It has been looking at the book of Ruth and in today’s it says that
One of the themes of the story of Ruth is ‘hesed’; the word appears three times in this short book … It is translated as loving kindness or steadfast love and faithfulness in many English versions. It describes a people in covenant with God, who love unconditionally, not only doing what is required by the law but going the extra mile. It is this word that the biblical writers use when speaking of God’s unfailing commitment to his people (regardless of what a mess they are in).
It goes on to say how ‘hesed’ is how Ruth treats her grumpy mother-in-law, how Boaz goes the extra mile for Ruth, and how these are forerunners of how Jesus lived out ‘hesed’ in his healings, caring for, feeding, lifting up the marginalised.
So loving kindness that we are to allow to flow from us is not just ‘being nice’ but it is about going that extra mile, going beyond what is required of us to be good. But it has to start with us. If I don’t have loving kindness for myself then I do not have the energy to flow through me. So in whatever we do we need to get to that safe place that we love ourselves unconditionally then we can love others unconditionally.
I also that even though God loves us unconditionally anyway we too often don’t see that until we show ‘hesed’ [loving kindness] and unconditional love to ourselves.
Self-care = self-loving kindness which = peace which = being able to “love our neighbour as ourselves/love ourselves so we can love our neighbour”
Renly just emanating love and kindness especially after being released from under the throw on the spare room couch!!! Photographed by myself 1st March 2024
Yesterday I spoke on using creative writing for therapeutic purposes at an event on self-care. It finished with a meditation of which the key words that stood out for me were “loving kindness“. Loving kindness to ourselves, to our families, to our friends, to the random people we come across in our daily lives.
A lot of what I caught of the day was of how the energy we emit affects those around us. So if I feel at peace I emanate peace and so hand on peace to others. Again if I emanate fear then that is what I will pass on to others. That was along with like grounding ourselves, realising our own energy, loving ourselves, knowing our own power, trusting in our hearts, listening to guides.
It has always been something I have believed for a long time and the more I read and study the Bible see all the above as a total God/Jesus thing.
Yet it is so rare to hear talks in Churches or with other Christians about their energy, of living out their beliefs, of trusting that still small voice, of being grounded and connected with Earth and Spirit, when I think those things should be paramount.
I truly believe that if we could talk more about this and explored it from a non-judgemental stand-point we would understand it better. And then we would believe more about how connected we are to God and their Universe in a more holistic way. I think, again if we were open and non-judgemental when we talked with others about these things more people would see the connection of all this amazing stuff they are exploring with the God who created the Universe who loves each of us unconditionally.
So to give the Creator of the Universe a bit of a chance in this world that is looking for that connected unconditional love we need to believe it more. Also Christians need to stop seeing these lovely people I mixed with yesterday as outsiders who need to be converted to the Christian “norm” of whatever theology we believe. Instead we need to get into dialogue with them, and with others who have no spiritual leanings at all, again in the non-judgemental way. I think this will lead to us growing and learning and realising how diverse God actually is. And maybe it would increase our faith?
With all things we must put LOVING KINDNESS at the centre of all we do and say and believe so that this is what springs from us and flows to others.
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.
I’ve ponder the idea that there is a natural order to things on You Don’t Need To Do It and a bit in Trust Is The Key. And I think this is the same for repentance.
Before I met with God I did many things that were not good – out of survival, though my own wounds, through self-centeredness, fear. Probably fear was a lot of the reason. So when I had this big encounter with God – which really needs to be heard rather than read! – I wanted to dive into this whole repentance thing. I got a friend to show me all the verses in the Bible that mentioned sin so I could make sure I repented of everything. I was amazed at how many I needed to repent of one way or another.
Although this was before I found this lovely prayer in the Anglican service
we have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done
That really does cover most of our lives!
But I thought even then, even in my zeal for meeting with God, there was a natural order of how it worked for me.
Firstly I was accepted by this group of lovely human beings who had got together to evangelise the housing estate I was living on. I was accepted [belonged] to their coffee morning before I went to their Sunday church.
Secondly I had to meet with God and realise how much God loved me unconditionally. And boy was it an amazing encounter. Only then could I start on this journey of repentance. So I had to trust God, believe in and about God and Jesus, and feel I was important to God, special. If I’d been told on that first coffee morning I ever attended that I had to repent and believe I would have high tailed it out of there.
Thirdly though I had to believe and trust that God and Jesus had forgiven me. Actually that was the easiest bit of it. The hardest was going through the journey of forgiving myself because I had done things that had hurt others a lot. But I know I did it because I trusted in Jesus and God to walk with me and leave me high and dry.
Also the whole repentance/forgiveness thing is a totally ongoing thing, which is probably the fourth part. If I believed it was a one off thing and I couldn’t keep coming back to God again and again and again and again and saying sorry and forgiving other people then, I think, I would be a disappointed person.
