening. But it is saying that we will ride through them with peace, with deep joy [not the silly giggles but something deep and fundamental] and that we will know we will have plenty/enough of whatever we need to see us through.

All this is what God says to us through the Bible – that “the joy of the Lord is our strength” [Nehemiah 8:10], “my peace I give to you” [John 14:27] and Matthew 6:25-34 which tells us not to worry about anything because God has it all for us. God has what we need in abundance. Though too often we do not see Christians living this out so find it hard to believe. But it is there!

But I realised as I was free writing around this that there is an order to have this happens. I felt that one couldn’t just dive into believing there is plenty/enough/an abundance because it is so hard to believe. It is why we have to QEC things and put in new beliefs so we can start on that journey.

  • But that QEC journey starts, I think, with us having peace with our past, with our upbringing, with our mistakes.
  • From this place comes deep joy that we are such amazing people, even if that has been lost in things that have been said to us as children.
  • Then once we are at this place of deep joy and gratitude, then we can believe we have plenty for what lies ahead each and every single day.

To succeed with this we need to be like those who go to Alcoholics Anonymous believe, that what we have this for each day and we rejoice in the dailiness of it and not have to stake it up for longer than today.

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
…
Amen.

The Serenity Prayer

Note the “living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at at time” or as Lamentations 3:23 says God’s blessings are “new every morning” because “great is your faithfulness”

By not trying to put it in resolutions – that we aren’t doing at the moment anyway and so won’t stick to because there are reasons why we didn’t start now – but listening to our hearts and going day by day doing our best to live in peace, from which follows joy and gratitude, givings us the hope of living in plenty/enough then we can move in harmony with ourselves, with God, with The Universe, and with each other.

Categories
Bible children

Samuel

No connection to what I’m going to explore but he just looks so cute. Photographed by me November 2023

I’ve been trying to get down to some Bible study as I have been a bit lax on it recently. So I’m following 24/7 Prayer’s Lectio365 app and trying to hear something different. Sometimes it is hard when you are reading the same pieces you’ve read for over 30 years [and when I first met with God I read my Bible loads and loads, reading it through twice in both my first and second years of meeting Jesus plus teaching on things, etc, etc and reading to my children] It takes a bit of concerted effort not to just go “yeah yeah I know what that says”

This was what was on the app for Friday –

 The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the house of the Lord, where the ark of God was. 4 Then the Lord called Samuel.

Samuel answered, “Here I am.” 5 And he ran to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”

But Eli said, “I did not call; go back and lie down.” So he went and lay down.

6 Again the Lord called, “Samuel!” And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”

“My son,” Eli said, “I did not call; go back and lie down.”

7 Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord: The word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.

1 Samuel 3:3-5

What jumped out at me was verse 7. We don’t know how many years Samuel has been serving in the temple. It is possible he was five when Hannah weaned him – yes people used to wean their children much later than most of us do in our fast paced modern world. And I suspect as she knew he was going to live in the temple she probably waited longer just so she knew he would be ok. He was a small child not a baby or a toddler. Like I say we don’t know how much later God decides to call Samuel personally but I suspect it wasn’t within his first year.

So there he has been serving in the temple with Eli doing his priestly stuff and yet Samuel “did not yet know the Lord. The word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.” Goodness me what had been going on? Why had Eli not got around to helping Samuel know the Lord and know “the word of the Lord”?

Yet, as always when one lets God speak, I wonder how often we as Christian parents and children’s workers and youth workers [of which I have been all three] read the stories to our children, do the fun children’s and youth activities, etc but don’t give those young people in our care time to really know who God is and let God’s word be revealed to them personally.

Yes we tell them about God, we get them to pray, but how often to we stop and ask God to speak with them? [Note not a condemnation piece but a questioning piece wondering why so many young people don’t follow God after having been immersed in church]

I think too often, like Eli, we think we know how God will speak because that’s how they have spoken with us so we tell those young people in our care “this is God“. Then when God turns up to them personally often we are not as wise as Eli and don’t say “oh my I think that’s God talking to you in your language.” Eli did miss that it was God first of all and dismissed Samuel. It was only the third time [and that is a story telling technique and it may have been more or less times] that it dawns on Eli to tell Samuel to listen to God.

