Tag: creation

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creation enjoying

Creation Sunday

Yesterday I asked my youth group a question based around the idea that God made the whole world and gave it to humankind …

If you gave someone something you had made how would you like them to treat it/to be with it?

My favourite, and most thought provoking comment was “to enjoy it”.

Too often we think enjoying our planet is to go and do some recreational activity in some unspoilt place; a way of using our spare time is to “enjoy” the world. But when you think it through this whole idea of mass leisure time is very recent. For many years humans were busy just dealing with surviving. So you couldn’t take a day off to go for a hike or hang out in the garden and read a book because you had to provide food for the family, or you worked in service and maybe you got Sunday morning off, but that was to go to church. Then you’d be back taking care of the family you worked for. This whole idea of a day off for most people is a new thing.

But I’m suspecting God didn’t just wait for the late 20th and 21st century for people to enjoy their creation. I am suspecting God wanted humankind to always be enjoying creation.

On Thursday we went to see Our Town with Michael Sheen in it [a must if you are able to] and two lines towards the end of the play stand out for me and fit in with this whole thing of enjoying creation just for what it is. Both are from Emily who has died in childbirth aged 26 – something that was not uncommon when the play was written in 1938

“Oh Earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you”

and then as she realizes how little people appreciate the simple activities of life

“It goes so fast. We don’t have time to look at one another.”

We need to slow down, to really look at each other, to really look at enjoy our Earth.

The Creation poem ends by saying that God gives all their amazing creation to humankind to fill, to subdue, to care for – and also, as the young girl my youth group said – to enjoy.

So let’s not wait till our next day off – when too often we are rushing round “having to do things” and trying to fit in “quality leisure” – and take a moment to slow things down, to really see, and to really enjoy.

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beatitudes blessing

Poor in Spirit

I love the two girls I explore the Bible with on a Wednesday evening in McDonald’s. We spend an hour eating burgers, talking about their lives and pondering bits from the Bible. And I more often than not come away with something that renews my faith in God.

Yesterday we started on what are commonly known as the Beatitudes

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 5:3 NIV

Or as the Contemporary English Version says

God blesses those people
    who depend only on him.
They belong to the kingdom
    of heaven

Even looking at “poor in spirit” the girls were very much “it means those who depend on God” and they get heaven, or if we’re sticking to the CEV they “belong to heaven”.

To me it just followed on nicely from Tuesday’s post about wondering what makes Christians different and to me it is saying that God will give blessings to those who know they can’t do it themselves, to those who choose to lean on a higher power. These are the people who understand what they can and cannot do, are ok with their strengths and weaknesses, know how to say a full Yes and a full No to things. These are the people who know they can’t do it themselves – and who I suspect also lean on other people and know how to ask for support from trusted friends too.

This is so unlike the superior Christians who imply that once you’ve got Jesus it is all systems go and you are almost better than anyone else. Whereas these verse seems to say that once you’ve connected with something beyond yourself – whether you call it God, The Universe, a Higher Power, Creation – then you know you haven’t got what it takes but in a positive way.

So it isn’t “poor little me how can I cope” but “I struggle with things and need a bit of help from something beyond me”. It is a strength thing. And it is from that that Jesus says those people belong to heaven/have the kingdom of heaven.

These verses then go on to talk about people who are humble, who mourn, who are merciful, who want to make peace, etc. which hopefully the girls and I will unpack after half term.

Categories
creation Love

God Made It With Love

As always the youth group I co-run blows me away every time. We haven’t met over the summer and I realised when we got together how much I’d missed them. The eldest is only 14 and yet their wisdom is amazing.

I’d decided we would do about the names of God. Unfortunately I hadn’t read the Bible verses I picked for them to read but they were so amazing and I learned so much. Firstly we read about where Hagar meets God [I’ll do a full piece on this in the next blog] which was complicated to explain but I got so much from it especially as it connected to the Forgiveness theme of the all-age service. But this was much more my revelation than the groups.

We then read Genesis 1:1 and I posed that old question of “what did God make the world with?”

One of the girls gave me an almost withering look and said “well God made the world with Love”. Wow! Of course! You know I had never thought of that before. All the world is connected with love and when we love each other and love the world all runs smoothly but when we fight, are greedy, want more, don’t trust and love each other, or when we abuse the natural resources of the world, then things are awful. Then there is suffering. It goes back to that “Why does God allow suffering?” Well God doesn’t. We do More to come on this soon.

This leads us to this bigger picture, to this need to be connected. To trusting and listening to God. God loves each of us unconditionally so that we can love each other unconditionally. Many of us haven’t received that unconditionally love from earthly sources so haven’t given it back. But if we get our heads round the God of the universe loving us unconditionally then we can love each other unconditionally. Or at least give it a try.

So with all this buzzing in my head I then read this blog by Dave Andrews. Someone I met many years ago in passing at Cross Rhythms festivals. Another connecting connection. In this post he talks about how as he has got older he has let go of doctrines and now just accepts that God is love, God loves unconditionally, and we are to do the same.

Well it seems to me, Dave, that at least some young Christians have reached that point in their teens rather than having to wait till we got into our 60s. To me this gives hope for the Church, as in big time Church with capital C, and God moving within and without.

