Tag: letting go

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Holy Week maundy thursday

Maundy Thursday

I don’t believe that Jesus’ “Last Supper”, that final Passover meal where he reveals everything was like DaVinci’s painting.

Leonard Da Vinci’s Last Supper painting – Wikiart

I think it was a much more chaotic affair with families and friends and children and noise. The nearest I could get from my photos was when they did the conga at my son’s wedding back in December 2021. Some people loved it. Others really did not. And I think the goings on at that meal would have been similar. Some would have loved it and some would have not. Maybe they wanted to hear Jesus and someone was chatting. Maybe there were kids charging about as kids can be known to do. Perhaps that was why John was leaning on Jesus chest. Not as a sign of affection but so he could hear properly!!!

I am a bit of a planner, especially when it comes to an occasion. My son and his wife were planning their wedding for nearly a year, and much of that was so they could get the venue they wanted. How many of us on a lovely Sunday lunchtime struggle to find a pub or restaurant that is free because there are only limited spaces and other people have booked in advance?

For me one of the amazing things on this Passover day is that it is only on the actual day that the disciples say “Where do you want us to prepare the Passover meal?”.

Now we know Jerusalem is packed full of people because of the crowds who greeted Jesus on Sunday and then those who shout “Crucify him” later on. This is a big celebration where families come to be together. I’m wondering if the disciples’ families had come to join them too? It would be wrong almost to celebrate this huge occasion in the Jewish calendar away from your loved ones, I think. Also would Jesus have done this big reveal to just the clique of 12 or would he have wanted to include all those people who were not in the chosen 12 but had been following and supporting him for the years of his ministry? So we’re possibly looking for a venue and food for between 13-100 people. But nothing has yet been arranged.

Now as a planner, the one who says to my husband on a Saturday afternoon that if we are thinking of having Sunday lunch out we should book somewhere on said Saturday afternoon, would have struggled not having a place to go. But had everyone got to that point, remembering things like the feeding of the 5000, etc, where they trusted Jesus that he would come through with something.

Perhaps they had learned from the tale of Mary and Martha where Martha is told she is worrying too much about other things, about preparing, when being with Jesus and listening with him is the most important. So they believed by now that Jesus would come through. Trust! Belief!

We don’t know who the two disciples were that finally asked what the plan was for that evening. Though in Luke it says it was Peter and John [Luke 22:7-13]. But when Jesus tell them to “follow a man carrying a water jar” [Mark 14:13] they don’t say “what???” as many of us might do. They trusted and obeyed.

But it is not just his disciples/followers who trust but that of the man who owns the room where they have the Passover meal. We are not told who he is or how he fits into everything [plot hole!!] but whoever he was he had kept his room free for whatever reason when there must have been people clamoring for it. He could also get hold of and prepare enough food for the 13-100 of them that came.

For my son’s wedding we had to give our menu choices about two weeks previous so the hotel could get everything in and prepare it. We were about 35-40 people in total for the main do. And even for the meal with just family before the wedding [about a dozen of us] we still had to have our menu choices in a couple of days early. But on the day Jesus says “yup this is the time and this is where it will be” and everything comes together in time.

I did first think of how long the lamb would take to cook but have you ever made flat breads and salads of bitter herbs? These things are really time consuming – especially if it was for so many people. But it was done and done well. Well enough that Jesus had time to explain what was going to happen next.

For me my “lesson learned” is to not expect to know in advance. The more I’ve gone through healing I’ve realised that having to tightly ordered plan for everything is a control thing that is to do with anxieties from past traumas and so I am learning to let it go, learning to trust the process, learning that if it doesn’t happen then the world won’t end.

I wonder if Jesus’ disciples had reached that point of not having to control things [apart from Judas], of not having to have all their ducks in a row, and had got to a point of believing that Jesus would make things happen as they were meant to happen? And if they didn’t happen then that was ok.

I can only hope and pray that I can move more towards that place so that worries are no longer there. Not that I have to give them to Jesus but that they are just no longer there because I live in a place of knowing that no matter what Jesus has it covered – like those disciples appear to have got to with the Passover meal.

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letting go Slow down

Letting Go

First published on Thursday 22nd February 2024 on Godspace Light – Letting Go

Christine’s post Relinquish, Let Go  and Lily’s post on Jesus going into the wilderness, I think, sit hand in hand. Letting go of things is like going into the wilderness. We’ve got used to what we do and we do it well, so why let go? Some of the reason can be that, like with Christine, new projects call us and there are only so many hours in the day. Some of the reasons are that even though we might have the time and the energy they are not what God has for us. Now that can be a hard one. It’s one I’m going through so I can speak from experience. I was doing a few writing workshops and projects and working with children, which I am also good at and love. In fact I wasn’t doing as much as I used to do in my 40s and I still had the energy to do it, but something was niggling in the back of my head/heart. 

