Wednesday 18 December 2013

Bethlehem today

Below is a link to a video in which some people from Bethlehem now share their hopes for peace.
http://youtu.be/bjQDl95tOcU


Well the little model Bethlehem we made is now ready for visits.



The tradition of creating a model of the nativity and the village of Bethlehem is very strong in Spain ...

Not sure there are many like this one!

The idea of this project has been to raise awareness re the situation in modern day Bethlehem.






The model will be on display in Agora Bookshop over the Christmas period with explanations and the opportunity to leave messages of peace.












Bethlehem continues in my mind and heart today ... Dad says it's snowing there ...



Here's a poem ...

Monday 16 December 2013

ADVENTure

I’ve just noticed in my advent musings that this word ‘adventure’ has the same root as advent … obvs! (spot the dictionary.com geek) I love adventure and perhaps this is why – it’s a journey into the unknown of what’s to come! Something that’s true is that something is always coming. You cannot hold time back or stop the world from turning. An adventurous spirit is willing to participate in the exciting and potentially risky experiences that come their way and even look for them! The old cliché that life is an adventure rings true here, because it will always present us with new experiences, even if it’s as simple as a new face at work, or the aging process.
What position do we take before the unknown, the new and the surprising? Do we see our life as a fixed state to be maintained, or do we have an idea of how we want things to be in our future and aim towards that? When I think of an adventurer, I think of someone who has some idea of where they are going, they may even prepare in various ways for what’s ahead, but when they place one foot in front of the other they also know that the best bit to come may be what they least expect. On my dictionary travels I found this rather romantic definition for an adventurer ‘a soldier of fortune’. So time to strap our boots up and see what we can discover…

A new agreement contd

‘Money is an agreement’ said the man in the video clip yesterday. This resonated with me as I believe that agreement is very important, that it even has spiritual power –‘if two of you agree something on earth in my name it shall be done by my Father in heaven’. If we do not agree on certain things within our relationships, jobs, households, it’s difficult to move forward. Partnerships, teams, laws, contracts, covenants. ‘This my blood of the new covenant’ said Jesus at the last supper. He was referring to a new agreement. So what was the old agreement? Simply put, according to the Old Testament scripture, this is how it went … You – (specific group of Jews) will be my people (under my protection and guidance) and I will be your God (point of reference, main man and object of worship) if you continue to follow my commands and bring my light to the earth. New agreement? Jesus invites everyone into relationship with God no matter where they come from and what they have done. Score!
What I am asking myself now is what kind of agreements do we live under? What kind of agreements are really making the world go round currently? Have we mutually agreed that if you do not have access to the resources you need to live that’s just unfortunate or your own fault? What about the arms trade which is based on making money out of constant conflict? What if world systems were based firstly on agreements about the value of people as equal, sacred and beloved instead of the value of resources and products to be earned or acquired? Oh my life I’ve just realised how little the world looks like that right now … eeeeek. ‘Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth’ Matt 5v5

Sunday 8 December 2013

Saturday 7 December 2013

A generous spirit


Been pondering over generosity and giving, right use of resources etc. Currently I feel pretty convinced that the right course of action in all our daily transactions of time, money and resource, will come from a right attitude or spirit within.
So what is a generous spirit? How do we perceive ourselves as players within the world? Is our identity in our ability to earn or produce? What about in our ability to give? Lets start like this ... You are a gift to the world ... Do you believe that?? How can we give of ourselves today?

This is something my Dad gave to me this week -this picture with the words 'a small drop makes waves and turns the world upside down' :) Thanks Dad

Friday 6 December 2013

thankyou Nelson

Thankyou Nelson,
Today we lost someone who anchored heavens hope to the ground for a time, who walked out a vision of life without hatred, who showed us just how bright that vision can get, that what we long to believe is true, that forgiveness can make the way to peace and patient service has the power to undo evil. We saw in him what we often fail or forget to be.
We have lost someone, but we havent lost what loved in him. It is now our responsibilty to live out the light in us and rise to the occassion of being. thankyou again nelson.
Today we grieve beauty and at the
same time hold to its promise.

