whispered words

seeking

the hush and the joy of you

the depth and the breadth of you

all consuming, all inspiring

peace that passes

any level of understanding

love all-giving,

hope all-healing

faith - the hands wide open -

not an end in itself

but looking to a different ending

which is actually

full of beginnings

reunited friends

THERE WAS NO no rush of surprise or delight at seeing you;

rather normality stole in quietly and surrounded us.
The months without you simply slipped away -
surely you have always been here?
But as the day wore on I realised
the depth of my missing you -
the way your eyes never judge or condemn,
only listen - reacting to my words
with genuine celebration or grief -
and I breathed you in like
long forgotten air.

so often

Reblogging a poem from a few years back. ..

so often I forget you

you are my sun

the blazing light

by which I see

you are my air

the very breath

by which I live

so often I forget you

you are my water

you bring life

to barren ground

you are my food

you give me strength

and help me stand

so often I forget you

you are my dying and my living

my breaking and my mending

the reason for my being

and you always remember

***

I'm having some time offline for a while, hence the following posts have been scheduled.  This means I will not immediately respond to comments - but please do still comment and I'll be pleased to read them on my 'return'!  I'll choose the winners of the giveaway in a couple of weeks' time. For now, I take my leave.

Image: mine (Pembrokeshire)

the impossible child

In looking at Genesis over at Thirsty Ground, I rediscovered some scribbled thoughts in my notebook from my original journey through Genesis.

They reflect on the nature of promise (especially in reference to God's call to Abram in Genesis 12).

The nature of God's promise to Abram is that it goes against all human expectations.  To the human eye, the land is full and Sarai is barren. In order that the land should be inherited by his offspring (seed) - not just the one who inherits - the tension of the story lies around these impossible descendants, the impossible child.

Impossible to human eyes, but not in God's. There is no mention of curse or disfavour in relation to Sarai's barrenness. It is merely the situation that she - and her family - are in. It's a non-starter, but God is never troubled by such things.  He can mend her broken womb.

Of course, Abram may have assumed that this offspring would come through another woman (and certainly this is what they later attempt, to make their own muddled version of the promise) - but God has always had Sarai - Sarah - in mind.

Sarah's child was an impossible child, especially as the years went by and both she and Abraham were old and past childbearing. Isaac was not the only impossible child, of course, for there was one to come who defied every single possibility.

God loves doing impossible things - things that we cannot conjure for ourselves, things that flash pure divine brilliance across the skies of our lives.

inspiration in unexpected places

At one point, as part of my writing course (yes I am still doing it - although admittedly very behind on my current assignment!), I was supposed to research trade magazines and specialist publications.  Now, I could have spent hours trawling through 'Happy Tractors' and 'Existentialism for Beginners'¹ in WHSmith.  However, I decided to be practical and use my current contacts / resources - which is what a writer is supposed to do anyway.

I put a notice in the church notice sheet. Magazines, please!

Inevitably I got a very varied assortment!  Some were of real interest, others were so jargon-ated I didn't have a clue.  The idea was to find new markets for writing, and to see what was required to write for such magazines - content, references, style.

I did a sort out the other day where I was going through my general magazine 'stash'.

I decided my collection of Insurance Times could probably be recycled. But some of the others I kept - one technology and engineering magazine I found surprisingly fascinating.  Management and business magazines can have articles on people skills and team work and stray into how people tick - very interesting.  One had an article on the role of gossip - I kept that one, and will  probably cut out the article for my clippings file eventually.

Yesterday I found the British Journal of School Nursing in my guitar case (what a strange sentence!)  Someone must have given it to me when I had my guitar with me, and I slipped it into the nearest available compartment.  Since I stopped my involvement in music at church for energy reasons, I've only just discovered it.  I'm not a school nurse.  I'm not a teacher.  I'm not a parent and I'm not a child.  But it is really interesting.  This was an issue from 2008 and had articles on stress and mental health, confidentiality, sex education, weight, drama in education, competence and the age of consent and an interview with a school nurse at an independent Faith School.

Now I am not necessarily thinking of writing for any of these magazines - my knowledge on the subject is full of holes.  But they cover topics that act as triggers - stimulating ideas, providing illustrations, looking at wider issues in specific ways.  And, of course, they open a window on other people's worlds.

We need to stray outside our specialisms, including in relation to faith and theology .  Many of these 'outside' elements can trigger connections we never knew were there - whatever our field or area of expertise.

¹As far as I know these titles do not exist².  But if you fancy some bored googling, you can confirm that for me, if you really want to.


² Rather ironic, considering the second one's title.

switching soundtracks

How do we begin to re-orientate ourselves towards God? Perhaps a little dilution is in order - introducing God-words in our lives to dilute world-words. This could be anything - anything that makes us think about God, encourages us to reflect on what it means to follow him. It may simply be changing our background music - think how a soundtrack on a film sets the tone for the moment.

