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.
Here’s my little love. What I love about my dog is how compliant he is. This morning we bumped into friends so instead of doing just a mile walk we did three. He did not complain at all.
Sometimes we think of love as being easy going, about holding hands, about flowers and chocolates and meals out, and just being “nice” to one another. But Valentine, who the day is named after, wasn’t easy going, was not compliant, would not have accepted a bunch of flowers, box of chocs or even a lovely weekend away as a sign of love. For Valentine he was super tough in sharing the message of God’s unconditional love and of how Jesus had loved us all so much he was willing not just to have died for us but to have led his whole life in sacrifice to bring us back to relationship with God.
The being the saint of lovers comes from the belief that Valentine married people against the Emperor’s wishes and took secret messages between jailed lovers.
For some reason in the Middle Ages St Valentine’s day became associated with courtly love; sending knights off on adventures and daring-dos! So even though it has moved into more romantic love it is still about sacrifice and showing one is willing to risk one’s life for those one professes to love.
Whether we give or don’t give, receive or don’t receive, like or dislike the whole thing of Valentine’s day, how many of us are willing to sacrifice for those we love? Let alone how many of us are willing to sacrifice for those we don’t know that well?
[An aside – Valentine is also the saint of epilepsy and beekeepers!!! Hummmm!!!]
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.
Magic of a river in full flow after a storm. Abergywngregan August 2023 Photographed by myself
Did you know you could do magic? In fact you do it every day by the things you think and how you hold on to your feelings.
I tried to write this without mentioning the people concerned but realised it didn’t make sense otherwise so I’ve had to name the relationships. Bit of tough vulnerability here!!!
This revelation came to me whilst I was having negative jealous insecure thoughts around my daughter-in-law. As I was journaling and pondering and, I suppose, justifying my feelings, I got a picture in my head of the Snow White’s wicked stepmother. From that picture this came.
Snow White’s stepmother would have been a kind and beautiful woman when the Snow White’s father pick her as his second wife. He didn’t have to marry to have someone to look after his daughter after he was widowed as some men do. He could have had servants to do that for him. He chose her, I am sure, for her beauty and beautiful nature. But she had been wounded in childhood by someone so as Snow White grew into a young woman she got jealous. Then I am sure there were times when Snow White went off and did things just with her father. This would have exasperated the stepmother’s wound. I wonder too if she also pondered whether the father looked at his daughter and remembered his love for his first wife. All this added to the stepmother’s insecurities making her feel angry dark thought inside. She then chose to act on those thoughts and, if she had been successful, instead of helping her step daughter through teenagehood and out into the wider world, she as good as killed her.
It made me realise that we can choose what magic we use and how we act on our feelings. I had a choice – 1. to be jealous and angry with this person and to send out negative vibes. Ok not a poisoned apple but something close to that which would have killed our relationship and killed my relationship with my son 2. I could accept that this was how I felt but then let those feelings slide from me, know that my relationship with my son was not based on who they were with now but on some “deeper magic”.
I could trust in the depth of the relationship with my son and no longer be jealous of his wife then give life to our time, or I could spoil everything with my jealousy.
[I was going to say petty jealous but actually it was very real and I had to accept it before I could let it go. I think too often we dismiss our feelings and so they fester about because they haven’t been truly banished.]
The stepmother did not accept her jealous feelings, instead she acted on them and went into destroy mode. I decided to accept my feelings, let them go, go to my safe place of deep gratitude, and allow a better magic to flow.
And of course as you know the answer to the Snow White story so you can guess the answer to this story. Yes we all had a great time together. There was no negative animosity. I grew in love for my daughter-in-law and got some great times on my own with my son.
The magic I made was my choice, but it comes through the healing I’ve gone, my relationship with myself, my trust in God/The Universe to have my back and love me unconditionally. Without all that I would still have that wound and be wanting to hold too tight, to poison what was, not be able to enjoy what is going on around me.
