Being put to shame is to have comparisons made and to see yourself as being flawed, but a refuge can be found, and hope can be restored.

I could see him withering under a hailstorm of accusations. He had a sexual addiction, and he was trying to stay true, but the pornography found on his cell phone sent his self-righteous friends into overload.

He was being ‘put to shame’

Being ‘put to shame’ is to make someone or something seem not good by comparison.

Read the post here

Contact Barry here

View Details

Read this post

About Barry Pearman

Signup to email newsletter https://mailchi.mp/turningthepage.co.nz/spiritual-exercises-from-the-bible-for-mental-health

✉️ Contact Barry Direct https://turningthepage.co.nz/contact-us/

👉Donate to Turning the Page https://turningthepage.co.nz/donate-now/

View Details

Can you live with a narcissist? Yes, but it might just kill you.

Or it might just starve you from savouring life to the fullest.

One of the most interesting quotes I have come across about stress is this one from French journalist Jean-Louis Servan-Schreiber

What I fear most about stress is not that it kills, but that it prevents one from savouring life. Jean-Louis Seven-Schreiber

🔔 Subscribe to empower your mental health through faith, hope and love.

Read this post

👁️‍🗨️ About Barry Pearman

Signup to email newsletter

✉️ Contact Barry Direct

NarcissisticAbuse #NarcissisticPersonality #ToxicRelationships #SelfLove #MentalHealthAwareness #HealingFromNarcissism #prayer #prayerNarcissism

View Details

I want to pray, but don’t know how. How to Pray for a Narcissist. It begins with honesty. It prays for light.

Can a Narcissist change?

That’s a question many people ask.

Read this post
About Barry Pearman

Signup to email newsletter
✉️ Contact Barry Direct

👉Donate to Turning the Page

View Details

What does perfect narcissism look like? We can see it in the evil of Satan.

I read a list the other day about the characteristics of those with narcistic personality disorder.

Grandiose Sense of Self-Importance: They believe they are superior and special, deserving of exceptional treatment and recognition.
Exploitative Behavior: They manipulate and take advantage of others to get what they want, often without remorse or guilt.
Arrogance and Conceit: They often come across as arrogant and boastful, displaying a sense of superiority.
Difficulty Handling Criticism: They react negatively to any perceived criticism, becoming defensive and angry.
Preoccupation with Success and Power: They are often fixated on fantasies of success, power, brilliance, or beauty.
Entitlement: An unreasonable expectation of favorable treatment and special privileges, believing they deserve more than others.
Lack of Empathy: Difficulty understanding or sharing the feelings of others, often dismissing or invalidating their emotions.
Need for Admiration and Attention: A constant craving for praise, validation, and attention from others, often seeking it through manipulation or grandstanding.
Envy: Experiencing envy of others or believing that others are envious of them.
Unwillingness to Accept Responsibility: Blaming others for their mistakes or failures, rather than taking accountability for their actions.

I think I could add an eleventh characteristic and this comes from those who have been entrapped by a narcissist into a long-term relationship.

An Attractive mask: They have such a beautiful, alluring presence to them that it’s not until you’re deep into a relationship with them that you are able to see behind the facade.

Read more here

View Details

There is a God-shaped hole in me. A narcissism entrancement holds me, but I can break the spell when I invite Jesus into the void.

There once was an Australian sitcom that I used to watch. It was called Kath and Kim.

The two central characters were Kath, the mother, and her daughter Kim. In the series, there was a line repeatedly said from mother to daughter.

Look at me
Look at me
Look at moi (‘me’, but in a deepening lengthy tone)

Kath would say these words to get her daughter’s attention.

Read this post

About Barry Pearman

Signup to email newsletter

✉️ Contact Barry Direct

👉Donate to Turning the Page

View Details

I worry about what’s ahead, but I have a shepherd who prepares a table before me, so I wait, trust and see.

A friend recently sent a job offering to me.

It was to come to a town called Echuca in Victoria Australia and be a snake catcher.

Yes, you read it right. Snake catcher.

My friend works in a local school as a caretaker and part of his job is to make sure the school grounds and buildings are safe for the children.

So he regularly is on the lookout for snakes.

He clears away areas that snakes might want to live in. Nets and fences are installed to stop snakes from entering the school grounds.

He prepares a safe place for little children.

I like this illustration. It’s a picture of providential care.

Have you ever had someone prepare somewhere safe for you?

Say you are going to visit Aunt Mildred and you’re going to stay the night.

She will most likely prepare in advance.

She may make the bed, prepare some food, and get rid of any snakes! (especially if you live in Australia)

When you arrive, you are welcomed into what they have prepared. You may feel a little embarrassed by the fuss they have put into this welcome.

But you feel cared for, loved, and welcomed.

🔔 Subscribe to empower your mental health through faith, hope and love.

Read this post
👁️‍🗨️ About Barry Pearman

Signup to email newsletter

✉️ Contact Barry Direct https://turningthepage.co.nz/contact-us/

👉Donate to Turning the Page https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

Worries, fears, and anxieties can all bring us to a place where we pray ‘I’m anxious God’ but there is hope.

I went to see my Doctor the other day for my routine checkup.

‘Anxiety’? he questioned.

I replied ‘No, everything is fine there’

Read this post here
👁️‍🗨️ About Barry Pearman https://turningthepage.co.nz/im-anxious-god/

Signup to email newsletter https://turningthepage.co.nz/

✉️ Contact Barry Direct https://turningthepage.co.nz/contact-us/

👉Donate to Turning the Page https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

anxiety #worry #fear

View Details

The first time I heard the Polish proverb “Not my circus, not my monkeys” I felt quite shocked, but digging deeper, I understood what they were saying.

I heard it said by a husband about his wife.

It felt callous.

It felt cold and I still think it was.

That he would not want to help engage with the struggles she was facing.

To say “Not my circus, not my monkeys” is to declare that you don’t want to be dragged into the drama of the other person’s issues—that you’re not getting involved.

I get the boldness of the statement, and the need at times to be quite cold and confrontational.

Some people seem to want to pass on the drama of their own life to others.

Read the post here

Contact Barry here

Keep Turning the Page alive with a donation

View Details

It's ok to build a wall.
It's ok to have boundaries.
Just don't make it a prison cell.
Don't make it a place of self-made solitary confinement

🔔 Subscribe to empower your mental health through faith, hope and love.

Read this post https://turningthepage.co.nz/building-a-wall-setting-boundaries-in-relationships/

👁️‍🗨️ About Barry Pearman https://turningthepage.co.nz/about-barry-pearman/

View Details

She crossed a line with her words, a line that was getting thinner with every wag of the tongue, but what could be done to help them both?

It was the evening of the very first day of the year (2025). A beautiful summer’s day here in New Zealand.

But in this quiet, I suddenly heard screaming and yelling. Every second word was the F word.

I looked down the road and saw a very large man woman and a man on the pavement.

He was kneeling on the ground in front of her. It was almost like he was praying/ begging in front of her. She was towering above him and shouting at him.

Words and more ‘F’s’.

More words, more ‘F’s’.

It was violence. Verbal violence.

Read the post here

Contact Barry here

Keep Turning the Page alive with a donation

View Details

We give and give, even if it does us harm, but what if learned the limits and established a line?

Read the post here

Contact Barry here

Keep Turning the Page alive with a donation

View Details

Our minds can be so busy, but learning how to stop is so crucial to our wellbeing. Perhaps centering prayer offers some help.

I was watching a two-year-old boy the other day. He was full on in active mode. Walking here and there, playing with this and that.

But his mother knew what was coming. He was going to come to a stop.

A little but grumpy, a little more wanting cuddles, a little more rubbing eyes.

She picked him up, took him to his bed, and a few moments later, he was asleep.

All that activity and the changes going on in his growing body resulted in the need for a nap.

Slowing down and stopping is essential for anyone at any age.

We think we might miss out, there is so much to do, but stopping is essential for deep soul work to be done.

How are you at stopping?

Does the anxious mind demand resolution?

Does the depressed place long for a friend?

How can I still my mind?

How can I come to a stop?

Read more here

View Details

We can feel alone, but to have someone there with us helps. He watches over me even in the dark of the night.

It’s the comfort of having someone there.

I know of a young man that has trouble getting to sleep. At times one of his parents has slept on a mattress next time.

It’s that assurance, that sense of presence, that knowing that they are not alone.

Read more here

View Details

Restless nights, anxious thoughts, and a longing for sleep, but it alludes us. ‘God, give me sleep’ you pray

I’ve had times in my life where getting to sleep has been difficult. At other times, I would wake during the night and not be able to get back to sleep.

Sleep is so variable, isn’t it?

read more here

Registar for class here

View Details

Christmas can have dark shadows, but what if God came close? God can provide a comfort at Christmas.

As I write this, I think of someone I know that has had a death in their family. It’s a loss, a grief, a tearing of relationship.

Christmas. Will it be a place of comfort for them?

There will be shadows. Memories and moments of grief.

I am praying for them that they would sense a comfort at Christmas that passes beyond understanding.

What’s Christmas like for you?

Read more here

Contact Barry here

Keep Turning the Page alive with a donation

View Details

Hope and mental health. They seem quite linked, but what helps them both to dance together well?

I recently had a picture pop into my head. It was a headstone, in a cemetery, and engraved into the old tired stone was the name of the deceased – Hope.

Not a person’s name, but more the concept of hope. That things might get better.

Hope had died, was buried, was gone, and had left the building.

Read more here

Contact Barry here

Keep Turning the Page alive with a donation

View Details

You need better boundaries. How many have said this to you? How about a better knowing of yourself first? #boundaries

Better boundaries come from the inside out

Three types of boundaries

Imposed boundaries.
Adopted boundaries.
Internalised Owned boundaries.

Read this post https://turningthepage.co.nz/better-boundaries/

👁️‍🗨️ About Barry Pearman https://turningthepage.co.nz/about-ba...

✉️ Contact Barry Direct https://turningthepage.co.nz/contact-us/

👉Donate to Turning the Page https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

I want to stir you up. Not to stir up anger or trouble. Actually, quite the opposite, but to love and good works.

So often I hear in people a tiredness, a lethargy, even a complete deadness to something that sits resident within their souls.

Maybe they have been put down, criticised, mocked, or ignored. They might have shared something deep, but it wasn’t listened to well.

Read more here

Send me an email barry@turningthepage.co.nz

Give a donation of $3US

View Details

We carry so much load, but what if we were unburdened? Perhaps the donkey might learn to dance light and free.

It's an image that tells a story.

The story of a heavy laden down camel carrying a load of straw and the little proverb 'the final straw that broke the camel's back'

It's the load. The burden. It's the feather.

The weight, awkwardness, and struggle that eventually takes one out.

What are you carrying?

What weighs upon your thinking and bends upon your back?

Read this post https://turningthepage.co.nz/unburdened-from-what-has-been/

👁️‍🗨️ About Barry Pearman https://turningthepage.co.nz/about-barry-pearman/

Posts about Forgiveness https://turningthepage.co.nz/forgiveness-and-mental-health/

✉️ Contact Barry Direct https://turningthepage.co.nz/contact-us/

👉Donate to Turning the Page https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

We all have problems, but we can over-personalise them. But the problem is the problem. The problem is not the person.

Read this post https://turningthepage.co.nz/the-problem-is-the-problem-not-the-person/

👁️‍🗨️ About Barry Pearman https://turningthepage.co.nz/about-barry-pearman/

👉Donate to Turning the Page https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

Do you find it easier to slide in your thinking to the negative than to the good?

I need help and I think you do too.

Not so much to keep focusing on the positive, but to keep focused on truth – God’s truth, how God sees everything.

How you talk about God is how you talk about everything.

I need help to balance my brain with a kind of grounded God reality that keeps me running true and straight.

Not too much negative that might drag me away and under waves of despair.

View Details

We have obvious problems, but real problems, the ones that drive us to unwell ness, can only be resolved by deep soul work. What's going on underneath?

We have problems. Every one reading this will have multiple problems.

I just got news from a family member that the biopsies came back negative for cancer. A huge problem has been resolved. Relief floods my soul.

Some problems are obvious. I need food for dinner, a home to live in, a job. I need a friend who won't use and abuse me. I need security.

They are very real problems.

👉 Find out more here https://turningthepage.co.nz/the-real-problem-under-the-problem/

👉 Email me here barry@turningthepage.co.nz

👉 Give a little https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

You’ve got nothing left. An empty love tank, weightless and vulnerable. But you want love. Who and what will fill the need?

The water tank was empty. I opened up the lid on the tank and immediately I could smell the residue of silt lying on the bottom of the tank.

No rain had entered the tank for weeks and slowly the water had drained out until now it was empty. Any water in the tank was dirty, putrid, and vile.

I have talked with people who are like this water tank. They have drained their life, emptied their love tank out for the sake of others’ needs, and now there is an emptiness. Often there is a bitterness, resentment and a feeling of being used.

👉 Read the post here https://turningthepage.co.nz/an-empty-love-tank/

👉 Email me here barry@turningthepage.co.nz

👉 Keep me creating by giving a little https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

We like to be self-reliant, but at times we need help, so we need a rescue plan. I got stuck in the mud a few days ago.I had been driving my small truck in the countryside and decided to do a u-turn. I crossed over the road and on to the soil and I got stuck in the mud. I hadn’t realised that it was so wet and mucky.

I instantly stopped, as I knew that if I kept trying to get out, I would just dig myself in further.

