Tag: God

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Lord's Prayer wisdom youth group

Just Do It

Blurred picture of a white egret in flight over Conwy Beach as the tide recedes on spring day. Photographed by Diane Woodrow
Egret flying over Conwy Beach Saturday 18th March 2023 Photographed by myself

Last Sunday I was leading the discussion for our Church youth group. We are working our way through The Lord’s Prayer. [If you go back through some of my posts you will see I am a bit “into” the Lord’s Prayer] This week’s couplet was “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

As always the young people are much less religious than adults and have reach a point of trust with me and my co-worker so they aren’t saying what they think we want them to say. There were some great things that came out of them about the closeness of God’s kingdom and the ease of doing God’s will.

I will paraphrase one girl but it was the bit that stayed with me. She said something along the lines of “God’s will being about trust and if we trust God then we can just do it, just go out and believe that God will make what we do God’s will.” Basically trust that what we feel in our hearts is God’s will. Too often we get into weighing up and judging and then disbelieving, sitting back, not doing.

Of course there are things we should not do, things we should run by those we love and trust – and that means we do need people in our lives that we can be open with and trust with our dreams, our desires, our hopes. So I suppose firstly we need to build up those people around us.

But at the same time as doing that we need to build up the trust in our own hearts. I am getting more and more to a point where I trust my heart and am aware when I’m not “feeling it”.

With these words of this wise thirteen year old girl in my head and a feeling in my heart that I had a space that needed filling in my day I went on Indeed to job hunt. I wasn’t overly serious because I had set myself quite firm criteria – children/young people and afternoons. Well up popped an job in an after-schools club in my town. I scrolled on past but couldn’t get it out of my head so in the end applied. I’ve got the job. I start next week. But when I was at the trial afternoon I felt my heart settle for being there, felt that it was a safe place that I was going to for the right reasons.

Then yesterday I was telling the vicar I co-run the youth group about the job and about how much this girl’s words had impacted me and I realised that this job was totally of God. It stops me from taking on too many things because I will be tied to work every afternoon but also if I want to write I won’t be able to do much during the day. I do have a couple of commitments but that is ok too.

So I did trust my heart, trust that my heart was hearing God/the Universe’s will for my life and I “just did it” and then it appears that I was given a reassurance that I had done right.

So yes it will be tough fitting everything I want to do in to my morning, and will be odd being committed every afternoon and only have weekends and holidays to roam randomly. But that doesn’t mean it is wrong to do. In fact it all feels very right.

Sometimes we do just have to trust and do it

Photo by Lucas Allmann on Pexels.com
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Champions peace

Champions

I was doing a writing exercise with HerStories, a US group of mid-life women writers, about our Champions. It was an interesting follow on to one that came from one of the workshops about thinking about who you imagine you are writing for. Some of those you imagine are champions but some are negative detractors. We all have voices that we hear from those who often love and care for us but who tell us writing isn’t a “proper job”, is a “nice little hobby”, and even with life about how that “oh that’s nice dear” can sound so condescending.

This lovely friend was one of my champions and of course is sorely missed. I have a couple of other friends who have died who used to root for me. But it is easy to miss things too. I was talking with my husband saying I had applied for a part time job and his first response was “make sure you still have time for your writing”. Sometimes with a comment like that one can see it as a negative; you won’t have time, you are doing too much, etc, etc, etc. But that is that bundle of negative voices hassling around in your head that can miss it so easily. So sometimes we have to listen properly to our champions.

Champions come from all sides but we can miss them so easily. Those that have hurt us at times with a comment but who have changed their ways and really do want to support. But what we remember are those voices of the past and so we are wary of what they might “really mean.”

I think to have good champions in our lives we need to take what is said at face value rather than weigh it with what has been said before.

