The Family Patch

Happy Beltane 2013!

 

Beltane is, in the Pagan Wheel of the Year, the day we celebrate the return of the summer (isn't that much needed right now?)

As I've written before, Tim and I feel drawn to a Pagan way of living, in that we love the sense of living in harmony with nature and the seasons and looking after ourselves and our earth because we see it all as being part of the whole. For us, following this way of life is about honouring life itself, and in doing so honouring the sacred that is all around us. 

This is an extension of what I have been doing for years and it is just nice to find a group of like-minded people. For me, God is all around us, in everything, creating everything, cherishing everything, and loving everything. That is why I love the beautiful symbolism of the progression of the seasons through the stages of the Goddess' life, from maiden to mother to crone. 

At Beltane, the God begins courting the Goddess and this time of year is all about fertility. Seedlings are beginning to grow, flowers are beginning to bloom, life begins to flourish after the harsh months of the winter. It is a glorious time of refreshment and looking forwards to the warmth of summer and the abundance of autumn yet to come. 

 

This time last year we travelled to Glastonbury and celebrated Beltane there. Though we had been to Glastonbury before, it was our first experience of being there during a festival. And the place was buzzing. I felt truly emotional at times, because the love and joy was so embracing. It was a wonderful tonic after a couple of really tough years for us - a winter (if you will) that had lasted far too long!

We had hoped to return this year as well, but things didn't work out that way. We both felt a slight pang when we realised Beltane was coming up and we were still at home. But it worked out for the best as Little Man came down with a stomach bug Saturday night and we spent Sunday (my birthday) doing load after load of laundry and praying that his symptoms would soon ease. 

Thankfully, though still tender, Little Man is well on his way to recovery. And TJ and I have started to smudge the house with the Beltane incense we bought in Glastonbury last year and are having a massive "Spring Clean" which started a few weeks ago and is finally starting to get near completion. 

 

I feel like the light is finally starting to break through and we're finally starting to cast off the physical, mental and emotional traumas that have so darkened our lives in the past few years. We're letting go of the fear and anger and grief and starting to embrace the hope and joy and returning to a place where we want to celebrate the spiritual in our everyday lives.

We still have a way to go, but this Beltane I feel like we are further on than we were last year and hopefully by next Beltane we'll be even more refreshed in our souls. Cycles of life happen continually and they don't always take the same amount of time. Our physical seasons happen on a yearly basis, and yet even they can get slightly out of whack, just look how long this winter has lasted! And just like in the Wheel of the Year, we can personally go from Winter to Spring to Summer and then back to Winter again. Hard times crop up throughout our lives, but I like to think that we learn from early Winters how to stock up on reserves and enjoy the summer sun and the autumn harvest when they are here, so that when Winter does arrive we have the energy to get through it.

 

And that's exactly what I plan on doing this year!

Happy Beltane everyone x

Nurturing Faith in the Family

As you may have noticed, I think quite a lot about faith and how that relates to our lives as individuals and as a family. I don't write about it anywhere near as often as I think about it, but it does crop up from time to time.

I've been thinking about it a lot lately, as I've been trying to get my head and heart around certain things and I have been reading quite a bit too (whenever I've had the time). I've been wondering how to nurture faith in our family, especially in terms of introducing the idea of faith to Little Man and encouraging him to explore it in his own way.

I consider myself to be a Unitarian and as I wrote in this post, "The Unitarians believe you should actively seek your own experience and understanding of the Divine". But how do I do this with Little Man whilst he is so young? At this age they want clear and specific answers, not ones that ask them to consider deep thoughts they are unable to really comprehend right now. 

But even more confusing is how do I explain to him that I read the Bible but that I interpret it in the way that I feel guided to inside my own heart which doesn't always tally up with the more typical interpretations? It makes using a devotional very challenging and so we haven't got any of those.

So I was really happy to find and read the book "What God Wants" by Neale Donald Walsch and find that it talked very deeply about what he calls "Separation Theology" (the theology that we are separate from God and one another and that there must be one true religion) and went into detail about how he feels a theology of Unity would work. After all, this is what Unitarian thinking is all about. 

The following two quotations are ones that I want to keep in my mind and heart as I work on nurturing faith within myself and Little Man, and I hope you don't mind me sharing them. 

