30 May

Posted at 19:52h in Faith
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I recently wrote a post about freedom. This post was a starting point for re-articulating my faith. If you haven't read it you might want to check it out before reading this. The ideas contained in these posts are fresh, and like wet paint have the potential to make a mess. I am stumbling towards truth, inarticulately. I am starting to write about some new truths. Some things my younger self would probably call heresy. There is nothing safe or tidy about this. --- I am good. I spent many years believing the core of me was bad. This idea sounded plausible and reasonable because, like every other sane person on the planet,...

01 Mar

Posted at 14:15h in Faith
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Today is Ash Wednesday. In churches all over the country people are gathering to repent of their sins. They are kneeling while the vicar or celebrant draws a cross of ashes on their forehead as they prepare for Lent, and after that, Easter. I like this. A stopping point, a place to be reminded. It is only recently I have understood what repentance is really about. Maybe you never mis-used or misunderstood repentance, but for a long time I did. Repentance was part of the conversation about how I was messing it up and was not able to get my shit together. It was another way to...

31 Dec

Posted at 15:21h in Faith, Living well
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Last Wednesday, I was in my car when I heard a programme on the radio about the Christian Feast that falls on that day. December 28th is the Feast Day of the Holy Innocents. A rarely celebrated day, this feast remembers the young boys who were slaughtered by Herod as he searched for the messiah. Very festive. Hot on the heels of Christmas, the day when hope and joy was made incarnate on the earth through the birth of Jesus, we are confronted with a feast that reminds us of the reality that his birth did not and has not brought peace. Atrocities still occur....

28 Nov

Posted at 19:05h in Faith
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I struggle to articulate the discoveries I have been making about my faith, in part because what I believe cannot easily be squeezed into language. It cannot be condensed and compressed into words, black and white on the page. I am only ever able to scratch the surface, if I am lucky. Even if I had all the time in the world I would still remain unable to articulate the breadth and depth and complexity, the clear and pure simplicity, of the faith I am discovering. This was not always the case. I used to find my faith far more straight forward. For every question there was an...

22 Nov

Posted at 14:24h in Faith, Mental health
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With regard to my faith I have spent a lot time writing about what isn't. Exploding lies. Debunking myths. That sort of thing. I write about this because it is what I have spent a lot of my time doing in my real life. Unravelling thoughts about my beliefs, chucking out systems that have become constraining. I struggled under the weight of some repressive ideas for a long time. No one forced these mindsets on me. In the way that most things happen it was a mix of my personality, my experiences, my choice, my upbringing, and my pride that combined to intoxicate me with the notion...

07 Oct

Posted at 15:37h in Faith, Mental health
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A few years back I noticed a book lying around. It was by a Christian speaker, one of those women who talk in authoritative statements, wearing power suits in bold colours. I never read the book, but I remember it's title, which shaped itself as a command. It was called 'Don't Dread'*. Oh, if only it was that easy. I was raised on stories of overcomers. I was told testimonies of people who through their faith had seen the breakthrough. I heard these stories in church on a Sunday, and round the dinner table. All the testimonies seemed to me to have a happy...

21 Sep

Posted at 16:47h in Faith, Mental health
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My therapist tells me that she believes it probably won't be long until there is a test, a blood test or something, that will tell what is chemically happening in your brain. To ascertain that something isn't right, some chemical or hormone isn't being released correctly or in the right amount (forgive me - I am no scientist). This would distinguish between mental illnesses that requires chemical intervention and those mental illnesses that can be alleviated by environmental changes and talking therapies, without the need for the pills. And although we shouldn't have to prove it, we shouldn't need that validation, it...

19 Sep

Posted at 15:01h in Faith
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Yesterday in church we sang together. We sang the words, "you're never going to let, you're never going to let me down". The words caught in my throat and I fell silent. I couldn't sing the words even though I have found them to be true. He is never going to let me down. I couldn't sing it even though I believe it, and feel it. I couldn't sing it although the core of my being is at peace with this statement. I looked around me and I saw my friends. I saw their grief and struggles, I saw their pain. I saw loneliness and illness,...

15 Sep

Posted at 19:21h in Beauty, Faith, Living well
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It is tempting to want to be a builder; to work with a plan, to know what you are going to produce before you have finished, to be sure about all the details. But better by far to be a gardener; to work with the elements, to be surprised by the things that grow and those that don't, to be malleable and open to change, to have to adapt in order to thrive. Builders have a level of certainty about the outcome. They plan and prepare and Are-Not-Wrong. Rarely does anything happen along the way to change what they are attempting. Sure,...

14 Sep

Posted at 13:27h in Beauty, Faith, Living well
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Recently I've been thinking about the connectedness of everything. About how it is all part of the same thing. We are all substance and soil and soul. We are all atoms and curiosity and magic. And we are all in the conversation. A few years back, we lived close to a big park where I sometimes used to run. I ran to get fit, but really I ran to get out. To leave the house and be alone without children talking and questioning and demanding. I love my children, but by 6pm. after a day on my own with them, I was often ready...