As I was saying to someone the other day “something has to change and it has to come from those in their teens and 20’s”. Well maybe it is but I need to be connected and need to see the bigger picture so I don’t miss it?

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Guests hospitality

Being A Good Guest

These are locally grown flowers from Hilltop Garden Flowers who are part of a great organisation called Flowers From The Farm

Godspace is running a series about Hospitality at the moment with lots of info on cooking and having people come into your home. Now I am someone who loves cooking for people, but I remember a friend who really was worried when she first started getting involved with church because she was not a good cook and also had children who did not like people coming into their house. She did doubt whether she was a “good Christian” or not; whatever that phrase might mean.

But one of the things that struck me in Christine Sine’s post for Monday was about being a “good guest”. We can all come as guests. We don’t need to bring anything apart from ourselves. But what does it mean to be a good guest?

Well for me I get upset when people to my house and bring extra food. I get upset by that because I will have provided more than enough. Though I do love it when they bring wine, chocolates, and/or flowers. All those things to me say they are happy to come to my house. When my sister-in-law first came to stay at our house she brought her own towels. I was hurt by that because I wanted to lavish hospitality on her but she wanted to “save me too much trouble.”

I think when we come as guests of God to the table I think we should come knowing that it is not too much trouble for God to lavish things on us. Of course we shouldn’t trash the place. As those who have been reading my blog for a while, pre-covid I did Airbnb. I enjoyed it but really got upset if guests did not respect my home and left things in a mess.

So as guest of God we should bring those extras – the spiritual equivalent of wine, chocolates and flowers, which often is nothing more than our open hearts. But we should respect those who are joining us, should respect God’s creation, should respect God’s home – which is our earth.

Also I love having guests who delight in being in my home and delight in being with the people who have also come to the table. So as God’s guests we should delight in being invited, delight in those God has chose to be with us for this season of our lives.

So to be a good guest then it to delight in being there, and not think we need to add to what God has done, to respect the space God has opened for us and those who are also invited to that self same space, and come wanting to be lavished on. If you come like that when I invite you I will be most pleased. And I am sure if you come like that God then they will be most pleased too.

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accepting Barefoot At The Kitchen Table being me belief Clever God creation creativity excited faith glorifyingGod gratitude mystery of God nature pagan questioning walking the dog writing

Creator Christianity

Here are some thoughts in following on from my post yesterday about Pagan Christmas. Whilst I was out walking today and marvelling at how each day is different – yesterday we

offshore-windfarms
Ok so not my view but it’s a great picture 🙂 

had a thick frost, today it is mild and damp. I always wish I took my camera with me because there is a view great view where I walk over the bridge over the A55 and look out to see. In our bay we have wind turbines, lots of them, and it is amazing how the cloud and sea and sky can make them look so different. The other day they looked like they were standing on the ground. Today like they were floating in the air. Some days they are brilliant white, some days grey and forlorn looking. So there I am marvelling about this and realised how much most of Christianity can miss about God and how also the pagan side missed about God too.

Ok so this is generalisation so please forgive me 🙂 Pagans are very much into worshipping creation and Mother Nature, which I think is awesome, and do believe it is one facet of 1bd30002809be66a88e93b426a24e6bcGod. Christians on the other hand can get so fixated in Father God that they miss the nature side of things. Both Father and Mother are facets of God. And they are not the whole even when joined together.

But then things get silly as Christians. If I told you I was a Creationist Christian then you would think that I believe the literal story in the Bible, that God made the world in just 6 days. I don’t. But I do believe God created the world. See I think that to do it in 6 days is actually a bit easy. To make man exactly as he is now is easy. It’s almost what we like in our instant McDonald’s world – that quick instant fix. And in the grand scheme of things 6-7,000 years is pretty instant when put in regard to eternity. I think the whole idea that God took millennia to make the world is awesome. As a creative person I am learning that to make anything really read well – or to make my Barefoot At The Kitchen Table business viable – I have to be in for the long haul, and I do have to be willing to edit, to change, to work with what I have.

2424648436_dd3e5aa7c0_z1-e1358896975823Oh! I hope that’s not blasphemous. I’m not saying that God has been doing editing and changing and doesn’t know what’s going on. But I do think God works on growing things and changing and being in for the long haul. Even for what He is doing with me personally He has to be committed for the long haul and for things to edit and to change. I am not the same person I was when I first met with God 24 years ago. In fact I’m not the same person I was last week. Last week I was gathered with my Interweave friends and that always changes me. Yes one could say that because God is outside of time and space He knew where I’d be and how I’d been today but He did also give me free will to get to here as I chose. And I’m not sure if “here” is where He really wanted me or whether we are both just working with the material on offer at the moment 🙂

So the idea that God takes millennia to get the earth to how it is now, and He hasn’t just done it Himself. He has let Mankind be involved too. My view out my window and on my walks is a mixture of God and man working in tandem. I was going to say harmony but I don’t think that is always the case. As I’ve posted before this view is different to what it was and in a few years it will be different again – maybe. painting_the_earth

So my point today is to say please let us stop doing either/or but yes and. Let us see God in creation and creation in God. And also realise God is in this for long haul not a quick picture.