You know that feeling when God’s still small voice is pulling on you. Those things you love are not giving you the joy they used to. You put it down to needing more zinc, hormones being out of sync, partner/children not pulling their weight, seasonal light deficiency. So you change your diet, get a SAD lamp, sort out a chores list for the family, but still something isn’t quite right. 

For me God got fed up of me not listening and it was my 84 year old mother’s health scare that brought things to a grinding halt. No worries she is fine now she’s slowed down a bit and decided she isn’t 30 any more. But the worry of her not being around and me being so busy that I didn’t have time to drive down country for 6 hours to see her. So it caused me to have to rethink things and hold things lightly.

But isn’t it a shame that I didn’t hear that still small voice in my heart that was trying so hard to tell me not necessarily to slow down but that there are things that I was doing that I am not meant to be doing. Interestingly in everything I do now those I work with know that if there is another health scare I will drop everything and just go. And of course, because I’m only doing the things God wants me to everyone I work with is content with that. 

Not just in the “big wide world” but in Church circles there is so often that push to be busy. The question “what have you been up to this week/today?” comes up when you meet. “Where have you been worshipping/serving God?” And if one hasn’t got a full schedule one feels like one could be missing out on some form of service/ministry/doing! Added to that the inner jealousies that other people have “ministries” and you’re just bumbling about drinking tea!

Jesus going into the wilderness just after he’d been baptised and God had affirmed him as his son was not a good PR move. In our fast paced world his “team” would have told him to grab the opportunity immediately because if he didn’t someone else might. But Jesus was secure in not just who he was but in what he was meant to do. 

Did you know that if you acted out the gospels and all the things Jesus did and said in them it would not last that long at all? Jesus had lots of down time, lots of time that was not worth recording in any of the gospels, lots of time just being, not just with God but with his disciples, his friends and even, I think, his family. 

Hanging out not just for the sake of “friendship evangelism” or as a “teaching opportunity” but, I think, he was hanging out to enjoy other people’s company. We can learn so much from hanging out with other people and also find out more about ourselves. We also need quiet time not just for praying, not studying, not reading but just being and letting the world flow past. 

So perhaps we all need some time over this Lenten season to stop, to think about whether the things, whether many or few, are what God really wants us to be doing. And then be brave enough to have gaps in our lives where there is nothing to do!

And I’ll finish with Christine’s poem from Monday’s meditation

Stay close to your inner world,
Travel slowly through the hidden corridors
Of your heart.

Listen quietly not for answers,
But for the questions
Hiding beneath the stress,
Of your uncertainty.
Do not be afraid,
Of what you will uncover,
Of what you might relinquish,
If you become honest
With yourself.

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autumn season

Autumn Tide

Photos from my walk this morning at Betws-y-Coed, a lovely town on the edge of Snowdonia, about 20 miles from my house. Dog and I were walking there at 8am watching the mist lift off the river. Was about 3 degrees with that lovely fresh autumnal/winter feel to it. Not quite a nip but almost. The sort of weather that makes dog walkers smile.

Today looked like it could be the first dry morning of the week so, even though I have quite a few other things to do today I thought I’d drive the 40 minutes to Betws-y-Coed, do the 40 mins walk around the golf course and see the two rivers meet, then go to the Alpine Cafe for breakfast and write some poetry. Renly likes both this walk and this cafe [there is a sausage involved so he gallops around the walk 🙂 ] I felt now that I had stopped working in the nursery/after school club, and Mum is doing ok for now, I thought I’d get back to at least once a week taking myself off to write poetry.

It is very much free writing from what I’ve seen and the photos I feel led to take so there is never a plan.

What came from today’s was all about autumn, understandably. But more about my autumn. Not that “oh I’m in the autumn of my life and the end and winter are coming“. Much more a “this is an autumn season where I need to shed my leaves”

I’ve just googled what goes on with leaves in the winter. [Here’s my take on it so all your biologists and amateur biologists hush!!] As light fades the tree sucks in as much goodness as it can from the leaves because they are no longer photosynthesizing and so they turn all those amazing colours.

So I’ve reached a place where I have been taking a lot of goodness from the projects and work stuff that I’ve been doing over the last few years but that means I need to be looking inside of my “tree-self” a bit more. I need to let those dead leaves go, let those projects and things fall.

But what I noticed as I pondered about walking in mulch and compost was that most of the leaves don’t fall that far from the tree so really the leaves are going full circle and being the compost to help the tree keep going.