About Religion

"There is only one God. Whatever we think God is, most of the major religions of the world would agree: there is only One of That [...] From "There is only one God" to "There is only One Thing at all" is a small shift. It's not a rejection of doctrine, but an enlargement. It's not an abandonment of traditional religious teaching, but an expansion [...] This is not about rejecting religion. It is, in fact, about reinvigorating it, enlivening it, refreshing it." (Chapter 18)

About Scripture

"Humans will understand that God's words are found in all of the world's Holy Scriptures, and that no scripture is more authoritative, more complete, more accurate, or more authentic than any other, but that each contains great wisdom and each leads to a greater understanding of The Only Truth There Is" (Chapter 23)

These two verses speak to me so much and make me feel so much more at peace with how I approach the Bible and other sacred texts in a way that has previously been described by many as a "pick and mix" approach without much substance.

But nothing could be further from the truth, as I am constantly exploring God and my relationship with him. This is currently now being explored through another book I found at our local library, this time a Christian one, "What the Bible Really Teaches" by Keith Ward. 

Although I have found the beginning of this book rather hard going, it is in fact helping me to explore things in ever more detail and depth and I do believe that even though a book may be hard to read, that doesn't mean you shouldn't read it!

The reason I find it so hard is that actually the author is rather forceful in his "challenge" to fundamentalist thinking and beliefs and though I completely agree with an awful lot of the points he makes, I don't appreciate the style and force behind his words. It was a fundamentalist style of Christianity that pushed me away and so it is good to read a book that focuses on it, but even so it could have been toned down (in my mind, at least).

That being said, I am enjoying reading his "six principles of biblical interpretation". These include:

The Principle of Contextualisation

"We cannot read a biblical passage as though it has just fallen out of the sky and was addressed to us personally. We have to try and see who wrote it, when, why and for whom".
"What the Bible really teaches  is usually not very clear, and it is often widely misunderstood. In other words, what the Bible really teaches is not one thing, clearly stated, which it is faithless to doubt or deny" 

and

The Principle of Comprehensiveness

"In reading any passage of the Bible, we must consider all relevant biblical material, and not take passages in isolaton and out of context".

These both make me want to explore the Bible in much more detail than I have in the past and work out what it meant to the people at the time and what it means to me now. 

Essentially, these two books have made me feel more at ease with sharing parts of the Bible to introduce Little Man to God and faith and that it is okay to do this and share my own thoughts on what it all means, even if that isn't the mainstream intepretation. I was so worried that I might introduce something to Little Man and then him come across it again at school or something and find himself in a difficult situation if what I have shared with him is different to what is shared with him by another. 

But isn't that the point? Faith is personal, I have always maintained that, and yet I worry so much about getting it wrong when trying to explain this to Little Man. I need to let go of some of that worry and trust that he will find his own way in his own time. 

Thanks for letting me share this part of my heart with you today. I know that some of you may be very firm in your faith and the way you are raising your children and may find this slightly perplexing. Others of you may have no faith or be quite sincere atheists and may think I am mad for worrying so much about it. Either way, I'd be happy to hear your thoughts in the comment (as long as they are respectful and polite, of course!) 

Exploring Unity

I've been talking about writing about faith for some time, but always holding back through fear of something or other. And this extends not just to my writing here on the blog, but my conversations with others in real life and my own reading about faith.

So I'm starting 2013 with a fresh perspective and taking a deep breath before exploring some big issues that pop into my head from time to time. I am letting go of fear that talking about these kinds of things will alienate many readers, and taking back the blog as a place to reflect on what is important to me and my family. And today, that thought is unity.

I've been thinking about the concept of unity for many years. It is the fact that I firmly believe that all things are connected in some way that leads me to turn away from mainstream religion and follow a path which feels right to me. I cannot, with all my heart, profess that any single person or religion has "the truth" to the exclusion of all others. It just doesn't feel right.

Every so often, especially when I walk through nature, I can feel this sense of belonging, a sense that everything is created from the same source and that if only we could be aware of this throughout our daily lives we'd have a lot less conflict and the need to say "this is right, but that is wrong" or "this is good, but that is bad" or even "this is the true God, yours is a false idol". When I am in nature, I feel connected to something greater than my own small world, and it is there that I feel most clearly that God created everything... and by that I mean everything. Whatever we term good or bad, right or wrong, it all comes from God. It is our own desire to categorise and understand things which complicates the matter.

The photo I posted above was chosen for this particular blog post because to me it symbolises a little part of this concept of unity... that three seemingly different things can all come together and work in harmony, because in essence they are all connected anyway. And though I don't wish to pretend I know what this unity is all about, I do want to try and explore it in the way I live my life.

