Responsibility

A week ago it was brought to my attention that within me there is an expectation that if I care for others then somebody, when I need it, will care for me. I felt misunderstood, misjudged, thinking that yes, that would apply to my sibling who states this clearly, no beating around the bush. But it doesn't take a deep thinker to see that if that feeling is within my sibling, being brought up together by the same parents, it's probably in me too. It's just that I convince myself that I'm not like that, I'm just a little 'holier-than-thou' there.



I attended a small group the other day, of people who want to build nesting boxes for birds in order to enhance their likelihood of survival given the destruction of forests and imbalance caused by us humans. As I sat there listening to the enthusiasm of the others for the birds, their wanting to know more about their nesting and feeding patterns, their habitat, their ability to get to food and water so that we could build suitable 'housing' and put it in suitable places, I became more aware that I don't feel strongly about birds. I love the dawn chorus that wakes me and I love to see pretty little colourful birds but later as we walked through the bush I was even more aware that I'm far more interested in trees than birds. My enthusiasm for building nesting boxes is based mainly on how much I love to work with wood and produce something useful.



I could stop there and say, 'well, we were all created differently and that's how it is', but it isn't really. Because if I go back to how I felt when people were discussing birds I discover that there's a familiar groaning within me, that 'oh no, here's something else I should be responsible for', and I feel like a bad person because I'm obviously different to all these people who want to give to birds as opposed to me - I just want them for their dawn chorus and their beauty.



Somewhere, a long time ago, I picked up that I need to be responsible for – well, just about everything – the well-being of my partner, kids, friends, the tidiness of my room, my house, my garden, the world, you name it. But it has also been pointed out to me (incidentally by the same person who pinpointed my expectation) that many of us who were given undue responsibility when young grow up believing they are responsible for others and often forget to be responsible for themselves in the process. Hmm. So that's why I expect others to, at some stage, return the favour?



I sat high up on a large smooth rock this morning, part of a tiny canyon, next to a huge tree that just seemed to grow straight out of rock, sunny blue sky, white clouds overhead reflected in a small clear pool below me where baby goannas were swimming. Another tree with new green growth and flowering, grew beside the pool, providing welcome shadow. I love to be in the wilderness so much. It occurred to me that among other things it is also an escape, a place where not I but God will tend to the landscape – I don't feel responsible.


I'm running away though. I want to get to where I don't think things out at all, where I do things because I love doing them, where the act of doing is the reward in itself, where it doesn't even occur to me whether something is fair or not. But, like my sibling, I had better start with being up-front about how I really feel.



Meantime, Paul Simon's words are singing in my head:



Far above the golden clouds the darkness vibrates
The earth is blue
And everything about it is a love song
Everything about it.

Sitting on my rock I'm overwhelmed with how everything about the earth is a love song.

And love does not feel like responsibility.

Arrogance

Again I am going through assorted feelings relating to a relationship break-up. I have felt very much the injured party, sure that the fault was with the poor quality of communication - not mine of course(!) - and the difficulty with pinpointing and saying the truth.


I want to get through this experience having learned something about myself, changed, and therefore less likely to feel the same pain in the future and I have focussed my prayers on this. I've been wondering if I'm getting anywhere, being the impatient soul I am, but woke in the night with a deeper understanding of something which has sobered me up a lot, yet at the same time it feels hopeful. I can at least see now how I have caused pain, not only in this relationship but in so many of my interactions all my life.


He told me that he felt uneasy around me. I didn't know what to do with this and passed it off at first.


And there's the beauty of prayer. Nothing seems to happen for a while but suddenly I wake realising that I have been wanting him to change for a very long time. I know well (in my head) that this is not a loving way to be towards a person and I say and do everything with the conscious intention of allowing him to be who he wants, do what he wants. But I'm denying the feeling within me that is the opposite Billy Joel's song

Don't go changing to try and please me
You never let me down before
And don't imagine you're too familiar
And I don't see you any more

I would not leave you in times of trouble
We never could have come this far
I took the good times, I’ll take the bad times
I’ll take you just the way you are

I need to know that you will always be
The same old someone that I knew
Oh what will it take 'til you believe in me
The way that I believe in you

I said I love you and that's forever
And it’s a promise from the heart
I couldn’t love you any better
I love you just the way you are

I don't want clever conversation, no, no
I never want to work that hard
I just want someone that I can talk to
I want you just the way you are



My heart sinks when I realise how awful it is to be on the receiving end of the feeling 'please change so I can stop feeling ashamed of you, so I can feel that I have helped you and you will be grateful to me and tell the world and love me forever'.

