Tag: ministry

Categories
oughts writing

Walking Away from “Oughts”

Write from your Passion

First published on Godspacelight 9th July 2024

Writing workshop about dragons and myths run by myself – Barefoot At The Kitchen Table – June 2024

In Christine Sine’s newsletter to those of us who write for Godspacelight she talked about writing into her passion. This is probably one of the bests prompts I’ve had in ages. I have tried writing what I ought to write. I even set up a Substack account to write about writing for well-being but it’s failed. Why? Because, much as I love free writing for my own well-being, I wasn’t writing into my passion. I was trying to be something I wasn’t. I even tried putting in a regular structure to when I blogged but I’m afraid that isn’t me. 

How often do we do that – try to be something we are not? Whether it is in what we write or what we do? I think of many times when I have done something – job or ministry – that is so significant but isn’t me. Too many times to remember. It could even be something I’m good at, have talents in, but it isn’t my passion. I suppose if one jargoned it up I could say it wasn’t “my calling.”

As I’ve got older I’ve learned more and more not just what my skills and talents are but what I am passionate about. I love people, though I need time alone with a book too. If I’m honest my perfect day would be to go for a dog walk, coffee and breakfast with a friend and have a rolling, random conversation that covers deep and meaning as well as trivial and silly; come home and write a blog piece on something that either the conversation has triggered or that was buzzing in my head; and finish the afternoon on the couch to have a read of a good book, then maybe some intense Netflix drama with a glass of red wine to finish the day. Somewhere in that I’d like to ponder writing a short story or flash fiction, though maybe never get to write it; I’d like to email someone I enjoy writing to; run a writing workshop where I encourage others to get the most from putting pen to paper; and probably free write or journal myself. 

But I can get into thinking I “ought to” write X, Y or Z; I “ought to” be connecting with a certain person or group and “ought to” be doing something with them. But that is my “oughts and shoulds” and not my passion coming through. 

I’ve just read Timothy Keller’s The Prodigal God in which he talks of the older brother attitude being the one that says “it’s not fair” when God doesn’t do as we think they should do because we were “good Christians”. My “ought to” comes, I think, from a place that is where I’ve decided what a  “good Christian” or a “good writer” would/should do. It isn’t coming from a place of my passion. 

I think for all of us there are times when we do not run with our passions for many reasons; a need to fit in, a fear of missing out, having been told by a parental figure that life isn’t meant to be about fun, or whatever. I’m sure we all, if we allow ourselves to really hear our hearts, can come up with many reasons why we don’t follow our passions in work, in writing, in church stuff, in life in general. All of them have some truth in them but remember the devil goes around like a angel of light. The one who keeps us away from our true selves does it subtly not overtly. If it was overtly we would notice and rise above it. But it is filled with limited truths and comes from people who do care for us and want the best for us. But it is still lies if it keeps us from our passions and our true selves. 

I’m grateful to all the healing that I’ve received so I can hear God clearly, hear my heart clearly, and be bold enough to step out into my passions. I’m also bold enough now to walk away from when I’ve try to do something that looks good but isn’t me; when I’ve done an “ought”. But this has come about because I know God loves me unconditionally all the time – not just when I get it right/write 🙂 

Categories
oughts passion

My Passions

One of my passions – encouraging other people to enjoy creative writing – whether adults in libraries or community centres, or children in school. Check out more of what I do with writing groups on my Barefoot At The Kitchen Table website

In Christine Sine’s newsletter to those of us who write for Godspacelight she talked about writing into her passion. This is probably one of the bests prompts I’ve had in ages. I have tried writing what I ought to write. I even set up a Substack account to write about writing for well-being but it’s failed. Why? Because, much as I love free writing for my own well-being, I wasn’t writing into my passion. I was trying to be something I wasn’t. I even tried putting in a regular structure to when I blogged but I’m afraid that isn’t me.

How often to do we do that – try to be something we are not? Whether it is in what we write or what we do? I think of many times when I have done something – job or ministry – that is so significant but isn’t me. Too many times to remember. It could even be something I’m good at, have talents in, but it isn’t my passion. I suppose if one jargoned it up I could say it wasn’t “my calling.”

As I’ve got older I’ve learned more and more not just what my skills and talents are but what I am passionate about. I love people, though I need time alone with a book too. If I’m honest my perfect day would be to go for a dog walk, coffee and breakfast with a friend or family member, have a rolling, random conversation that covers deep and meaning as well as trivial and silly; come home and write a blog piece on something that either the conversation has trigger or that was buzzing in my head; and finish the afternoon on the couch have a read of a good book, then maybe some intense Netflix drama with a glass of red wine to finish the day. Somewhere in that I’d like to ponder writing a short story or flash fiction, though maybe never get to write it; I’d like to email someone I enjoy writing to; run a writing workshop where I encourage others to get the most from putting pen to paper; and probably free write or journal myself.

But I can get into thinking I “ought to” write X, Y or Z; I “ought to” be connecting with a certain person or group and “ought to” be doing something with them. But that is my “oughts and shoulds” and not my passion coming through.

I’ve just read Timothy Keller’s The Prodigal God in which he talks of the older brother attitude being the one that says “its not fair” when God doesn’t do as we think they should do because we were “good Christians”. My “ought to” comes, I think, from a place that is where I’ve decided what a “good Christian” or a “good writer” would/should do. It isn’t coming from a place of my passion.

