Aberlleiniog Castle, Anglesey. Photographed by myself October 2024
I am not going to attempt to unpack the story about Jesus cursing the fig tree [Mark 11:11-25] though too often it has been used to say that we should be fruitful in all seasons. Well just is daft.
The trees in this picture are coming to the end of their fruitful season. There berries are being eaten by birds and other wildlife, their seeds falling to the ground either to be stored by squirrels or to maybe grow into new trees. They will soon lie fallow with no leaves and nothing much going on that we can see. Though as we all know a lot goes on with both ourselves and wildlife when it looks as if we’re sleeping. Then the spring will come and leaves will slowly appear and soon the trees will be covered in leaves and flowers or catkins or something that attracts the pollinators. They are still not fruitful. It is a very short period in a tree’s life cycle when it is fruitful.
So if The Creator of The Universe made the natural world like that why on earth do we, in our busy 21st Century minds, think we should be fruitful 24-7-365? Surely The Creator intends for us to have fruitful periods and fallow periods, periods of rest and periods of growth? Isn’t that what being “natural” looks like? And I don’t know about you but I would like to look as natural as possible.
But to be natural we need to be like the trees and plants and animals and be in touch with our bodies and what they are asking of us. And because we are human beings too we need to be in touch with our hearts and be able to hear what they are saying without all the dross of “shoulds” and “oughts” of upbringing and culture.
So let us all be brave and be restful when we should be, bursting with new growth when we should be, and then, I think when it is time of us to be fruitful we can be totally committed to being fruitful because we’ve done the rest and the new growth we were meant to do beforehand.
This dog totally believe he is good, where he is is good and life is just good, especially if I am with him. Photographed by myself at Newborough beach, Anglesey October 2024
Renly believes that wherever I am is good and that he is good and that life is good. Did you know God is omnipresent which means God is with us all the time? So surely we could then at least believe that we are good – very good.
So Genesis 1:31 says God made humankind and said humankind is good; very satisfactory, our best, pleasant, interesting, better than anything else we’ve made. [paraphrase]
very satisfactory, pleasant, interesting, better, best
But do we believe it? Do we even get taught it in many of the churches we’ve been to? Too often we get taught that we are sinful, that unless we accept Jesus [whatever that might really means] we are condemned to eternal damnation, and need to repent.
I will go back to the whole idea that sin is just missing God’s mark, which we all do, but isn’t about not being made good.
Sometimes, I think, good can appear a bit of a weak word. A bit like nice. A word that is used more when things are not bad but not great, which is why I’ve added in the Cambridge Dictionary definition.
I think God looks at us and when they say good they mean more on the amazing side of ok than the “just got through” side. How about if we looked at that verse and realised that when God says good it means that we are pleasant, interesting, very satisfactory, the best for the Creator of The Universe to want to hang out with. And not just when God first made Adam and Eve but when God made each and every one of us!
But too often we get caught with the things we’ve done wrong, the hurts we’ve endured, the traumas we’ve picked up, the intergenerational stuff that hasn’t been cleared, and we look at ourselves through all this hard outer shell stuff and we forget that we were made good.
I also think it is this hard outer shell that can make us do horrid hurtful things to ourselves and to others.
I think the amazing thing about healing and learning to trust and hang out with God – whether this is through QEC, Sozo, Freedom in Christ, other trauma healing stuff from wherever, hanging out with friends who see through our hard shell and enjoy being with us, or even a phrase or sentence that slides into our hearts and chips away at that shell – is that we do see that shell for what it is; something that kept us safe from stuff that was going on around us but it is not us. And we will be safer without it.
So as we see the shell for what it is and even get to chip away at it we learn to see ourselves as was originally intended; without the “good/bad” judgements we and others place on us; without those epigenetic tags our ancestors and ourselves picked up; without the mistakes we have made. We start to see ourselves as good, very satisfactory, interesting, pleasant to be with, the best.
And I for one think that if the Creator of the Universe thinks I am good then who am I to argue????
I’ve been staying in County Durham, UK for a few days helping friends clear out their loft as they prepare to move. It also meant staying with my little dog’s bestest friend ever. These two dogs have loved each other since they were puppies. Even if they go over a year without seeing each other they greet each other like long lost friends and just want to hang out together. This does mean that they want to get up early to be together all day so for four mornings I was getting a gentle knock on the door by Djola asking if Renly could come out to play. Of course I indulged and we were walking at 6am most mornings.