With my church youth group last night we were looking at what God’s Kingdom was like. And I would say the bottom line from all of them was that it is inside of us and is that place of safety and calm. Yes I know from the QEC work I have been doing and reading about traumas that this is not always easy. But the exciting thing I have realised is that it is deep inside each one of us and we need to unwrap it from the hurt that has been done it to.

So as we slowly unwrap our hardened hearts we can see that we have that place of safety, calm and peace to be our own champions and to hear those encouraging things that people want to say to us. It takes time and it takes wanting to but it will come if we do that work.

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lent social justice

Clean Monday/World Social Justice/Love Your Pet Day

First published on Godspacelight.com on Tuesday 21st February 2023

Renly, my dog, and Max, my granddog, waiting for their breakfast. Photographed by myself December 2022

Due to Godspace’s format on having Christine’s Meditation Monday post on a Monday this has been published on Tuesday 21st February rather than Monday 20th February.

This year World Social Justice Day, National Love Your Pet Day and the Lenten tradition of Clean Monday all happen on the same day. So you can scrub your house clean in preparation for Lent, like spring cleaning but being able to give it a spiritual twist and not feel so fed up about doing it, as you love your pet and ponder social justice. Interesting too that World Social Justice day comes in Black History month. Is it possible to look at Black history without thinking about social justice? Interesting too that Christine suggested “Breaking Down Walls” as the theme for Lent. Perhaps it needs to start beforehand? In fact that isn’t a real question. Of course it should start beforehand. We shouldn’t wait until there is a designated day or month to think about social justice, Black history or even loving our pets.

With Love Your Pet and World Social Justice on the same day I wondered which one more people would focus on. I am suspecting it would be to love your pet. Why? Because that is easy. Our pets give us something back. They love on us too. But social justice? Well that’s a hard one. For a start, what does it mean? And will it give us anything in return? I think too often as human beings in our modern world we expect something in return. I remember when people would come round with a bucket collecting for some charity, but now when you do something for charity – whether a marathon at home, some many push ups, going up in a hot air balloon, walking the Great Wall of China, or whatever – you will get a reward for your efforts to raise that money. You will get something back.

I think of Tyre Nichols and other deaths that happen in the so-called civilized world. I wonder if those policemen love their pets. A bit of me thinks they probably do. Are they bad men? Well they did a bad thing, but if we are going to think about World Social Justice should we be looking at people like them too? Or is it easier to say they are evil and don’t deserve any justice? What would Jesus do?

I’m sure on this day if Jesus was walking in our world he would not have trouble choosing. But then I don’t think Jesus would need a specific day to think about Social Justice, loving a pet or even having stuff in his house that needed cleaning out.

Is the “Clean house” at the start of Lent more of a metaphor for something spiritual as well being a physical thing? I wonder if it is about cleaning out ourselves so that during the season of Lent we aren’t just going through the motions of reading devotions dedicated to the season, going to services, and fasting, but our “houses/hearts” are already cleaned so we can understand what Lent is all about and get close to God, and so when the Crucifixion and Resurrection come our hearts are in a place to fully receive all that is offered in both those amazing events.

If we took seriously the “clean house/heart” and  stepped into this Lent season and the fullness of what Jesus has done for us then we would not need a specific day to think about World Social Justice because it would be at the forefront of not just our minds but our actions every single day.

And I do think maybe having a National Love Your Pet day is really unnecessary because most of us with pets love them each and every single day much more than we care about many other things.

Perhaps someone should do a “Love people not of your social group more than you love your pets” day?

So today as we have all these things to think about, where will your focus be? Social Justice and how you can be more involved with that? Spring cleaning your house? Spring cleaning your heart? Or loving on your dog, cat, bird, rabbit, etc? Will you pick the easy one or the hard one? Or is it possible to do them all?

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Clean Monday lent

Clean Monday

Pondering walk by the river in the sunshine

Today is Clean Monday which Christine Sine explores a bit of in her post Meditation Monday for today. This is a festival in the Christian Orthodox Church, a public holiday in Greece, for people to prepare for Lent.