I want to try and get beyond the logical reasoning that so often makes me categorise something as "right" or "wrong" (because, after all, I may feel that everything is connected, but often my mind gets totally in the way of accepting it!) I want to go beyond the mere concept of unity, and truly explore what it means as best I can.

One of the ways I want to do this is to meditate more, to take myself away from the triggers in everyday life that stop me from exploring the unity of everything. It feels essential to me that in our everyday life things have to be categorised to certain extents to allow us to function as we do. I need to separate work life from home life, my role as mother from my role as wife, looking after the needs of others and looking after my own needs... the list goes on. But every so often it feels good to get away from that and just try to enjoy being and letting the world carry on around me. I don't do it enough, in fact I positively find ways to avoid doing it most days, yet when I do I feel so much better. 

I also want to explore the way we celebrate and experience life, by marking the changing of the seasons and the waxing and waning of the moon, not to say "I prefer this holiday to that" or "I am happier in the summer than winter", but to simply experience them for what they are. This is where the Pagan Wheel of the Year will help us out somewhat. I may not follow any single religion, but I do enjoy exploring them bit by bit. 

Some may call this "pick and mix" and a less dedicated way of living life and exploring faith. I personally prefer to see it as exploring my own personal relationship with God, the creator, in whatever form that appears. And in exploring a relationship, surely I am exploring the idea of unity once more?

I have no doubt that I shall return to this topic of unity many times, but this is the beginning of this year's journey, and that makes me excited for what it may bring. 

Interestingly, in a week when this concept was very clear in my mind, I was led to read an article about a meeting between the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. It is a wonderful read, why don't you check it out? 

Unitarian. Druid. A Strange Combination?

For the past ten years I have spent an awful lot of time thinking about where I fit in when it comes to faith, spirituality and indeed religion. It has been a rocky road because although I know what it is I believe, finding a name for that and thereby a way to express it has been challenging.

For many, many years I honestly believed that faith in God must equate to being a Christian. It sounds utterly naive now based on everything I have learned in the past ten years or so, but let me paint the picture. My family weren't religious. They had beliefs, but we didn't attend church or home groups or anything. My experience of religion was through school and the odd church service with Brownies, Guides or the few months I spent singing in my friend's church choir. 

So when I went to university, I automatically joined the Christian Union. And that was when it all got complicated...

I found myself in a place that didn't feel right. Things that I had held dear were not only questioned but sometimes downright ridiculed and I went through a major spiritual crisis. I felt lost and alone and I didn't want anything to do with that world.

Luckily I found support online through some spiritual (New Age) forums and began to open up again. I even decided to spend my three month stay in Germany not only volunteering with the Salvation Army but also staying with a family there too. And I had a wonderful time.

Those three months did a fine job of healing a lot of the hurt I had felt and broke down my defensive barriers because they taught me that what I had experienced previously was an extreme and not the norm. I felt happy and loved during those three months and still write to some of the officers every year as I remember my time there so fondly.

But however much that experience brought me back from a place of being hostile towards Christianity, it also left me more confused than ever. Conversations led to my realising that my beliefs weren't always that far from those of what I'll call "mainstream Christianity" for want of a better term, but I still had some major differences that I personally felt stopped me from connecting with the Christian community.

Things like "original sin", "predestination", and the concept of the "Trinity". 

Oh and the fact that I practise Reiki, believe Angels are sent from God to help us all, and that every living thing has a soul that survives beyond physical death.

It didn't help that when I tried once more to connect with a Christian community online to try and figure this all out I was kicked off the forum for "saying the wrong thing". Whoops!

You'd think I would have just given up and gone my merry way in the spiritual community that seemed to have no pre-requisites, right? But there remained a part of me that missed the connection that belonging to a "real life" community brings. And this only grew once I fell pregnant with Little Man and started to think about how I would raise him.

So when TJ started suggesting we should look again for some "Pagan" groups to join I initially felt rather excited. 

Except, upon reading more I began to wonder if I really was fully Pagan either. It seemed as if I was somewhere in the middle, between liberal (perhaps very liberal) Christian and loosely Pagan, not really fitting in one world or the other.

Yet the week we spent in Glastonbury earlier this year brought home just how much I miss the community spirit of togetherness. We had a wonderful time celebrating Beltane, and we held a beautiful little blessing for Little Man in the Chalice Well Gardens...