Read further here

Support Turning the Page. Give

View Details

Our brains can keep reminding us. ‘My Sin is Ever Before Me’ writes the poet, but what if we had a purifier?

Read more here

View Details

I’ve got too much going on in my life, but I want to keep my life simple, so I discard the complex.

He’s a fictional character and I like the freedom he has.

His name is Jack reacher and is the creation of Lee Child.

Jack Reacher has the life of a nomad. He wanders from town to town and solves problems, generally with a lot of violence. That part is not what I’m keen on, but there is something unique about his life.

It’s extremely simple.

He travels mostly by hitchhiking, and all he carries is an ATM Card and a toothbrush.

That’s all.

If he needs new clothes, he buys them. He doesn’t carry a bag or even a cell phone.

He is free from all the possessions that we would normally call essential. His possessions don’t own him.

Sounds good doesn’t it? Maybe, but he doesn’t have a spouse, girlfriend, kids or relational commitments.

It’s a simple life, which has an appeal, but it’s a life of a loner.

Does this appeal to something in you?

Is there something within you that would love to walk away from the complexity of stuff?

I’ve shifted house three times in the last three years and I have got rid of a lot of things. Trailer loads.

It’s freeing. It’s liberating to cut your life down to the minimum.

I don’t think I will ever get to the ‘Jack Reacher’ phase, although I wouldn’t mind trying it for a few weeks to see what it would be like.

https://turningthepage.co.nz/keep-my-life-simple/

https://turningthepage.co.nz/writing-that-connects/

https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

Being caught in a trap was felt by the poet who wrote ‘The Snares of Death Encompassed Me’, but they had a way out.

I was recently watching one of those ‘survival’ reality T.V. shows where people are thrown into the wilderness and they have to survive.

The show was called ‘Alone’ and was in Tasmania, Australia.

To survive, they had to catch their own food and build their own shelter, etc.

One contestant decided to try to catch a Pademelon which is like a tiny kangaroo.

So he made a snare trap

A snare trap is basically a rope noose that, when an animal passes through, it triggers the rope to tighten quickly around the animal and it is caught and can’t escape.

The hunter can then come and kill the animal.

But imagine the sense of being trapped by a rope. A rope that has grabbed you and you can’t get free. The more you struggle, the tighter it gets.

It might even be a net, and you are knotted into the mesh of the net.

Your heart is thumping. You’ve lost control and freedom.

Enter a poet who has been in that place.

read more here

Give a donation here

View Details

I need wisdom ointment, but so much ointment contains flies. Wisdom that comes from above, wisdom that is pure and holy.

I was visiting a friend the other day, and she noticed I had some eczema on my hand. It had been there a few days and was slightly irritated and red. She offered to rub some ointment into the skin. I gladly accepted.

Touch is a wonderful thing, especially when it regards a skin disease. She gently worked in the ointment and I could feel the pain ease away. I almost teared up because someone had noticed, cared and offered ointment and love.

I checked out the tube of ointment she had taken a small dab of ointment from. Looking over the ingredients, I noticed that there were no dead flies in the mix.

There were no ‘flies in the ointment’ as such.

It’s a funny litt

le saying, but I think it comes from the wisdom writings of Ecclesiastes.

Dead flies make the perfumer’s ointment give off a foul odour;
so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honour. Ecclesiastes 10:1

The eczema is no longer there, but maybe the touch and the offering of wisdom to pain remains.

So I wrote a poem!

Read more here

View Details

We all have painful experiences in life, but redeemed pain is more impressive than removed pain. What good can be found within in our pain?

Sometimes I am given a gift voucher.

It has no value tangibly in itself. It is but a piece of plastic the size of a credit card.

The value lies within what has been loaded onto it. Some kind person has placed a dollar value into its electronic magnetic memory (don’t ask me how this works).

Then, if I remember that I have this card and the money on it, I can go to a store and ‘redeem’ the value of what has been placed on this card.

I can exchange the card and receive back something good.

We don’t use the word ‘redeem’ very much but it comes from the two words re- ‘back’ + emere ‘buy’.

Redeem means to ‘buy back’.

I present the card and the shop owner buys it back to the value placed on the card.

I would like to suggest you have a card in our purse or wallet and on it contains all the painful experiences you have had.

Ouch, for some this card would have a lot of weight to it. A lot of energy, grief, pain, loss, anger, resentment, bitterness, etc is locked up in that card.

That card is heavy and you carry it around with you everywhere you go.

It eats away at us. It changes us. The thinking patterns in our brain are trained by this burden.

What can be done with the energy of this pain?

Read more here

Give to Turning the Page

View Details

We all have pain and we want the pain to stop, but the pain is telling us something. What if we could identify the pain and stop the suicide slide?

It’s pain and we want it to stop.

It could be physical pain from body ailments, but it could also be pain coming from traumas past and present. Grief, loss, anger, loneliness, the daily stress load of life that causes us to slump. It’s pain.

Recently I learned something about pain.

For the past year, I’ve had a sore back. I would take panadol at night to help me sleep. I also went to a physiotherapist and did exercises. All of which helped a little, but not completely.

I was living was in a rented cottage on a farm. I had been living and working there for quite a while. But then I got the news in April 2023 that it would be sold.

So many unknowns.

read more here

View Details

The practices of your week and day may drain your life, but what practices restore your soul?

‘Oh, that’s so good for the soul’

Sometimes I hear people say that. Sometimes I say it myself.

It’s that moment when you feel a restoring of something drained out of you. You feel like your energy tank has been topped up.

Often, this comes as a result of a practice or an activity that you do.

Practice – something you regularly do. An activity, habit, or custom.

What are some practices that restore the soul?

What do you do that helps restore your inner life?

Read the post here

View Details

Life and activity can drain our mental health, but there are places to restore. Take notice and soak in them.

There is a place I want to go to. The gardens are beautiful. Full of colour all year round. Fruit trees are full of ripe fruit ready to be eaten.

There are beaches sparkling with shells and sand. Fish swim in the sea and there are waves perfect for surfing. The sunrises and sunsets are magical. Soft tender hues changing every minute.

The food that is provided is tasty, nutritious, and good. Large tables for abundant parties but also little tables for intimate connections.

The beds provided are perfect to sink into and you fall into a deep, secure sleep.

Soft music and perfumes fill the air.

Your favourite people are there too. Friends, family, soulmates, all enjoying the dance.

A place to restore the soul.

Read more here

View Details

Some people can help you restore. Some you need to put out of the room. What are six qualities of people that restore the soul?

Life can give you a battering at times, but there are some people that seem to be able to come alongside and help you restore.

I didn’t need advice or problem solving. I didn’t want someone to tell me ‘It will be alright.’

I simply needed someone to be there.

To be a strand of the community nest that I was in.

I have lots of people in my life. Most are helpful and supportive. Some I have some firm boundaries around because they can be quite hurtful.

But there are some people that, in my darkest moments, when my cup of life has drained out, are the ones that will come and empower me to restore.

In this series about restoring the soul, I suggest that there are three ‘P’s’ needed to restore the soul. The first of these is people.

Read more here

View Details

The soul can get completely drained, but what restores the soul? What can bring it back to life? People, places, and practices.

Life can be draining. Too much going or too much has gone on. Now it feels like the energy tank is on ‘E’. Empty, Exhausted and not Enough.

You have nothing in reserve and you know that tomorrow will probably be the same.

This has become a pattern.

You give and give. You know you can’t give out of an empty cup, but it feels like the smallest of droplets in the cup are being absorbed away by someone else’s tissue paper.

read more here

View Details

Are you scared to receive? To receive might just undo a carefully constructed sense of being in control, but little drops of love open the rustiest of doors.

I know someone who is very generous to me. In fact, this website and my ability to get content out is only possible due to their technical wisdom and support.

He has a very generous lifestyle.

But what is it like to receive when you know you know that you can’t respond in like fashion?

We live in a very transactional world.

You do this for me and so I must do that for you
You work so many hours and so here is the financial compensation for the giving of that energy.
You do the crime; you do the time
You made your bed now you have to sleep on it
It’s justice and retribution, not mercy and grace
Black and White
In or out

We like it that way because we like straight lines. Fairness, balance, correctness, energy out, energy in.

And then someone says ‘I love you’ and you have no words to respond.

Read this further here

FOLLOW ME!
Email me: barry@turningthepage.co.nz
Website: https://turningthepage.co.nz/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/turningthepage1atatime
Twitter: https://twitter.com/barrypearman
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barry_pearman/
Podcast https://turningthepage.co.nz/podcast-listen-mental-health/

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

Ive had more than enough of being held in contempt, but when I know divine approval, I can rise again.

It was like they were at the bottom of the pecking order and being held there.

People had contempt for them.

The word ‘contempt’ is one we don’t often use.

To be ‘held in contempt’, in a general sense, simply means that a person is despised or strongly disapproved of.

I was recently sent this image of what I believe is to be a young girl.

What do you see in the image?
What is her story?
Why is she there?

https://turningthepage.co.nz/ive-had-more-than-enough-of-being-held-in-contempt/

View Details

The stress load was too much to handle, but they knew what to do, so they took action and calmed the stress load down.

It was just getting too much, and I could feel it in my body.

This was the experience from last weekend when I had a very busy social time.

Meeting new people, trying out new things, and so much change that my introvert self was longing for seclusion, or to simply have some quiet time with just one person.

I withdrew a little, had a break, and now my cup has been restored.

The important thing was that I recognised this, was able to communicate my needs, and give myself self care.

What stresses you?
What fills your cup and what drains it?
Do you know when the stress load is too much or it’s getting near its ‘camel straw’ breaking point?

I know you’re not a camel. Camels never read my blog posts, but as the saying goes ‘It’s the final straw that breaks the camel’s back’

So how is your back? What sized load are you carrying and what could be a final straw?

https://turningthepage.co.nz/when-the-stress-is-too-much/

View Details

The cold wind of rejection can bite deep, but we are not alone. God knows rejection and can give us perspective and a new home of acceptance.

I don’t think there is such a cold wind as the wind of rejection.

I don’t want you in my life.
You’re not welcome here.
Go away.

I’ve seen someone, who I thought was a friend, turn their whole body to look another way to avoid any form of connection.

Rejection is a saying you’re not worthy of my connection. That you don’t matter.

Where have you felt the cutting wind of rejection?

I know you will have because it’s part of the fabric of our humanity.

But how do you handle it? What have you learned?

How much rejection have you faced into?

Read more here

View Details

We build walls; we build personas, but are we weak enough to receive truth into our innermost being? That is where strength comes out from weakness.

I don’t want to be weak.

I don’t to be known as someone who has nothing to give. I want to move into my world and make a difference.

Much male depression I have found has a strong link to a sense of unfulfilment. A kind of soul impotency. There being no deeply meaningful imprint of a man’s life on the world around him, whether it be his spouse, his family, his career.

Much female depression is linked to an invisibility or a hiding of one’s beauty. ‘Nothing to see here, walk on by, no ‘God delight’ to be shown here.’

I don’t want to be weak, so I flex my muscles, show whose boss, prance and pretend ‘I’m a real man.’

I don’t want to be weak so I will be in control, take charge, but let no one inside.

But often we need to come to a place of absolute weakness to be vulnerable enough to receive.

How are you with weakness?

Recently I have had someone open a door in my life that I didn’t know existed. It felt vulnerable, but also strangely safe. I can’t even put a label on that door. But as it opened, I knew that something good wanted to come out.

Read this further here

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

There comes a time and a place when you say, ‘I don’t need this in my life anymore. That you have options. You are worthy of more than this.

It had gone on too long and what was actually abnormal had now become the norm. She had been morphed into a reality that was never meant to be. He had been entranced by some musical flute to follow a fool’s dance tune.

But then a reality lightbulb flicked on. Not a massive lightbulb that you would use to light an entire room, it was more one of those little bulbs you find in a small penlight torch.

It began to glow steady and strong in the soul. She couldn’t put it out. He didn’t want to extinguish it.

But the light grew and grew stronger and stronger until it was so strong that it could not be ignored or turned off.

That light could have various names.

Pick one or two that suit.

You’re worth more than this
You don’t need this in your life
There is something better than this
Their dance dirge doesn’t have to be yours
Self care is not selfishness
Addiction, to anything, doesn’t have to dominate
With the right help, with millimetre steps, change can blossom and grow

She walked out of the marriage.

He sort out better friends.

A distaste, even a revulsion, grew in her for the drink, the drugs, the lies, the sex.

He left his job of convenience, safe and boringingly secure.

She left the porn addiction knowing in-to-me-see (intimacy) needed risk if it was to be real.

He lost his taste for boring mincemeat T.V. and wrote poetry until dawn.

She took a pair of scissors to the credit card.

He sold his ‘pride and joy’ classic car and looked to the curves of his wife.

It wasn’t easy. It was hard, hard, hard. Scarey single tightrope hard, but actually the first little steps weren’t as bad as expected.

Read this further here

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

The world is full of words, but how many do we miss because they need to be heard? There is something about audio.

I have books. Lots of them. Books have filled my life for a long time.

From an early age, I had an insatiable appetite for reading. The earliest books I remember were about Biggles, a World War One wartime pilot.

Then transitioning on to large classic doorstops such as ‘Lord of the Rings’, ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ or ‘Les Misérables’.

Great books. Classic Books. Books that have shaped the world.

If you want to fully get swept along in the story, forget popcorn movie versions. Read them, or deep dive into the audio version for richness of language.