In the Western Protestant Church we often wait until we are in the 40 days of Lent which starts on Wednesday with Ash Wednesday, before we start the business of trying to find time to set our hearts towards God. I like the idea of having whole day beforehand, before even Shrove Tuesday, which was the day for eating the last of the winter’s rich foods before the Lenten fast. So even before celebrating and preparing the Orthodox Church was clearing out.

I like the idea of clearing out firstly before celebrating and feasting and then moving into fasting and connecting. For me this means keeping my heart right and working on the whole forgiveness things, the whole “clean hands and clean heart” and of creeping closer to God in the way that works for me.

In Christine’s blog she says that “because Orthodox celebrations still follow the Julian calendar rather than the Georgian calendar we are familiar with, this year Clean Monday is on February 27th as Eastern Orthodox Ash Wednesday is March 1st.”

I rather like that Clean Monday comes on 27th February. That is the day of my friend’s funeral. It feels, for me, like that will be a time to clear out some stuff inside of me to do with her, to do with what she represented in my life, and move onwards in a different way.

With all the friends I have each fill a different niche, each have different “functions” in my life. For my friend Tessa that we cremate next Monday the part she filled in my life cannot be filled by another and that’s ok. I have been feeling over the last week that what she filled doesn’t need filling any more, that even before she died the time had come for me not to have that need in my life. But now that she has really gone I have been having to clear out that need. So for me, with my heart, I think Monday 27th will definitely be a Clean Monday for me.

[Watch out for another post tomorrow about Clean Monday which is being posted on http://www.godspacelight.com and I will put up on here]

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Not Easy simple

Simple Christianity

Renly on a beach walk. Photographed by myself on a lovely January day in 2023

Always if I want to write about something simple I will put a photograph of my dog in. This is because, as you’ve seen from other posts, he has a simple view of life. His biggest decision he had to make this morning was whether he ran across the park to get a treat from someone he knew or not. In the end he decided it was a bit too far for just a small treat. But he appeared content with his decision.

Anyway I’ve not been to church for a long, long time. I try church on and off and then find that it all gets too much for me. I can’t do it. That doesn’t mean that I don’t hang out with God, don’t ponder the whole faith things – again as you will have noticed in these posts. But it is the complexity of the whole church thing I find hard work. [Interestingly I was reading a post on Facebook this morning that asked if maybe we knew too much and that from reading ALL the letters in the Bible we knew things that were never meant for us. An interesting thought. Perhaps we should only ever read the gospels and talk to God??]

So yesterday I was pondering, praying and planning for the series I want to start with the youth group I co-lead looking at The Lord’s Prayer so that the young people see The Lord’s Prayer as a template and not something you rattle through as fast as possible. [If you look back through my posts or search “Lords Prayer” you’ll see I’ve looked at a lot of this before] What struck me was the simplicity of it all.

Basic tenant – you have to believe in something not just bigger but beyond your understanding who created the WHOLE universe and also not only cares for you but loves you unconditionally just as you are. You are loved unconditionally by the Creator of the Universe. This Awesome Creator gives you everything you need each and every day for whatever situation you are. Not what you think you need or think you ought to have but the simplicity of what you need. But also you have to believe that what you get is what something/someone greater than you knows to be right.

I think that’s why Jesus said we were to say “Abba Father” because a good parent knows their children’s needs, especially when that child is under 10. Remember too that in Jesus’s culture children were moving into adulthood from their early teens and being expected to make their own way in their world, not as we treat children!

So this Amazing Creator thinks we are awesome just as we are and loves us just as we are. But we will make mistakes. The Creator knows that and doesn’t love us any less for it. Though we can love/like ourselves less when we make mistakes and not believe we are loved unconditionally just as we are. This, I believe, is why we have to forgive regularly. I have to forgive myself for each time I mess up, each time I lose it, each time I am fearful, each time I just don’t live up to who I truly am, etc, etc. And for me if I know that My Creator loves me unconditionally even when I screw up it is so much easier to forgive myself.