Though sometimes I think we don’t realise we can do magic so we say things about a situation or person that are not uplifting or positive, we work towards a worst case scenario, and we are not disappointed. Snow White’s stepmother “knew” that eventually Snow White would be more popular and more beautiful than her so she had a plan on what to do with her then. If I had planned in a “I know this time will be hard work” I am sure it would have been. But instead, once I’d free wrote/journaled around it, accepted what I was feeling and accepted that this was not a good place to be, ANSed myself, etc then I could believe this was going to be a lovely magical time with my son and his wife.
Because it was deep magic from being healed and knowing I am an amazing person then it wasn’t a “trying hard” but was from a place deep in my heart.
We need to all remember we are all making magic every day by what we think, feel, do and believe.
As always the youth group I co-run blows me away every time. We haven’t met over the summer and I realised when we got together how much I’d missed them. The eldest is only 14 and yet their wisdom is amazing.
I’d decided we would do about the names of God. Unfortunately I hadn’t read the Bible verses I picked for them to read but they were so amazing and I learned so much. Firstly we read about where Hagar meets God [I’ll do a full piece on this in the next blog] which was complicated to explain but I got so much from it especially as it connected to the Forgiveness theme of the all-age service. But this was much more my revelation than the groups.
We then read Genesis 1:1 and I posed that old question of “what did God make the world with?”
One of the girls gave me an almost withering look and said “well God made the world with Love”. Wow! Of course! You know I had never thought of that before. All the world is connected with love and when we love each other and love the world all runs smoothly but when we fight, are greedy, want more, don’t trust and love each other, or when we abuse the natural resources of the world, then things are awful. Then there is suffering. It goes back to that “Why does God allow suffering?” Well God doesn’t. We do More to come on this soon.
This leads us to this bigger picture, to this need to be connected. To trusting and listening to God. God loves each of us unconditionally so that we can love each other unconditionally. Many of us haven’t received that unconditionally love from earthly sources so haven’t given it back. But if we get our heads round the God of the universe loving us unconditionally then we can love each other unconditionally. Or at least give it a try.
So with all this buzzing in my head I then read this blog by Dave Andrews. Someone I met many years ago in passing at Cross Rhythms festivals. Another connecting connection. In this post he talks about how as he has got older he has let go of doctrines and now just accepts that God is love, God loves unconditionally, and we are to do the same.
Well it seems to me, Dave, that at least some young Christians have reached that point in their teens rather than having to wait till we got into our 60s. To me this gives hope for the Church, as in big time Church with capital C, and God moving within and without.
As I was saying to someone the other day “something has to change and it has to come from those in their teens and 20’s”. Well maybe it is but I need to be connected and need to see the bigger picture so I don’t miss it?
Conwy Beach, 7.10am 6th Sept 2023. Photographed by myself
[This is the first of some more following on from discussions with a friend who stayed with us over the last weekend. She is exploring her faith and asking those “awkward” questions]
I love a good sunrise. It always fills me with hope for the day ahead. Here on this deserted beach yesterday, even though there was a busy day ahead I was filled with hope.
Hope in what you may ask. Well just hope of a great big God, of a great big world, that all my needs would be provided for the day, that I would not walk alone, just hope
I was reading Creed: reexamined beliefs just now. In this Fiona talks about whether what we believe really does bring wholeness to us and to the world. The part that jumped out at me was the bit about Hope and I will requote her quote
“The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.”
Barbarba Kingsolver, Animal Dreams
As Christians what do we hope for? I mean not what do we say we hope for but what do we really hope for? Does what come out of our mouths echo what is in our hearts?
Things like do we really believe in going to be with God when we die? Do we really believe God is with us in all that we do? Do we really know we can call on the Holy Spirit whenever and they will be there?
It seems to me that there are a lot of people who still would say they are Christians who don’t go to church but are exploring the things they were brought up with. Things just don’t “work” for them. For instance how can God be a God of love if certain denominations tell us to hate people who are not heterosexual, not living the lives from that denominations view point. How can the Holy Spirit be there to guide us if we look so glum, worry about death so much, are anxious, are fearful, greedy, don’t ask for help? Etc etc.
If we aren’t living the basics – God, as in the whole full Triune God, is love, loves us unconditionally, and is there for us always – do we really believe what we then try to tell others?