There is something about audio.

Good audio read by orators that have trained their voice to linger long on some words and rush over others can take the brain into the very scene with an imaginative magic.

Oh yes, and then there is music!

Can music be read? Yes, you can read music, but it was always meant to be heard and absorbed into the soul like a sound wave washing on a shore.

Read this further here

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

It takes energy to hold a closed hand, but with gentle movement, we find an open hand. In openness, we both give and receive.

A few years ago, I noticed that my right hand was often clenched tight into a fist. Not a fighting fist, but more a fist that was anxious and tense.

I would wake at night to find my hand closed and bound up tight.

I think the body at times reflects in posture what is going on internally in the soul.

It was my closed hand that was speaking something to me about my inner world.

So I began to consciously choose to open my hand. To relax the muscles, allow the energy that was tight and bound up to soften and seep away.

Then I considered if I am living a life that is open-handed to others. To being generous and also being vulnerable.

Or am I being tight, keeping it all in and to myself?

Read this further here

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

Read this further here

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

We often question ‘Am I on the right path’ but learning to hear the shepherd’s voice gives us an assurance to know and trust the good shepherd.

Read this further here

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

Recently, I have been listening to the audiobook version of Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life by C.S. Lewis.

I like to listen to audio books and podcasts as I do my gardening work.

This book is a memoir or autobiography of C.S. Lewis’ early life.

If you want to get to know someone, explore their early life and come to understand what has shaped them.

He writes this.

I am a product of long corridors, empty sunlit rooms, upstairs indoor silences, attics explored in solitude, distant noises of gurgling cisterns and pipes, and the noise of wind under the tiles. Also, of endless books. C.S. Lewis.

Two sentences. One long and one short takes us to those elements that, when multiplied together, have produced a C.S. Lewis.

We could put it this way.

Long corridors
x empty sunlit rooms
x upstairs indoor silences
x attics explored in solitude
x distant noises of gurgling cisterns and pipes
x and the noise of wind under the tiles.
x endless books
= C.S. Lewis

Of course, there are many other influences or factors that have gone into the shaping or the product.

In the book, he talks about his parents, being an atheist, life in the trenches of World War One, relationships and many other things.

But what is interesting to me is that he sums up himself as a product of the environs he found himself in.

These are places where we can go to ourselves.

We know what a long corridor looks like. Empty sunlit rooms have a certain feel to them. Attics, those places you go with a torch and have to brush away cobwebs, have a sense of adventure and hiddenness.

For some, the thought of ‘endless books’ might be overwhelming and even repulsive, but for someone like C.S. Lewis it would have been like sitting down to a banquet.

From all these factors being multiplied, we have probably the deepest and most profound theological writing of the 20th century.

We have the beauty of Narnia and the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The depth of Mere Christianity and wit of Screwtape Letters.

You are the product ofIf you were to write a paragraph containing 36 words that described the factors that have shaped you, what would you write?

The mind has a negative bias. It can so easily drift to the traumas, the hurts, and disappointments. C.S. Lewis had plenty of those.

Instead, look to the environments that you inhabited. Where you immersed your time and felt most comfortable in.

You may find hints in the environments that your parents embraced or took you to.

I am a product ofI was rummaging through some old photos the other day and I came across this photo taken of me in my early twenties.

I am sitting on a hill, which was above my family home, on our farm just outside of Wellsford.

It’s a summer’s day. I have my guitar, and I am looking out over the countryside and sheep are in the background.

I can’t remember what I was playing. Probably something from John Denver! – Country roads, take me home …

But in this one image, I think I capture many of the environmental factors that shaped me.

I am a product of the outdoors, warm summer breezes, musical notes, solitude and silence. Soil, sheep, pastoral care and animal husbandry. The small things inhabiting the large and conversations with earthy depth.

Not as eloquent as C.S. Lewis, but you get the idea.

Why is this important?We often come to times when we ask the deeper questions. Places of decision where we question our purpose.

In these times, it’s healthy to reflect on the environments that have shaped the deeper parts of you.

Are there patterns and places where you most feel ‘at home’ in?

What are the environments that have gone into shaping the ‘product’ you are?

How do these reflections inform the choices you are about to make?

Questions?
Comments?
Email me 🙂📨
barry@turningthepage.co.nz

Quotes to consider* Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You. Dr. Seuss * Invisible threads are the strongest ties. Friedrich Nietzsche * I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions. Stephen R. Covey. * The New House is almost a major character in my story.
I am a product of long corridors, empty sunlit rooms, upstair indoor silences, attics explored in solitude, distant noises of gurgling cisterns and pipes, and the noise of wind under the tiles. Also, of endless books.
My father bought all the books he read and never got rid of any of them.
There were books in the study, books in the drawing-room, books in the cloakroom, books (two deep) in the great bookcase on the landing, books in a bedroom, books piled as high as my shoulder in the cistern attic, books of all kinds reflecting every transient stage of my parents’ interests, books readable and unreadable, books suitable for a child and books most emphatically not.
Nothing was forbidden me.
In the seemingly endless rainy afternoons I took volume after volume from the shelves. I had always the same certainty of finding a book that was new to me as a man who walks into a field has of finding a new blade of grass.
Where all these books had been before we came to the New House is a problem that never occurred to me until I began writing this paragraph. I have no idea of the answer. C.S. Lewis Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life

Questions to answer1. What were the environments that influenced you as a child? 2. What environments do you naturally drift to? 3. Think of someone you admire. Research the environments that went into the shaping of their lives.

Formation exercise* Craft a sentence or two where you express the environments that have shaped the ‘product’ you are.

Barry Pearman

Read this further here

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

I want to forget some things. But does God forget? Does God choose not to remember and if so, how does this help me heal?

I once visited the ancient ruins of Olympia, Greece.

The tour guide told me that in the entrance to the athletic stadium there were once pillars and inscribed on them were the names of people who had cheated in their events.

Not only that, but alongside the athletes’ name was the name of the town they came from.

It was a simple message of shame and guilt for all the world to see. The athlete and the town now had a reputation.

What would it be like to have your crimes and sin etched in stone for all the world to see?

Who would be your friend when everything about you was exposed and known?

Maybe only someone who has experienced the same level of humiliation and exposure.

I forgetI would like to forget some events in my life. Things that people have done to me and also things I have done to others.

I seem to be able to forget my shopping list, where I put my keys, and what I had for dinner last week. But it’s harder, much harder, to forget what seems to have been etched into my heart.

Those etchings have seemingly formed and shaped my life from an early age.

The bumps and bruises have pushed me this way and that.

Talk to anyone at a deep level and before long, we discover how early life events have forged deep and long-lasting conclusions.

It takes time to rewire some of those early childhood conclusions. Over the top, generous, grace-filled time.

But all of those events, good and bad, must be stored up in some cosmically vast data bank somewhere. Matter doesn’t just simply disappear.

I wonder if God forgets any of it.

Does God forget?I don’t believe God forgets anything.

That might frighten you because you’ve had experiences where people have dragged up past events to use as some sort of evidence against you. Instead, you would much rather those events to be forgotten and done away with.

But what if God recorded everything? The good, bad, joys, struggles, triumphs and the simply plain boring stuff of life.

All recorded without any judgment of right or wrong. It’s simply there as a recorded event.

Oh, yes, and it’s not just your stuff, it’s everyone else’s too!

You can see the entire story of everything – AND I MEAN EVERYTHING.

But we, in our humanness, have a bias towards the negative. We have a velcro tenacity to hold on to the bad and be teflon slippery to the good.

The brain is like Velcro for negative experiences, but Teflon for positive ones. [This] shades “implicit memory”–your underlying expectations, beliefs, action strategies, and mood–in an increasingly negative direction. Rick Hanson.

I would suggest that many of us, deep down, think God has a similar mindset bias. That God holds on to our list of sins and is ready to throw it all back in our faces, whilst negating any good.

This progresses on to the view of God that God is ‘checking a list to see who’s been naughty or nice cause Santa God is coming to town.’

Wipe the slate cleanOne of the earliest writing tools we had as humans was slate.

In 18th- and 19th-century schools, slate was extensively used for blackboards and individual writing slates, for which slate or chalk pencils were used (wiki).

From this use of slate, we have the phrase ‘To wipe the slate clean’ which means to wipe away all the old stuff and to start anew.

In fact, here in New Zealand, we have the clean slate scheme as part of our legal system.

God has an even better scheme.

God says this.

I am He who wipes the slate clean and erases your wrongdoing.
I will not call to mind your sins anymore. Isaiah 43:25

Other versions of the Bible put it differently.

“I—yes, I alone—will blot out your sins for my own sake
and will never think of them again.” Isaiah 43:25

I, I am He
who blots out your transgressions for my own sake,
and I will not remember your sins. Isaiah 43:25

God chooses to not drag up the past and to hold it against you.

God is capable of regurgitating all the muck and mess of your life, but because God is love and has a reputation of love to ‘kept up’ as such, chooses not to remember.

A ‘choosing to not remember’, is vastly different from a ‘forgetting’, which is a very human thing to do.

Holding on or handing over?Why do we keep holding on to hurts? Why do we find it so hard to forgive ourselves and others?

I think these hurts can become like little thorns digging into the psyche. Poking, prodding, and causing us pain.

These little thorns grow into giant splinters, digging into every area of our life.

We compensate by avoiding certain topics or people because we know that will set the whole firewood pile ablaze and burn up everything and everyone around us.

But we hold on to it because someone has to pay.

We can’t let them go because we believe someone has to pay. It’s a debt and debts have to be paid.

We are the bookkeeper and everything is recorded for future reference in a court of law where we are judge, jury, and executioner.

Handing over of the pain and the memory to God is a risky business because you never quite know what God might do with it.

God may well not do what you want or think God should do (think of the story of Jonah).

It’s a process too. The brain wants to keep us going back to the old and familiar. But with grace filled prayer, it slowly changes and lets its grip slip away.

God holds all, knows all, and is full of justice, mercy, and grace.

Can you hand over those memories into safe and all knowing hands?

God forgives and chooses not to remember.

Can we do the same?

Can we give over to God a memory that haunts and holds us tight?

To say ‘I will never forgive …’ is to say ‘I will never be free.’

What’s takes more energy to maintain? A clenched fist or an open palm?

Can we trust God to clean us from things that hold us back?

If we say that we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and refusing to accept the truth.
But if we confess our sins to him, he can be depended on to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong. And it is perfectly proper for God to do this for us because Christ died to wash away our sins. 1 John 1:8-9

Questions?
Comments?
Email me 🙂📨
barry@turningthepage.co.nz

Quotes to consider* Acceptance is not our mode nearly as much as aggression, resistance, fight, or flight. None of them achieve the deep and lasting results of true acceptance and peaceful surrender. Richard Rohr. * Justice–is getting what is deserved
Mercy–is not getting what is deserved
Grace–is getting what is not deserved
Darrell Johnson * Forgiveness involves a willingness to release an offending party from all requirement to experience the just consequences of his or her wrongdoing. Advice to forget an offense in the sense in which God “forgets” our sin does not address the problem of feeling angry when the memory of the offense recurs. It goes no further than the counsel to decide to forgive and to choose to minister. The problem of bitter feelings remains untouched. Larry Crabb The Marriage Builder: A Blueprint for Couples and Counselors * Counsel to forget an offense fails to advance our understanding of forgiveness, and it is also discouraging. If taken literally, such counsel insists that either we damage the memory storage area of our brains or we introduce selective amnesia through the process of pathological repression. Of course, no one is recommending these absurd remedies. Larry Crabb The Marriage Builder * The key to “forgetting” an offending event is a reevaluation of the event until it is seen as not especially important to one’s purposes. Bitterness will give way to disappointment (which is acceptable) if the firm decision to forgive is accompanied by Spirit-led meditation on the truth that needs are fully met in Christ.
Larry Crabb The Marriage Builder * Sin is not a distance, it is a turning of our gaze in the wrong direction. Simone Weil

Questions to answer1. What have you learned from this post? 2. ‘Does God forget’? is a challenging question to how we view ourselves and how we have fashioned a view of what God is like. How has your view of what God is like changed over time? 3. What would it be like to have a ‘clean slate’? What would it take to offer others a clean slate?

Formation exercise* Take one of the quotes above and journal a response to it.

Barry Pearman

View Details

We don’t want trouble, but when Jesus says ‘You Will Have Trouble’, there must be something to help us through.

There are some promises I would like God not to keep.

I’m not sure if you can still get them or not, but you used to be able to buy a little box and in it there would be little pieces of paper with a scripture on written on it.

They were called promise boxes.

Each day, or whenever you needed a little boost, you would randomly pull out a verse and see what ‘promise’ God was giving you today.

I wonder if in that little box they had the promise ‘You will have trouble.’

How would you feel if you pulled out those words?

Read this further here

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

It can feel very lonely when we don’t experience love. A sense of abandonment. To know that ‘I am loved’ is like the permanent embrace of presence.

To be loved and know it deeply is, I think, the quest of every heart. According to early Church writer Paul, it is the greatest of all.

When you know you’re loved, there is a sense you are held and known. There is a completeness to who you are.

But, in all honesty, the love most of us have experienced is like store-bought tomatoes.

These tomatoes are seemingly perfect. Round, red, and full of juice. They may even have a label to make sure you know that it’s a tomato.

We buy them, use them, feel we know what a tomato is like and all is well in our tomato world.