So when TJ decided he really felt like Druidry might be where he felt his heart taking him, I listened with interest as he explained how some Druids consider themselves to be Christian as well and that the two don't necessarily clash.

I don't pretend to know all that much about Druidry as that is TJ's area, not mine. But it did make me wonder just how that would work. So I looked for more information, reading bits here and there, and eventually coming across the term "Unitarian".

It wasn't a new term to me. TJand I had actually been to a Unitarian church a couple of times, but for some reason I had never fully looked into it. And the more I read the more I realised I had probably been "Unitarian" all of my life, without really knowing.

Suddenly I felt less alone. I realised that there are groups out there that will help me as I develop further in my faith and that can offer support as I do the best I can in raising Little Man to seek his own relationship with God. 

And with all the other changes I've been making lately I feel much more confident and secure in sharing this with him, and with others. Whereas before I would carefully write such things as "my faith has helped me through HG" or avoiding the subject altogether, I now want to share that as it is crucial to understanding some of the things I am going through. And whereas I often used to avoid joining in with people when they discussed a topic, I feel able to take part now.

I found this amazing resource this morning answering common questions about Unitarianism and I found myself nodding along with so many parts of it. But the thing that really made my heart sing was this:

"We favour a simple and inclusive definition of the word Christian. Thus a Christian is any person who seeks to live in accord with the life and teachings of Jesus, who identifies with what is best in the Christian tradition, and who, perhaps, sees in Jesus a revelation of the God who is immanent in all people. This is the wellspring of love that permeated his nature and his ministry."

Cliff Reed "Are Unitarians Christians?"

I never felt comfortable saying I was "Christian" but in actual fact I have a huge amount of love for the life that Jesus led. I want to be able to show Oscar the Bible as a part of his upbringing in a way that allows him to think about it and decide what he believes to be true in his own heart. Because I ultimately hope that Little Man will have the freedom and courage to explore various paths before choosing that which he experiences as bringing him into a closer relationship with God, however he understands God to be. 

And that makes me feel glad. 

As a family we can celebrate those things we all share in our beliefs and still celebrate those which are different. We can pray and read the Bible, but we can also meditate, celebrate the Wheel of the Year, plant a Sacred Grove, and be open to learning more about the faiths of others. 

Oh baby boy... this is going to be such a wonderful journey for us all!

I totally understand that this post may not sit very well with some people. I am leaving comments open on this post as I am happy to discuss this with anyone who wants a mutually open conversation built on respect for differences as well as celebrating similarities.  But I am not open to comments that aim only to either end in a massive theological debate in a hope to "prove me wrong" or simply undermine my own relationship with God. I have had plenty of those in the past and this isn't the time or place for it. Any such comments will be deleted. Thank you. 

Made To Shine

I came across a message today which really struck home to me. It hit me so deeply that I didn't quite know how to move on from that moment in which everything suddenly clicked into place. It was so beautiful that I felt moved to tears and I just didn't want to lose that precious moment. 

It came after months of pain and sadness, and lots and lots of "soul searching" both in CBT sessions and on my own. In fact, it follows years of repeating the same patterns of behaviour that never quite worked and left me feeling hollow and unsure.

And though I knew this message logically it took this one moment for it to truly sink in to the depth of my heart and soul and make a monumental change. Which is quite a good way of explaining it, especially as I found the reading in the third part of the Educating Heart and Soul course I started at the beginning of the year and only just found time to really delve in to. 

There were actually several parts of this particular session that really spoke to me and it's going to take me time to do them all justice. But I have to start somewhere, and so here it is, the message that shook my world in the most amazing way:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves: "Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?"

Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. 

We are all meant to shine as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Marianne Williamson (Return to Love)
Inspired by 'A Course in Miracles'

Wow!

For months I have been looking at self-esteem issues in my CBT sessions. I have been working through perfectionist ideals and trying to reach unattainable goals. I've been looking at guilt and feelings of inadequacy. And I've been facing, in my own life, a confusion over the outer expression of my inner faith and how to truly live what I believe, without fear of rejection or harsh judgement, in a way that is both beautiful and inspirational for Little Man to grow up with.

And I've spent hours going over and over these behaviours and fears and getting so close to the answer and yet never quite getting there. And now it makes sense: my fear is not my inadequacy, but my discomfort with how good I am,how brightly I could shine.

I have, unconsciously for the most part, pulled myself down in so many ways as I wanted to remain "humble" and avoid becoming "arrogant" by being who I am. And yet, in this light, it seems arrogant to assume that I need to "lower" my abilities. Which makes me realise that this behaviour, though meant in the best possible way, has some very negative results, not just for me, but for those around me.