Well one morning we were walking down the path when I could hear mooing. A load of bullocks/heifers/young cows had broken out of their field and were moodling about in the wood beneath the path. Some were starting to attempt the climb up from the woods to the path we were on. Anyway I prayed and asked God is they could sort out these cows so it was safe for us when we came back.
Half an hour later we’re on our return journey and 5 cows, one a very large black one, were on the path. So I prayed again! As I walked back towards the village the cows stayed in front of us. I was concerned because I was walking them towards the village and the road. But I also had two dogs with me, and because the footpath is right by my friend’s house I didn’t have leads for either dog!
So I’m praying but also doing what may of us often do when we pray, thinking through solutions that I could do. Interesting how we do that – say we are handing problems to the God who created the WHOLE Universe but then spend lots of headspace and energy trying to think what we could do. Not really handing it over, is it?
The cows are almost at the turning to the track behind my friend’s house when this man appears round the corner with his dog and phone to his ear. He starts to herd the cows back in my direction. I grab both dogs so none of the animals, cows or dogs, get spooked. The cows give us a wide berth and skitter back to where they came from.
The man says “I’ve just phoned the farmer” and we have a chat about cows and that they all seem to be out and he says they’ve probably broken down the fence again.
When we went out in the afternoon for a walk there was no sign of the cows. Problem fully sorted. That local man and his phone were the answers to my prayers.
Simple.
Hopefully that will help me learn to let go totally when I do pray, not hold on a wee bit and see what I can do, and allow God to find the answers as they know best.
The dog with my daughter and her boyfriend with me in his sights. For Renly this is truly something to be wonderfully thankful for. Photographed by myself August 2024
Another one for me to ponder from our Upper Room gathering.
We cover so much in these times on a Friday that I’m sure God makes the time stand still. So we moved on from freedom to Gratitude, which is a big thing in self-care circles. One of our number had been told she needed to do more self-care – which to be perfectly honest I feel is a bit of waste of time if you haven’t started on the healing of childhood traumas and ways of surviving that are buried deep in the subconscious. Self-care has the potential to become just another thing to please, to survive and often to feel a failure at.
So as Christians on that healing journey with God what does it mean to “give thanks in all situations”? [1 Thessalonians 5:18]
For one I don’t think it means to say thank you God for my shitty situation, for someone still being sick, for always having to step in to help my children/grandchildren/spouse/friends/my community/the world, for someone dying horribly, for not having enough money, for seeing those you love not coping, …. [fill in your own], etc, etc, etc.
I think God wants us to cling to God in the hardness of our lives and the times when things are sad, upsetting, down right awful, but I don’t think they want us to thank them for that situation. I don’t think they want us to be all pie-in-the-sky-God’s-in-control about it all.
But what came out of the discussion was to be able to acknowledge God in the situation, to talk to God in the situation, to know that you are not alone in all this but that the Creator of the Universe is right-by you holding you through all of it, to allow you to rant and rage and cry and doubt, but at all times keep talking to them. It is to say thank you that within all this mess the Creator of the Universe loves you unconditionally, and loves all those who are involved whether they are doing harmful hurtful things or victims of their circumstances or whatever.
So now when I wake I thank God that I’m awake and have another day before me to walk through. And when I go to sleep I thank God that I’ve made it through another day even if I’ve made mistakes, been hurt, hurt others, and found things tough or easy, fun or hard. I have had the gift of life that I have been able to walk through with my Creator. And that to me is more than enough to say Thank you for, even if things haven’t worked out as I’d have liked, even if people I love had still died, are still struggling, are distant, or whatever.
To me it is the honour of walking through another day with The Creator God by my side.
I keep writing and rewriting this post, which is why it has taken a long time. Sometimes posts just fly out of me and other times they struggle. One of the things is that at times I think about who I’m writing to and then almost contain the words that I don’t think would fit that person, which seems a very interesting revelation to myself when I am wanting to write a post about being really free.
So yesterday I got myself a can of Dr Pepper and sat in a cafe looking out the window with pen in hand and waited to see what happened. And here are my thoughts
True freedom is about going with flow and not worry about what other people think.
True freedom is not about achieving or ambition or even having stuff.
True freedom is about being content in your own skin and knowing that what you’ve done is what you’ve done.
True freedom is not about being a success or about succeeding in a world that is always changing its boundaries, goal posts and rules of the race.
