Croeso i Wefan Ardal Weinidogaeth Bro Ardudwy
Following my post about the open windows painting someone sent me this quote by Winston Churchill ’The vistas of possibility are only limited by the shortness of life.’
It brought to mind the hymn line ‘A thousand ages in Thy sight are like a morning gone’
It is of course a line from the hymn O God our help in ages past which reminds us that we all face the inevitable end of life as we know it through death.
Hence the picture today which reminds us that we only have one life and that we should use it well. How we view life will generally shape how we live it, the glass half full or half empty syndrome. I was watching an episode of 24 hours in A&E last night and the Consultant Doctor commented on how some people seem to defy age and chronic illness to live full lives, his comment was ‘they live with their windows wide open embracing everything fresh and new’
That reminded me of a quote I had stored away because it had touched me when I read it months ago. So, I share it with you today
There is a beautiful complexity of growth within the human soul.
In order to glimpse this, it is helpful to visualize the mind as a tower of windows.
Sadly, many people remain trapped at the one window, looking out every day at the same scene in the same way. Real growth is experienced when you draw back from that one window, turn, and walk around the inner tower of the soul and see all the different windows that await your gaze.
Through these you can see new vistas of possibility, presence, and creativity.
Complacency, habit, and blindness often prevent you from feeling your life. So much depends on the frame of vision -- the window through which you look.
JOHN O'DONOHUE
Excerpt from his book, Anam Cara
Here are some quotes to ponder on as you consider from which window you will look today, are you on the ground floor with a limited view or high up in the tower seeing all the world lying before you? Are the curtains wide open or partially closed?
Welcome thoughts that raise your heart to God. Open wide the window of your soul.
Open your heart, meet the sun of eternal light that enlightens everyone. That true light indeed shines on all. St Ambrose
The first step must be to turn and see that God is good beyond all imagining.
Gerard W Hughes SJ
Not my words of course but too good not to share
Pooh woke up that morning, and, for reasons that he didn't entirely understand, couldn't stop the tears from coming. He sat there in bed, his little body shaking, and he cried, and cried, and cried.
Amidst his sobs, the phone rang.
It was Piglet.
"Oh Piglet," said Pooh, between sobs, in response to his friend's gentle enquiry as to how he was doing. "I just feel so Sad. So, so, Sad, almost like I might not ever be happy again. And I know that I shouldn't be feeling like this. I know there are so many people who have it worse off than me, and so I really have no right to be crying, with my lovely house, and my lovely garden, and the lovely woods all around me. But oh, Piglet: I am just SO Sad."
Piglet was silent for a while, as Pooh's ragged sobbing filled the space between them. Then, as the sobs turned to gasps, he said, kindly: "You know, it isn't a competition."
"What isn't a competition?" asked a confused sounding Pooh.
"Sadness. Fear. Grief," said Piglet. "It's a mistake we often make, all of us. To think that, because there are people who are worse off than us, that that somehow invalidates how we are feeling. But that simply isn't true. You have as much right to feel unhappy as the next person; and, Pooh - and this is the really important bit - you also have just as much right to get the help that you need."
"Help? What help?" asked Pooh. "I don't need help, Piglet.
"Do I?"
Pooh and Piglet talked for a long time, and Piglet suggested to Pooh some people that he might be able to call to talk to, because when you are feeling Sad, one of the most important things is not to let all of the Sad become trapped inside you, but instead to make sure that you have someone who can help you, who can talk through with you how the Sad is making you feeling, and some of the things that might be able to be done to support you with that.
What's more, Piglet reminded Pooh that this support is there for absolutely everyone, that there isn't a minimum level of Sad that you have to be feeling before you qualify to speak to someone.
Finally, Piglet asked Pooh to open his window and look up at the sky, and Pooh did so.
"You see that sky?" Piglet asked his friend. "Do you see the blues and the golds and that big fluffy cloud that looks like a sheep eating a carrot?"
Pooh looked, and he could indeed see the blues and the golds and the big fluffy cloud that looked like a sheep eating a carrot.
"You and I," continued Piglet, "we are both under that same sky. And so, whenever the Sad comes, I want you to look up at that sky, and know that, however far apart we might be physically...we are also, at the same time, together. Perhaps, more together than we have ever been before."