Thursday 5 December 2013

White skies

Today's advent thought is for those who are grieving or broken hearted:

When the sky is white
And you strain but you fail
To see colours in light
When the cold holds heavy
Against your skin
Let the winter in

Give it this battle
It's yours to fight
There's no strength on this earth
That can hurry the night
Let it pass gently
Let it pass on
As a friend who visits
And is suddenly gone

For as surely as it came like a cover of grief
And kept you adrift like an autumn leaf

So surely will it go like a clearing mist
And watch as you rise to a summer's kiss.

                                                                                          White skies in Burgos - looking a bit 'Minas Tirith'

Wednesday 4 December 2013

Advent-Woop! A journey home...

Ha ha! I couldn't resist resurrecting some gratuitous blogging for advent this year! So watch this space as I bring you some sights, sounds and reflections on my December days in Burgos before I embark on the journey home to the UK :) And it occurs to me as I anticipate this journey with much excitement, that this is the general idea of the advent season. A joyful, hoping, waiting, longing for a place we can call home. Some of us are fortunate enough to have that place or feeling here on earth, where we can take a deep breath, loosen our shoulders and sink into a night of peaceful sleep. Some of us are still searching for this place. Some of us believe our sense of home can be found in a person not a place. The Christmas story is about a God who comes searching for us, to help us find our way back to our true home, in His Everlasting Arms. It might just be that here, where we are known, we are home. I hope you feel a Christmas star resting over you tonight. Sleep tight :)

Thursday 18 July 2013

Light headed

So I’m a little lady travelling light right? Little –check, lady –yes last time I checked, travelling ‘we are all travelling’ and light? Well there’s a question. I’ll come clean: I regularly eat more pastry than the Pillsbury dough boy, drink more beer than the average Olympic darts player and hoard more rubbish than the local recycle plant (convinced that one day that bottle top will become an essential craft item) and now I think I have more old cardigans than my Granny.

But do you know what? I’m not gonna concern myself with that right now. What I’m thinking about in this post is not actually to do with my material lightness, but rather my lightness of being. What’s in my head and in my heart and am I carrying excess baggage? I think I hold onto a lot of stuff in my head ‘just in case’, it’s like I’ve got old attitudes and mind sets filed away ready. Disappointments for example, even when they have been resolved, get stored for rainy days so that if something else goes wrong it will be in good company.

 I was very interested in an article in the paper the other day of a female author of a certain age who said she felt it was a misnomer to say that experience equates to wisdom. Experience can actually make you bitter and slower to try new things, experience can make you more judgemental, all depending on how you are able to process that experience. Processing, by nature, means a transforming and filtering of your reality and sometimes a throwing away of the unnecessary or unhelpful.

‘Let all your experiences be washed by love’ this involves forgiveness, acceptance and a letting go. To have memories is not wrong but how we hold them might shape how we create new ones. If I nostalgically hoard offenses in order to justify my own negativity or failures I am only stuffing up my own head.

What would you rescue in a fire if a fire happened in your head? Hopefully what you learned and what you loved … or as an old fave song of mine goes …

‘A lightness in my Spirit a joy that knows no limit, here in the Grace of God I stand’


Friday 12 July 2013

Pilgrim progress - Beyond destiny

So with all this walking and meditating, arriving and leaving, I pause for further thought on the word 'destiny'. Destiny is clearly some kind of friend with the word destination, and the word destination has to do with arrival. Today my dear pilgrim friends' dip their feet into the Atlantic sea as their long road to Finisterre winds to an end and now they take the deep breath of arrival and perhaps ask -what next?
Here's an idea - the word destiny is such a strong concept still in our world view because it describes the moment of arrival we are all looking for, when we truly connect with what we were made for and it all 'comes together'. We might look for it in a relationship, or a job, a vocation or a travel experience but maybe, just maybe, our destiny does not lie one concrete happening, but rather is with us all the time, under our nose? That sense of connectedness where we feel most invigorated and alive may not be at a distant end point, it might just be in the daily discovery and living of who we truly are in the world. Magic moments come when we collide with circumstances or people who resonate with the tune that we are playing, but the important thing is to keep making our own unique music :)