True freedom is about not caring what the race is or what the imposed boundaries are.
True freedom is not caring about what other people think so they will love you.
True freedom is not caring about who takes the credit for the success that happen with or around you.
Not caring is not the same as not loving especially if the love comes with strings attached.
True freedom is
Finally able to
Receive
Everything
Envy-free
Devoid of the ties
Of other people’s [and your own]
Motives and expectations
And, I believe, True Freedom can only be obtained when one loves oneself unconditionally and when one knows one is loved unconditionally – especially when one knows that unconditional love comes from the Creator of the Universe/The Universe. But I also think one will struggle to receive that love unless one loves oneself unconditionally and stops comparing oneself to others.
River walk at St Asaph. Photographed by myself April 2024
The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
Psalm 23:1-2a
If I was being good and doing things in chronological order this one should be part 2 but hey ho! This is how I do things. Like I say I don’t promise to even do the whole Psalm but you never know. I am learning to be me more and more and more.
When we were talking about this at our house group last Friday one of my friends said something along the lines of “God leads us, we just have to follow. We don’t have to go hunting for our own food stuff“.
How often have we stressed and pondered and angst to know where to go and what to do when all along we just needed to stop, listen to God’s voice – which we are promised as his sheep we will hear [John 10:27] – but how often do we stop and listen to that voice? How often do we think we know best? Or that we don’t really hear that voice?
Perhaps we don’t trust that God cares enough about us, that we aren’t loved unconditionally. That’s a lie of the enemy! God loves each and everyone of us unconditionally and knows what is best of us. God knows where the best grass for me is – hence quite forcefully nudging me to put a very vulnerable prayer request on a WhatsApp prayer group I’m part of. But God knows that will help me as much by articulating it in WhatsApp as getting my dear friends to pray about it.
My lush fulfilling grass and yours or someone else’s won’t be the same because even though we are compared to sheep we aren’t really. We are uniquely made human beings with different personalities, different needs, different past hurts, different expectations, different skills. But all of us need to stop angsting and start trusting that the Creator of the Universe wants to lead us to the best grass for our needs because God is our parent, our carer, our maker, and our friend and wants to best for each and everyone of us no matter what circumstance we are in.
So just
STOP/WAIT
LISTEN
TRUST
and believe the Good Shepherd knows what is best for you.
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!
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.
Since doing QEC I have come to realise that it is the things you do regularly that become your lifestyle and it is what you choose to be healed of that helps that lifestyle. Also sometimes, I believe, you hold on to things because actually you quite like them – whether that be a way of looking at life or what you do.
The apostle Paul says about “praying continuously” [1 Thess 5:17] and I remember thinking how that must be impossible. That was because I saw prayer as something set apart, as being something one does with ones eyes closed. But once I worked out that prayer is just a jargon word for chatting with God/being with God I realised I could do this all the time. It has become my lifestyle to know that God is with me all the time and that I can talk with them or not as I feel. And sometimes it is things like “did you just read that text/email/hear that conversation with X? Can we focus on that a wee bit? Can you work with that?” type of conversation. But actually that is no different to conversations with friends, family, spouse, where we can be together talking or not talking and then the conversations veers towards something specific. Same thing.
So one part of my lifestyle is to know that God is with me all the time.
Another part is that I am working on the whole thing of The Lord’s Prayer and specifically the “daily bread” and the “forgiving self and others” parts. So when I feel myself getting anxious or into planning mode I breath, bring my autonomic nervous system back into regulation, and remind myself that what I really need for today will be there. Ok yes I forget but I am working on it.
I’m also after an argument or a time when I’ve done something wrong/upsetting/not right or when someone has done that to me I forgive myself and them. This clears the slate for me to carry on.
As my desk diary says for June “Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today” For me that works by forgiving myself and others and by knowing my daily needs will be met.
Another thing that is not a chore/a job to be done is the ANSing. The getting my autonomic nervous system into regulation and balance whenever it flips out. And let me tell you once you get aware of this it happens quite often. Before discovering this whole ANS thing when I felt anxious/fight/flight/freeze/fawn/angry/etc I used to try to do an analysis of what was wrong, what was upsetting me, who had said what and why – very much looking with my logical mind. The more I’ve done with QEC the more I’ve come to realise that some of it I might never know. I might have been a gesture, a smell, a taste, a word, that set off a memory buried in my subconscious that made my adrenalin race and it was so buried that I would never find out why. Or I was just overtired or hungry or both. Very often I would finish up either blaming myself for losing it or blaming the other person for upsetting me. But now my lifestyle choice is to ANS, forgive and let it go.