What makes you think about God? What has always helped you in your journey? It may bear no obvious significance for somebody else, but that doesn't matter. We all have our own ways of learning, processing and remembering.

Sometimes we attempt so much of U-turn that we collapse. You can get up at 5am and have a 2 hour "Quiet Time" if that works for you, but for some of us the initial re-training of our thoughts needs to be more gentle. Instead of cluttering my life with trivia and worry, I want to choose to clutter it with reminders of God. To trigger a different train of thought. To switch soundtracks.

To work on my desire to know God - or least my desire to desire. If I can no longer re-capture the longing, I can at least feel the absence of it. That sense of absence is my starting point.

And I want to fill it with reminders of God until the longing itself reawakens, creating space for the Holy Spirit of God to be heard.

"Advent makes us look for God in all those places we have, until now, ignored." - Joan Chittister

Come, Lord Jesus.

the temporary and the eternal

As part of my writing research I have been looking at origins and meanings of the church year.  This, amid all the other various topics!  So it makes sense for me to note and recognise the beginning of Lent. 

What am I giving up?  Wasting unnecessary time on the computer.  It's a common one these days it seems - I wonder if it is in the top 10, as is, presumably, chocolate? So much can swallow our time and our energy - needless distractions, trying to numb our minds.  It strikes me we do not have a clear idea of healthy relaxation, less inclination to spend time with God and ourselves - prayer and meditation feeling heavy, even alien, in a bitesize culture. 

Lent - put in place as a time of preparation for those to be baptized on Easter Sunday, and interestingly, a time for those who had been 'excluded' temporarily from the church as a time of penitence - leading towards restoration.  Preparation and penitence.  Hardly fashionable words.

We exhaust ourselves with the trivial, and so the meaningful feels slow and onerous.  Quietness and trust are nice in sentiment but difficult to apply.

I say this without agenda.  I merely reflect on the reality of my life in this world.  That it is so easy to weary ourselves with the unimportant, that we never get round to addressing the things of real matter.  We long for meaning, and waste our time on meaninglessness.  We forget what is temporary and what is eternal, not understanding the latter has a far deeper enchantment, if we would only choose it.

I long - pray - that my heart would be a willing one - willing to learn, to hear, to think, to inspire, to go deeper.

Not merely to pass the time.

***

Image from stock.xchg

wishing

I wish
I could more easily grasp
the things I long to know and understand
I wish
I could remember all the things I have learned,
and not have to learn them
all over again.

plumbing the depths

Shortly after I wrote my last post, the book I had chosen as my next to review from Thomas Nelson arrived.  I am just over a third of the way through, and will probably not get to post my proper review until the new year, but I wanted to share some personal thoughts.  It takes a month for these books to get to me, but this one arrived at exactly the right time.  It is The Liturgical Year: the spiraling adventure of spiritual life, by Joan Chittister.

Curling up with this book gives me a strange sense of peace.  So many of the sentences and paragraphs trigger a whole host of related thoughts in my head, turning them over and pondering the import of them, enjoying reflecting on a deeper level.  of course, the Liturgical Year as it is called, the Christian year, begins with Advent.  So for me to start reading it now is very apt.  I needed some deeper reflection on the things of faith, related to the times of pause and celebration.

'Life is not meant to be escaped, we learn, as the liturgical year moves from season to season,' she says at one point. 'It is meant to be penetrated, to be plumbed to its depths, to be tasted and savored and bring us to realise that the God who created us is with us yet' (p60).

This idea of immersing oneself in the rhythm of the Jesus life finds a reverberation in my heart I did not know was there.  I am desperate to embrace a more reflective way of living, of finding the pause, of not mistaking distraction for fulfilment, or as Joan Chittister puts it, not racing 'over the top of [life],satiating ourselves with the obvious, unmindful of its depths. We become stale of soul.'

In this Advent season, this book has helped me begin to think and reflect deeply once more - always something I have had a tendency towards, but easily crushed and squeezed out by life's inanities, distractions and quick-fixes.  I look forward to reading the rest of the book.

thoughts on humility

Pondering, as always, on several things stepping softly through my mind – making the choice of writing them down, before they flee and are forgotten.

Thinking about – humility.

Humility is not an easy thing to describe, especially as we think of it as a personal attribute, within oneself. And ‘self’ is something humility slides away from. The very nature of humility means it is hard to pin down – it does not notice itself or its virtue, because that would not be humility.

Humility is a right view of oneself – but I hesitate even to say that, because I am still talking of self. Humility does not look inwards, but outwards – and not merely outwards, but upwards, using a metaphor of the divine ( we use ‘up’ to portray that which is greater, better than ourselves – ‘down’ has more negative connotations). It sees and recognises all that we are not, alongside what we are – responds in gratitude to all that we have been given, and refrains from the judgements that we so easily make of one another.