But then comes the hard bit – or at least I find this bit harder – I then have to forgive others. I am working on this and it is an ongoing process. But I also think it is why Jesus told Peter to forgive 70×7 or whatever the sum was. Because it is an ongoing thing not just for different offenses but often for the same offense. But if I believe am loved unconditionally then so is the person that hurt me. If I can be forgiven then so can the person who hurt me.

Just the other day I got hurt really badly. It hit on an old wound and reopened it. I wanted to lick it for a while. Instead I took this hurt to God and was reminded that I was going to be doing this whole Lord’s Prayer thing with these young people and I realised I need to forgive. It wasn’t easy because the person couldn’t see what they had done wrong. They felt justified in what they had said and done. But that didn’t matter. I still have to forgive. I had to let go.

I noticed I hadn’t forgiven when I was writing an email to someone and started to put my moans into it. Thank goodness I didn’t press send because I was able to delete it all and write something more uplifting.

No where though in this forgiveness process have I felt some heavy hand telling me I “Must“. It has been a gentle thing inside of me. I often wonder if because we are made in God’s image then there is a part of God inside of each and every one of us. And I do wonder if prayer is as much tapping into that as it is speaking to something outside of ourselves.

So Simple Christianity – I am loved unconditionally just the way I am, I can ask and receive what I need each and every day, I can be forgiven each and every moment of every day once I realise I’ve screwed up, BUT I need to let that flow outwards to others,, which means I have to love them unconditionally and be willing to forgive them every moment they do something that hurts me.

SIMPLE BUT NOT EASY

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end times joy of the Lord

I Wonder What God Thinks

My dog, Renly, enjoying the sunshine by the river Wednesday 8th Feb 2023. Photographed by myself

This is in response to the post “Is The World Broken?”

I did not want to put what I thought God and the Bible had to say with the last post because it seemed to have got a bit longer than I had expected. Also I’m not sure I know. I just wrote a long post that I have deleted because I really do not know what God thinks. I have read lots of stuff about what people think God thinks but to honest I don’t know.

I don’t know why people die young, why there is suffering, etc etc, etc, but I do know that “God so loved ALL the world that …..” John 3:16. God didn’t just love bits of the world/some of the world/those who are good but God loved ALL the world, every last little bit of it.

I also think there is so much more good going on – not just the Small Kindnesses poem – but huge stuff. The UK is in a major recession, people are worrying about food and energy bills, but they are still giving money to relief agencies – whether for the ongoing issues in Ukraine, to the latest disaster in Turkey/Syria, to the ongoing food banks. People are giving. People are going out there.

I read about a diver who gave his time for free to try to find the dog walker who has disappeared. And you know what if he did get free publicity for it good I think. And he still did the week’s free searching, so not exactly free publicity!!!

I’ve know of a friend of a friend who risks his life driving his truck to places I’ve never heard of to give aid or many kinds to people that the media has forgotten about. But he hasn’t.

I read about people working tirelessly in homeless shelters, in rehabs, in youth initiatives. People who are working from one lot of funding to the other, never being sure if this project will continue or not, but still giving it their all.

Not everyone doing these large acts of kindnesses are saying they are doing it as a response to what God is telling them but I do think this is the antidote to the “wars and rumours of wars”.

In Matthew 24 where that shortened quote comes from Jesus talks of being careful not to be deceived. I think the person in the park who said about wondering if humanity had run its course is allowing herself to be deceived. Not intentionally but through power of the media who too often seem to see it as their job to rob us of our joy, of our security; whose role seems to be to “seek and destroy” any goodness that goes on; to leave people living in fear.

I have a friend who was raped who is now afraid of every single man she sees, understandably I think. But I think too often that is what has happened to those who read the papers or watch the news.