As usual I get analytical. Where did that all start in me? And I remember that my mother's family with their professional background was praised by my father, who came from a tradesman background. I think he was proud that his children all chose to become more 'educated' than he was. Was my mum ashamed of him? I know she didn't appreciate some of his flagrantly 'earthy' mannerisms and that he probably did this to get a reaction from her. I know well that once I reached my teens I was very ashamed of my father, feeling he argued in an ignorant and headstrong way and that he wasn't like some of the 'intellectual' people I gravitated towards then.


Equally I was ashamed of my mother, her lack of polish and her difficulty in looking as well-dressed and stylish and confident among the mothers. For years I firmly believed she was stupid. She saw herself this way and perhaps in part my father did too. He was often quite condescending.


And when I trawl through my own life I can see that, having taken on similar beliefs, I condescend, I judge another based on how intelligent I believe they are, or how pretty they are, and I feel very ashamed of being with those associated with me if I believe that they are not popular or intelligent or whatever.


So my 'helping' of others has been very damaging. I think of my children who, like me, laboured under the feeling that they were not clever enough, not pretty enough, not active or hard-working enough and the rest, and not only that, they had the double whammy of two professional parents who pressured them to do well in all their endeavours.


What's wrong with that? A lot. The message that one can never be good enough, cannot be loved for who one is, for being 'just the way you are'. It's not a great thing to carry through life.


I look at the expectations I had of various partners in my life. And I look now at the pressure I still put on people I see when I tell myself I am helping them. Helping them to become what? What I want or what they want?


No wonder people feel 'uneasy'.

Hiding Places For Anger

(written 24 May)
Yesterday I was visited by someone who wasn't feeling too good. They'd had a rough morning and a busy agenda for the rest of the day. We had a hot drink and initially I tried to get them to talk a little about how they were feeling but it wasn't going anywhere so we just got into the physical work needing doing.
It didn't feel so good. Politeness was observed, attempts at friendliness but underneath there was something not admitted, some elephant that didn't have a name. I struggle when I can't put my finger on what's going on but have noticed over the years that if I'm open to it (which means, if I keep the issue in my mental 'in-tray') then some better understanding comes to me, often in the night, sometimes some days later.



This morning I saw it like this: I have always felt a lot of resistance within me whenever I feel I'm being asked to reassure or sympathise. I also really dislike sentimentality; maybe I'm suspicious of insincerity, I don't know why. And because I don't want to reassure or take sides, I probably swing too far, bypass the compassion and love I could feel instead, and just harden up. I think the unspoken request for reassurance from another leads to a feeling in me of wanting to protect myself from being sucked dry.



I'm not saying I don't want to support another because I do. I think when we can see the other person is wanting to take responsibility for how they feel it's altogether different, it doesn't feel at all like I'm going to be exhausted at the end of it all. And so I see a difference between 'support' and 'reassurance' where it feels to me that the other person is asking to be helped to feel better without facing something that feels uncomfortable to them.



Interestingly I've been involved in the 'helping professions' all my life. And, not surprisingly, have been exhausted, and seen many others become exhausted along the way. It's called 'burnout' and holidays are recommended, but increasingly I feel that none of that ever needs to happen if we stick to 'supporting' in the sense that we are not shouldering the other's emotional load but helping them to shoulder their own, and 'reassurance.



What's all this to do with anger? Well it feels to me just now that when I feel the plea for sympathy and reflexively harden myself I'm actually touching on anger within me. Anger may be a strong term but I have a feeling that if I explore this 'hardening' I will move through the passive-aggressive feeling of 'I'm not going to let you wear me out' to a real feeling of injustice that more is being taken from me than I want to give.



And how many of us are so tired, feeling that we are always being asked to give, having been taught that one day we will be rewarded? I think of Mother's Day, a celebration I was careful to discourage in my children, wanting to avoid the sadness inherent in the lot of many mothers who work hard all year to feel 'loved' on one day in the year.



But I'm getting sentimental here!

The Sunflower

There lay the last large stalk.

I was so upset.  The kangaroos have been, it seems to me, systematically destroying all the plants I’m watching grow.  All very well to say they need the nutrient; it does nothing to ease how I feel.