I think for all of us there are times when we do not run with our passions for many reasons; a need to fit in, a fear of missing out, having been told by a parental figure that life isn’t meant to be about fun, or whatever. I’m sure we all, if we allow ourselves to really hear our hearts, can come up with many reasons why we don’t follow our passions in work, in writing, in church stuff, in life in general. All of them have some truth in them but remember the devil goes around like a angel of light. The one who keeps us away from our true selves does it subtly not overtly. If it was overtly we would notice and rise above it. But it is filled with limited truths and comes from people who do care for us and want the best for us. But it is still lies if it keeps us from our passions and our true selves.

I’m grateful to all the healing that I’ve received so I can hear God clearly, hear my heart clearly, and be bold enough to step out into my passions. I’m also bold enough now to walk away from when I’ve try to do something that looks good but isn’t me; when I’ve done an “ought”. But this has come about because I know God loves me unconditionally all the time – not just when I get it right/write 🙂

Below are some pictures of some of my other passions. I do need to take more photos of coffee with my friends too

Categories
death elderly

Why do you care for those you care for?

Types Old Believers Maxim Dmitriev by J. Paul Getty Museum is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0

This quote from Henri Nouwen’s meditation for today really brought me up short today and got me thinking. There is always something thought provoking in them but, for myself as a youth and children’s worker, made me ponder.

To care for the elderly means then that we allow the elderly to make us poor by inviting us to give up the illusion that we created our own life and that nothing or nobody can take it away from us.

Meditations – 26th June 2024

How much of any church outreach is directed towards the elderly? The focus is generally on the young with the tag of bringing in new people and families; often with the hope that they will then volunteer to do things and so ease the burdens of church ministry.

Working with young people does help to give a young attitude to life but can it also help us pretend we’re still young, and not having to admit to the inevitability of death. . There’s that phrase about being “seventy years young” or whatever, rarely admitting to the fact that life is passing us by and we aren’t going to live forever.

I know there are some people who will feel this is not a “good” topic to speak of and that we are to almost pretend it won’t happen rather than be preparing towards it. I know people in their 70s and 80s who still don’t have a funeral plan or have put in people to be powers of attorney over their estates, as if by not doing it one can avoid the conversation.

Even as I got more and more involved with youth work I did wonder why there was never much out there for older people. Most of the charismatic churches I was involved in had no elderly ministry at all. And even some of the more established denominations, even though they did many funerals and taking communion to the housebound, had no form of outreach to the elderly. Nothing where they were taking Jesus to those whose end of life was definitely getting closer.

I love Nouwen’s idea that by caring for the elderly we minister to ourselves by helping each of us realise that we “create our own life” and that “nothing or nobody can take it away from us.” That we can do all these mediations, well-being courses, fitness regimes to “stay young” as if that is going to stop you from eventually getting old and dying.

Perhaps as well as keeping our bodies and minds as fit as we can we also need to be keeping our spirits and souls clean and ready to meet with God. As I watch my mother’s husband descend into dementia and his body deteriorate it does make me think about how, before that happens to myself and to those I love, I want to be “right with God”. I want to have a pure heart and clean hands [Psalm 24:4] so that whatever happens I am ready to meet with my God.

I may carrying on doing the youth and children’s work that I do and may not get into working with the elderly but I do hope that I can let go of “the illusion that [I] created [my] own life and that nothing or nobody can take it away from [me]” and can keep God dead centre no matter what.

Categories
healing seeing

Seeing

Daffodils and snowdrops out at the same time. Photographed Thursday 15th February 2024 on my river walk at St Asaph

I read this great Substack post by Fiona Koefoed-Jespersen the other day about “The real miracle is seeing” which looks at the story from Acts where John and Peter heal the lame man by the Beautiful Gate [Acts 3:1-10] in which she says that the real miracle is that all three of them, John, Peter and the lame man, all actually see each other for the first time.

She says

What if the biggest miracle of this story is not the healing of a man born lame, but that three people separated by physical ability and difference, by religious interpretation of that difference, and by so many other economic and social realities, actually pause long enough to look each other in the eyes.

And

What if walking the Way of Jesus becomes an inability to ignore, to pass hasty judgement, to believe the propaganda or the toxic theology?

What if three plus years of being discipled by a poor Palestinian Jewish rabbi had led them to this greatest miracle: recognising their common humanity with the person in front of them?

But I also think there was something in the lame man that made him actually see John and Peter properly too. This lame man had been there for years. I often wonder if Jesus had walked past him. In fact I often wonder how there were still people who needed healing in all of Jerusalem and Galilee after three years of Jesus’ ministry on earth.

So after pondering this I think that it takes both sides to be doing the “seeing”. If the lame man had not really looked up at John and Peter he would not have asked them to really heal them. Something went on on both sides of this interaction for the true healing to take place.

I was thinking of this with people I know. Yes I can fully see them and build relationship from my side but if they don’t want to, or can’t, fully see this with me then we cannot build together. It takes two.

Actually this happened to me over this weekend with a friend who I felt hadn’t fully seen what I was feeling but then later in the conversation I said something to which her response was “oh I get what you’re saying now”. Once I felt truly seen I felt barriers go down that I wasn’t even sure I had put up.

So yes we do need to get beyond toxic theologies and prejudices and yes we need to fully see each others humanity. But things will only come together in peace if both sides are willing to do that. And as in all relationships it needs to be a regular daily thing. Not just a one off.