Happy spoilt dog at Newborough beach, Anglesey, August 2023 photographed by myself
We have diverse TV habits but from them it is interesting what God can say to my husband and I.
We were watching Scandi crime drama, Beck, which used the overused story line of the white girl being bad because her parents were fundamental Christians who used the bible verse “spared the rod and spoil the child” [a misquote of Proverbs 13:24] as their disciplining of their strong willed child. As always with these story lines it involved the child being punished severely. Though I think many of us have been brought up this way. Not necessarily physical beatings but lots of emotional withdrawals if we did not behave. In fact I notice myself saying to some of the children I work with “if you don’t do x [behave as I would like] you won’t get x [something you like]” as a way of encouraging what we, as adults, have decided is acceptable behaviour. It isn’t as extreme as in the Beck story line but it does work along the lines of not spoiling the children – as if spoiling is a wrong thing.
We also were watching “Dogs behaving [very] badly” and noticed that the dog behaviouralist encourages the dogs to be calmer and more fun to be around via a series of treats until those treats are not needed. Spoiling the dogs??? Maybe!
But here’s the thing – what if we’ve put the wrong emphasis on the wording. So the phrase “spare the rod and spoil the child” has more often than not been used, as in the episode of Beck, to say that one must reprimand challenging behaviour in our children, often leading to a spank [illegal now in Wales] or some other form of discipline, and if the parent does not discipline their child properly then their child will grow up spoilt and being spoilt is not a good thing.
But what if it means that a parent should “spare”, as in not use a form of discipline, but instead spoil their child with love and attention, of understanding and care. Not material things but time, understanding, being there for them, accepting them as they are, loving them unconditionally.
The last paragraph sounds more like how a God of love would be to their children than one who grinds their children into submission and compliance.
As with the dog behaviouralist man, he takes dogs that are so unruly their owners are thinking of getting rid of them, and via love, understanding, lots of treats, and never any smacking or punishing, takes these dogs and turns them around to be wonderfully content, loved, well-behaved dogs. Spoiling the dogs does not make them selfish, greedy, needy. They were those things beforehand. Spoiling the dogs makes them feel more loved, more secure, more wanting to be pet dogs.
With many things I think we need to be aware of how we put written words together and the emphasis we place on them, whether this is the Bible, emails, books, text messages, etc.
I just wonder how different all of us would be if we were “spared the rod” [as in not punished] but were spoilt a bit. Not just as people in and of ourselves but I do wonder how differently we would be towards God if we knew that God always spared us from punishment and just wanted to spoil us.
As Forgiveness parts one and two both started with a photo of my dog I felt that I had to start Forgiveness part three with the dog even though this picture has no relevance to the post 🙂
So Sunday we did Forgive us our Sins as we forgive those who Sin against us in youth group.
I used the “sin” translation because SIN, I was told years ago and it has stayed with me, comes from an archery term that means “missing the gold mark at the centre of the target.” So really sin/sinning is just missing God’s mark rather than trying to work out what we’ve done wrong. We “all have sinned and fallen short the glory of God.” We’re not bad people, we’re just human and cannot make God’s mark day in day out and I think God finds that ok.
Something I feel I was taught wrongly though was that Forgiveness is conditional. I was taught that God would only forgive me if I forgave others. Now I’m not so sure. Surely if that were the case then that makes God’s love conditional when in fact God’s love is unconditional. God’s love is not based on anything I do, say, don’t do, don’t say, think, don’t think, behave, etc. God thinks I am awesome no matter what. And if is from that basis that I am safe to forgive others.
I watch it with the children I now work with in after-school club. Those who are in a secure place, who trust that we as their play-leaders like them, or from homes where they know they are loved, are much quicker to say Sorry to a fellow after-school club friend than those who don’t feel so secure. It isn’t whether they are or not but how secure they feel in that.