So what is God’s response do I think. I think it is peace and joy even in the midst of the chaos.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid

John 14:7

The joy of the Lord is your strength

Nehemiah 8:10
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angels gender

Does The Gender of Angels Matter?

Take at sunrise on the Hill of Tara St Patrick’s day 2016. A sun angel

My lovely young youth group and I were looking at Angels in the Bible the other Sunday evening and wondering about what gender they were or if they were any gender at all.

The story of when the angels visit Lot in Sodom and Gomorrah, which is often used as one of the key stories to condemn homosexuality doesn’t make sense when looked at regarding gender. So the angels turn up, the men of the town want to have sex with them, Lot is says No but then offers his daughters. Now surely if these men of the town were homosexual being offered women wouldn’t quite hit the mark for them. So I wondered if this story was being used out of context, like too often happens???

The vicar who supports me with this youth group said that he thought that the original languages didn’t have genders and that these came in with Latin translations. But he couldn’t remember for sure.

The two things that struck me were that

One we are now obsessed with gender with there being numerous different gender types that people can identify with. Is this a throw back to things like this? Things like when it was important for spiritual beings like Angels and God to be defined by a gender, by a certain sex?

Two that biblical angels were powerful, strong, mighty warriors, faithful messengers, obedient. All traits that are often associated with men. Not so long back women were seen as weak, easily manipulated, unfaithful, disobedient, needing protection.

So I do wonder if those in the Church who wanted power made sure that all the traits to aspire to were “male”, so both Angels and God had to be male. Also I do wonder if our obsession with the myriad of different genders is because we are searching to get back to that place where people were people and gender didn’t matter, but because there is such a strong emphasis on the male/female divide that for now there has to be these other things to identify with.

Imagine if we didn’t care about gender, if we just let people be as they are – strong/weak, faithful/unfaithful, able to protect/needing protection, etc etc. What would it be like if no one worried if you were male, female, trans, queer, asexual, and more? I wonder if we could all live much more at peace with ourselves then too.

So reread some of those stories and try not to see the Angels as male and see how you get on

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2020 vision strikes

Strikes Take Planning

https://www.nationalworld.com/news/uk/strike-uk-winter-updating-list-dates-royal-mail-rmt-nhs-3926988

I didn’t realise how much work goes into organising strike action. A friend of mine is a teacher and she, along with her colleagues, has spent a lot of time working out how to make this strike both noticeable but also so that the pupils don’t suffer too much. It turns out this is what happens with all those who are striking, they all work hard to make sure there is maximum notice with minimum harm to those they chose to serve. And the problem is that the media is not reporting this. They are only reporting the disruptions and those who are complaining.

But unfortunately most people only find out about things from the snippet of news they read or hear. Then they moan about what is going on. And this means that once again the government has won.

I support the strikes that are going on in Britain totally. I think systems in this country are falling apart. And if one listens properly to those striking it is not just about a decent wage but about better conditions for not just the workers but those they serve.

Interestingly back in January 2020 I wrote a piece, along with many others about gaining 2020 vision. I believe this is part of this. These things that are being highlighted have been issues for way too long. Covid got in the way and sidelined things a bit, but a lot of the problems were there long beforehand. Lockdowns have just exasperated things.

I really believe we are getting what we prayed for, but we need to sit down, listen quietly to God and not just restart or even refresh things, but tear them down and start again. There needs to be leaders in place who are willing to do that and I believe that the leaders we have, again are what the public wanted, but they are not strong enough to “rip it up and start again”.

So for me I am going to take a breath. I am going to prayer for open heavens. I am going to ask God to raise up brave leaders who are willing to go against the media, against the status quo and be willing to really make a vision for the future that works for all. Not just tag something on to what is already here.

I am going to try to spend time asking God what the vision they see for our world is and then I am going try to pray and dream a brave new world [not of the Huxley type] into being. If we could all connect to something that benefits all then that would be totally amazing.