Last spring a couple of sunflowers came up of their own accord and I loved their brightness, their loud and large statement to the world of what they were.  In due course I collected the seeds and planted some around my new blue water tanks, imagining how good the bright yellow would look with the blue tanks, blue sky and greenery around them.  None of them came up but I was away and had more seeds so when I returned I planted some in pottles so I could tend to their germination and early growth.

Well eventually some made their way to assorted places around the garden and I was happily surprised to see two other plants come up where last year’s sunflowers had been.  These did best of all, telling me not-so-subtly that they didn’t need careful tending in pottles prior to being planted.

It was exciting watching these and the others grow.  The former were in a raised garden bed and already the plant was so high that no kangaroo could ever reach the tops.

Not so the ones I had planted out.  One morning I was disappointed to see that they’d all been nibbled down, and with only the stalk remaining, while they tried to throw out a few shoots in the ensuing week or two, they eventually succumbed to further attack.

I said to myself (as others had said to me) that the whole process was to do with something I needed to feel.  Well, I did notice that my enjoyment of the kangaroos around the house became a little discoloured, even touched on feeling a little bit angry (horror!)

Then last week I woke and one of the two big plants in the garden bed was no more than a broken stalk, with the rest on the ground, and the other had all its leaves eaten as far as the animal had been able to reach. 

Now I knew I was angry.  I raged and cried a bit, and felt somehow that the last remaining flower, which was about to bloom, would make it.  Only another day or two.

And now, this morning, I see only another broken stalk with the remains on the ground beside it.  I’m no closer to not minding about it.  I’m no closer to loving the animal that I’m told needs it more than me.  I’m just sad about how unfair it feels to want something innocuous, just some simple thing of beauty to enjoy, and to have it taken from me.

And what I now see more clearly is that it does no good to tell myself how I love animals (or people) when I actually feel I’m not being loved back, that the truth for me at present is that there is a nugget inside of feeling very unloved – and until I allow this I will never truly be in a position where I can love unconditionally.

Shame

A month or two ago I came to understand that a lot of the time I'm feeling that I have no idea what to do in a given situation. That may sound very trite; I suppose that the eye-opening part of it for me was that, as for any other unpleasant feeling that crops up within me, I can either try to push it down and pretend I don't actually feel that way, or I can allow myself to feel “I just don't know what to do here”. 

 

I can see that a large part of me has a problem with this; how will the competent and capable

outer shell that the world knows react to me as 'helpless female'? And so I tend to let that valuable insight into myself slip into the background.

But yesterday something happened that I hope I won't let slip. I heard from a third party what another had said about me and I felt such rage rising in me, such anger at the person who had supposedly said this that even I could not ignore how angry I was. It's rare for me to want to go off and be physically violent with a punch bag or whatever but this time it was the thing to do. And soon afterwards I felt I couldn't bear to be at that location so I took myself (and much of my anger) elsewhere. I shelved it while I saw to some commitments but I knew it had not gone away, that my rage at the person was unchanged.

So I asked for help.

...when you consider the thought that you actually want to stay angry at women, it feels like there is some truth in that. There is a strong feeling of 'righteous anger', that you have good reason to be angry. But God is never angry, and the only reason you want to be angry is to avoid feeling some truth, some fear, shame, grief. 'Righteous anger' – the term smacks of militant religions does it not? So be aware of God's truth even while you are wanting to express anger, that there is nothing 'righteous' about it. See it instead as either some childhood anger that must be given an outlet, or a choice to avoid something.

You felt ashamed at first when you heard the words spoken through another by this woman, even though you were already well aware of what she had felt a few days before and you knew that she spoke the truth. You disregarded this shame, justifying your position as the injured party and allowing your anger to grow. But this totally avoids everything. Reconsider, see how much shame you feel. A woman has, in your perception, cast you in a very bad light to another. All you want to do is go as far away as possible and never return. Does this desire in itself not convince you of how deeply ashamed you feel?

And that led me to look at the many other times I get angry, to see if in fact I am ashamed. This is what I have noticed so far:

- There are times when I actually feel very dirty and horrible, something like I have this Medusa's head of snakes that everyone but me can see, and I want to run and hide myself away from others forever rather than feel their disgust.

- When I am with others I am constantly wanting feedback that I'm being seen in a good light, I'm constantly living up to an image I've created of myself which I really want to believe is the authentic me.