I never buy shop tomatoes because once you’ve tasted a REAL TOMATO you’ll never go back.

What I mean by a real tomato is one that has been grown in soil, under the heat of the sun, fed with organic fertilisers and simply allowed to grow at its own pace.

I simply can’t explain the difference, but I will try. The flavours are powerful and strong. There isn’t much juice because it’s all flesh. They are beautiful to look at and watch as they ripen.

I regularly give away some of my tomatoes. I ask people to enjoy the difference. To slowly, even mindfully, eat the tomato.

Why am I talking about tomatoes?

What’s the connection to love?

Love TastingWe all have had tastings of love.

It might be a romantic relationship.

Perhaps the love of a parent to a child and a child to a parent.

Grandparents holding the newborn grandchild. Nothing sweeter.

Or it could be the love of a dog to its owner. Maybe cats, but I’m not sure 🙂.

It’s all love. It’s beautiful and good. But it’s all quite tenuous and has the potential of being lost.

We hope the love will last forever but it relies on everyone playing nicely.

This love is real and true, and it’s part of God’s good creation, but I am afraid it’s much like shop bought tomatoes.

There is a love that I want to sit under and in. To be bathed in. A love that will hold me when the love notes of this world get tangled up and tossed aside.

It’s the full flavoured perfection of an organic tomato slowly grown .

I am lovedAll the other loves are signposts to a perfect love that I want and need to be immersed in.

When I know this deep love, in all its fulness of flavour and nutritional perfection, then I can face anything.

I can be stripped of my Mana (Maori word for prestige, authority, influence, spiritual power) and still return love.

I can be spat upon and crucified like the Christ, but still gift forgiveness to ignorance.

When we know this love surrounds us, we are unstoppable in the pursuit of wanting others to know this love.

We give tomatoes away and say, ‘O taste and see that the Lord is good’ Psalm 34:8

Cultivating the ‘I am loved’Back to tomatoes.

Even in the middle of winter, I still have a focus on the growth of tomatoes.

When I am collecting Autumn leaves to go into the compost, I tell people I am growing tomatoes.

When I am collecting bamboo canes for my tomatoes to grow up, I am growing tomatoes.

I look through the seed catalogues in spring, and I am growing tomatoes.

Growing the sense of being loved is a constant daily meditative activity.

My secret heart.Everyone of us has a secret heart. It’s that place where all the thoughts and feelings spring up from.

We don’t let many come near it. We want to keep it secret, hidden, and locked away.

But we know it’s there, and often it betrays us. We share something that we wish we could take back. We allow it to become vulnerable because we know it needs connection.

I want my secret heart to be full of wisdom.

David, in his penitent prayer, says this.

You desire truth in the inward being;
therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. Psalm 51:6.

So daily, on my pilgrim’s quest for truth, I hear the words ‘I am loved’.

I have a recording of ‘I am’ declarations that I want to anchor my soul to.

But the greatest of all these is ‘I am loved’ 1 Corinthians 13: 13

Questions?
Comments?
Email me 🙂📨
barry@turningthepage.co.nz

Quotes to consider* The antidote to stress, depression, anxiety, despair is to be on then off, work play, inhale exhale, summer winter. Rhythm is built into creation, and the problem with the modern world is that you can get tomatoes at 2 am. Rob Bell. * There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket–safe, dark, motionless, airless–it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell. C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves * Love wins over guilt any day. Richard Rohr When Things Fall Apart * Love acts like a giant magnet that pulls out of us, like iron filings, every recorded injury, every scar. Terrence Real * Giving and receiving unconditional love is the most effective and powerful way to personal wholeness and happiness. John Bradshaw.

Questions to answer1. Where have you experienced love? Even a small slice of it? 2. Speaking the truth (I am loved) into yourself seems such a strange thing to do. Why would that be? 3. How do we confer on to others that they are loved? 4. Can you gift yourself the gift of being loved? Why or why not?

Formation exercise* Read the other ‘I am …’ posts in this series. Create a voice recording on your mobile phone with you speaking to yourself these truths. Listen to them daily.

Further readingBarry Pearman

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

View Details

Progress and change can seem like ‘two steps forward and three steps back’ but maybe the steps need to be millimetres and with gradual gentle side ways movements we can see movement. It was disappointing when then they said it. In fact, it was surprising.

They said it with good intentions, but it displayed a kind of stereotyping or categorising of a group of people that deserve much more.

The words were these.

‘With your people, it’s two steps forward and three steps back.’

I lost confidence in his ability to understand what I was called to do in the ministry.

Then there was the person who described the people I was supporting as having ‘special needs’. I think she was confusing mental illness with people having an intellectual disability.

I took little guidance from her, either.

There’s some people you don’t want or need in your room.

Have you ever been categorised or labeled?

Maybe you’ve been pressured to change, ‘get better’, be different.

All you ever wanted was someone to walk millimetres beside you and to be a friend.

Don’t walk in front of me… I may not follow
Don’t walk behind me… I may not lead
Walk beside me… just be my friend. Albert Camus

Read this further here

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

It wasn't so much a closed door, it was more a Christmas rejection. There is no place for you here.

I watched him as he told me he wasn’t going to his family’s Christmas party.

He had felt a lot of rejection from his family and now he couldn’t be bothered with all the politics. He was going somewhere else.

I believe he decided that ‘the corner of a rooftop’ was preferable to a delicious Christmas lunch with people who had shunned him.

It’s a version of what I think the writer of this proverb was saying.

It’s better to live alone
in the corner of an attic
than with a quarrelsome wife
in a lovely home. Proverbs 25:24

Or maybe it’s a version of what St. Kenneth Rogers of Houston, Texas sang.

You’ve got to know when to hold ’em
Know when to fold ’em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run The Gambler

A Christmas RejectionChristmas time.

A time for a sprinkling of sparkle dust over a simple story.

The Bible doesn’t mention a donkey that Mary rode on.

It doesn’t describe any animals around the manger.

Read this further here

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

A crisis hits and the scaffolding around your life seems to shake, but you have a Mental Health Grab Bag, and so you know you can get through this.

An emergency hits, or maybe it’s just seeing certain family members. Something gets added to your stress load, and the brain spirals down and out of control.

There might also be times you have to go to a hospital for various medical needs. Maybe you need some respite time.

What would you take? How would prepare for the potential emergency?

I would suggest you need an Emergency Mental Health Grab Bag.

We are all supposed to have a grab bag prepared for the unpredictable events such as earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, and other extreme events, but what would you put into your bag?

Mental Health Grab Bag itemsMany of the items in my grab bag are what I would call ‘grounding items’.

They help me ground the self into the here and now. Items that are practical, tangible and tactile. They help centre me.

This is my list and you will see that many of the items have links to other articles I have written.

S.T.A.N. plan
This is a plan you have prepared beforehand in case of emergency.
A S.T.A.N. plan is Simple to understand by all, Timed for review not achievement, Aimed at something of deep importance, and Negotiated with significant others.
Bible verses, Quotes, Affirmations
Have those little verses and sentences easily accessible so that you can say them to yourself. Preferably have them written out on paper. Something tangible and tactile helps the brain to ground itself.
Ladder out of your dark hole.
The ladder is a small eBook to help you out of our hole. Get a copy here.
Thinking Compass.
A thinking compass is something that will help you keep pointing due North. It’s a little tool with lots of verses, quotes, affirmations. Learn more about it here.

Read this further here

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

Feeling judged can make you want to hide. Why put yourself out there if people are going to judge you? What you want is a good conversation.

They didn’t have the conversation because they knew they would feel judged. Feelings of being dismissed, ridiculed, ‘shot-down’, laughed at, mocked would land on the already fragile soul.

All they wanted was for someone to listen to them without condemnation.

Instead, like a snail retreating into its shell, they hid.

Perhaps an internet search would provide some answers. A place where you can get some answers (not always the best ones) without the risk of exposure to judgment.

It’s anonymous and risk free of being judged for having suicidal thoughts. Safe, private, and you’re in control.

So we type what longs to be heard.

Read this further here

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

There is an internal world to every one of us with words that need sharing, but it’s hard to put into words, so we need someone safe to help us.

They wanted him to tell them what was going on inside, but it felt more like he was in the corner of a boxing ring and they were ready to punch.

When you’re in that kind of space, everything can either shut down or liven up.

For some, they will fight, others will flee, then for others, they will freeze. No words, no expression, just a closed and bolt shut door to the inside of the soul.

It’s then impossible to put anything into words.

I think men, in particular, find it difficult to put complex soul stuff into words. They may want to, but they just don’t know how, especially under the threat of potential getting it wrong. So they shut down.

The ‘going quiet’ becomes a default setting as they try to work it out themselves.

Society breeds into men that should have it all together, to have all the answers and be quick in response. They that are the achiever’s, problem solvers, and heroes on white horses wearing superman capes.

Yet, in reality, all men, if they are honest, have a quivering jelly like heart that wrestles every day with intangibles.

Read this further here

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

They make me feel … (add in your emotional extreme), but there is a space between stimulus and response. Use it.

I was watching the news the other night and the first item was about a mother complaining about how a politician made her daughter feel. She claimed that the politician was a bully and had threatened her daughter.

I don’t know the full details, but it was the words ‘made her feel’ that grabbed my attention.

These words always do, and I always skip back to the quote from Eleanor Roosevelt.

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. Eleanor Roosevelt

This belief, that my feelings are under the control of others, is prevalent in our culture.

Listen to these pop songs

You make me feel like a natural woman (Arethra Franklin)
You make me feel like dancing (Leo Sayer)
You make me feel like I’m alive again (Cold play)
You make me feel like a fool (Frankie Cosmos)
You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)

From these songs, that we sing into our psyche, they seem to say that our feelings are hard-wired to the actions of others.

Certainly others can influence how we feel, but can anyone make us feel certain things?

Read this further here

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

It’s a noisy world with lots of stressors wanting our attention, but there is a still small voice longing to be heard, so quiet yourself and listen.

I have a pendulum clock on a bookshelf near me.

Yesterday, I noticed the pendulum was swinging back and forth freely, but now it’s barely moving.

The only sound I can hear is a little ‘click’ sound coming from it.

In the background, a car passes by, an early bird Tui makes a small announcement to the day.

But is there silence in my brain?

Thoughts whirl. The usual ones.

My pendulum thoughts have begun to swing for another day.

Have you ever simply stopped and noticed the thoughts that seem to dominate the playground of your mind?

Some thoughts you have are so familiar that they have dug thinking tracks deep and wide into the physical networks of your brain.

In the noise, I long for a still, small voice.

Read this further here

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

Risking a Sacred ConversationEDIT We all want to be known, held and loved, but to find this requires a level of risk to have a sacred conversation. Are you ready for that?

I once had a conversation with someone, what I would call a sacred conversation, and they couldn’t handle the fire.

They couldn’t handle the heat of what I shared. I could hardly handle it myself, and I was hoping they could help.

But they were too caught up in rules, regulations, and fire extinguishers.

Not everyone can handle the fire. Not everyone has hands that can hold molten lava words. Some can, most can’t, and that’s actually ok.

But for some of the deep burning coals that we carry in our lives, we need someone who will risk coming near our fire. Some conversations are sacred moments where angels hold their breath to see what will proceed.

These sacred conversations are always risky.

So risky that you won’t be able to come near them without the divestment of footwear.

Read this further here

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

There is a time for everything, and some things get opened too early, but there is hope, and God can bring release and recovery.

They had been opened too soon. They weren’t ready yet.

Her deep beauty had not been allowed to fully mature, but now it had been opened.

They had told him that this was love. Told him lies that, maybe, they had heard themselves at the same tender age. From this interruption to normal, healthy development, he would never fully move into his world the way intended. Never with the confidence about who he was and what he was about.

They both now had a poison injected into their being. Their ‘human being’ and this affected all their doing.

Interrupted and injected.

Everyone of us has had times of an interruption. Something has cut across our path and caused normal health development to cease, to take a different route, to go off track.

A lie has been injected into our thinking. ‘There is no beauty to you’ ‘You have no purpose’

A roseAs I sit here writing, I look outside and see a rosebush. It’s springtime, and it is pushing out lush new growth from the hard pruning I gave it in the winter.

I can see the beginnings of a flower. It’s a small ball the size of a marble.

It’s coming. I know it is. That small ball will swell from the inside out. It will soon be the size of a golf ball.

There is a temptation to force it open. To peel back the green calyx surrounding and covering the beauty. ‘I want that beauty and I want it now.’

But no, I wait and let it come naturally. Let it emerge in its own way.

That rose bush has been through a lot of rough weather recently. A few days ago it was pelted with hail. Then wild winds thrashed at it.

The growth continued. It may have slowed, but it continued pushing with a cell multiplication that would astound us.

One day, very soon, the yellow colours will explode out into the world. Fragrance will fill the air.

It will shout ‘Look at me’ and I will come and soak in the scent of its glory. Bees will visit, wander around its stamens, collect some nectar, pollen and be on their way.

Angels will sing, parties will explode out of nothingness. God will say it is good.

I know people like this rose. They are at various stages of revelation.

Some hold the calyx around them tight. They have built walls high and strong. They don’t want anyone seeing in.

Maybe because someone has awakened them too early.

The words ‘damaged goods’ is heard so often that I consider opening a repair shop. Perhaps this website is a bit like that. A place of renovation from the inside out.

Read this further here

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

Sitting with shame can suffocate life, but sitting in solidarity with someone in soul talk can break its control.