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death Worst

The Worst Illness

Tessa at Weymouth beach, October 2022, photographed by me

I haven’t posted for 10 days because I have been down South visiting this friend here who is in her last days now of cancer. She is more than ready to go and is just waiting. I’ve also been staying with my Mum and her husband. Mum is 83 and her husband is 88 and has Parkinsons and is moving into early dementia. Mum is his chief carer.

I’ve had a few dear messages from people regarding my friend, most of which saying a version of “cancer is the worst”. Then I talk with my mum who is deal with deterioration of her husband and has seen other friends lose husbands to dementia and she is saying a version of “dementia is the worst”.

I think if we worked on it we could all come up with a way of seeing a friend or family member die as being “the worst”. Those poor people who got shot at that Chinese new year party in LA might be thinking that’s the worst.

But from watching my friend who is dying well I would say the worst way to die is to not be prepared and to fighting it all the way. My friend is at such peace, as is her husband and her son, and so that radiates on to the rest of us. She is calmly saying goodbye, tidying up her possessions, doing what she can and sleeping a lot. She isn’t of any faith at all but she has made her peace with the world and is ready to go.

Of course I am going to be sad when she goes but she has set me a good example, in her life as in her death. I don’t know when my time will come, though I am planning to make it as near to 100 as I can get. But when my time comes, whether it is slowly like cancer, quickly like a bullet, or many of the ways in-between, I want to meet it with peace, with knowing that all will be well, knowing that my estate is in order, that I hold no grudges, that I am at peace.

So I would say the worst death is the death you aren’t ready for whatever that is, which is also why I think we should keep short accounts, try not to hold on to anger and resentment, try not to spend our time going over our past and wonder what we could have done differently,trying not to put too much hope in the future, and just be our kind, open and naturally authentic selves.

And for myself to keep as close to the God of Creation as well as I can.

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time trust

Time Poor?

This photograph of my dog has no relevance to this post – apart from him never being time poor or time rich – but it for one of my readers who told me how much she loves my posts but especially the ones with photos of Renly, who she knows personally!

I was a meeting the other night and there were people there who kept saying they were “time poor“. I had heard the expression before but not really engaged with it. I think what they meant was they were doing lots of things and so were busy.

I response in my head in the meeting was to think that maybe they should be thinking about what they are meant to be doing and asking their hearts if this was what they should be doing. And then my next thing was to want to boast and say that “now I’m healed/healing I am time rich“. But then I realised that both those responses are wrong. I am comparing and being proud. Neither of which is being respectful to the people I was with who are working really hard for my little town.

As I pondered it and did some journaling around my thoughts I realised I often panic that I don’t have time to do things and that this is what is stopping me getting some work that I should have because I’d be great at it. But I am also worried that I won’t have that allusive “enough” time to do all I think I ought to be doing. So in reality I was no better. I still think I could be “time poor“.

So more listening to my heart, listening to God who Created the Whole Universe, listening to the Universe. Then I realised that if I listen to my heart then I do have enough to do each day the things I am meant to do each day – whether that is keep house, run workshops, visit an ill friend down south to relieve her husband, see my mother, have coffee with my friends, be in school to do the things I am great at doing there. I will do what I am meant to do with the energy and time I need to all that.

So not “enough” as in the worrying that there isn’t enough but trusting that each and every day what I choose to do from listening to my heart will be what I am meant to do, and that I will not do too much or too little, will not be too busy, too time poor, but will glide through calmly knowing that I am being what I’m meant to be with enough time, energy, resources, experience, etc that I need. And then like my little dog I can enjoy the moment, seize the day, and live life to the full of who I am and what I love to do.

An aside – too often we see “living life to the full” as being super busy, but I am finding that the more I listen to my heart, to God, to the Universe, the more I am filled with deep joy, deep contentment, deep peace and a freedom to trust, the more I know that I am living life to a fullness that I never had when I was busy.