- I look at the suggestion that my children play out the emotions I deny in myself and feel overwhelmed by how much of the time when they were little they were ashamed of themselves, tentative in social situations, wanting very much to ingratiate themselves to others, and how much I wanted to facilitate their friendships so I could feel good about how 'popular' they were. I see how they have carried this essential shame of who they are into their adult lives, even though, like me, to varying extents they deny what is now their own shame, their own feeling of inadequacy. I see how my feeling ashamed of myself has extended to feeling afraid that my children would shame me, causing them to feel ashamed of who they were without even knowing the reason why.

 I wish I could give a ''happy ending' to this bit of writing; I hope it's coming for me.  But meantime I feel that this connection I'm now seeing between some anger and shame is worth mentioning...

Two Options

I reckon I’m a compulsive teacher.  When something excites me, even if I haven’t quite grasped it in its fullness, off I go given half a chance.  And when not given half a chance I imagine conversations in my head. Oh dear!

So there I was, talking to someone in my head about how they didn’t really want to change.  (And realizing as I went that it was just as true for me.)  That trying on the idea that I don’t want to change can produce two different reactions in me.  One is that I feel bad about myself because I’m trying so hard to change, praying all the time for help – so I think – and yet I feel I’m getting nowhere. What is wrong with me???

The other feeling is just starting, I hope, to create a groove in my brain, an alternative to the rut I’ve just described.  This groove is to recognise that beating myself up is a dead end street and instead to see the statement ‘I don’t want to change’ as just what it is, a statement of truth about me and nothing more.  A statement about the real person I want to discover.  This puts it in a whole new light for me.  It becomes a positive statement rather than a negative one, something I could put on the list of who I am at present.  True, it’s not something I want to keep on the list but at least it’s a discovery of a part of me. 

To press the point, one feeling is a ‘you’re no good and never will be’ feeling, totally deflating, and the other is one of discovery. The reason I want to write about this is that this particular discovery is followed by an ‘ok, I’m at the bottom of the ladder but all I need to do is use my perfectly good arms and legs and start climbing’ feeling. There’s an element of adventure, of learning something new.  And with it is an openness to God, an awareness of God’s presence that is certainly not there when I’m beating myself up.  And that in itself is a pretty good short-term reward, hard to describe, but a feeling that I am being supported, that I will always be supported while in this space.  And loved.

From here I have the motivation to ask ‘why don’t I want to change?’  I want to know and it feels like I’m surrounded by teachers who want to help me.  The answers tumble out.  Right now I have food and shelter and comfort and people who are kind to me.  If I change, all that could change too.  Against that I see clearly how the world is changing, and how fast it’s happening, and I don’t want that because it will impact on me, of that I feel certain.  I’m very afraid of change, of losing my present level of comfort.  I’m very afraid of hunger and pain and desolation and loneliness etc etc.

But fear is not comfortable.  Here’s another truth about me.  It was fine when I denied I had fear but as soon as I say ‘I’m afraid of change’ here’s another potential opening to God.

It’s a long ladder but my arms and legs are not tied; I only need to recognise this truth!

Getting lost and fear

Yes, I’m still reflecting on my recent walk in the hills.  One thing that struck me was the efforts of the unnamed people years before me who had built all the cairns and hammered in the marker poles or tags, who no doubt continued to keep watch that they weren’t being weathered away or knocked down.  I’ve always managed to get lost quite easily (though there’s nothing quite like being designated leader of a group or travelling alone to make one sit up and take notice!) These days I would much rather trade in the relative security of following the leader for the better awareness I have of my surroundings when I am alone or leading.  And that despite the ignominy of admitting I’ve made a wrong turning every now and then, and going back to get it right.

[I’m reminded of one of my children when little, quoting at me from a Berenstain Bear picture book – “It’s never too late to correct a mistake” which makes me smile, given that at the time I was telling him that I was driving in the wrong direction but was waiting for a U-turn opportunity to turn.  The best little kids’ books hold big truths, but I’m digressing.]

And I was also thinking of the previous evening when I was starting to think hopefully of arriving at my campsite, pondering the wisdom of taking shortcuts down this winding track into the valley.  I was tempted to sidle along the hillside off the track rather than follow its taking me up and then down and it came to me then that it’s not uncommon for the most direct route in life to be the one that looks more difficult, taking us up and down, and for our tendency to take what looks to be the easier way but turns out to take a lot longer.

I didn’t get lost then, but the following day, despite my being careful to identify cairns and marker poles as I went, there came a time, with the sun being directly overhead, where I could see the saddle I was heading for in the distance; however no matter how hard I looked I could not see the next cairn.  So eventually I used logic, decided that there was really only one way the track could go and I set off in that direction.