Wednesday 3 July 2013

Pilgrims Progress five - Feet

Well some people have foot phobias and others have foot fetishes but I am just gonna say - I LIKE FEET :) It's interesting that in the English language the foot is used as a metaphor for many things 'cold feet' when you are doubting something, 'itchy feet' when you are unsettled, 'two left feet' when you can't dance and 'sore feet', ok actually that's not so metaphorical that's just when your foot hurts. But you get the idea ... So how are you feet feeling today and if they could speak what would they say? Consider that the state of your feet could be an indication of where the rest of you is at.

Pilgrim's prayer -Foot Mediatation: TAKE GOOD TIME to follow this mediation :)

Relax and make yourself comfortable
Become aware of your feet
What feeling are you getting from your feet
Maybe you could put this feeling into 3 describing words
Pause on these words
Consider how the rest of your
Body
Mind
Soul
May also be sharing in those feelings
Now become aware of someone washing your feet
Gently, carefully, bringing healing
Maybe you could put the healing you are receiving into 3 describing words
Pause on these words
Consider how the rest of your
Body
Mind
Soul
May be receiving this healing

Smile, wiggle your toes
You are loved.

Tuesday 2 July 2013

Pilgrim progress four - Known contd

Psalm 139

'You have searched me, Lord,
    and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
    you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
    you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
    you, Lord, know it completely.'

To me this is a beautiful text about the Divine Being's intimate knowledge of us. God knows how many times I'm gonna hit the snooze alarm in the morning, the parts of my body I secretly pick, he knows my thoughts when I am saddest and happiest, he knows my brave-face smile and my private giggle. He knows how the situations I face today will affect me, he even knows what I will think or say about them. Why? Well in my opinion, this is not because he has got my life pre-worked out or because he is pulling my vocal chords like a puppet, but rather because he's so nestled into my heart, so 'familiar with all my ways' that it is like an extreme version of the married couple who finish others' sentences or the parent who anticipates a child's fall and is there to catch them. How about resting in the fact your Divine Lover will always be passionate for your every move, hung on your every word and delighting in every corner of your soul.

Prayer for the Pilgrims:
Every day may your steps bring you closer to the knowledge of the Lover that has always been at your side x



Sunday 30 June 2013

Pilgrim's Progress three - Known


‘He walked before God all the days of his life’. This phrase appears shed loads In the Bible and seems to be a popular way for Old Testament writers to sum up the life of a believer. To live your life before, in front, with reference to, acknowledgement of, in the conscious presence of a Someone is I guess distinct from a general random walk.

Lately I have been having lots of conversations about the word ‘DESTINY’ and I note that despite all our modern advances comforts and technologies, people still have a sense that something bigger than all this operating in their lives and desire to seek out their place in it all. When you break it down further, I think to speak of destiny is often to speak of identity, do I have a unique purpose, who am I or perhaps more importantly, am I known?

This for me is where the walking before God bit comes in – to walk before God is to live knowing that you are known. Being known from a perspective beyond us, having our life in some way observed, is I believe what holds us in the fabric of this complex universe and gives us meaning.