I have had to some major forgiveness from times when I was first talking with God and wanting to share it with others and was told that could not possibly God because God didn’t speak like that. But I think I have also been guilty of speaking of some of the young people who’ve been in my care because God was speaking to them differently. Or have seen them mold what they have heard to fit in with what I would like or what the group would like.

Like I say this is not condemnation piece but something that first made me go “Oh Eli why did you not teach Samuel about God in all that time” to hearing God’s still small voice asking me if there have been times when I have been like that.

The Bible, I believe, is always personal to each one of us, but too often we don’t like to really listen to what God wants to say to me. I believe the Bible is living and is God’s way of talking to each of us, not in one of those big sermon type ways but with us sitting, reading, getting involved with it.

Though I do wonder if that is why we don’t like to do it. Better to have something that one can say “this is what this passage says” than “God has just used that to open my eyes to some place where I have missed God’s mark [sinned]“

Categories
faith Jesus

Jesus Walks On Water

Storm hits the beach – Dec 2021 – photographed by myself

Today the Bible reading in many churches is Matthew 14: 22-33 where Jesus walks on the water. This post is inspired by Lily Lewin’s Freerange Friday post on Godspacelight.com called Walking On Water

Lily’s Freerange Friday posts more often than not encourage imagining oneself there. So whilst I was out walking the dog today I thought about how I would have felt if I was one of Jesus’ disciples on that boat.

Remember not all of them were seamen. We always think of the fishermen and the “go and be fishers of men” line but we do forget that two thirds of the core group were not fishermen.

Now it is as standing joke in my family that I don’t like being too close to the water. These are just two of the many tales I could share! When I was 17 my first proper boyfriend took me for a romantic punt on the River Avon. We did the whole dressing up, had the picnic, we even got the tranquil sunny weather. I was in the boat for less than 5 minutes and I was screaming “take me back. I hate this“. End of romantic day out! One holiday my husband really wanted to go to see the puffins off the Northumbria coast. Out and back and round was a total of an hour on the boat. He’d check it was dog friendly so it was no excuse. Well I was terrified and I’m sure the man driving the boat deliberately hit the waves so we bounced more than we had to. I do have to say that it was worth while though. Puffins are awesome! But I was nearly crying and holding anyone who was close enough the whole way out and back.

So there I am one of Jesus’ disciples. We’ve had a busy day of healing and feeding and crowd control and just need a break. Jesus tells us all to get on the boat. Now I know weather if not the water and can see clouds gathering. So I suggest to Jesus that I’ll just stay behind with him. He’s already said he’s going to pray. I say that I’ll leave him be, explain that like him I need some time out. I need to introvert for a bit. I don’t think it would be good for my mental health to be on a boat with the others. It won’t help me refocus, get grounded. Also the place needs a bit of a tidy up and I’m more than happy to do that. But no Jesus insists and well … he is the rabbi and I am honoured to have been chosen by him so I reluctantly agree.

Well we all know what happens next. The sea starts to swell. The boat starts to rock. It is scary for the sailors, the fishermen. Imagine what it is like for those of us who don’t sail and are terrified of being “too close to the water”. I know I would be so cross this Jesus. This was his idea. He didn’t even come and here I am terrified. Even on that little boat to see the puffins I was sure I was going to die. So I’m imaging being on a smallish fishing boat in the big lake, big enough to be called a sea. And Jesus sent me there.

Along he comes. The storm calms. Peter does his bit of walking on the water. And so all is fine and dandy? Not for me. I’m cross with Jesus for showing up after I’m scared and have made a bit of a fool of myself. Also I don’t get out the boat because I know if I realised I could walk on water I would have just kept on walking back to the shore and not looked back.

This got me thinking – how often have any of us felt like God/Jesus has sent us somewhere and we don’t think they are coming with us. We cannot see or feel a physical presence. How do we feel? Also, and this maybe just me, do we do something stupid because we feel scared and alone and then Jesus comes to us after we’ve done the stupid thing? Are there times when we’ve felt like we’ve stepped out and even Jesus isn’t watching our backs/taking care of the storm around us? Have we ever felt like just getting out and walking away even when Jesus turns up?