Perhaps there was only about 20-30 minutes of my scrambling over rocks and taking take not to slide hopelessly on scree, looking always for some sign of the path, before high above me I made out a few rocks balanced on a jutting boulder and headed for this.  And, luckily, it did turn out to be a cairn on the track I was looking for.

In that 20 minutes I was conscious of thinking dire thoughts such as my running out of food and water, and not being found, but not really allowing myself to ‘succumb’ to these fears.  And on I went. Well, maybe I’d opened the fear doorway a little.  Suddenly it seemed like all I could think of was that I had a pathetically small amount of food with me (this same lack of food hadn’t worried me at all a few hours beforehand), there might not be a water source near the track, and that my arms and legs (which I don’t cover with suncream) were getting quite a blasting from these hours of direct summer sunlight.

Luckily I chose to find the shade of a large rock and allow myself to be open to all these fears, as well as the denied fear of getting lost just previously.  A voice in my head said ‘why are you afraid?’ and I reflected that it was really all to do with how ashamed I would feel if people found me and how they would think I should have known better and been sensible and it was all my fault, and so on.  And the little voice said ‘God doesn’t feel that way about you’.

And suddenly (even as I write about it) I was shedding a few tears, of relief really, that I wasn’t being judged by God, and that it was OK to cry about the shame of feeling judged and know that God was right there with me.

So a few minutes later, feeling somewhat better, no longer worrying about sun or food or whatever, I carried on and up, again delighting in the terrain and the views and the glorious day and how good life can be.  I ate when I got hungry, drank when I got thirsty, didn’t worry about rationing myself at all, found all the water I needed along the track and finished my last biscuit not long before I was back at my campsite late in the afternoon.

But that’s not all.  Because I had a vague feeling about this sunburn thing.  And that evening, I noticed something. Earlier in the day I hadn’t worried at all about my face or neck being burnt because I’d been very careful to wear my brimmed hat the whole time and keep those parts of me in the shade, believing that as there was no snow underfoot (and forgetting about the reflection from the rocks) I would not be burned.  But my face and neck did feel surprisingly sunburnt.  My arms and legs?  Despite the 9 hours walking, much of which was in full sun exposure, there was not the faintest trace of sunburn.  Not even a bit of a line where the socks or T-shirt ended!

Some might call that a miracle.  I don’t really.  To me it was pretty awesome evidence that fear has everything to do with one’s physical ailments.  I don’t yet know what I’m not seeing with regard to why my face and neck were affected – but God always has more exciting instalments for me…

Gratitude and the Present

The other day I posted something on love, saying how God’s love is indefinable. But I remembered later that there’s a passage in The Little Book of Truths (p109) that gives me a similar sense of the evanescent that I had. In speaking of the divine love of the Father, it says,

Now, this love does not come all at once in its fullness, but as a still small voice, it tenderly and timidly answers the call of the heart that cries for it in earnestness and faith, and as it is nurtured it grows stronger and more soul-possessing, and makes its presence felt to the supplicant. 

I just wanted to add that; it speaks to me of the complete lack of demand that struck me too.

I’d also like to post something else I wrote on returning from my three day trip in the hills…

Mindful that the weather forecast promised three sunny days before the next bout of rain, I decided to take my backpack and go to Cascade Saddle, an area I had been close to but never actually visited before, as I was keen to see the view of the other side of the range.  It would take three pretty big days but I was travelling alone and thus was without the extra worry involved (for me) about how companions might be faring.

I also wanted to travel alone because I was hopeful of fewer distractions than when I am at home alone.  Since childhood I have been in the habit of going off alone; it has become an escape route for me when I feel I need one.  I know that much of the time I will be thinking either of the future (and in fact, again my habit is to worry rather than to dream) or of the past.  Here I used to think more positively and allow only the good memories but as my family will remind me, of late I have been more prone to focus on the gloomier aspects and forget the good times.

However, on this trip I resolved to notice my fixation on past or future and draw myself back to the present.  I thought I would try out having God as my travelling companion. 

And this trip has been a reminder that for me God is in the present. I rode my son’s trusty little bike laden with my backpack and boots to the start of the track and could have been (and was, at times) distracted by my fears of a puncture and me with no gear to fix it, whether my water bottle was full enough to get me there, whether I’d use up so much energy on the hills I’d not be able to finish the full day I’d planned… the list goes on.  But back in the present, here I was, enjoying the fruits of some inventive genius on this bicycle, which is such a practical marvel even in these days of automation and electricity, the sun and the wind, the road built years ago to make life easier for we travellers – and God who is, for me, the driving force behind it all.