Prayer for the Pilgrims:
May you walk in His Presence, as His Presence enfolds you
May you walk in His Love, as His Love ever moulds you
May you know you are known under sun, under sky
May you know you are watched with the kindliest eye

Friday 28 June 2013

Pilgrim's progress two -Walking

I've got this hunch, there is something about walking. 'Something happens in your brain when your walk that helps you to think' said a pupil of mine quite unexpectedly the other day. It turns out that research shows walking regularly increases your life expectancy and  lowers your risk of contracting mental illnesses including conditions related to memory loss.
But there is something else I think, something primeval: man, feet, earth, not too fast and too slow, our steady purposeful motion under the wide sky. Digging around a bit more I see that in the Hebrew Bible, to walk indicates much more than an activity or a low budget sport, it refers to your actual state of being, your way of living. Everyone has their own walk don't they? And it would be hard work (though potentially quite amusing) to fake this over a long period of time. The way you walk is the 'way you roll' as we say in modern speak. The Scriptures speak of walking humbly, faithfully or obediently, walking in the Way or off the path, in the steps of the wicked or in the rhythm of the Spirit. So as we start our journey we become more conscious of our way of walking, but I suggest the deeper revelation to come will be not in the how of our walking but in the who with ... to be continued ...

Prayer for Pilgrims:
May our walking bring us to our knees in prayer, may our prayers strengthen our feet to walk

Wednesday 26 June 2013

Pilgrim Progress One - Thin spaces

Hello bloggettes! First apologies -it's been a while! But what better time to get back on the blogging bandwagon than after a surprisingly profound interlude on the oh-so-close-to-my-front-door 'Camino de Santiago' (smug face). Currently I have some precious friends following the route, so last weekend I decided to go along for the ride. Such was the depth and range of the stories I heard and the characters I met that I became convinced that Martin Sheen was about to jump out at me from behind a near-by haystack. But, ironically, what I had neither bargained for nor prepared for, was that God could be waiting for me too and I was about to be tripped up - in a good way. 
Forgive me if I use this term wrongly, but what I am often longing for is to live in a 'thin space'. And by 'thin space' sadly I am not referring to the space between my bikini top and bikini bottoms (diet pending) but rather that state of being where you feel deeply sensitized to the reality around you, its significance and worth, your place in it all, God. In some ancient traditions like that of the Celts, they believed there were actual physical places in which you could experience more of this closeness - the holy, the sacred UP IN YOUR FACE.
So as I merrily walked the Way this weekend, in mid animated chat with a lovely lady from Tennessee, I suddenly found my voice breaking into tears, tears that appeared to becoming from some very deep place, not sadness, not really joy either, I guess I'd call it Spirit - something in my Spirit moved as we shared some hopes and dreams and I really quite enjoyed it! Was it the wine the night before, the lack of sleep due to a spectacular symphony of snoring, the sun stroke, the hormones, or something quite OTHER? the mysterious whisper that comes when you least expect, the stone in the road that brings you to your knees.


I have decided to keep blogging until my friends reach Santiago, thus joining in pilgrimage with them virtually and seeking out some thinness in my own daily walking!

Friday 4 January 2013

What next?

What next? It's a kind of New Yeary question that seems to emerge after Christmas as surely as a turkey burp. And yet this year I've felt a rumbling within that has lead me away from this question for once, and towards a whole new way of thinking.

It strikes me that we live in a very linear way, fair enough really, as we find ourselves projected through space on the irreversible arrow of time. But I question whether the deeper life, the life of the soul is actually on this same trajectory or operates in this way at all.

We can go through life like a kind of tick box road map exercise, seen that, done that, achieved that, what next? what more? we ask, as forwards and forwards we go cramming in the acolades before the time runs out. However this New Year when I came up for air, out of the wrapping paper and mince pie frenzy, I found myself  wanting to look in a completely different direction ... How about sideways? at the people and things around me, gifts already given, perhaps needing more apreciation, or, how about down? at the depth and meaning of it all.

 I'm wondering if I sometimes lack time for people, for beauty, for art, for reflection cos they are just not fast enough. So for now, I'm going to experiment with throwing away the road map (think I may have already fallen of it anyway) and try to slow up and take a look round.

I think I've been lane swimming in a soup (not literally - thats gross). There is a lot to explore and I sense that under the surface the eternal currents of the soul might carry us to new adventures if we could only dive deep enough to catch the flow.