We are all loved unconditionally by God but some of us believe that more than others. As Paul says though that shouldn’t make us want to do more wrong things. In fact that security makes it easier for us to say sorry and try to “hit God’s mark” more often. As one of the young people in the youth group said, because God forgives us it gives us a second chance to make mistakes. I love that. That assurance that we are free to make more mistakes, rather than fear that some adult Christians have that if God forgives them then they shouldn’t make that mistake again.
One of the amazing things that we see if we read the about the life of Jesus is how ready he was to forgive. Not to forgive when that person was sorry, when they forgave others, when they were even ready to be forgiven but to just forgive because that is what true love is.
Some of the last words Jesus says whilst dying horribly on the cross were
Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing
Luke 23:34
These people he was forgiving were jeering him, gambling for his clothes, generally pleased that he was gone. Not at all repentant and asking for forgiveness. Yet Jesus still forgave them with his dying breath.
There is a selfish reason why we should forgive. Not so God loves us more because that is a given. But we should forgive because it is better for us. It is a proven medical fact that people who truly forgive are healthy, happier, live longer, and are more open to the changes in the world around them. They are not fearful, not anxious, and are ready to let others into their lives. Check out what the Mayo clinic says about the power of forgiveness
And if you fancy reading more check out the book “The Body Keep The Score” to see more, which I’m sure I’ve mentioned before.
Neither of these things might be Christian per se but they seem to advocate very clearly the importance of what Jesus was teaching in that line in the Lord’s Prayer.
Who has not looked at clouds and seen shapes, dragons, spaceships, incoming rain, promises of sunshine? The worst thing is when someone says “no that’s not right”. It is your imagination seeing the things. You know they are just clouds but are enjoying what you are picture.
I was thinking about both Respect and Unconditional Love and thinking they can look different to each one of us. I don’t think there is a one size fits all of respect or unconditional love.
I was walking with someone this morning who is struggling with something and I felt I had got the handle on it, but just as I was going to say my bit she said how hurt she’d been about people telling her why they thought she was dealing with this. I closed my mouth and listened to her. I did not say these friends of hers were wrong. I did not say they were right. I did listen and say that her feelings were her feelings. I gave her the respect she needed at that moment in time. Perhaps I could say I did not feel respected because I didn’t have my rant but actually that would not have been kind and helpful to her.
Perhaps Respect and Unconditional Love come when we lay aside our needs and wants and listen to the other person. Perhaps if we believed we were loved unconditionally by God, by the Universe, by something more than us, then we could let go of our needs and allow others to feel respect, to feel really loved.
How will this work with those who are striking? Who are asking for more money but who say they feel their jobs are not being respected, are not the caring jobs they signed up for? Money is not the answer if they are still expected to work in the conditions they are working in. Those in government, those in management, those with power, need to bend a bit, show these people they are important to the workings of this land.
I wonder if those in power, in government, in management, also do not feel respects, do not feel unconditionally love. How often does the media run down the government? With the latest words for the Prime Minister all that followed was complaints and criticisms. How would we all have felt if we put forward an idea and got it slated? But then those lower down do not feel respected.
So how do we change? One of the things that strikes me with the Lord’s Prayer – which I don’t think was meant to be read parrot fashion but was a serious of ideas we should be looking at – in “thy kingdom come, thy will be done” that this means us. You and me. For that to happen we need to be giving respect, giving unconditional love, listening and respecting the person we are with at the time, caring for our planet, our world. Caring firstly for those nearest to us.
If each of us showed respect to the person we met and then they showed respect to the next person they met and so and so forth, but the end of the day so many people would feel better about themselves, and I think towards each other. I don’t think it is about “making people Christians” but is about showing unconditional love, showing respect.
You know Jesus never told anyone to convert. He did tell them to change their lifestyles but he also showed them respect, unconditional love, and told them that the Kingdom of God, that true place of peace and deep joy, was nearer than they thought, was actually deep inside of them, but sometimes they just needed to let it out. And letting it out comes, I think, knowing our self-worth comes from within not without, that we are loved by something so much bigger than ourselves and that we have nothing to lose by being nice to others.
So today I will try to believe I am loved and respect and pass that on to others. That I really do not have anything to lose by being kind.
Aspirational Adventures 