If I want Little Man to shine as brightly as I believe he was made to shine, then I need to accept and honour the light within my own self and celebrate my own abilities, not hide and doubt them. If I do that he will hopefully learn to honour and celebrate his own light. 

This all follows on nicely from my recent posts and I can look back and see how all the changes of late have led to this moment when upon reading this message it all fell into place. 

So I'd like to just invite you all to read through the message, slowly, and let its meaning sink in. Let's all let our light shine!

Spirituality and Kids

Okay, so this post is a biggie for me. I generally only write very vaguely about my spirituality on the blog (and other places online, and in person, to be completely honest). It's a combination of not knowing quite how to explain what it is I believe and being afraid of sharing it and gaining negative reactions and/or getting myself into theosophical debates with people who have very specific sources of information to refer to when I don't. 

TJ bought me a book called "Pagan Parenting" for Christmas and there is a section within it that sums this up very nicely:

"[...]This raises the question of whether to be totally honest or to pretend to be like everyone else. It is a question faced daily by anyone on the fringes of the majority [...] Children growing up with metaphysical beliefs will often not share this side of themselves with mainstream friends for fear of rejection and ridicule.[...] A large part of one's public profile is deciding what should be encompassed within that role. For most followers of mainstream religions, this is not even a question that comes to mind. Unless the individual is extremely devout, religion is not often a part of their public persona. They neither hide it nor broadcast it. It is like skin color, hair color or anything else that is an integral part of who we are without needing to think about it."

In many ways I'm like the child mentioned in that. I have an instinctual urge to be honest and open about who I am and what I believe, but there is that fear of ridicule or rejection. And if I feel that myself, it is only to be expected that Little Man will pick up on this and learn by my example how to fear these things too.

So being honest, first to myself and then to others, is essential if I truly want Little Man to grow up knowing it is perfectly okay for him to explore his own spirituality and choose his own path. I can't tell him to do one thing when I am doing something opposite myself. 

TJ is much better at living his spirituality than I am. He likes ritual and "being a part of something" and it was his idea to dress up for Beltane when we were in Glastonbury this year (in fact he bought the dress for me because I was taking my own sweet time to decide on something!)

But I don't really like ritual. I feel embarrassed when doing it, and personally find it takes my mind and heart away from the matter at hand. I love the idea of it and know it works well for so many people, but I'm just not very good at it. 

So whereas TJ finds quite a lot of help and ideas in various Pagan sources, I continue to find myself falling somewhere just on the outside, not quite sure of where I belong. There is no uncertainty in what it is I believe, that's a mistake people sometimes make when I say this. I know quite strongly what is essential to me and those things that I haven't quite figured out yet, well that's what life is for, right? But expressing it and living it is another matter.

You may wonder why I feel this need to be open about it all. Surely the quotation I used at the beginning of the post points out that a lot of people do keep their spiritual and public lives separate. The problem for me is that although I can quite happily keep them separate for the most part, there are times when my spirituality is essential for explaining my outlook on life and how I get through certain things.

For instance, before we started trying to conceive I had come to a certain "peace" with the thought that if we were "meant" to have our own child we would but if not it meant that there was a different path for us to follow. This "peace" wasn't easy and of course my heart desperately wanted to experience carrying my own child. We were incredibly lucky to have that opportunity, but the hell of a HG pregnancy (further complicated by Obstetric Cholestasis) means that there were times when I truly wondered what I was meant to "learn" from this and what it meant for our future. I still don't know the answers to those questions, but my spirituality still helps me by reassuring me that even if I don't know the answer, someone (or something) does!

And so this reassurance is something that I want to share with Little Man. I want him to know that even when he feels at his most vulnerable and most alone, there is someone he can turn to. I want him to see beyond what is obvious and look to the deeper meaning behind things, to see the connection between all life and all living things so that respecting nature and our environment and other people is more than just something he is "expected" to do. 

I want him to understand that mummy and daddy do certain things for a reason. That we choose to use cloth nappies, try and eat healthy, locally grown foods when we can, and want to do all we can for those around us because that is our way of honouring the life we have been given and the life all around us. 

And the only way I can do this, truly do it, is to live it. Which means stepping out from the fear of rejection and ridicule and being true to myself and my spirituality. And this also means honouring and sharing TJ's own individual spirituality (which is different to my own) and in turn honouring Little Man's too. 