I feel I have been fighting this process for a while. Trying to keep going under my own steam instead of letting go. I think I’ve been afraid that if I let everything go then there will be nothing. But in fact all that I’ve done will fall at the “base of my trunk” and so give me sustenance for whatever comes next.

Via QEC, God, and a book called Don’t Believe Everything You Think, I’m doing my best to give all my dreams to God/The Universe and let them bring them to fruition. I know there will be things I have to do but I must only do the things I feel deep in my heart and know to be from God/The Universe. It all comes without striving.

These trees don’t strive. They are just the best trees they can be. They don’t plan the seasons, the winds, the droughts, the floods. They just get on and do their thing.

The walk I did today is one I do every couple of months and today I noticed things I hadn’t seen before, but that was because there were very few leaves on the trees. I was looking through the bare branches and seeing the road, seeing houses, seeing sheep and things. If I am wise, as my leaves fall for this season, I can see other things and who knows what might come from my quietly just being, just really seeing and waiting?

Oh and I took this last photograph because the plant in the foreground has brown and green leaves and red berries too!

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Holy Spirit Limpet

Blown By The Spirit

Photographed by myself, Diane Woodrow, whilst I was walking the dog this morning. It was from here that a poem emerged
Abergwyngregyn nature reserve June 2022

This morning I did my regular walk Abergwyngregyn nature reserve. I do this every couple of weeks. It is close enough to home but far enough away that I don’t see anyone I know. It also has a great dog friendly cafe in the village.

I walked and made notes and something about the limpet shells floated past me so I took some photos of them. Since publishing Inspirations From Walking in North Wales and getting such a positive response from those who bought it at the Abergele Arts Festival last weekend, I have been encouraged to work on a new collection.

So I had a few words and ideas about these limpets. I’ve recently done a QEC session around holding tightly to cliques/groups/tribes who are not good for me. So even though these thoughts were not foremost in my mind because when I do this walk I can just let my thoughts wander these things joined together.

But then what came next was James 3:8 where Jesus says to Nicodemus “The wind blows where it wants, and you hear the sound thereof, but can not tell from where it comes, and where it goes: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.“. This comes after Jesus has told Nicodemus he must be “born again”. It is interesting but I have heard many preaches about being born again but very few of being blown wherever the Holy Spirit wills.

But as I pondered the limpet, the letting go of being in toxic groups and of being blown by the spirit, I came up with this poem

No longer holding tightly just to survive

Letting go was not as painful as you thought.

You drifted for a while until you came to land.

Now you lie and let the elements do their work on you.

Day by day, week by week,

with scrunch of food and pound of wave

slowly you are changed.

Then one day you wake and find you are small grains of sand.

It is then and only then

that the wind can pick you up

and blow you where it will

Too often, I think, we wonder why we are not freely flowing within the Holy Spirit. But I do wonder if that is because we are holding on to tightly to the rocks and things like limpets when in fact we should be letting the Creator of the Universe do their stuff and change us into something small enough that can be blown by with gentle wind of the Spirit.

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change Storm

Storms!

Above are a selection of images of a local beach, local park and local roads on or before the storms passed through. Unfortunately I haven’t taken any of the storm damage in my park

I was lead in the bed this morning listening to the last of Storm Barra singing through the telephone wires. And it got me thinking about not just the recent storm but storms in general and our reaction to them.

We’ve been living here for nearly 6 years and Storm Arwen, ten days ago, was the most destructive storm we’ve witnessed. There have been a catalogue of trees we know of and areas that are well know where devastation has been wrecked. It even stopped filming at the I’m a Celebrity site over the road from us. It was fierce. As I walked the park with a friend who is born and bred her she was grieving the loss of trees that had been there since she was a child. She even remembered climbing in one of the three that had fallen. But I got to wondering how we see things as destruction when in fact they are there for change, for space for something new. Perhaps that is true with other things too; projects, ways of doing things, ways of church, of government and even of people.

There was much talk at some point during this pandemic of this being a time to change the way we did things, but from what I see the old has not been allowed to die even though it is swaying wildly in the wind. Those who feel safe with it, who have known it for so long, want to keep it there, are not ready to mourn its passing.

But then it is easy, almost, to be critical of wider things like church structure, governmental structures, capitalism, etc etc, but what about me? What in me and what I do am I keeping alive when I should let it die? I have a post which will be published on Godspace on 21st December which looks at the darkness and I think this might be the prequel or sequel, or just another part of, looking rethinking me.

Are we each willing to look at ourselves and see what we need to let fall to the ground, to let go of, even if for now it is beautiful, offers protection and shelter – as using the tree analogy? Or am I happier to sit back, talk about how “they” should change rather than look at me?