"Do you think this will ever end?" asked Pooh in a small voice.
"This too shall pass," confirmed Piglet. "And I promise you, one day, you and I shall once again sit together, close enough to touch, sharing a little smackerel of something...under that blue gold sky."
We all need a piglet. I pray that each of us may have a piglet in our lives.
After two days of Zoom training and a weekend of being in the company of more than one person, surrounded by laughter, chatter and more noise than was at times comfortable it has taken me a day or two to once again sit comfortably with the silence and the aloneness of what has become my normal life. This is not a lifestyle imposed on me by Covid 19, although that has admittedly taken it to a new level, but one I made a deliberate decision to embrace after the death of my husband.
We had spent much of our time caring for others and although it was in a Christian environment silence and contemplation were not often possible as we lived out the hymn ‘Brother Sister let me serve you’.
I was interested yesterday to read the daily post from Henri Nouwen which was on the subject of ‘Holy Silence’ it reminded me of the initial difficulties I faced as I attempted to live with silence, how in silence we start hearing voices of darkness: our jealousy and anger, our resentment and desire for revenge, our lust and greed, and our pain over losses, abuses, and rejections. How, as at times I was tempted to do, we want to run away and return to our noise and wall to wall entertainment.
But over time these gradually lost their strength and receded creating space for the softer, gentler voices of the light. Nouwen writes that
These voices speak of peace, kindness, gentleness, goodness, joy, hope, forgiveness, and most of all, love. They might at first seem small and insignificant, and we may have a hard time trusting them. However, they are very persistent, and they will be stronger if we keep listening. They come from a very deep place and from very far. They have been speaking to us since before we were born, and they reveal to us that there is no darkness in the One who sent us into the world, only light. They are part of God’s voice calling us from all eternity: “My beloved child, my favourite one, my joy.”
Then as if to add to what I already knew I received an e mail with the following message
Advent is almost upon us, with Christmas close behind....this will probably not be our usual Advent and Christmas, but the messages are the same. Let us pray that we may not make this season a time for mindless consumerism but a time for reflection on our joyful expectation of Christ’s coming. I offer the following stilling for your prayer times...
“Be still and know that I am God.
Be still and know that I am.
Be still and know.
Be still.
Be.”
I offer this prayer to you today
Beautiful words always in our thoughts love you big sis
There is a great deal of concern at the moment about the effects of Covid 19 on mental health and a study has found that the rates of suicidal thoughts have increased during lockdown, especially among young adults. This of course is very concerning but if I am honest something disturbs me even more and that is the presence of unsubstantiated reports of a 200% increase in actual attempts to end one’s life since March 2020 together with an associated comment which read which that ’Suicide is preventable’.
Over my life I have come into contact with many families who have battled with the ‘what if’s’ following the suicide of a close friend or family member and as someone who has lived through the unsuccessful attempt to end a life of someone close and much loved I know from personal experience that it is not always preventable.
To think that one might have failed to notice the signs or to do something other than one did is devastating and almost as destructive as the arrival of the news. I want to share with you something I wrote as I tried to capture the emotions and process which followed over several weeks following the event .
The first reaction to the news
O thank God she’s alive
true praise or selfish reaction?
Was the only sanity seemingly left in life to embrace death?
‘to jump into the hands of God who will catch me’
Questions, questions to which there was no answer
how did it come to this?, why? Where were the signs? What did we miss?
Followed closely by surges of pain and great anger how could she?,
no thought then for the pain that drove or the voice that commanded
we offered help, how dare she make us suffer like this
She lies broken at her own hand
does it take courage or does desperation take over?
having reached the point of no return did she wish the act undone?
We found hidden that she had written that death beckoned
it was not the first time she had felt this way
what drove her literally over the edge this time?
Why do we assume that life is so precious death a failure,
to be prevented at all costs it was life that held the fear for her
God hold her in your arms grant her life,
we give her into your care to take or return according to what seems best to you.
If you're concerned about your well-being call Samaritans free on 116 123, write us an email at jo@samaritans.org, or try our self-help app here.