It’s there if you want to hear it. A sneaky, whispery voice from the past.

You hear it in others. They may have said nothing directly to you, but it’s there. Shame is a shadowy character.

It hides in the corners, and under the floorboards. It creeps around trying to be unnoticed.

But you can always guarantee, if given a prod, it will come out and haunt you down.

Shame splices into your soul that you are flawed. Actually, worse than that, it’s more like ‘YOU ARE A FLAW, A MISTAKE, AN UGLY WASTE OF SPACE.’

Shame would never say, with objective honestly, that you have flaws. It always says You are a flaw.

So we sit on a park bench with shame. Like old man or woman, critical of everything you do, they sit next to you mutter reminders.

Read this further here

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

It’s a broken world where we desperately need hope, but God is compassion, and so we get to live again.

The other day I found some mouse droppings in my kitchen.

Concerned about the hygiene of the kitchen, I set a trap. Peanut butter would be the temptation that little mouse could not refuse.

Off to bed I went and in the middle of the night I heard the mouse trap go off. Snap!

Good, I thought, when I wake up in the morning, I will dispose of the little rodent.

I went back to sleep only to be woken a few hours later with a banging and clattering sound going on under my bed. Annoyed, I got up and looked under my bed and here was the trap and the little mouse with its foot caught in it.

Dilemna!

What do I do? Do I kill the mouse and if so, how? Do I let it go it and let it live another day? Will it come back?

Then I realised it had actually dragged itself and the trap 12 metres from the kitchen to my bedroom. Amazing, and that it came to the only one that could help it. Another mammal like itself.

It needed help from someone bigger and chose me.

Compassion and pity prodded my heart.

Read this further here

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

Something was wrapped over them. A shroud. But there is a waiting to be found and a rich party to one day be found.

There was something draped over them, or at least that was it felt like. A shroud.

What’s a shroud? It’s something that envelopes or obscures.

A shroud of mist can cover the landscape.

A shroud also refers to the burial cloth in which a dead person is wrapped for burial.

Sometimes, as I listen to people, it feels like there is something draped over them. That they have a shroud and my calling is to lift up the shroud, look under, and bring some Spirit resuscitation.

We could call that shroud depression, hopelessness, grief, loss, despair.

We could also call it a grounded awareness of the reality of living in a broken world. A world where broken world decisions keep being made by people like me and you. Decisions and choices that aren’t always inline with God’s kingdom come.

So I sit, listen, grieve and groan.

I pray for a presence of comfort to fill the weary soul. That the shroud wouldn’t suffocate.

I also point people to finding comfort in truth that they can easily digest.

Simple things like …

I am held
I am known
I am loved

Perhaps I could add a fourth

I am waiting

Read this further here

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

It wasn’t random. It wasn’t chance. It wasn’t the roll of some celestial dice or the flip of a coin. Your creation was part of a work of art God has had in mind for all eternity.

I know that’s hard to believe. It seems so vast, immeasurable, and beyond understanding. Mysterious and complex beyond anyone’s ability to grasp into everyday sentences.

If that is true, which I truly believe it is, then why was I created?

I wonder, I pray, I scratch my head and hold the questions up to God.

People send me questions that I in myself don’t have neat, tidy answers. Well, maybe I do, but they probably won’t satisfy or salve a hurting soul.

The recurring answer goes something like this.

We are broken people living in a broken world where broken world decisions and choices are made, but God is in the business of making all things new, so we pray, trust, and hope.

Is that broad enough to envelop your situation?

Does it give you a glimmer of presence in your loneliness?

Read this further here

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

We often think we can’t do much to change the situations we are in but by being faithful with the little we have we can move mountains. It’s the little things that give you away.

It seemed such a small thing.

I remember my parents’ daily little habit of reading the Bible. I think they had a daily devotional sitting alongside as they read.

Why I remember this because as a young child I would cuddle in between them as my father would read holy words into the new day.

Little faithful habits build thinking structures that shape the world.

I have written about my mother’s bible faithfully read and little quotes added here and there.

I remember on Sundays going to our place of worship and seeing my father sit in the pew and quietly bow his head in prayer before the service. I’m not sure what he prayed, but maybe it was something like ‘God, I’m here, speak to me.’

My observation of them being faithful with the little taught me a great deal.

Your parents did too. Good and bad. They provided micro-influencers to shape how you see your world and how you understand God.

I believe that how you see God is how you see everything. Never despise the little.

Read this further here

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

Can you pray for me? How do you respond when someone asks you to pray?

I often get requests for me to pray, but I am often not sure what to pray for. Sometimes the need is very clear, but at other times it is vague.

They want me to pray, to intercede, to present their need, but do they truly know their deepest below the surface needs?

I also wonder if they are paying attention to notice how God might answer their needs? It may be yes and in exactly the way they would like it to happen or yes, but in a completely different way. Maybe the answer will ‘No’ or ‘not yet’?

Will they return and give thanks and worship to God? Or will be like nine out of ten that ignore the giver of good things? (Jesus Heals Ten Men With Leprosy)

As you can see, I ponder over many things when people ask me to pray.

Read this further here

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

I haven’t lived a perfect life and I wonder if my problems are punishment from God, but maybe I don’t know the whole story and that God is overflowingly full of grace and mercy.

They wanted retribution. Payback.

A desire for revenge coursed through their veins for what had happened to them, but then, in a whisper of a moment, they thought of what they had done. Perhaps the other also wanted retribution, payback for what they had have done. Perhaps they were seeking revenge against them.

They had stolen from them and now they wanted it all back, plus interest.

If you do the crime then you recieve the punishment until the other is satisfied. But when will they be satisfied? What will truly restore the balance scales of justice to equilibrium?

And their pain seems like a bottomless hole that, try as you might and with all the resources you have, is impossible to fill. You realise that the hole, that dark hole of vacuumous space, has been growing from other intrusions on the soul.

Your crime is but one that has sculptured the walls of the heart.

They want you to pay, but you know nothing within your capability will even begin to calm their pain.

God, the judge, sits and weeps at the mess.

We may look at our suffering and consider that this must be payback from God for what we have done.

We see the suffering of others and make judgments that their suffering is retribution for what they have done. They’re getting what they deserve. Please don’t do this.

Read this further here

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

We think we can do it all, manage life ourselves, but you simply can’t. You discover you can’t make it on your own.

They were told by their closest companion that they should not need others to affirm them. That they should be able to do it themselves. They should be totally self-reliant.

That was poor theology – the way we talk about God.

It drove them even further into dark loneliness.

There is a time and a place where all you truly want to have is the breath of an encouraging word flow over you and into you.

A friend who says, often without words, ‘I am with you, I am present, I know you, and I will not leave you.’

Read this further here

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

When you’re depressed or in a psychotic crisis, it’s normal to believe our negativity is everything there is, but the power of love and light is a constant we can tap into.

Guest post by Sónia Monteiro

Pop culture immortalized this sequence of words that gives title to at least two well-known songs, one by Celine Dion, another by Frankie Goes to Hollywood.

Both poems sing that facet of love between lovers.

But there is more to love than eros.

According to the great academic and writer C. S. Lewis in his book The Four Loves, there are at least four types of love: Affection, Friendship, Eros and Charity.

All four features provide forms of love transmuted into different aspects of reality that share a common ground, or should I say, a common God.

Read this further here

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

I want to know, and because I want to know I will ask empowering questions. Ones that open up the treasure chest of the heart and mind.

It felt more like an interrogation than an invitation.

Questions poured out. Demanding, angry, harsh questions that sent me into a state of frigid shock.

I had no answers. This was the neighbourhood bully. This was the cat having perverse pleasure with a cornered mouse. This would not end well.

You would think a simple conversation wouldn’t be traumatic, but questions amplified with verbal and non-verbal tones can decimate a soul.

But questions framed in gentleness, love, and respect can also be one of the most healing gifts we can offer.

I call these gifts ’empowering questions.’

A brief history of empowermentI came across the term ‘Empowerment’ back in the 1990s when I started working in the field of Mental Health care.

Large institutions that housed people with Mental Illnesses were closing down.

People who once lived in isolated separation from communities were now living in houses next to your own.

It had a big, long fancy word – deinstitutionalization.

Deinstitutionalization – in sociology, movement that advocates the transfer of mentally disabled people from public or private institutions, such as psychiatric hospitals, back to their families or into community-based homes. Britannica

Coming from an environment where much of ones personal powers had been taken away, this was a time where people had freedom to choose.

A new buzz word appeared in the conversations of everyone in Mental Health care.

Empowerment.

Empowerment meant to equip, encourage, and foster personal choice.

I remember supporting a young man in his early twenties. He had been living in an institution for probably five years and his aging mother had managed his money all his life, giving him some pocket money each week.

I asked him if he would like to manage his own money and he said he would. So he and I began the slow empowering process of opening a bank account. A completely foreign idea to him. We also talked about budgeting.

We talked about this with his mother, and she was furious. She believed he was totally incapable of managing money. She withdrew him out of our support. I can’t tell you the rest of the story because I simply don’t know.

Empowerment for me became the undergirding word for everything I do. Still does.

Where are you walking?French writer Albert Camus puts it well.

Don’t walk in front of me… I may not follow
Don’t walk behind me… I may not lead
Walk beside me… just be my friend
Albert Camus

I would suggest to Albert that to empower someone is to even be a fraction behind the other so that they feel they are making the advances.

Being in front means they are simply followers, walking in your wake.

Being behind them, they may feel isolated, alone, vulnerable.

But walking beside and slightly behind is an invitation to trust and to step forward.

Feet slightly behind.

I think this empowering pose is captured in the post crucifixion story of Jesus’ walk to Emmaus

Now that same day, two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem.

They were talking with each other about everything that had happened.

As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him. Luke 24:13-16

Jesus joined them on the journey. He walked along with them.

There is an invitation for us to be empowered by the risen Christ.

Jesus asks empowering questions It has been reckoned that in the stories we have recorded of Jesus’ life, we find him asking over 300 questions. We also have his beautiful parables that contain within them questions created to empower us into a multitude of new thinking paths.

One of the Jesus stories that shouts ’empowerment’ to me is that of Bartimaues.

They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’

Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’

Jesus stood still and said, ‘Call him here.’ And they called the blind man, saying to him, ‘Take heart; get up, he is calling you.’

So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus.

Then Jesus said to him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ The blind man said to him, ‘My teacher, let me see again.’

Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your faith has made you well.’ Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way. Mark 10:46-52

It should have been obvious that he would want his sight to be restored, but no, Jesus still asked an empowering question. He put the power back into the hands of Bartimaeus.

How to ask empowering questionsLook above, look below, look behind and look in front.

I think of a large iceberg floating in the ocean.

Look above the waterline refers to what is being presented right here and now. It’s obvious, you know it they know it, it’s easily seen. Bartimaues is blind and a beggar.
The look below is the below the surface level observation. What’s going on under what is being presented. What is supporting the obvious ‘above the surface’ level? Bartimaues is alone, poor, crying out for mercy. Deep pain.
The look behind is a question of where has this iceberg been? What has shaped this person? What’s the story? What was Bartimaues journey to this place of need?
The look in front is where is this iceberg going. Where could it go? What is a compelling vision for this person? Where is Bartimaues going within the current he lives in?

Jesus asks ‘What do you want me to do for you?’

Empowering questions open up the exploration.

Empowering questions give the other power to be honest, vulnerable and even wrong in the face of love and possible rejection.

I believe that we all want to be known, explored, discovered, and touched. There is something deep within needs presence more than the problem solving.

I want first things first.

I wonder if Bartimaues wanted his sight to be restored so that his life would be better or that he would be able to see Jesus.

Now that’s a big question! He got both.

Augustine and C. S. LewisTwo quotes for you to consider. 1. “Suppose God proposed to you a deal and said, ‘I will give you anything you want. You can possess the whole world. Nothing will be impossible for you … Nothing will be a sin, nothing forbidden. You will never die, never have pain, never have anything you do not want and always have anything you do want–except for just one thing: you will never see my face.’Augustine closed with a question: “Did a chill rise in your hearts, when you heard the words, “you will never see my face?” That chill is the most precious thing in you; that is the pure love of God.” 2. Put first things first and we get second things thrown in: put second things first and we lose both first and second things. C. S. Lewis

Deep empowering questions discern, with a gentle curiosity, what is first and what is second.

What is it you most want? Restoration of sight? A better life now? To be in control when all seems to be mystery and fog?

I like to ask empowering questions because they reveal the Emmaus walk that I am part of with others.

So, what’s it like being you?

I’m curious? 🙂 barry@turningthepage.co.nz

Quotes to consider* The quality of your life is a direct reflection of the quality of the questions you are asking yourself. Anthony Robbins * Christianity is one beggar telling another beggar where he found bread. D.T. Niles * When we become quiet enough to let go of people, we learn compassion for them. We can be with people in their hurt and need. We can speak a word out of our inner silence that will set them free. Richard Foster Simplicity * When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. Henri J.M. Nouwen * The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said. Peter Drucker * Learn to respond to others with honest, open questions instead of counsel or corrections. With such questions, we help “hear each other into deeper speech.” Parker J. Palmer. * When you speak to me about your deepest questions, you do not want to be fixed or saved: you want to be seen and heard, to have your truth acknowledged and honored. Parker J. Palmer. * Good work is relational, and its outcomes depend on what we are able to evoke from each other. Parker J. Palmer * It is usually most helpful to ask questions that are more about the person than about the problem. Parker J. Palmer * There are questions which illuminate, and there are those that destroy. We should ask the first kind. Isador Rabi.