Humility sees and confesses the darknesses inside us, does not hide the stains on our souls but offers them up, knowing that no industrial cleaner will ever do the trick of cleaning our hearts. Only God can do that. After confessing, humility accepts the grace offered with joy, not with a sense of ‘this-is-how-it-should-be’ or believing in our deservability (‘deservedness’ is the one you’ll find in the dictionary, but I prefer deservability here – a slightly different emphasis). No, instead with a sense that it is God who chooses to cleanse, forgive and accept us, and not something we have accomplished ourselves.

In our minds there is a fine line between humility and low self-esteem, but in reality they are two completely different attitudes. Humility is a high calling, seeking to honour God by realising his greatness and understanding how small am ‘I’ in comparison. To be humble is to accept an undeserved gift.

Low self-esteem, however, does not look to God as its frame of reference. It compares itself with all and sundry for the sake of cementing the opinion that I am useless. I always feel like a failure. I am never what he or she is. I cannot be anything worthwhile, despite all your talk of God and his compassion and love. There is always an ‘I’ in low self-esteem, because it looks inward all the time, picking itself apart. I am not, I can not, I will never be anything.

Humility recognises that we can never be ourselves as we were made to be – without God. And it recognises that because God is with us he has given us worth, and that though we are not particularly strong, capable or wise in our own selves, through the gifts God gives us we can be part of his plan. Humility sees the privilege God has given us in spite of ourselves – and bows down in awe. Humility kneels before the giver with gratitude. There is no gratitude in low self-esteem – only bitterness, resentment, and a disguised form of pride. For who are we to tell God that what we think of ourselves is truer than what he thinks of us?

Humility looks in a straight line – towards God. Low self-esteem is a circle, spiralling inwards, all the time. Humility chooses to receive, though we do not deserve it. Low self-esteem grabs its own opinion and refuses to receive anything different.

But when one who suffers from low self esteem finally grasps the enormity of God’s blessing, finally grasps the fact that Jesus died for her own sake, she cannot dismiss such a gift any longer. She can only give over her pride and accept that God has called her loved. Rejecting this love is rejecting the most profound gift we have ever been given. It walks away from grace. But grace still exists, and delights in loving the unloved, transforming the broken, and melting the hardest heart.

What Jesus did was the very epitome of humility – ‘who, in being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross!’ (Philippians 2:6-8)

We can cling onto our very selves so tightly, not trusting enough to let go, afraid to lose control, afraid to relinquish our own judgements of ourselves in favour of someone else’s…and clench our fists around the ‘I’ of ourselves. We try to be ‘humble’ but this is not how it works. Humility is a letting go, not holding on. Humility sees us warts and all, looks to our maker in all his glory and recognise how far we fall short – and then turns towards him.
Humility is willing to empty itself completely. Humility unclenches the fist in order to hold onto grace.

Strike through the ‘I’, and you are left with a cross.

what if...?

There are so many times I think

- what if?

what if I did this...or that

what if I tried these ideas...or those

what if I wrote everything...or something

what if I allowed myself to dream?

but then I pause to think

and I flounder, or I get caught up

in fiddle faddle

or twiddle twaddle

and forget to do this...or that

forget to try these ideas...or those

neglect to write something... or everything

and carelessly shrug off my dreaming

I waste time, energy, on thoughtless moments

I lose heart so easily,

and instead of taking something up,

I put it down

and then can't remember where it is,

or even what it was in the first place.

I turn inward, probing as if at an aching tooth,

pondering at my abilities...or inabilities

doubting that from this shell

anything lasting could come

I tell myself

I cannot do this...or that

I dare not try these ideas...or those

I cannot write something...or anything

I will not believe in my dreams

and I drop the memory

of a moment of passion...or compassion

and retreat, having

done none of it.

but...what if

I did?

and...what if

in some small way

it changed the world?

the Shepherd's voice

Wrote this some time ago and it has been on the computer doing nothing. Thought might share it here, in case it was helpful for someone.

Sometimes God feels absent. He seems silent.

Long absences and a lack of communication feed insecurity and pave the way for other voices. You can be deceived into thinking someone doesn't love you. You take their silence to mean rejection; when you cannot see them you lack assurance. Weakness and tiredness make us even more susceptible to doubt. You can imagine the most outrageous unfaithfulness, forgetfulness, or become convinced that you cannot possibly be love-able.

And then you hear the voice of one who loves you. Love which reverberates through every syllable; love that can't be denied. When God feels absent it takes an effort to remember the last time we heard his voice or sensed his presence. But he is always faithful, never forgetful.

When the sheep hear the shepherd's voice, they know it. All other voices are exposed for what they really are. The shepherd does not desert his sheep when the wolves of terror appear, when doubt breaks into the fold, when fear snaps at the heels of the lambs. He does not walk away from the sheep that, in straying too far, has become ensnared by thorns. Rather, he de-tangles the sheep from her prison and carries her safely home.
(John 10:1-15)

Today: 4/10, medium