A habit I’ve also developed especially over the last year or two is to remind myself whenever I see something beautiful, be it a sunset or an intricate tapestry pattern or an insect poised, that God has just presented me with a gift.  I feel sure that I only really see a tiny fraction of the gifts God gives me in this way but on this trip, with the mountains recently coated with fresh snow, the long summer grasses, the bush, I could go on… it was so easy to feel gratitude, and to voice this to God who so kindly consented to be with me, never complaining about sore feet or that my pace was too fast or slow, just there whenever I chose to be aware. 

My businessman brother has read his share of self-help books and is strong on the ‘attitude of gratitude’.  I, on the other hand, am more like the nine lepers in the story where Jesus was said to have cured ten and only one returned…  My brother has had his share of major ups and downs in his life and I would not like to have the troubles he has had for all his appearance of success to the world.  However when good things happen he is so beautifully free with his appreciation and enjoyment that it is easy to see why so many good things do happen to him.  He rarely goes to church I believe, but he regularly thanks God for helping him when he asks for help.

One thing I noticed over the three days which is worth my testing out further, was that whenever I became conscious of an ache or if I bumped or scratched myself along the way it always seemed to coincide with my having drifted into thoughts of the past or the future.  It was as if my body was reminding me to ‘pay attention to the present’.  And when I did so, whether I’m deluding myself I don’t know (but it doesn’t feel like it) the pain also receded.  Overall I felt happier, more real, more appreciative of life when I returned to ‘the present’ than when my mind drifted away.

And I don’t need to go anywhere really for that to happen.  Just be aware that God is with me.

Love

I’ve been a long time trying to please God. All my life I think.  It’s hard work and I get discouraged.  I lose energy by the end of the day, I wake up with new resolve, I tell myself ‘just try a little harder, can’t be too far off now…’

So I thought, OK, I’m going away for three days, into where it will be beautiful and I’ll be alone doing what I love.  For a change I’m not going to try.  I’m going to remind myself what I’ve been taught, that I’m loved for who I am, not what I do.  I’ll just ask God to be with me and see what happens.

I had been spending some time going through old papers and photographs, sorting things that would be nice to keep and looking for ways to make good easily-accessible records for the generations that follow.  I’d been reading, not just skimming through, but properly reading a series of love letters between myself and my husband during a period of time when we were living in different towns before we married.

I was reminded of something I have chosen to ignore over the past few years.  I think of my mother who always seemed to be comparing herself unfavourably with others, and that now I’m a bit prone to doing the same thing, to see myself in a negative light.  However these love letters were written by someone who really did love me, who died loving me for all my inability to recognise it.

I imagine that this day when I had said to God in a heartfelt way that I really didn’t have it in me just now to try, perhaps the accumulated angels breathed a huge sigh of relief that this child was going to give herself a day off at last!  As I was walking along thinking of my husband’s love for me I said to myself ‘and God’s love is like that only much stronger, stronger than I can imagine’. 

And then – even now tears come to my eyes to recall it – it seemed like over the space of the smallest fraction of a second, it was as if God said to me ‘no it’s not, it’s like this’. And the word softer came to my mind as I sought to define what exactly that briefest of feelings was.  Not that any word or collection of words can ever describe it, and perhaps it is different for every person.  Certainly I recognise now that it is different to any human love or love from angels/celestial spirits.  Once I heard a woman coming to the realization that what she had believed was a feeling of God’s love was in fact coming from a spirit who was (I think) pretending to be God; she termed it her ‘Byron Bay’ god when she realised it.  And I think there is love that does perhaps makes us feel like we can conquer anything, that strengthens us so much.

I’m not saying God’s love doesn’t do all this and more.  The softer feeling, that pale yellow ball of whatever-it-was – well I reckon that could do anything.  But to me it meant mostly that, yes, it is completely unearned and unearnable.  It has the potential to completely infuse and surround me and nothing at all, nothing at all is demanded of me.

Often I write a poem to capture a feeling I’ve got.  I tried, it’s OK, but mostly what I discovered from my attempt was that there are just no words at all that will work to describe this, this love that comes from God. 

Nor music, nor painting, architecture, mathematical equation. And so it should be.

But a fragment of a song by Dougie Maclean came into my head, and stayed with me for the rest of the day

This love will carry

This love will carry me

I know this love will carry me.