Questions to answer1. How does it feel when someone asks you deep, empowering questions? 2. What would it take for you to learn to ask empowering questions? 3. What is it you most need right here and right now?

Further readingBarry Pearman

Photo by Lauren Richmond on Unsplash

Read this further here

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

Midst the struggle you wonder about the plans God has for you. I thought it was all about prosperity, but this is far from that.

Some things don’t make sense.

It wasn’t meant to be like this. I didn’t see this as my future. How did I get here?

Questions and ponderings flow through the brain, and we wonder if God is there at all.

People say things that feel like grains of sand being rubbed into an open wound.

You need more faith
Pray more
Give more
God intends for you to prosper
Try harder
You’ve got sin in your life
You need to forgive
God has plans for you

You wonder about the end product. Where is all this going?

Can anything good come out of this mess I am in?

You try to work it all out, but it’s all a bit of a puzzle. A jig-saw puzzle.

Jig-Saw puzzle I think when I’m 94, if I make it to that age, I might be able to see how a few pieces have fitted together and something Godly good has emerged.

At this moment, I still wonder how. It’s a mystery.

I think it’s a bit like being given a 10000 piece jigsaw puzzle without the accompanying picture of what the puzzle will look like. Mountain scene, tropical birds, an old house. You have no idea.

To complicate it even further, there are no straight edged pieces. This puzzle could seemingly go on forever. No easy parts for you to make a quick start with nice neat borders.

So you make a start and find a few pieces that connect. This one fits in here and maybe this one will go here.

You notice that a lot of the pieces look the same. In fact, it looks like this complete puzzle has only slight shade differences to it. There is a lot of sky!

I thought this life was meant to be easy. No complications. Straightforward and simple, yet it’s more like a vast blue sky puzzle.

Did you ever think that mystery was in the plans God has for you?

Held in someone’s thoughtsI often receive requests for prayer. (email me at barry@turningthepage.co.nz if you want)

There is pain, loss, and desperation.

First, I believe, they want God to act in certain ways. But I also think there is a deep, probably unconscious, need to feel that someone else knows the struggle.

That they are being held in someone’s thoughts.

They want to be held, known and loved by at least one other person. Being alone and completely abandoned is the worst of crimes we can do to each other.

I hold people in my thoughts during the day. Prayers form around Spirit nudges for this person and that person.

Their puzzle is jig-saw messy, like mine.

Then someone quotes Jeremiah 29:11, and especially the translation that has the word ‘prosper’.

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 NIV

At this point, I understand why Jesus got angry and picked up a whip.

Bitterly cold comfort to someone dying from cancer, or having had their house burn to ashes.

We hear the word ‘plan’ and we think blueprint, map, already laid out for us.

We hear the word ‘prosper’ and we go to what the world considers as prosperity – the good life of health, wealth, beautiful people, and anything advertised to us as what will bring us personal fulfillment.

Yet here we are, like Job, sitting in an ash heap picking at our sores.

Quite frankly, I wish some people would just shut up and keep their band-aid clap trap verses for their own happy face mask wearing friends.

In the original Hebrew, this verse would most likely be read in this way.

For I know the thoughts that I think towards you says Yahweh thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you a future and a hope Jeremiah 29:11

Thoughts.

Thoughts that God thinks towards us.

Thoughts of peace, a future, a hope.

Reality hits that we are not there yet.

We, like the people of Israel that this verse was originally intended for, are in exile from the home always intended for us.

ForsakenThere are some words, that we may know from hearing them so often because people have said them to us as little mantras.

Forsaken, I believe, could be one of those words.

He will never leave you nor forsake you. Deuteronomy 31:6

Forsaken means to be remote, absent, depart from.

In God’s thoughts, you always held, loved, known, even though you may feel in exile and in a strange land.

God is on the move with thoughts and intentions to bring you to jig-saw puzzle completion with no pieces missing or in the wrong place.

Jig-saw pieces move and clip together. Sometimes awkwardly, sometimes with ease. We look at our life and see how God’s thoughts have been shaping the puzzle.

Amid the pain of the present day, we know we are held, loved and known.

Perhaps you have to change your thinking about the plans God has for you.

Quotes to consider* The moment God is figured out with nice neat lines and definitions, we are no longer dealing with God. Rob Bell * When you stand before Me [God] in mystery, you will eventually rest within Me in trust. When you can’t figure Me out, you will give up the illusion of predictability and control and discover the joy of freedom and hope. Larry Crabb 66 Love letters – Job * Control eventually gives way to mystery and the letting go of control. Suddenly, we are not in charge. Rohr, Richard . The Wisdom Pattern: Order, Chaos, Reorder * Real silence, real stillness, really holding one’s tongue comes only as the sober consequence of spiritual stillness. Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Questions to answer1. When you hear the words ‘I have thoughts towards you’ what is your first reaction? Why that reaction? 2. A jig-saw puzzle unfolds itself as the pieces come together. Have you seen this happen in your life? 3. What does prosperity look like to you? How is it portyaed to you through modern media? What do you think Gods view of being propserous looks like?

Further readingBarry Pearman
Photo by Jonny Gios on Unsplash

Read this further here

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

When no one understands you, it can create a deep sense of loneliness. Perhaps there are reasons for the lack of being known. Forgive them anyway.

They were carrying something precious. Their inner world. Thoughts, feelings, motivations, desires, pains, and joys. Everything that goes on within their life and sometimes it’s heavy, very heavy. Too heavy for one dusty human to carry.

They needed a soul carrier. Someone who they could download the struggle to, safely. But the strongest memory of when they had done this was that their vulnerability had been thrown to the pigs.

It’s like you have found the most beautiful pearl in the world and you sell everything to buy it. You carry it with you and only show it to those you think will value it like you do. But instead they look at it, dismiss it as garbage, and then throw it to the pigs who grind it to sand.

Who is safe? Who will listen? Who cares about the beauty of the pearl within? Who is safe for in-to-me-see?

I want that. We all want that.

I want them to understand the hurt they have done. There is anger growing inside of me because of their actions, but I know that my pain will be shot down even more. There’s no point.

This is the dilemma. The tension point that I hear so often in people that download to me.

The loneliness, frustration, pain at not being heard or understood. Underneath is a desire to be known, but it’s like everyone has shields raised to stop the penetration of anything that might be uncomfortable.

It might be helpful to understand why people act in this way. Why they don’t understand?

When no one understands you. Here are some potential reasons.

Too busy. They simply have too much going on to be able to listen to the depth you need. Forgive them anyway.
Your stuff is triggering. You say a few words and instantly something gets triggered in them. Unbearable feelings get generated. They go to pain places in their own lives. Naturally, they put defences up. Forgive them anyway.
There is a consequence on them. What you’re saying means they have to take responsibility for things they have done. They don’t want to. Forgive them anyway.
Cognitive difficulties. They may not have the cognitive ability to understand.. I think of those with A.D.H.D., Autism, Alzheimers and other cognitive disabilities. They simply struggle to understand. Forgive them anyway.
You think differently from others. I think of the cartoon character Yogi Bear, saying about himself that he was “smarter than the average bear”. You’re not better or worse than others. You and your personality type are simply different from others. You’re different to the ‘average bear’. So others are going to find you difficult to understand. Forgive them anyway.
They are trapped within F.A.S.S. mentality. You don’t want to be F.A.S.S.ed – Fixed, Advised, Saved, or Set straight. You simply want to be heard. But if every problem is a nail and they are a hammer, then they will always treat you as a nail. Forgive them anyway.
They don’t know how to ask gently curious questions. They simply have’nt learned how to ask gently curious questions. There is a learning that hasnt happened. I wonder why they have’nt learned this yet? Forgive them anyway.
They are uncomfortable with mystery. They like logic. No mystery, nothing unsolved or unresolved. You come with questions and mystery, and it confuses them. Forgive them anyway.
You’re talking in another language. Not just language, but in terms, words, and concepts they do not understand. Forgive them anyway.
They haven’t been there themselves. You share a story that they cant connect to their own life experience. Forgive them anyway.
Impatience. They want you to move faster, get to the end. You feel a pressure to keep things light. Forgive them anyway.

Can you forgive them? I think Jesus deeply felt the experience of not being fully understood.

My thoughts go to the night before his crucifixion. Anxiety and pain coursing through his veins so much so that he sweated blood.

No one understood him. Even his closest friends, his soul mates, went to sleep on him. He was utterly humanly alone.

He forgave them anyway. He knew their human weaknesses.

Even as he was dying, he defended our human fallibilities. He didn’t seek rightful justice and retribution against our dust.

When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left.

Then Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.’ Luke 23:32-34

So often the people we hope for understanding and closeness are the ones that hurt us the most. Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.

A World of Listeners I hope that one of the outcomes of my writing and podcasts is that the world will have more listeners. People who might know a little more of what they are doing.

It seems to me that to find someone who will listen you deeply to a place where you feel you understood requires payment. Therapists, counsellors, psychologists etc all have a role, but I wonder if much of what they do could be done by people who know how to listen well.

Maybe we also need more older men and women on front porches. I remember a psychologist lamenting the loss of the old lady on the porch, welcoming the young mums into their homes for earthy wisdom. Older men working with younger men, and a passing on of the baton of age old wisdom.

We also need more third places. Places where we can go to for relationship, conversation, and hope.

But most of all, it’s over to you to be what you want from others. To be the deep listener and not an ‘average bear.’

When people present to you the beautiful pearl of themselves (Matthew 13:45-46), please don’t dismiss it and throw it to the pigs. Matthew 7:6

Quotes to consider * I want us to relate to one another, not as moralist to sinner or therapist to patient, but as saint to saint, father to child, friend to friend, as true lovers, with the confidence that we can help each other believe that, by the grace of God, there is something good beneath the mess. Even when all we can see is the mess, I want us to believe that we can nourish the good and encourage its release. Larry Crabb Connecting * Friendship … is born at the moment when one man says to another “What! You too? I thought that no one but myself” C. S. Lewis The Four Loves * Sensitive listeners respond to comments with words that convey an interest in hearing more, sentences that open the door to information. Words that open doors transmit two messages: 1. ‘I am interested in whatever you have to say.’ 2.’I will accept you regardless of what you say.’ Larry Crabb Encouragement: The Unexpected Power of Building Others Up * Learn to respond to others with honest, open questions instead of counsel or corrections. With such questions, we help “hear each other into deeper speech.” Parker J. Palmer. * When you speak to me about your deepest questions, you do not want to be fixed or saved: you want to be seen and heard, to have your truth acknowledged and honored. Parker J. Palmer. * Good work is relational, and its outcomes depend on what we are able to evoke from each other. Parker J. Palmer * It is usually most helpful to ask questions that are more about the person than about the problem. Parker J. Palmer

Questions to answer 1. What happens to you when you don’t feel heard and understood? 2. Out of all the eleven reasons given, what resonated the most with you? Could you add a twelfth reason? 3. Why are we so quick to Fix, Advise, Save or Set straight?

Further reading

Barry Pearman

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Read this further here

FOLLOW ME! Email me: barry@turningthepage.co.nz Website: https://turningthepage.co.nz/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/turningthepage1atatime Twitter: https://twitter.com/barrypearman Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barry_pearman/ Podcast https://turningthepage.co.nz/podcast-listen-mental-health/

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

Events happen in life, and we can get controlled by the lies we believe as truth, but there is hope.

It is a memory seared into my brain.

I’m at an age now I can’t remember what I had for breakfast, but this is among those memories that I doubt I’ll ever forget. And it is a memory I want to retain, painful as it is.

It was my night to be the on-call chaplain at the hospital, and I was summoned to the emergency room because a man had been brought in, and the staff needed me to interface with his family as they arrived.

First to arrive was the man’s daughter, who was probably 11 or 12 years old, and her brother, who was perhaps two years younger, along with their stepmother. I guided them to the family waiting room and told them there was no news from the medical staff yet.

The daughter largely ignored me the rest of the evening. She was the perfect hostess for the other family and friends arriving. Her brother mostly stood silently in one corner of the room, staring blankly into space.

I made several trips to the treatment room and knew the man would not survive. When a patient did not survive, it was the doctor’s job to inform the family, but in situations like this, it was my task to pave the way for bad news by saying things like, “It’s not looking very hopeful right now,’ and then doing my best to comfort the family.

About 45 minutes passed before the doctors finally conceded that they could not revive him, and the primary ER doctor summoned me and asked me to pray with him before we went back into the family waiting room to give them the terrible news that their husband, son, father, and friend was dead.

If I had been a better daughter The doctor assured the family that every measure had been taken to save his life but that they could not revive him.

There was an immediate outpouring of profound grief, but the young daughter finally turned to speak to me for the first time. With tears welling in her eyes, she asked me, “Chaplain, if I had been a better daughter, would Daddy not have killed himself?”

Then she collapsed against me and began to sob. Huge, uncontrollable sobbing. Her younger brother came over to me, collapsed against me, and began sobbing.

I felt my tears join theirs, and I looked up to realize that the man’s mother, the children’s grandmother, was looking at me through her tears. She had now lost a second son to suicide. She asked me a question.

She was not angry. She just really needed to understand. She asked, “Why Chaplain? How can a good God let things like this happen?”

She didn’t expect an answer, thank God. She just needed to express what she was feeling.