So daily I ask forgiveness for “those things which I ought to have done, and I have done those things which we ought not to have done” and I am truly sorry. And I forgive those who hurt and upset me whether they did it on purpose or by accident.
But I cannot do those things if God and Jesus are central part of my life, if I don’t trust them moment by moment, don’t rely on them moment by moment.
I do think that repentance and forgiveness should be much a part of our lives that we don’t need to say it but it is in our actions. It is seen when we don’t bitch about people, don’t hold a grudge, don’t worry about things, aren’t fearful, etc. As I explored a while ago, looking at how sinning is really just missing God’s mark, just missing God’s best for us. And anything for holding a grudge and saying bad stuff about people to fit in with others through to worrying and being fearful are the “sins” most of us do. Very few of us murder or steal, but too many of us don’t trust.
I believe we shouldn’t need to tell people but we should be living it day by day – which is what I felt my youth group were trying to tell me and which I shared in Trust Is The Key
Natural order – Trust that God is there for you and loves you unconditionally then repentance and forgiveness will just flow naturally. Or at least I think so.
So two posts in quick succession. This is because I’ve been enjoying my daughter’s company and not had time or headspace to blog.
But I have been praying. And again am stuck on working with The Lord’s Prayer. And especially the line “Your Will be done“.
It made me think of how often we mither [check out the link as it is a north of England expression] at God to do what we think is the right thing. With many situations, whether it is Ukraine, Israel/Palestine, getting things done in my home town, illnesses with people I know, there is much more going on under the surface, hidden histories, that we know little or nothing about, hurts and pains we don’t understand, and so often what we are “telling” God to do is ill-informed. I think this is why Jesus’s advise was telling us to say to God “look I see this situation. I’d love you to be involved in it. Your will be done within that.“
Now I had an interesting thing happen after I was praying for God’s will to be done about a certain person. As me and this person were walking and talking they said something that I could almost see God highlighting for me. It was something very deep with them and shared in a way that I felt led me to ask God if that was a way I was to pray about it. I believe now that God has given me their direction in praying for this person and that God and I are yoked together in this.
I also had another time when I did the “ok it’s your will not mine here” as I was finding certain things with another person difficult. I was also trying to avoid that person. But again God had other plans. There I was walking round my park on my own and they were walking the opposite direction. They greeted me warmly and we walked together. Again I could hear that still small voice saying “this is My will that you walk along side them.” And it was like there was nothing else I had to do but to walk with them.
I can be an organised, planning person. It is a family joke that I like my lists. Often of an evening I write a list of what I want to do the following day as part of my unwind before going to sleep routine. But I also find that I can get into doing this with praying for people; the list with an idea of what each person, situation, etc needs. But this takes away the “your will be done” part of the Lord’s Prayer. I wonder too if these things interfere with the “give me each day my daily bread” part.
So this year I am going to just let God’s will be done, not my will, in how I pray and who I pray for, and just trust and see what happens.
Colwyn Bay 6th January 2024 photographed by myself
It is that season where we look back and look forward. A time when we talk about our best times over the last year and our worst times. A time when we talk about and make plans for the future.
I’ve been reading Josh Luke Smith’s thoughts which he has been sending out each day since 1st Jan. This verse struck me from the poem he shared
We must not define our lives by our worst days, and neither should we by our best; most of life is in the middle.
This photograph I’ve shared is from a walk my husband, daughter, my dog and myself did yesterday. It was an ordinary walk along and ordinary beach. We talked about ordinary things then went to the pub. Ordinary
Neither of my children could make it up for Christmas. 2nd January was the first time my daughter was able to come and has managed to be with us for the whole week. But she’s tired after working all through December, over Christmas and over New Year in hospitality. She’s tired and needs a bit of family downtime. We’ve done a lot of sitting about and chatting. One afternoon her and the dog fell asleep on the couch whilst I was reading. We did one day where we went out to lunch so she could get a new coat. But it was all low key. All ordinary. It was life lived in the middle point between best and worst.
But as Josh says in all his writings for this year – and it is a phrase he uses often – it is the ordinary that is the “main event”. If we spend our time waiting for the amazing or even wallowing in the awful we will miss out on so much. God promises to be with us ALL the time.
Yes God promises to be with us when things get tough and life is awful and when we need to be enfolded in their loving arms. God promises to rejoice with us when things are amazing and shout with us. Though often in the great times, and even in the good times, we forget to acknowledge God. But God is with us ALWAYS.