I do wonder if too often we’ve allowed this story to be filled with passive characters and not allowed the disciples to be three dimensional, have not allowed them to be fully human. I wonder too if we’ve not let ourselves fully feel how we would have been in this situation. Ok so we know the end of that part of the story – the resurrection, God’s omnipresence, the infilling of the Holy Spirit – so we can react differently. But too often we don’t know the end of our stories or even what is happening in the next part.

I think it is ok to be scared, to be angry with God, to want to walk out and not come back. All those are real emotions. The brave thing is to stay; to stay with God, to forgive Jesus, to learn and grow in faith.

The question isn’t would we have stayed in the boat like the majority of the disciples or got out like Peter, I think the question is would we have obeyed Jesus and got in the boat in the first place even if we were terrified of boats and could see a storm coming?

Categories
Four Horsemen Reveal Work With

The Four Horsemen

A nice piece of Medieval art work. I wish the Openverse [which is where I got the picture from using the “openverse” button on WordPress] would give a reference!!

Anyway why the Four Horsemen on this pleasant Monday morning? Well it comes about because on Saturday night we watched Now You See Me 2 on Netflix. A nice bit of easy listening with good morals, a bit of fighting but no horrid stuff and no sex. Yes there are only two female actors in the whole main cast, only three ethnic characters in the main cast, and other issues but that aside I found it a good easy Saturday evening watch.

But what struck me is the four key characters are known as The Four Horsemen – and automatically I’m thinking “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” from the Bible – the white horse often interpreted as Pestilence carrying a bow, the red horse of War carrying a sword, the black horse of Famine carrying scales, and the pale horse which is Death. One of the interesting things that the leader of these Horsemen in Now You See Me says as they are performing their final tricks of the film – [paraphrased] “We are the four horsemen. Our job is to reveal what is“

That really struck me. Often it is interpreted that the biblical horsemen are sent as a punishment, a judgement but what if they are there to reveal what is, to reveal what is really in our hearts. There are multiple interpretations even in the short piece from Wikipedia that I’ve shared. So I might be as “right” as anyone else.

We live in a time when we see the horrors of pollution, over mining of our plants resources, mass scale farming with its pesticides and fertilizers, plastics filling our oceans, climate change. There are wars and the mass migration of people groups caught in the horrors of war which are then rejected from the countries they run to. Again there is the migration of people due of famines which have come about because of over farming, climate change and wars. The scales are very much tilted towards those with money and not to a fair shared world. All of this leads to death. There are many colours that death can be but I like pale best because it is insipid and can fade into the background. But as well as those who die in wars, from famines, from trying to cross to safer countries, there are those who feel so hopeless they take their own lives, who die of cancers because of the lifestyles now led, who get killed by cars, planes, etc. Death is all around and much of it is violent and unnecessary.

Ok so The Four Horsemen in Now You See Me were not just about revealing corruption and bring things into the open but were about putting things right. So we can sit and bemoan the state of the world. And if you come across any group of people in the pub, on a dog walk, in a cafe, at home with friends, etc they/we are bemoaning the state of the world. Bit by bit it is revealed to us. But we need to do more than moan.

A while ago I wrote about how the world is caught up in logic and not listening to the heart, the deep heart. [Check out this post but also search “logic” on my blog page to get other posts that all roll together] And I think that is where the problem lies. Logic causes us to panic, to become overly anxious but kicks in the “freeze” mode of our automatic nervous system. So we don’t act. We get increased mental health and learning difficulties because we are focusing on logically trying to sort the situations and so our anxieties levels are running on an all time high and then we are logically trying to get them turned off!!

So how do I listen to what I hear these four horsemen reveal in my quiet little North Wales seaside town and know where I fit into the picture of not only revealing but of changing?

Firstly I can breath, ANS regularly, and keep my energy levels calm so that when I go out into the world I take a pool of calm with me.

Secondly I can pray. Not telling God what to do but by quietly listening to what God is saying. Quietly really hear in my heart not what I want the answers to be but what God, the Creator of this Universe, really wants in these situations. Some of what I hear won’t make sense to my logical brain but I have to trust the Creator that they know what they are on about.

