Category: Stories

I see light everywhere

About a year and half ago I was at a retreat and was led through a meditation using the mantra, “Be still and Know that I am God”.

During the meditation I had the most beautiful vision in which I was following a whisper of a voice through a vast landscape of different terrains. Some beautiful and enjoyable, others harsh and bleak, and others dark and foreboding. I never caught up with the source of the voice and so was constantly chasing/following it hither and thither.

The pursuit ended on a high mountain top, with a clear day and stunning vista. I heard the whisper again behind me and as I turned round to look for its source I was immediately transported to another realm, or given a different perspective.

There before me lay the journey I had taken/life I had lived in an overlayed image, and I realised I was looking into the face of God/being itself. We met face-to-face, and in that infinite moment I knew as I was fully known.

As I sat in my seat nearing the end of the meditation, as my attention returned back to this physical plane I realised how I had just felt. I had been transported outside of myself, I felt expanded, huge, floating in unfathomable space and at peace. It was glorious.

Sometimes seeing ‘light’ in the world around us can be a case of being in the right place at the right time and don’t blink or you’ll miss a glimpse of flash, a bit like pursuing whispers. We can easily question our senses, did I really hear or see anything. If the whispers and light are ones pointing out, or emanating love, life and hope I believe they are real and they are from God. We would all be the better for pursuing things like that real or not and so would the world. Believe it or not there are whole communities of people who believe that this is one of the main aims of human life and they call themselves churches.

A defining story

Have you ever stopped to think about what narrative defines you and the way you view the world?

I recently read this quote from one of my favourite teachers Franciscan monk Fr. Richard Rohr; “How we begin is invariably how we end and how we proceed. Our creation story is important.”

This set my mind of whirring about the impact of narratives and I had to write some of my thoughts down. Narratives can be such powerful drivers in shaping the way we interact with life, people and the world. Many of us unwittingly carry negative narratives around with us and we don’t realise how they can completely dictate our course in life.

As a perfectionist I have constant critical, negative self-talk going on in my head no matter what I am doing. For as long as I can remember that voice has been trying to, with some success dictate how I perceive life. Trying to undermine my enjoyment, my freedom to express, my willingness and ability to let others in.

Over the last year or so I have started to invest time in understanding perfectionism and the impact it has on people. During this time I have become more and more aware of this voice than I ever was before. I began to realise how many elements of my life it had secreted itself into and the impact that had on me.

Fortunately as a follower of Jesus and having grown up around this ‘Jesus-culture’ I have also had an overwhelmingly positive narrative spoken into my life at the same time. A narrative that starts with the words; ‘God created……and saw that it was good’ (my paraphrase) and leaves the ending open with a promise that; ‘there is now no separation between God and humanity’ (again my paraphrase)

And so despite these two competing narratives vying  for my attention on a daily basis, while I can’t prevent myself hearing either I do have a choice about which I believe and allow to define my reality.

So I would like to modify Richard Rohr’s above statement to say this instead; ‘How we choose to begin is invariably how we end and how we proceed.’

So what is your narrative? And how does it define you?

 

“God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.”

Genesis 1:31

Hope-full

Sometimes realisations only hit you when you stop, take a step away from the busyness and reflect on the bigger picture from a removed place.

I had one of those moments this weekend after having just completed a big week of events at my school aimed at instilling hope. It was a frenetic, fantastic, stressful yet enjoyable week!

As I have been resting this weekend I got to thinking about where do you go after a big event like that? What is the follow up, how do you maintain momentum? And I realised that although big events can provide a remarkable catalyst for change they are not the ‘end’, instead they are just the beginning.

The thing that really makes a long term difference in anything is the consistent, small interactions and acts carried out day-by-day, everyday. Just like the key to a good level of fitness is not one massive session in the gym once every 2 months, rather it is regular manageable sessions in the gym several times a week.

Consistency and discipline produce results. The same is true when seeking to make a work environment more a hope-full place. What’s needed is a hopeful mindset, consistent actions along with language promoting hope and gradually the frame through which everything is perceived begins to change.

To step out on this journey we need to ask ourselves a vital question, ‘What is that hope based upon?’

This is quite possibly one of the most important questions we can invest our time in answering.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Jeremiah 29:11