Distractions – Aspirational Adventures

Single focus dog. Photographed by myself Cardiff April 2024

This week I have been distracted by many things. I’ve got 3 workshops I am running with funding from Creu Conwy which seemed to have taken ages to finalise but now are imminent. The first two are next week! Also they are in the evening – one from 5-7pm and the other from 6-8pm, times when I am usually in that downward curve energy-wise and just want to mooch about and watch TV. Though I have had a few nights where I have been functioning after my 6pm deadline – once with a new churchy-style group that we’ve started in my house and a couple of trips to the cinema with hubby. But I’m panicking about these workshops because I will have to be the one who is fully alert.

It has amazed me how quickly I get distracted. I’m also doing an online writing course which is great but again is making me worry about that old adage of “not having enough time”. How many times have I written about not having enough. Perhaps I need to be reading my writings not just writing them??

But it also means that, even though I have been reading my Bible meditations and thinking I’ve not been thinking deeply. Not letting things penetrate into my heart.

This week’s Henri Nouwen thoughts are about Celebrating and how one needs to be in that moment to really celebrate, how lots of what and when we celebrate is a going through the motions rather than actually celebrating. So the event is something that sits between the stress of planning and the anticlimax after the event, but that celebration should be a lifestyle thing. I need to remember that I am to enjoy running these workshops and not just caught up in the preparation and then the feedback.

So once again I am like Martha [Luke 10:38-42] where Jesus says “Martha you are worried about many thing but the better thing is to sit at my feet like your sister“.

I was worrying about things. Ok not little things. These things are quite big – running these writing workshops, not being too exhausted because of the time I am doing them, getting the work handed in for the writing workshop I have paid for, and the having enough sleep, time, ability!

Interestingly the other night I was awake worrying about, of all things, having enough energy and enough time, exasperated by being awake from 3.30-5.30am. I had a full day in front of me and a long list of planning not just for the workshop but other things that I had to do. But, as you’ve probably already guessed, I got everything that needed to be done on the list completed and even managed to stay up till 10pm with my husband watching TV as well has having walked my 10,000+ steps. It was as if God was saying “look you can do it. All will be well”.

Also I do know I have the ability to run these workshops. I do an amazing job every Tuesday fortnight with my regular group and can pull things from the depths of my brain when needed. I know I can do it but I get distracted and once I get distracted I move away from God and also move away from celebrating the joys of being alive.

As I’ve said before though, there is an order for how this comes about. To really be able to feel I have enough I need to be at Peace. From that place of Peace comes a deep Joy and only then do I believe I have Enough. And what has gone on this week is that I had to realign my autonomic nervous system back to a place of peace – which does just take a few moments of breathing and looking at the window, of remembering what I have to be grateful for, and forgiving myself and others. For me going through the Lord’s Prayer but an Aramaic translation, helps me.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/88875792626618323/

Only then do I start to remember that deeper joy that is a bedrock not a happy feeling. And it is then that I feel like I have enough. Today it means I can say “I have enough time to do a blog post – with many pictures – before going away for the weekend even though my first workshop is Tuesday”.

My whole thoughts have been consumed by these workshops to the point where a friend asked me for coffee and I said I was too busy!!! And also nearly didn’t go south with my husband to see his Mum which has now turned out to be a trip to see my Mum too. Goodness me! Fancy me thinking I don’t have enough time to see family or friends! As well as the Lord’s Prayer I did have to have a chat with my covid-bird to be reminded that friends and cups of tea are important.

Picture first shared on Relearning June 2023

Thoughts on Martha’s Worries

Small dog with concerns about being in the water but needing to cool off. Llanfairfechan, Conwy. Photographed by myself Sept 2023

When I wrote this I was staying in a Travelodge in Cardiff. On my first night I was woken at 5am by a lorry doing its plaintive “stand well clear this lorry is reversing” cry. Last night I lay awake worrying that I would be woken by said lorry at the same time so hence did not sleep well. Take note I am on the first floor in a locked room with a window that doesn’t open far. No one, apart from maybe Spiderman could get in. And the lorry did not get in the night beforehand either! Also the lorry did not reverse in the early hours of this morning. There was silence until about 7.30am! Well as silent as a city is.

But it got me thinking of the “bigger picture” and our “concerns”

This got me thinking about the story of Martha [Luke 10:38-42] where Jesus says “Martha you are worried about many thing but the better thing is to sit at my feet like your sister“.

We always thinking, or are told by the preacher so it gets into our common belief, that Martha was worrying about the meal she was preparing but I wonder. Often we say things, like Martha did, that are not related to our current situation. I had a row the other day about there not being enough water in the kettle to make a pot of coffee but really what I was saying was something different, or maybe I was just tired. If this Martha was really the one that is the sister of Lazarus, maybe he was sick already and she was worrying about him. When Jesus comes to raise Lazarus from the dead it is Martha who says she knows Jesus is the son of God [John 11:20] . Maybe because Lazarus was sick people had stopped trading with them? Maybe people were shunning them because of the type of illness he had?

Or she could have been worried about the local synagogue. Remember Jesus wasn’t that popular with the authorities. We don’t know how much of Martha’s family’s economic security rested with their place in their community and with the local synagogue leaders. So even though she was pleased that Jesus was at her house with his followers maybe she was also concerned. I wonder sometimes if we get concerned when people notice we are Jesus followers and make assumptions. I had someone the other day say to me that I was religious but he was spiritual and could not get his head round the idea that one could be a Christian and be spiritual. Now that sounds like a piece for another blog around what has gone wrong with the church, with Christians, that people don’t see us as spiritual beings!

I’ve got friends at the moment who are going through some stuff but seem to have taken their eyes off the bigger picture of God. Yes they pray. Yes they ask for prayer. But really they are worrying about the little things. They are worrying rather than trusting. I’m not saying this in a condemning way but I think Martha has much to teach us about how easy it is to lose sight of Jesus in the midst of the God-given ministry and life we have. She managed it with Jesus physicality with her so it is easy for us to do the same when we can’t actually see Jesus.

I think in the midst of everything we have to come back to something I feel that I keep going on about – so I might be talking to myself rather than anyone else. I was the one worried about a lorry outside my hotel – we need to start sitting at the feet of Jesus, at the feet of God, the Creator of the Universe, and we need to just listen and be and stop worry.

What is that verse about tomorrow having enough worries of its own? It isn’t like bad things won’t happen but by sitting at the feet of God we can walk through the things that go on in and around us in peace, contentment and that deep resounding joy.