Thirdly I can do those things that will help; turn off lights, think sustainably, buy ethically, be kind and generous to others, love my neighbour as I would like to be loved, believe I have everything for my daily needs, forgive and know that I am forgiven, not put things into judgemental good/bad boxes, etc. [ I say “etc” because I know there are so many other things that are relevant for each of you reading this. For some it is to write what they are called to write, to paint what they are called to paint, to work at the jobs they are called to work out. And sooooooo much more]

I just want to share this YouTube video from The Grays Haven Music called REST. God’s work is done and we just need to Rest, to know our part and to trust in them. I don’t in anyway think this means do nothing but, I think, it does mean don’t fuss, don’t worry, trust and listen to what your part is in the already done work of God, Jesus and Holy Spirit.

Categories
Born again Spirit of God

Born Again!

Newborough Beach, Anglesey July 1st 2023 Photographed by myself

There is no better place than a windswept deserted beach to contemplate a theological conversation that I had with a friend a few days earlier.

We were tossing around the idea from John 3 where Jesus tells Nicodemus he must be “born again” if he wants to see the kingdom of heaven. This has become a bit of a “thing” in evangelical circles about having to be “born again” to be a “real Christian”. It has become another way of judging who is really in and who isn’t.

I do remember at my wedding a gate-crasher [longer story there] asking my father-in-law who was a devout Christian and who had encouraged many people to know and follow Jesus, if he was born again. My father-in-law was flustered at this question and because he hesitated got a short sermon from said gate-crasher about the importance of being “born again”.

The beach gets “born again” twice a day. The beach I walked on yesterday will not be the same as the beach today. I am always amazed with my local beach, that I walk on regularly, how often the gullies in it change, the stones gets shifted about, the flotsam and jetsam change regular. Born again beach!

“So as Ordinary Pilgrim, Fiona Koefoed-Jesperson, says in her latest Substack post, we should spend a lot of our time asking questions like “What if this bible story can be interpreted differently?” So running with the conversation earlier in the week and the beach I got to thinking about wondering what God wanted me to see in this story.

Perhaps it isn’t a one-off-prayer-event but a daily thing. Perhaps I need to let go of my earthly birth, the things that tie me to this land, the ways of and/or issues from my parents, the things I’ve picked up – good and bad, things I’ve accepted from teachers, preachers and friends. Maybe I need to put all earthly things away and not rely on them. Maybe every moment of every day I need to be “born again” in the Spirit.

Nicodemus asked “How can someone be born when they are old?” Or maybe that is “how can I let go of my habits and hurts and feelings and ways of being now I’m an adult who leads and teaches others?” As we get older we get more and more set in our ways of doing and being. More afraid of looking like we don’t really know. We believe we have to know what is right and what is wrong.

I am loving working at the after-school club/nursery. Not just because of what I learn from the children in my care but what I learn from the young adults I am working with. The majority of the staff are younger than my children but I go with an open heart wondering what I can learn each time I go in. One could say that I am “born again” in my way of working in childcare each day.

But I know too that the only way I can have this attitude is if I let go of some of those issues and attitudes of my own. I can only go in and be told by an 18 year old what to do if I am walking in the Spirit of God and have been healed of hurts and issues of needing to be in charge because I’m older.

John 3 also says that one can only see the Kingdom of God if one is born of the Spirit. I am sure lots of people on the beach yesterday didn’t see the Kingdom of God but I did -whether it was in the pounding waves, the moody clouds over the mountains or the expression of my dog when he had to paddle through a pool on the beach that came up to his belly. But I also know there are days when I don’t see the Kingdom of God when I’m walking because I am walking in my human self. I’m walking in the flesh.

So I have come to believe that this story isn’t something we should base a doctrine of in/out on but should be something we incorporate into our daily lives moment by moment because we do fluctuate between walking the Spirit and walking the flesh.

But the amazing thing about God is that they don’t see us as either in or out but as fallible humans who sometimes get it and sometimes don’t.

I don’t think Jesus was talking in a teachery “you must” voice when he said this to Nicodemus and whoever else was there. But he was saying “look I know you’ll forgot so why not as you notice you’re walking in your humanness remember that you are actually Spirit people [and I think that applies to all people whether those who admit to being Christian and those who don’t] and can be reborn daily. In fact you can be reborn moment by moment as and when you need.

My dog showing how exciting it is reaching soft sand. He does this every time and during walks too. Life is just a wonderful born-again moment again and again and again for him.