But how do you do this without risking that same rejection and ridicule for your child? What if something I do, some choice I make or some post I write on here has a negative reaction that comes back to Little Man? Judgement waits around every corner and although I believe in being as open and honest as you can be, I do know that sometimes holding back is a good thing. 

Where is the balance? How much of yourself do you share, to avoid confusion and to have trusting relationships with others based on honesty and truth? It's such a difficult thing to know and if I was scared about it before, I'm even more scared about it now that my actions could negatively affect Little Man. Without a "mainstream" understanding and image to guide and support us, where do we start?

I don't know if I'll ever know the answer, but I do know that it is an important question to ask!

Faith: believing in what you cannot prove

I’ve been thinking about faith a lot recently, more than I usually do which is saying something. I am an immensely curious person when it comes to faith and how it is personal to each and every of us. I find myself reading the accounts of others on how their faith affects their lives, and regularly get myself in a philosophical tangle trying to understand how so many religions and spiritual paths have developed over the centuries, many teaching that theirs is the “only way” while completely missing or even denying the common threads that bind them all together.

This is something I think I will be confused by for the rest of my life, but this past week I realised something that made it that little bit easier for me to grasp. I cannot remember exactly what I was watching or reading at the time but I do remember suddenly feeling very clear about the idea that faith is believing in something that you cannot prove.

I think I always knew this at some level, but realising it so clearly made me realise just why I find it so difficult to fit into many religious or spiritual communities. I quite simply cannot work out the balance I need between sharing common thoughts and experiences while remembering to honour those which may not feel quite so true for us personally.

And this leads me to wonder exactly how we’re going to introduce and teach faith and spirituality to our child in a way that provides the least confusion whilst leaving it open for him to find his own personal faith. Young children want firm answers to most of their questions, and can often take what you say or do as the absolute truth that they should follow in life. I know this is a part of growing up, but I do want to try and give our son the best chance of knowing that whatever he feels to be true is the most important thing for him when it comes to faith.

How, for example, do I teach him the difference between science and faith? Science is something that relies totally on proof. We accept the ‘facts of life’ such as the world is round and the boiling point of water is 100ºc without question. And yet, at the same time, all of our major scientific breakthroughs come from a person’s ability to look beyond the obvious and question the ‘facts’. Perhaps there is a little more in common between science and faith than first meets the eye. After all, a scientist and a pilgrim are both seekers of ‘truth’, the first being unquestionable proof, the second being more personal.

For me personally though faith is so much more. It is an act of trust in something you cannot know for sure, and that is a huge commitment. Asking someone to believe in the power of gravity is a lot less than asking someone to believe in something that cannot be proven in any concrete way. With faith you have to decide what feels right to you in your own heart rather than relying on the convictions and reassurances of another. I know I could never question that gravity exists, yet I could easily dispute the idea someone has about God.

And this brings in another aspect of faith: how do we fully trust in something beyond ourselves without feeling the need to prove and justify that trust when someone else has a completely different view on the matter? How do I introduce my child to the world beyond the obvious without giving him too many of my own ideas as ‘the truth’? For me the things I believe may be my own truth, and I’d be happy if my son decides he believes in something similar, but how do I ensure he has the opportunity to seek for his own truth as well?

I do not want to project too many of my own ideas onto his life because I want him to be able to follow his own path in life. But I know that in his first few years he is going to need someone to trust and follow to even begin to develop an understanding of something beyond himself. So I guess it is all about finding the balance between sharing my own (and Tim’s) faith with him in these early years but subtly teaching him that it is perfectly okay and valuable to question and seek for his own answers. I hope that by finding some kind of balance like that, he will find it easier to choose his own path when he reaches an age where that is what he wants and needs to do.

When I think back to my own childhood, I realise took everything for granted. If someone told me something about life or God then I accepted it. And yet I also see that even at a young age I had beliefs that I cannot possibly have been taught by anyone else because they are uniquely personal to me and it took me many years to realise that they didn’t really fit in with the groups I was a part of at certain times in my teenage and early adult years. So perhaps I am underestimating children’s ability to question and find their own path with even the most minimal input from others.

Young children are inherently trusting: they trust their carers to show them how life works. They watch and mimic us to develop skills for life, and even overcome what must be the scariest experiences when they come across something new and alien to them. I remember once walking along a beach and a young family we passed were trying to introduce their toddler to the feeling of sand under her feet. The little girl was obviously very unsure and uncomfortable of this new substance, and clung to her parents and lifted her feet as far away from the sand as possible. And yet, within minutes she had decided to trust her parents and take her first tentative steps and effectively learnt that all was well and the sand was actually quite fun to play in!