I have no idea what I could have told her then that would have helped.

I have no idea what I could have told the man’s daughter that would have helped.

When her sobs abated somewhat, I finally was able to tell her that what had happened was not her fault and that sometimes people do things we do not understand, and that what her father had done did not mean he did not love her.

I am curious to know if it sank in.

I have doubts that it did.

Children’s misconceptions Children usually think everything is about them, and words do not usually prevent that misconception from taking hold,

I’ve often thought of that young girl over the years. She would likely be in her early 40s by now.

Has she lived under the terrible burden of believing her father’s suicide was her fault?

Have her relationships suffered because she feels like she is damaged goods?

Did she ever find the comfort of Christ?

That has been my prayer for her – that somehow she experienced the love of Christ, who is the only one who can heal soul wounds like the one she suffered.

Her grandmother has likely moved on from this life, but I wonder about her, too.

I’m sure, like Job, she never got an answer to her questions, but did she, like Job, experience God in such a way that the questions did not matter anymore? That was my prayer for her.

A life controlled by lies So many of us live a life controlled by lies life tells us.

Life seems tilted that way.

Advertising only serves to reinforce those lies.

I watched a little television recently and intentionally watched the commercials for a time.

I learned some interesting things about myself. I was too fat, my gray hair was off-putting, and I needed to restore it to its original dark brown.

Because I suffer from ED (Erectile Dysfunction), I’m less than a man, and no woman would ever want to be with me.

I drive the wrong car, use the wrong toothpaste, eat the wrong food, wear unhip shoes, wear the wrong clothing, and use the wrong telephone.

Apparently, I’m of no use to anyone.

If it weren’t for the love of Christ that assures me that I am loved, I, too, might be tempted to end it all.

So what lies still govern your life?

You probably have to dig into your childhood to find the root of many of the lies, but, like the grandmother in this story, some lies attach themselves to us as we go through adulthood, too.

The enemy lies to us continually.

Jesus warned us that he would. He called him the “Father of all lies.” John 8:44

Jesus though is the truth, and, as he said, the truth sets us free. John 8:31-32

Many of us do not understand that the truth that sets us free isn’t some spoken concept – it is a living person – Jesus. It is an ongoing, vibrant relationship with Jesus that keeps us free from the lies the enemy wants us to believe.

I’ve struggled with guilt and shame for much of my life because of things that happened to me when I was young and the things I’ve done as a result.

When I mess up as an adult, those feelings of shame and guilt can well up inside me again, and it’s easy for me to think I’m nothing but a failure.

But the words of Paul at the end of Romans chapter eight have become bedrock for me, calling me back to life and reminding me who and whose I am.

“For I am convinced that neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39

Thank God for the One who is the truth!

Quotes to consider * The warfare that the Christian is involved with is the battle between true and mistaken beliefs. It is warring for reality against the delusional world of lies. Which side will you take? David Riddell * The chief thief is the belief beneath, the subconscious is always the power behind the decisions we make and the outcomes we experience. David Riddell * God meets us where we are, not where we pretend to be or wish we were. My job is to pay attention to where I am. When I enter my reality (my red-dot truth), He brings His reality, His truth, into mine. Truth is a two-way street. When I avoid my truth, I nod politely, and I might even smile or say amen when I hear His. But not much happens. God’s truth does not set free a pretending or hiding heart. Larry Crabb * The journey into total mental health begins with a commitment to come out of delusion into reality, no matter what the cost. D. Riddell

Questions to answer 1. What experiences have you had where you have realised you have been living under a false perception or a lie? 2. What does advertising want to tell you about yourself? 3. What was your heart reaction when you read that little girl’s belief that if she had been ‘better,’ then her father would not have killed himself?

Further reading

This is a guest post from Bruce Swartz

Bruce Swartz is a husband, father, and grandfather to a family he loves. Both he and his wife are abuse survivors. God eventually lead him to undertake training as a trauma therapist. Even in retirement, he occasionally walks beside a wounded person who needs a companion in their journey of recovery. He lives in Champaign, Illinois, USA, and can be reached by email.

Further reading

Barry Pearman

Photo by Nathaniel Flowers on Unsplash

Get a weekly email full of help for your Mental Health and Spiritual formation * indicates required Email Address *

First Name *

Last Name *

Read this further here

FOLLOW ME! Email me: barry@turningthepage.co.nz Website: https://turningthepage.co.nz/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/turningthepage1atatime Twitter: https://twitter.com/barrypearman Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barry_pearman/ Podcast https://turningthepage.co.nz/podcast-listen-mental-health/

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

I never saw it coming -the cataclysmic argument that triggered my adult son to estrange me three years ago. I might never see it end -the suffering of ambiguous loss of the relationship without closure.

Coined by family therapist Pauline Boss, Ph.D., 40 years ago, ambiguous loss refers to unresolved physical or emotional loss or the loss of a relationship with no closure.

Unresolved closure might involve a physical loss with a psychological presence when a loved one’s absence is unknown, uncertain, or unresolved.

Likewise, a loved one might be physically present but psychologically absent because of dementia, traumatic brain injury, addiction, or mental illness.

Ambiguous loss refers to unresolved physical or emotional loss or the loss of a relationship with no closure.

So, too, the ambiguous loss may encompass physical and emotional loss because of divorce, adoption, estrangement, incarceration, immigration, or ghosting. Such loss is especially grievous around the loss of a fulfilling long-term relationship.

Such is my circumstance.

Ambiguous Loss by Estrangement Three years after the meltdown with my 34-year-old son, an occasional flicker of hope for contact, connection, and reconciliation still moves me to reach out. But sadly, my text messages and phone calls go unreturned.

My invitations for meet-ups go unacknowledged. And his once frequent reach outs to check in on me, his mother who raised him as a single parent, are but a distant memory.

No matter the circumstance, the interminable suffering of ambiguous loss defies resolution, creates long-term uncertainty about the relationship, and freezes the grief process, according to Boss.

Yet, unlike death, whereby mourners receive confirmation of the loss and support through funerals, burials, and gatherings, none exist for unresolved loss.

So often, we who experience estrangement never see it coming. Only after a prolonged silence, separation, and isolation do we realize the exquisitely painful loss of the cherished relationship we once knew.

Hence, like an unsuspecting moth captured in a jar, we find ourselves trapped in the suffocating reality of ambiguous loss. We see our human swarm living interconnected lives, oblivious to the invisible suffering separating our reality from theirs.

In numbness and shock, we expend untold energy attempting to escape the misery of separation. In yearning to restore the relationship, we resort to “bargaining” -with our Creator, ourselves, and the aggrieved party.

In anger, we deny, deflect, defend, and dismiss our role in the conflict. Finally, in anguish, we deplete our mental, emotional, and spiritual reserves for coping and thus descend into hopelessness and despair.

Alas! Like the entrapped moth, whose spirit succumbs to the oxygen-depletion, the light of our being fades in the reality of the depleted relationship – the “oxygen” that once breathed life, love, and interconnection into our hearts.

How can we move forward amidst the interminable torment of estrangement by a parent, child, or partner with whom we once shared a fulfilling relationship?

I offer some insight based on my experience of ambiguous loss by estrangement.

Moving forward * Hold yourself in loving self-kindness

Your loss is real, and your grief is bottomless. Whether you recognize what caused the shift or have no clue, berating yourself over what you could’ve, should, or might’ve done is moot.

As the reality of the estrangement sets in, you may experience recurring bouts of guilt, shame, ignorance, naivete, anguish, anger, sadness, despair, worry, yearning, and a host of other complicated feelings.

The overwhelm of such feelings, especially when repressed, suppressed, dismissed, or denied over time, can derail your emotional mettle for coping. Carve out a set amount of time daily to meditate and sit with your feelings in nonjudgmental, loving self-kindness.

Forgive your loved one

Every human being is flawed, fragile, broken, and wounded. The person who estranged you may have issues of which you are unaware, and they may not have the emotional capacity for the relationship they once shared with you.

Likewise, they may not have the emotional intelligence or maturity to confront you about their grievance. The person may not recognize their lack of emotional capacity or maturity. Thus, they see estrangement as their only protective defense mechanism.

Forgive your loved one in your heart and in your prayers. Forgive them when gazing at their picture, and forgive them when remembering the joyful moments of your relationship.

Forgiveness might not heal the estranged, but it can heal us who suffer the estrangement. So, too, recognize that your loved one may suffer similar complicated feelings about ending the relationship without closure.

Forgive yourself

You are human. Whether it was a series of micro-hurts, a cataclysmic circumstance, or an unknown rift that shifted the relationship, forgive yourself. You had needs that, for whatever reason, you could not express, or the other person could not meet, or vice versa. It takes two persons to nourish a relationship and two to make it wither.

Indeed, you may never know what drove your loved one to choose estrangement over relationship. Forgiving yourself is the first step in arriving at some degree of acceptance and peace in processing concomitant grief of ambiguous loss.

Seek community

Seek community with others who live with ambiguous loss by estrangement. Like the moth trapped in the jar, we who suffer alienation sadly so often do so in isolation, amplifying the loss of our human interconnections.

Move toward the light

As the shock of estrangement wanes, gently and with great self-compassion, begin looking at the parts of yourself that reflect your authentic essence and those that no longer reflect who you are.

Direct your focus to nurture the best parts about yourself and aim to surrender those that no longer serve you.

And so, as you live in the reality of ambiguous grief, may you once again find the light of your being through healing, community, and the “oxygen” of new human interconnections.

Quotes to consider * I am a stranger in this world, and there is a severe solitude and painful lonesomeness in my exile. Kahlil Gibran, The Treasured Writings of Kahlil Gibran * It is an absolute human certainty that no one can know his own beauty or perceive a sense of his worth until it has been reflected back to him in the mirror of another loving, caring human being. John Joseph Powell, The Secret of Staying in Love * To be soul broken is to be filled with anguish that is brought on by the loss of our love, our relationship, and ourselves, and, often it is void of validation. If you know this pain, my deepest sympathies to you, not only for your loss but for how you’ve been hurting. Stephanie Sarazin, Soulbroken: A Guidebook for Your Journey Through Ambiguous Grief * Exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience. It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted. And while it is true that literature and history contain heroic, romantic, glorious, even triumphant episodes in an exile’s life, these are no more than efforts meant to overcome the crippling sorrow of estrangement. Edward W. Said, Reflections on Exile and Other Essays * I’m afraid your memories of me are unfair. A.A. Patawaran, Manila Was A Long Time Ago – Official * I intentionally hold the opposing ideas of absence and presence because I have learned that most relationships are indeed both. Pauline Boss, Ph.D. The Myth of Closure: Ambiguous Loss in a Time of Pandemic and Change

Questions to answer 1. Ambiguous loss can encompass other types of loss beyond relationships. Have you experienced ambiguous loss around unrealized hopes, dreams, goals, or disappointments, such as the unexpected loss of a job, health, career, home, lifestyle, stage of life, or group of friends? Did you feel isolated in that no one seemed to notice or understand the depth of your grief? 2. Have you ended a relationship without offering the other person an opportunity for closure? Over time, have you considered how the other person has processed the unresolved closure and how you have processed (or not processed) the loss of the relationship? 3. Have you considered reconciling with the estranged person directly or indirectly (i.e., through a letter or third party)? What might be your hesitancy or fear?

Guest Blogger Bio: Peggy M. Phillips is an author writing in the Christian Fiction-Metaphysical genre. Peggy debuted her first work of fiction in November 2022 with the poignant and powerful epistolary novella, “Letters to the Little Flower The Gift of Spiritual Companionship with St. Therese of Lisieux.” Born in Wichita, KS, United States, Peggy grew up in a large Catholic family in a small Kansas town. A Registered Nurse who works in mental health services, Peggy enjoys hiking the beautiful nature trails of Kansas and spending time with her family.

Resources:

https://www.ambiguousloss.com/resources/

https://whatsyourgrief.com/

Photo by Milo Bauman on Unsplash

Further reading

Read this further here

FOLLOW ME! Email me: barry@turningthepage.co.nz Website: https://turningthepage.co.nz/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/turningthepage1atatime Twitter: https://twitter.com/barrypearman Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barry_pearman/ Podcast https://turningthepage.co.nz/podcast-listen-mental-health/

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

I don’t like it, and I’m sure you don’t either. It’s when you’re confronted with something you have done wrong.

You want to run; you want to hide. Perhaps you make excuses, blame others, or downplay the whole problem—anything to avoid taking responsibility.

It’s a horrible place, but it can also be where light can come.

It’s holding up the crime sheet and feeling the dark acceptance of wordless guilt and shame.

I read this recently.

The spiritual director has the double task of holding up the demands of absolute responsibility and the promise of absolute forgiveness.

It is out of such demands and promises that we assist at each other’s birth. Alan Jones (from the preface of Holy Listening by Margaret Guenther)

Responsibility needs Forgiveness Words and sentences grab my attention. They make me stop and have me roll them around in my thinking.

double task
holding up the demands of absolute responsibility
holding up the promise of absolute forgiveness
assist at each other’s birth

It’s a shaking of hands with a stranger. The darkness of your actions shakes hands with the light of forgiveness, and darkness disperses. Forgiveness (both human and divine) will always overwhelm dark places of guilt and shame.

Something of Edens’s garden beauty and strength is birthed. If you’ve ever witnessed this happen, you know what I mean. You’ve been a midwife to something miraculous.

