Tag: ought to

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
restoration trust

Busy!

For those who know my dog he does sleep as well as he does busy. Though for him busy is sniffing on a walk, having a shorter and shorter zoomy with his doggie friends as he gets older, and rushing to find a treat. He then does rest and recover very well. So why can’t we as human beings desire more and more to do this.

I am sooooo fed of reading things that will make me more efficient with my time, will make me more productive and thus will give me more money to do more things with. But this seems to be what too many human beings think they want. Rest and recuperation, are things that get timetabled in rather than a priority that we work around.

I read somewhere that to be truly creative, not just in one’s writing, painting, etc but in coming up with solutions on how to live your life, how to find out how to stop climate change, how to change the world, one needs to sit about doing nothing. Not as in a “planning to think about” exercise but in a “letting ones mind drift and see what the universe drops into it.” Apparently all the great inventors spent time just staring into space, getting into those alpha ways, getting tuned into what might just be floating around.

But we encourage each other and our children from an early age to be busy, to look busy, to be productive, to not waste time, to be doing something. So we all grow up with a fear of staring out the window, of wasting time.

I’ve a couple of friends how actually do just that. When the weather is like it is now [pouring with rain] if they have no work they don’t get dressed, they don’t see anyone, they don’t do anything. I would like to say that they then achieve great things but they don’t. But they do enjoy their sitting around being time. Interestingly both of them get led to pray for things that surprise them because they hadn’t planned to. So really then one can they that they are following God’s lead on what God wants prayed about.

But busyness gets rewarded. I was at a meeting the other day in which it got down to people boasting about how busy they were, how they gave their time for free for the good of whatever, how they had so little time. And then they got “rewarded” by being given more to do. And they all looked so pleased with it.

Interestingly I didn’t get given anything. And what little it looked like I might be doing got taken away from me. I suspect it is because I am now sending out those vibes, that energy, to say “I only want to do what I’m meant to do”. Also I no longer need other people’s affirmation that what I do with my day is worthwhile. I know it is whether it is staring out the window, cooking tea, keeping house, running a writing workshop, finishing a story and bravely sending it out for a competition, reading a book or watching TV. All those things are my worthwhile day.

Why? Because they kept me healthy – because I’m not needing someone else to affirm me. But also because what I do I can do to my full energy and give it my all because I’m not planning on the next thing.

In this meeting some had leave early because they were off to other meetings, some were doing other work during the meeting, and like I say many of them were saying how they had just rushed from something and had more to do.

So I want to live out the rest of my life to the full but I do not want “the full” to be busy busy busy, but to have time to chill in front of the TV, read books I like, chat with friends, be flexible when the weather halts things, be free to stare out the window and watch those raindrops falling and to see they joy in them because ….. just because

Categories
Feminist Roles

What Does This Really Say?

This is a joke that does the rounds regularly at Christmas and we all have a bit of a laugh about it. But this year after reading books like Laura Bate’s Everyday Sexism and some about the ignored achievements by women by Sandi Toksvig I didn’t find it funny.

Why would women not have trusted the ancient prophecies? Why would they want to clean up? Why would they want to cook? Why be practical? The gifts the wisemen brought were prophetic and practical.

I find this whole “joke” puts both men and women down and puts them in a box that many of us for years have been trying to get out of. I find it even sadder when something like this is shared with a group of women who are not being fully who they could be because they are keeping house, looking after children and grandchildren, doing the “ought to” things that women feel they need to do, whilst their husbands and/or children get on and do the having a career, a purpose, a role in society.

To me this, and other things like it, say that a women’s true job it to the one who keeps things going by making sure things are clean and tidy and everyone is fed. Then if there is time she can then do what she wants.

What I really hope in the story of the Wisemen visiting Jesus is that there were prophetic women in the group that said “yes this is what the stars say and so this is where the new King of Judah should be” and were then willing to say they had made a mistake. I hope when they got to the stable with Jesus in it that they were so blown away by seeing God Incarnate that they didn’t give a sh*t about whether the stable was clean or dirty, whether Mary had had time to clear up, whether there was a good meal. I really hope they just feel flat on their faces and worship the King of Kings. I really do hope that, like the men in the group, the were blown away by what they saw and just wanted to praise and worship God.

So my hope this Christmas is that women stop trying to keep the house together, stop trying to make sure everyone is alright and well fed, stop worrying about what other people might think of their house if they enter it, stop trying to look like “good girls” and will fall at the feet of Jesus.

Also getting on to the last part – it isn’t up to the women or the men or anyone to bring peace on earth. God will do that if we stop trying and just worship them with everything we have.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’

Mark 12:30

And stop worrying about what people will think, about whether the house is clean, about whether there is food, about anything. Then you, then I, will be at peace and so then Peace can truly reign on earth. But it has to start with individual people who can then join to become a whole.