Such trust in those who care for us is immense and we often forget that. As adults we become used to using our own discernment to decide if something is safe or not. We have gained enough knowledge and experience to trust in our own understanding of the world. But for a child this knowledge and experience is still being built and they have to rely on their carers to provide this for them. And I think this is why the faith we have as children is so much purer and secure than that which we have as adults. In some ways we have a lot less freedom in our ability to have faith as adults than we ever had as children.

Which brings me back to my original point: faith is believing in something that cannot be proven. As adults we seek confirmation and proof of most things in life, which for me explains why we so often feel the need to justify our own faith to others. We need to feel that our convictions in life are accepted by others, not just because we crave acceptance but also because it gives more strength to our ability to believe. But the beauty of faith is that we do trust in something that we cannot prove.

I could write about this for hours, but I don’t want to. What I will do though is leave you with a clip from Futurama that I saw the other day and which brought it all home to me once again. Isn’t it great when even our comedy shows can have things that make us think on such a deep level?

 

 

Faith and Parenting

Over the weekend, Tim and I went for a walk in some local woods to collect Spring leaves and flowers to decorate our house with. After all, Beltane is a lovely celebration in itself, but with us expecting a baby this year, it felt right to honour the new life that is appearing after the harsh winter. 

It was so lovely to get out and about again, as we used to go for regular walks in nature and it is so calming, relaxing and rejuvenating. And, thanks to finally starting to feel a bit better, I was able to enjoy being out in nature just for the sheer pleasure of it. 

And this, of course, got me thinking. I wondered how it would be walking in the woods with a child, at every age through his or her childhood, and how what we show him or her will impact how he or she sees the world. Will our child share our absolute joy as just being out in nature, or will it be something that mum and dad just drag him or her out to every so often? 

But more than this, I wondered about the spiritual aspect of it all. You may have read my previous posts on faith and spirituality, and have figured out that Tim and I are rather unconventional in terms of what we believe. We do not follow a single religion, although if we did we would be classed much more as Pagan than anything else. 

We believe in the interconnectedness of all life, and so we honour nature and the earth as much as we honour any God or Goddess. We try to thank the earth for providing such beautiful surroundings for us to walk in, and we try to remember to thank each tree when we take something from it. We often stop to offer Reiki or simply "connect" with a tree, plant or piece of the earth by sitting close and meditating. I say we often do this, but we haven't done so for quite some time, and I miss it.

You see, because we don't follow or practise a single religion, we don't have a group or regular meeting to "kick us up the butt" when we become lax and decide that it is too much effort. And this is something I want to change for when our child is born, because I want our child to know how special we feel that everyone and everything in this world is, and I want to do this through "showing" him or her, rather than simply telling them. 

Which brings us to another aspect of the whole faith and parenting question: how do I do this, whilst allowing my child the freedom to explore, discover and express his or her own take on the world around us? My faith is personal to me, and I know that Tim and I differ significantly in some areas regarding what exactly we believe. This is what I love about our relationship, that we can respect each other and still come together and share in those aspects we agree on. And I want the same for my child... I want him or her to grow up knowing what mum and dad both believe, but also knowing that what he or she feels deep inside his or her own heart is what matters most. 

I hope that our child will learn to love nature the way we have, and enjoy celebrating the changes in the seasons as the years flow by. I want nothing more than to share our love of Reiki (for it was this love that first brought Tim and me together), and I would love to take our child to places like Glastonbury and allow him or her to feel the magic of such places. But I also want my child to know that whatever path he or she chooses will be respected by us.

And I guess, the best way I can think to do this, is to share not only the celebrations that Tim and I love, but also to introduce our child to the celebrations of other faiths, through showing him or her that each religion has its own way of seeing the divine and asking him or her to notice the similarities and differences between each one. That way, I hope to instill a sense of respect for all people, no matter what their background or faith, because this is so important to me. I just hope I can do so positively and in a way that does not confuse my child too much, for I know it has confused me in the past and still continues to do so sometimes!

Isn't parenting both exciting and scary? Our baby isn't even here yet and I cannot help but think of all the ways we can nurture him or her through the rest of their life. 

Learning Lessons

Wow. I guess I gained more than just a "little" perspective from my previous post.

