Tag: space

Categories
cat God Space

God Space

Damson, my cat. Photographed by myself July 2019

We got our cat, Damson, on 1st January 2010. She was a rescue cat and the rescue centre said they thought she was about 6-8 years old. The vet says she has a juvenile personality which is why she still plays like a kitten rather than the old lady she should be. So she is between 20-22 years old, roughly! She can’t jump like she used to so she climbs on to the furniture with her claws out sounding like someone climbing with crampons. It also means her claws get caught occasionally and she is just left hanging!!!

Because she is an indoor cat in our three story house she has lots of fun and exercise and when we go away someone pops in to feed her and empty her litter tray.

She misses us when we’re away and, instead of like cats I’ve owned before who will ignore you for a few days when you’ve been away, Damson charges at us meowing loudly and wants so much attention.

Well it also means that instead of sleeping at the foot of the bed she has decided over the last four nights she needs to be close to me. So she claw-climbs up on to the bed and then presses herself as close to me as she can. For the first two nights she was sleeping under my chin. Temperatures have risen in the UK so this is not a good place for me to get a good night’s sleep. Also if I turn over so I’ve got my back to her she climbs across my back and chest so she is back curled close to me.

So whilst I was not sleeping the other night I got to thinking. We often talk about there being a God shaped hole in our hearts that we fill when we let Jesus in but I got to pondering as to whether God has a “me” spaced hole in them that needs to me to snuggle close to. That God’s desire is for me and you and all of us to snuggle up under their chin, close to their heart, in the warmth of their body and rest there.

Once Damson is tucked up close to me she purrs away loudly and contentedly. Perhaps that is God’s desire for each and everyone of us. Maybe too we would feel like my cat – safe, loved and content and would not feel like we have to do anything to claim that love of God apart from to be close?

Categories
pondering waiting

Reluctant to Say …

Stourhead gardens, Wiltshire, just before the rains came. Oct 2023

I am reluctant to say … but as you may have noticed … the blog posts are not so frequent at that moment. I’m reluctant to say that I’m taking a break from posting to process things because often once I do a post like that it seems to release a dam and I start posting again. But at the mo it looks like I’ve got some stuff to process around family stuff.

Being in my 60s with one parent gone and another coming up to mid 80s it is inevitable that thoughts move on to becoming an orphan, what ties there are with parents, what ties there are with my children, and such like. All those things need to be process. And processed slowly. And with God who sees much more clearly that I do.

So there is a lot of taking breath, of rethinking, of not speaking out too soon, of waiting. So I am allowing myself to process and to think and to have time. I also need time to visit with my family because for me one of the things I realise is that as my parents age so do I and so not only does my time with them start to come to an end I realise that my time with my children is finite and I want to make the most of that.

It is interesting to me how one of my big realisations as I see my parents age is that I want to make the most of my time with my children.

But also I realise how grateful I am to have got to my 60s and still have parents. Too many people have lost them much sooner than that.

So as I ponder, as I think, yes I’m sure thoughts to blog will come out so please don’t give up on me, but also please be kind as sometimes I’m not ready to share my thoughts so readily.

Categories
being me space

My Space

Newborough beach, Anglesey, One of my special spaces with Renly, one of my special companions

Boundaries, another theme I keep returning to, but my ideas about it keep changing.

I felt I had to share what came to me the other day, almost a follow on from my post back in February 2022, No More Boundaries where I was sort of exploring what I meant by not having boundaries and of being in alignment. Now I think I’ve moved to a deeper place.

I was in the car the other day contemplating a conversation with a friend. I’d had some really busy people filled days and felt thI needed a long walk on a deserted beach. It was wild and windy and I just wanted to reconnect. I also planned to take myself for a coffee after. Just me and my dog. Then this friend, who I hadn’t seen for a while, messaged and ask if I was free to come to the park with her in about 10 mins. I calmly replied that I was going to the beach on my own to recover from my frantic day the day previous.