I am not perfect and I do forget. But what I’ve realised are these are not “things I ought to do to make me a better person” but things I chose to do and how I want my life to be.
My QEC practitioner talks a lot about self-help books and how she sees them as not helpful because there is a lot of psyching someone’s self up to “be a better person” and I agree. But also I think if in reading these books one picks up something that one chooses to become a natural lifestyle choice, not something you feel you “have to” do [remember I am against have tos and ought tos and should dos], then go for it.
I journal because it frees my mind. Although I used to journal to figure things out. Once I let myself run free then it was just another way to get my ANS into balance.
So for me ANSing, forgiving, believing God/The Universe will supply what they know I need daily, and allowing myself to be in a place of constant communication with God/The Universe is not something I have to do but something I just do. It is as much a lifestyle choice as walking my dog, drinking beer in the sunshine and hanging out with my friends. All of which keep me sane and at peace with the world. But also I think it only works when one does it as an “enjoy doing” rather than a “have to”.
Taken from a private FB group I’m part, which is where the idea for this and the previous 2 blog post emerged from
I was hoping to say this post is, a sort of conclusion, a sort of answer if we are brave enough to do it, to the issues in the previous two posts, but as it has progressed I realise there has to be at least one more post.
One of the major reasons we finish up in jobs we’re not happy in, whether high paid or low paid, going too often for the miserable but respectable position is because we listen too often to the voices of others, even if that is not conscious. We want to fit in so we go for something that will “use our brains”, make our parents happy, earn us “enough” money which will lead to a “nice” house, lots of leisure time during which we will too often continue the patter of doing things that are subconsciously put on us by external voices. Yet in all this we are being logical. We are looking at things with logical eyes. We are not listening calmly and quietly to our hearts. In fact we shut our hearts out and then wonder why we see increases in depression, anxiety, and various other things.
Interestingly the person I mentioned in the 1st of these three posts has quit the job that was making her miserable, is now doing a selection of other jobs, is happy and is writing again.
Interestingly for myself I’ve just taken on 2 part time jobs, which I felt in my heart were the right things to do. I am back to being as busy as I was before lockdown and yet I am finding that I feel more creative, more able to write within the spaces that there are in my day. Following my heart even though it actually looks a bit full on and illogical has released me to write more than when I was trying to do things that seemed right.
In the last post the question was posed firstly by Gus Seth, then by myself, of how do we over come greed, selfishness and apathy and bring about a spiritual and cultural transformation.
The answer I think is so obvious – let go of trying to figure out things logically. Stop trying to work out how to change the system. Instead find those things that block us from listening to our hearts, be healed/set free of them and just listen. Then I believe we would do the jobs we liked, want to do the things that were needed to keep this world clean and healthy. We would care more for the planet, and each other, because we would be hearing it more. But this takes time
As a Christian I love hanging out with God. But too often in too many denominations to fit in you do have to let go of the magical mystery of God and go with your logical mind to fit in. It is not that you give up your intelligence to truly meet with God but you do have to let go of your logic to really enter into that mystery. As God says in Ezekiel,
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
Ezekiel 36:26
This must be on my mind because I did a post about this only last year which you can read here. Following on from that I think that when one has a heart of stone it is when one is using logic and working out what fit right, what will work properly. But we have to let God/The Universe/our therapy move us from the logical to the vulnerable heart, the fleshy heart, the heart that often doesn’t do the things society expects but in the end changes things by the energy that they release.
I also think this is why people do not rush to go to churches. They do not need another logical, rule based, fitting in with others system. They need a place where they can be free to be their genuine selves, free to fly, free to make mistakes and be picked up after. I could rant away about this for ages, but …
I also think that this freedom from logic and being able to let go of the blockages that hold us back from hearing our hearts is not just for those who meet God/Jesus, but is open to everyone. I also think that those who go to church often have not worked on freeing those blockages.
With all of this there is no logical system that will work, whether in prayer or in anything. There is a hanging out, a trusting, a deep listening, and then a bravery to go outwards into whatever comes next.
Are we willing though to listen to our hearts and not our egos?
Aspirational Adventures 