With this in my head it is helping me realise to just acknowledge God in the washing up, in the deep cleaning the kitchen which I did this morning because husband and daughter have gone for hike in the sunshine that has miraculously appeared over North Wales. I have got good at remembering to praise God for the beauty in my local park but this whole thing of remembering that actually it is the life we live day in day which is our “main event“, which is our lives, is something to be grasped
I suppose it is what mindfulness is deep down, but often that has been turned into a “thing.” – eg “I am being mindful” or whatever. But this is just knowing that all my life, whether good, bad, indifferent, whether mindful or forgetful, all of this is my life. All of this is the main event of my life.
Dog enjoying the beach. For the dog each moment of every day is just what it is!
Looking towards the end of Ynys Llanddwyn, Newborough, Anglesey. Photographed by myself 26th December 2023
A friend was telling me how when people say to her that it is Jesus is just a crutch she responds with “too right because I can’t do life on my own” [paraphrase]. I found this an interesting response because too often I have heard, and also my response has been, to defend myself, to say that Jesus isn’t a crutch and that we, me and Jesus that is, are walking together equally yoked etc. So her response got lodged in my mind.
Then when we were out on our yearly Boxing day walk, this year accompanied by picnic, to Ynys Llanddwyn with half of the North Wales population, I was struck by the lighthouse and the cross being on the headland of the island. Yes I have seen them before but I don’t think I’ve walked along this path before and got the same view.
How often does that happen that when God wants to highlight something we are lead down a different path way? Often with some phrase or expression or bible verse hovering round our peripheral thought.
I was struck by how no one would mock a sailor who said they were guided by the lighthouse, that they relied on the lighthouse to keep them safe. Yet I wonder how often we are mock for saying we are guided by the cross, that we rely on the cross? Also how often I might keep quiet about being guided by the Cross but openly say how my SATNAV keeps me safe. Or how often we check the weather forecast trusting that but don’t check in with our hearts/the Universe/God to hear where we should be going.
Note to self – be willing to let others know what guides me, but also make sure that guide is the Cross first. Nothing wrong with being guided by lighthouses, SATNAVs or weather forecasts, or all those other things that we use to help us along the way. But make sure that first and foremost it is the Cross the guides and leads us.
As this is Christmas Eve this gives me time to wish you all a Peaceful Christmas, a time of rest and reflection, and a sense of acceptance, whether you are on your own, with family, having to go through tough times or enjoying life.
I’m off to be part of my favourite service of the whole of Christmas. The Christingle service. I love the words. I love the symbolism. I love that it is a service for children without being cringy and overly child focused. For me it is staying the true meaning of Christmas
Check out what it all means from this post from The Children’s Society who started the whole thing.
But I also wanted to fill you in on a bit of a family joke about me and turkeys. One year we did a road trip to see my husband’s family. I thought I was going to eat turkey till I burst but each household we reached informed us they had done their turkey the day before hand. We even caught up with my son and his then girlfriend in a pub to be told that they didn’t do turkey between Christmas and New Year because people were fed up of. Not me!!
I was quoted as saying “Christmas isn’t Christmas without turkey” which from someone who had never written hard hitting Christmas plays about the true meaning of Christmas would have be amusing but from myself who has spoken on the true meaning of Jesus coming into the world this is hilarious. And of course the phrase has stuck.
Well this is now where God’s amazing sense of humor come in. This year at the Christingle I am part of a group performing Benjamin Zephaniah’s Talking Turkeys.
I am doing the first long verse and saying
Be nice to yu turkeys dis christmas Cos’ turkeys just wanna hav fun Turkeys are cool, turkeys are wicked An every turkey has a Mum. Be nice to yu turkeys dis christmas, Don’t eat it, keep it alive, It could be yu mate, an not on your plate Say, Yo! Turkey I’m on your side. I got lots of friends who are turkeys An all of dem fear christmas time, Dey wanna enjoy it, dey say humans destroyed it An humans are out of dere mind, Yeah, I got lots of friends who are turkeys Dey all hav a right to a life, Not to be caged up an genetically made up By any farmer an his wife.
At the same time as having roasted my 10lb+ turkey that only myself and my husband are going to eat as both my children aren’t able to make it up for Christmas. A slight touch of irony there.
Whatever your “must have” at Christmas is do enjoy it no matter what amazingly fantastic poets have to say about it 🙂
No connection to what I’m going to explore but he just looks so cute. Photographed by me November 2023
I’ve been trying to get down to some Bible study as I have been a bit lax on it recently. So I’m following 24/7 Prayer’s Lectio365 app and trying to hear something different. Sometimes it is hard when you are reading the same pieces you’ve read for over 30 years [and when I first met with God I read my Bible loads and loads, reading it through twice in both my first and second years of meeting Jesus plus teaching on things, etc, etc and reading to my children] It takes a bit of concerted effort not to just go “yeah yeah I know what that says”
This was what was on the app for Friday –
The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the house of the Lord, where the ark of God was. 4 Then the Lord called Samuel.
