blog ~ faith ~ family ~ heartlife
The date on my original notes for the topic of this post is March 2003. It was a session presented with my friend and mentor Joan Grosser and in those days we thought and spoke in such similar terms that when I read those notes now, I can rarely tell our words apart.
The topic was gossip.
The audience was about 50 women.
And the effect of it was both electric and long term.
Sometimes people put 2 and 2 together and come up with 4 – but what they don’t realise is the digits they added were not the correct ones in play. If you need to add 2 bananas to 2 bananas because you see 2 bananas and 2 bananas on your kitchen bench – that is great. But if you are analysing someone elses life and assume what you see is a 2 and what you’ve read or heard causes that problem is a 2 you likely don’t know that your equation is a full size blackboard covered in chalk short of accurate information.
No this is not about someone passing judgement on me and mine – but I can say it because I’ve experienced the pain of that. And I’ve done it. And am very ashamed.
We all just need to stop it.
This has been a VSP 🙂
It is a very good thing that God isn’t like me. My interest in raising these tomatoes lasted longer than in my usual horticultural efforts, but it still waned. After a couple of months I was forgetful and busier in other directions and sure as you like, I forgot to keep watering, checking, restaking. Thankfully Rod noticed my usual gardening habits had kicked in and he picked up on the watering so they didn’t die but their yield won’t be as big as if I’d maintained more thorough care in the early weeks.
Continue reading “What Tomatoes taught me about God”
Sitting down to lunch with a friend recently, we were talking about how we need to pay attention to our feelings, but to be careful how we interpret them as if we interpret incorrectly, we can make damaging decisions and false moves.
Continue reading “Wrong interpretation but perfect illustration”
I almost never open this box, though I keep it close, as I know the contents and all they summarize will reduce me to a puddle. And every year before his birthday I wonder about posting – and mostly I do – but mostly not much – as his story is not fully my own, yet his story so completely a part of me.
Continue reading “Remembrance”
We each all see through our own sets of filters.
If a picture of a man and a boy fishing on a jetty are shown to a child from a reasonably functioning family – this child might say “That’s a kid and his Dad fishing”, another child with an abusive or absent father might just say “That’s a kid and a grown up fishing”.
Continue reading “Filters”
I made a friend when without having met her before, I picked her up as she was walking in the rain on a wintry day 21 years ago. She wasn’t quite a total stranger – I recognised her as a new mum at our current school, and obviously she recognised me as well so she hopped in the car and directed me to her home which she was about halfway through the journey toward.
Continue reading “Moving towards”
A verse I’ve been thinking on a bit this holidays is Malachi 3:16
Years ago I made a new friend when she shifted to the hills, came to our church and asked our then minister for someone to meet and pray with… he put her in touch with me and we became deep, instant and now longtime friends as we met together to pray every fortnight or so for several years. Our third was a baby when we met, and she came and prayed and chatted and folded washing with me through the births of the next 3 kids.
Continue reading “A different kind of prayer”
I had a conversation a few years ago about how ‘small talk’ drove me bananas… one of the things said by the other person was that ‘small talk’ was actually incredibly important.
Imagine a world without “Hi” and “how are you”? Without chatting over the weather or other safe topics? While its true that I love deeeeeeep deeeeeeeeeeep chats, I’m so glad we had that one as it has given me food for thought and reasons to notice more detail.
Continue reading “Shallow to deep”