I have been very lucky with blogging, rarely receiving spam comments and never before receiving anything negative or hurtful. I know that some bloggers are not so lucky. And for someone who, as one of my commenters mentioned is "well-known for [my] honesty and candor", I could quite easily bring about argumentative comments much more frequently.

The outpouring of love that has come from so many friends and blog readers (many of whom have become friends over time) is overwhelming. I don't think I have ever received so many comments on a single post before. To know that I am loved, respected and supported so much is amazing and reminds me that I don't have to justify my life to anybody but myself. 

I still take issue with the judgemental nature of certain comments, as well as the confrontational tone. But I am reminded once again that this is small stuff compared to that which so many people have to face. As humans we are naturally judging, we all do it from time to time, and sometimes we aren't even aware that this is what we are doing. And it saddens me that this is so. But I know it is a part of life, and the best I can do to overcome it is to remember that "what comes out of my mouth is about me and what comes out of your mouth is about you".

It's the "mirror effect" that explains how what we respect in another is something we respect within ourselves, and what we dislike about another is an aspect we take issue with within ourselves too. Many of the commenters on my previous post have helped me learn this through the years and this is just another chance to learn the lesson more completely. I ignored the first hurtful comment, realising that it would only make matters worse to add fuel to the fire. I can't say that I could ever have let the second comment slip, because there is a difference between letting something slip by and ignoring something that could potentially hurt many. Another lesson to learn!

At first I was annoyed that the original point of my previous post had been lost in the uproar, but then I realised that the exact opposite was true. I may not face the same judgements as the Logan family, but judgements will always be there waiting for me. They may hurt, and they may shake my understanding of things, but they will always be processed, accepted and overcome with the love and support of the friends and family I am blessed with.

I may not have much in terms of "worldly goods" but I am rich beyond measure in terms of love and friendship, and I know which one I would choose every time!

Keeping Faith: Finding Meaning

A couple of month's ago I started a new series called "Keeping Faith" with a post entitled "Why I Believe". Now as we enter the new year and I look back on all we have come through in the past, it makes sense to expand on this with a post on how this faith helps in times of need.

It doesn't matter who you are or how perfect your life may seem to an outsider, there will always be times in your life that inner turmoil reigns over inner peace. It could be the loss of a loved one, a change in careers or even a new relationship: the things that shake us do not have to be negative to cause us to lose balance inside.

I remember when I first started my relationship with Tim. The strength of the emotions I felt in connection to him was so overwhelming that I panicked. At first it was visible as "I like him, but I don't know how much I like him", and eventually turned into, "I like him, but I don't know what to do with these feelings". Such was the intensity that I actually became physically ill and it took Tim's wisdom in saying "we can go back to being friends if that's what you want," for my heart to finally conquer the fears of my mind and scream "don't you dare lose him!"

 

Such times can be as baffling as other times are painful. Your whole world can be torn apart by fear, confusion or anger. When it feels that life is spiralling out of control and you have no idea where you are headed, that is when faith can help you find meaning.

Earlier this week I wrote about the time, seven years ago, that I re-found my faith and it brought me back from a very dark place. Although such a huge shift in perspective doesn't happen every day, the smaller comforts of faith can be just as helpful. 

Over the past few years, for example, I have had to come to terms with Endometriosis and the effects it can have on my life. Faith helped me to realise that I didn't have to hide this side of myself, that I didn't have to act as if nothing was wrong and that, in fact, I was stronger if I accepted this aspect of my life and learnt to live with it as opposed to despite it. 

Without faith I would have found it meaningless pain, but with faith I began to see the blessings within it. Endometriosis, for all the pain it causes, teaches me so much about life, compassion and awareness of self and others. I am more passionate about seeing the burdens others have to overcome, and I am grateful for the insight this gives me into the strength of the human spirit.

But it is perhaps, when my faith is failing, that I realise just how much I rely on it. Only when I lost the ability to see beyond the present challenge and find the meaning within it did I truly value the power of faith. Without it, I fell into a pit of despair and depression.

It has taken me a long time to find my way back beyond the anger, jealousy and fear that tore my spirit apart, and yet now I have I realise just how much meaning faith can bring to life. With faith, no matter what form it takes, even the biggest challenge has a role to play, and although it may not ease the physical pain it can certainly ease the ache in your heart. But more that that, the greatest gift it can provide is this: the courage to keep seeking, and facing each challenge, with the hope that one day it will all have been worth it!