Samuel answered, “Here I am.” 5 And he ran to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”
But Eli said, “I did not call; go back and lie down.” So he went and lay down.
6 Again the Lord called, “Samuel!” And Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”
“My son,” Eli said, “I did not call; go back and lie down.”
7 Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord: The word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.
1 Samuel 3:3-5
What jumped out at me was verse 7. We don’t know how many years Samuel has been serving in the temple. It is possible he was five when Hannah weaned him – yes people used to wean their children much later than most of us do in our fast paced modern world. And I suspect as she knew he was going to live in the temple she probably waited longer just so she knew he would be ok. He was a small child not a baby or a toddler. Like I say we don’t know how much later God decides to call Samuel personally but I suspect it wasn’t within his first year.
So there he has been serving in the temple with Eli doing his priestly stuff and yet Samuel “did not yet know the Lord. The word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.” Goodness me what had been going on? Why had Eli not got around to helping Samuel know the Lord and know “the word of the Lord”?
Yet, as always when one lets God speak, I wonder how often we as Christian parents and children’s workers and youth workers [of which I have been all three] read the stories to our children, do the fun children’s and youth activities, etc but don’t give those young people in our care time to really know who God is and let God’s word be revealed to them personally.
Yes we tell them about God, we get them to pray, but how often to we stop and ask God to speak with them? [Note not a condemnation piece but a questioning piece wondering why so many young people don’t follow God after having been immersed in church]
I think too often, like Eli, we think we know how God will speak because that’s how they have spoken with us so we tell those young people in our care “this is God“. Then when God turns up to them personally often we are not as wise as Eli and don’t say “oh my I think that’s God talking to you in your language.” Eli did miss that it was God first of all and dismissed Samuel. It was only the third time [and that is a story telling technique and it may have been more or less times] that it dawns on Eli to tell Samuel to listen to God.
I have had to some major forgiveness from times when I was first talking with God and wanting to share it with others and was told that could not possibly God because God didn’t speak like that. But I think I have also been guilty of speaking of some of the young people who’ve been in my care because God was speaking to them differently. Or have seen them mold what they have heard to fit in with what I would like or what the group would like.
Like I say this is not condemnation piece but something that first made me go “Oh Eli why did you not teach Samuel about God in all that time” to hearing God’s still small voice asking me if there have been times when I have been like that.
The Bible, I believe, is always personal to each one of us, but too often we don’t like to really listen to what God wants to say to me. I believe the Bible is living and is God’s way of talking to each of us, not in one of those big sermon type ways but with us sitting, reading, getting involved with it.
Though I do wonder if that is why we don’t like to do it. Better to have something that one can say “this is what this passage says” than “God has just used that to open my eyes to some place where I have missed God’s mark [sinned]“
This is the view of my local park first thing in the morning. I walk I do probably five times a week if not six or even every day. Too often I forget how beautiful it is. I will then drive for miles to some National Trust organised garden to wonder at the colours of the leaves, etc, especially this time of year. But my local park, ten minutes down the road from me, is beautiful. I wish today I had brought my phone so I could have taken photos. Maybe tomorrow if the light is right and I’ll just share a load of photos?
But it got me thinking, especially as I’m in this down time of pondering and thinking, how little we appreciate what is on our doorstep – our friends, our family, our homes, our towns, our woods, our streets. I think we live in a world that is too often encouraging us to “reach higher” to “get out there” and to get away on holidays, with work, with life. But really everything we need is on our doorstep for many of us.
I know I have to travel to see both of my children and my mum and mum-in-law and old friends who live in different parts of the country. And I love the traveling. But if I go to them hoping they will fill some gap then we will all be disappointed.
I traveled a lot before I had children and I will always say that one of the things that spoilt my travels was that I took me with me. The me who was messed up and confused. The me who was seeking something to fill that gap. I came home and between meeting with God and letting them fill me and some real deep healing I now like the me I have with me now. But now that I like me I’m not running away from me either.
Perhaps that is why now I can see the beauty in my local park, my local beach, my local all – because I am not looking for something far away, something that will fill a space. Now I know that all around me is beauty from the autumn colours to the bare branches to the wild waves to the still grey of this morning. And then those amazing greens to look forward to in the spring.
Also to let you know my Mum is doing okay at the moment. We had an awesome time together just hanging out together – something we’ve never done as adults before because we’ve always had partners with us. It was great just to be her and I – holding ladders whilst she changed light bulbs, buying laundry baskets, cooking meals, washing up, watching TV and realising we like some things the same and some we don’t. I’m looking forward to going for a visit again soon. Maybe too it was realising the beauty in what just was rather than in making it a “something”?
Aspirational Adventures 