What struck me on the way home in the car, hair windswept and feeling more myself, was that it isn’t about boundaries or about being aligned to the universe but it is about knowing and honouring my space. With all the healing that has gone on I am in a place to know my space, know my needs, feel comfortable within my own space. I know at one time I would have cancelled my plans and gone with my friend because I wanted to please her but also because my space would not have been important enough for me.

In church there is often talk about “doing what Jesus would do” which always seems to be busy doing something – praying for others, feeding others, being there for others, etc. All of which are good things and yes Jesus did all those things. But another thing that Jesus did was to go away on his own, to be comfortable in his own space, to honour his own space.

Often we are told that he was praying that whole time, with prayer made out to be a doing thing. I do wonder if what those early gospel writers meant was that Jesus just hung out with God, that they were just being together – no asking what he should do, no being reassure about anything, but just being together as I suppose I was with God alone on that windswept beach.

I don’t think we do enough of being in our own space. We have the TV on, our phones close at hand, on Facetime to friends, etc. Even things like having good devotionals books, educational books, etc, things that are good for our brains, though great in keeping us forward thinking and challenged, can stop us being in our own space. We are all, or at least most of us, the ones stopping ourselves from being alone with ourselves, our thoughts, our God, and just allowing our own space to revive and restore us.

I know I’m not that good at it so I book in times for me to be on my own [maybe Jesus scheduled these in too?] and I walk. I have my phone turned off. Yes I do take it with me because I do like taking photographs but make sure I check nothing else other than maybe the time. I find if I walk it takes away that distraction of things that are good – answering emails, journaling, reading, playing solitaire, writing, playing word games, messaging my children. All of which [well maybe not solitaire and the word games] are good things, but all of which stop me being alone with my own thoughts. Stop me being alone with the God of the Universe.

The more I get content with my own space the more I will say no to things and I suspect the more I’ll know where I’m going in my one wild and precious life.

Categories
International Women's Day

International Women’s Day

Found on https://www.wheniscalendars.com/when-is-international-womens-day/

I remember my daughter asking why we had to have “Black History Month” when the history of all nations is interwoven. Well the same, I think, holds true for International Women’s day. Why should we have a special day to celebrate women? Well this article on the BBC helps one to know why – Why misogyny is at the heart of South Korea’s presidential elections

The article goes on to say –

South Korea has one of the worst women’s rights records in the developed world. And yet it is disgruntled young men who have been the focus of this country’s presidential election.

“Nearly 90% of men in their twenties are anti-feminist or do not support feminism,” he tells me.

I am only citing this article today because it was on my newsfeed. Too often in too many countries, even ones that cannot be cited as having bad women’s rights records, women still stand behind men in too many things, even if it is just how they are viewed.

How often do we expect it to be the man who follows a career and the women who stays at home to support him? How often do women change their schedules because a man cannot change his? I heard too often over lockdown and home working that it was the man who got the best room in the house to work and the woman had to juggle her demanding job around childcare. For a women to put herself first it is harder than a man in too many cases.

Though I also know my husband would say that as a man it is hard not to be expected to be the breadwinner and would be frowned on by many in society for not being the top earner.

But with all this going on I want to just honour a few women

  • the young women I have worked with in Youthshedz who can talk about hope when they have walked through some really tough things in their young lives.
  • the friend who has been living with cancer for years and yet is still setting up her own craft business and not giving in
  • the women who stay home to look after their children
  • the women who choose a career
  • the women who support each other’s life choices.

Two women who always come to mind when I have to talk about women are Pam and Betty.

Pam tipped my Christian worldview upside down and opened me up to thinking about my faith rather than just accepting what I was told. This has led to a much deeper and sometimes more controversial walk with God than it could have. Her and her husband welcomed me and my kids into their lives at just the right time, and have made space for my husband now too.

Betty, as well as teaching me how to make gravy with fat from the meat, flour and vegetable juices, which I still think of as “Betty’s gravy” even 35 years on, also opened my eyes to political issues, to relationships, to looking at sex, in a whole different way. Her and her husband also welcomed me into their home, but that was at a time when I was a wee bit crazy.

So I should also add to my list – women who have room in their lives and their families to welcome in others.

So to all of whatever gender help to use today to celebrate the women in your life