Acceptance needs absolute forgiveness, or we will continue living in a dark hole of self-loathing. Going over and over our crime sheet and making the past the focus.

Left-handed power Two hands. One is more dominant. For most of us, this would be the right hand.

The right hand is the hand of power, strength, and force. It’s the thumping down on a desk demanding justice, revenge, and recompense. It’s power over, not power with or power for.

But I’m interested in the left hand.

Martin Luther had this thought about God and that God offers a kind of ‘Left – handed’ power.

In my research, I found this writing.

Unlike right-handed power, left-handed power doesn’t force or coerce. It doesn’t threaten or bully.

Left-handed power isn’t afraid to show weakness or vulnerability for the sake of something greater. It is a power that grants freedom.

It is a power in favor of relationship and community, that rejects the idea that “might makes right.”

It is the kind of power shown throughout Jesus’ life and in his death. Luther described the cross as the left-handed power of God. Rev. Kristabeth Atwood

Which hand are you focused on?

The right hand clasping a crime sheet, or the left hand open wide with forgiveness.

So many are focused on the dirt. There is a pull to the dark places.

This is where we need others to remind us of left-handed power. People to hold up the promise of absolute forgiveness.

Absolute absolution In the Anglican (Episcopalian) church I attend, there is a very special moment in the liturgy. It’s a sacred moment – quiet, sincere, serious.

We, as a gathered community of failures, say these words:

Merciful God, we have sinned in what we have thought and said, in the wrong we have done and in the good we have not done. We have sinned in ignorance: we have sinned in weakness: we have sinned through our own deliberate fault. We are truly sorry. We repent and turn to you. Forgive us, for our Saviour Christ’s sake, and renew our lives to the glory of your name. Amen.

The priest then steps to the front and declares these words over the needy.

THE ABSOLUTION Through the Cross of Christ, God have mercy on you, pardon you and set you free. Know that you are forgiven and be at peace. God strengthen you in all goodness and keep you in life eternal. Amen.

I always watch my vicar as she says, ‘Know that you are forgiven.’

I want to see the seriousness of the declaration.

Every verbal and non-verbal communication she makes must mirror that which Christ has declared over me.

I need reminding. You do too. Embrace the gift of the lefthand.

You are forgiven. Be at peace.

Quotes to consider * Martin Luther called it “left-handed” power. Right-handed power consists of the blatant demonstration of power over people. Left-handed power is the quiet demonstration of power in people, the power to stir up an appetite for God no matter what may be happening in someone’s life. SoulTalk is about left-handed power. We’ll see God’s right-handed power when he returns to earth. For now, we can speak into people’s lives with a power that can change them from the inside out. Larry Crabb Soul Talk * Sin is not a distance, it is a turning of our gaze in the wrong direction. Simone Weil, Waiting for God * I’ve been a priest, then an ex-priest. Husband, then ex-husband. Amazed crowds one night and lied to friends the next. Drunk for years, sober for a season, then drunk again. I’ve been John the beloved, Peter the coward, and Thomas the doubter all before the waitress brought the check. I’ve shattered every one of the Ten Commandments six times Tuesday. And if you believe that last sentence was for dramatic effect, it wasn’t. Brennan Manning All is grace * You cannot heal what you do not first acknowledge. Richard Rohr. Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps * If we don’t accept what’s true about ourselves, we won’t see it clearly, and if we don’t see it clearly, we’ll be less able to deal with it. Rick Hanson. Resilient * Forgiveness is a gift of unearned extravagance and generosity. Robert Harvey & David Benner Choosing the Gift of Forgiveness. * Perhaps we tend to believe in the hard work of forgiveness more than we believe in or expect it as a miracle of grace. It is so hard to trust that you have truly been forgiven. Robert Harvey & David Benner Choosing the Gift of Forgiveness. * Forgiveness takes brokenness seriously and affirms that guilt is real, but also affirms that guilt is not the last word. Robert Harvey & David Benner Choosing the Gift of Forgiveness.

Questions to consider 1. Accepting absolute responsibility. What is it like to be confronted with what you rather keep hidden? 2. The promise of absolute forgiveness. What thoughts and feelings get stirred up in you when absolute forgiveness is offered? 3. Why do we need others to remind us of the gift and promise of forgiveness?

Further reading

Barry Pearman

Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash

Get a weekly email full of help for your Mental Health and Spiritual formation * indicates required Email Address *

First Name *

Last Name *

Read this further here

FOLLOW ME! Email me: barry@turningthepage.co.nz Website: https://turningthepage.co.nz/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/turningthepage1atatime Twitter: https://twitter.com/barrypearman Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barry_pearman/ Podcast https://turningthepage.co.nz/podcast-listen-mental-health/

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

Trouble comes. It’s nothing new, but we have the assurance of others, so we hold on tight and ride our way through it.

You can see it coming. You’re sailing along. Life seems to be going along ok, but out on the horizon, you can see a storm. You know that it’s coming straight at you. You didn’t cause the storm; it was simply part of the ebb and flow of being on the ocean.

On your little boat, you wonder if you will make it through. You prepare, get ready, and you hold on tight.

Trouble comes. You know it comes. You’ve been through trouble before, but this storm seems bigger and all-consuming. This will test everything in you.

You look at the only crew member you have, and he is asleep in the back of the boat. He is a wise old sailor, an ancient mariner that has callused hands from handling the ropes in many a storm.

Just his presence seems to bring calm to your soul. Perhaps you can make it through. He stirs a little, opens an eye, looks over the seas, and says, ‘You’ll be alright, just steer into it and hold on tight.’

With that, he yawns, rubs his stubbled face, and goes back to sleep.

And you thought he would stand and command the wind and the waves to be still.

Not this time.

You aim into the storm and hold on tight.

It’s inevitable I sit with people and listen to their storms.

The most often heard phrases are ‘What did I do to deserve this’ or ‘I didn’t deserve this’?

Both point to a kind of surprise that they have a storm, a full-blown hurricane whirling and stripping at their life.

They look to fate, logic, and God for reasons. A crime and, therefore, a punishment. A reaping of what you’ve sown. Choices and consequences.

Sometimes there is a connection. You can hardly blame God for a speeding ticket when you drove too fast and were caught.

But at other times, it seems you can’t make sense of anything at all. You’re just stuck in the middle of the mess, and night time is rolling in, fast.

Oh, and Jesus seems to be fast asleep in the corner of the boat.

Sorry, here’s the hard truth. This was inevitable. It’s normal to have times of trouble, but it’s not what we were made for, and that’s why it causes so much pain.

Good listening helps the storm-tossed to get through.

But trouble comes At the bottom of the swirl, where everything settles, comes the conclusion of the angst of the moment. Well, that’s the way I read the last verse of the pain story of a man named Job.

Out of probably the first book ever written for the Bible comes the woe of a man caught in a whirling hurricane where he has lost his family, his wealth, and his health. If you think your trouble story is bad, read the story of Job and be thankful. Read the storm here.

Job is literally sitting in the town’s rubbish heap, throwing ashes over himself, and picking at his sores (read self-harm).

The last three words sum it up.

I am not at ease, nor am I quiet; I have no rest; but trouble comes. Job 3:26

It’s a simple acknowledgment that trouble comes.

There is a normality to trouble. Post the time of Garden of Eden tranquillity of ease, quiet, and rest, we now live in a world where trouble comes.

In my nostrils I still have the faint fragrance of a garden where ease, quiet, and rest were the norm. I get little morsels of it every day; I soak in them, but I know trouble comes. It will come as sure as storms at sea.

It’s normal to feel that way One of the strangely comforting things to say to someone when they are going through trouble is that what they are experiencing is normal. This is not to downplay the struggle or to minimise their pain, but more so to say, ‘This is trouble and we can get through it.’

It’s normal that you are feeling depressed, anxious, overwhelmed, in grief.

It’s normal for your body to be reacting in that way.

It’s also normal for your friends and family to not know what to do.

It’s normal to curse, blame others, project out your pain, run, hide, and feel guilt and shame.

It’s normal to want vengeance.

It’s normal, but in the long term not good to stay in that hole.

I often add that I would be concerned if they weren’t feeling these emotions and desires for all that they have been through. It would be abnormal.

It brings a strange reassurance to the storm-tossed that what they are going through isn’t strange to you. That you are in their boat with them. That you know what trouble is all about and you can be a steadying hand on their shoulder as they face the wild.

The building of faith has storms Jesus, the one who knew trouble like no one else, speaks to the storms in our souls.

That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.”

Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat.

There were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped.

Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”

He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down, and it was completely calm.

He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”

Going through internal storms (not running from them) builds our faith muscles. This is where borrowing some faith from someone else is such a beautiful Garden of Eden gift.

Quotes to consider * Christianity is one beggar telling another beggar where he found bread. D.T. Niles * The Book of Job proclaims from the beginning that there is no correlation between sin and suffering, between virtue and reward. That logic is hard for us to break. This book tries to break it, so that a new logos, called grace, can happen. Richard Rohr. Job and the Mystery of Suffering * Untested faith tends to produce a very mechanistic and impersonal spirituality. Mature faith, however, almost always has a quality of paradox and mystery about it Richard Rohr. Job and the Mystery of Suffering * Sometimes people who don’t know God well presume that God would use power the way they would use power: as a dominative force. They want a deus ex machina, a magician God who appears out of the wings to solve the problem. The paradox of the Book of Job is that Yahweh remains totally present in power, yet to all appearances does nothing. And for thirty-seven chapters, God says nothing. It’s our worst nightmare: a silent, hidden, and ineffective God. Richard Rohr. Job and the Mystery of Suffering. * Too often, our version of trusting God carries with it an expectation of what God should do. We are, of course, to trust God to do all that He tells us in the Bible He will do. But this is where we sometimes get off-track. Without noticing it, we tend to trust God to do what we think a loving God ought to do. An honest look at what we mean when we use the word trust would likely turn up a subtle demand, a stubborn sense of entitlement to whatever good things we’d like God to give us. Larry Crabb When God’s Ways Make No Sense * When you stand before Me [God] in mystery, you will eventually rest within Me in trust. When you can’t figure Me out, you will give up the illusion of predictability and control and discover the joy of freedom and hope. Larry Crabb 66 Love letters – Job.

Questions to consider 1. You’ve been in times of trouble. What helped you through your storm? 2. What’s your natural reaction to trouble? What would be an unnatural, or even a supernatural, reaction to trouble? 3. With no sense in minimising your struggle, what’s it like to be reassured that the trouble you’re in is normal?

Further reading

Photo by Alex Block on Unsplash

Barry Pearman

Get a weekly email full of help for your Mental Health and Spiritual formation * indicates required Email Address *

First Name *

Last Name *

Read this further here

FOLLOW ME! Email me: barry@turningthepage.co.nz Website: https://turningthepage.co.nz/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/turningthepage1atatime Twitter: https://twitter.com/barrypearman Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barry_pearman/ Podcast https://turningthepage.co.nz/podcast-listen-mental-health/

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

At times, it can seem like God isn’t with us, but God is there with, ‘and it just so happened’ moments to bring about a larger story going on.

I often listen to people’s stories and wonder where God is in them. Often the stories tell of mess. There is brokenness, hurt, and pain.

I listen for two things. One is for what is happening in the here and now. Their Red Dot.

The Red Dot is a concept I learned from Larry Crabb.

You go into a shopping mall, and you want to find where a particular shop is, and at the entrance, there is a map of the building. You notice a large arrow pointing to a location on the map, and there is a large red dot. The arrow says ‘You are here’.

It’s that central ‘You are here’ groundedness that I’m listening for. Where are they in their soul right here, right now?

The second thing I am listening for is what is going on around them. What is God up to in this mess? They are often so captured by the mess that they can’t see outside of themselves. An outside perspective is needed.

If there is a ‘You are here’ knowing, then I want to express a ‘You are within’ connection to them.

You are held; you are known; you are loved.

A larger story One of the concepts that surprised me many years ago is that I am part of the meta-narrative of God. The Big story of what God is up. Part of the eternal flow that has and will continue to go on forever.

The Bible expresses stories of people just like ourselves caught up in this gulf stream of God’s goodness. This three person dancing trinity sweeps me along and seems to at times sneakily in the background orchestrate things to bring about perfect symphonic harmony.

Paul alludes to it in Romans 8:28

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him. Romans 8:28

We can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good. Romans 8:28 (Message)

There is a little phrase that I think points to this background movement of God.

Have you noticed this subtle little phrase acting itself out in your life?

And it just so happened I read these words ‘And it just so happened’ in the Bible and I have a sneaky suspicion that God is up to something.

Something good.

It’s like the boyfriend that ‘just so happens’ to turn up at the girlfriend’s place around an hour before dinner.

There is a kind of background motivation going on that we need to sit with and let it be revealed.

There are many examples of this in the Bible, but I want to focus on two of them. These two are so entwined in how they point to the larger story of God.

Ruth in the fields A mother and her daughter-in-law, both widows, return home from a foreign land. They are poor. The mother-in-law, Naomi, is bitter and angry at God. Ruth, her foreigner daughter-in-law, is trusting and hopeful.

They are in deep need of something to happen. Something good. They have no one to care for them and to look after their needs, but God is at work, in the background.

They need food, and it is harvest time. One of the laws that God set down for the people of Israel was that the landowners were to leave the edges of their fields as places for the poor to go and harvest from. God cared for the poor. Still does.

“When you reap the harvest of your land, don’t reap the corners of your field or gather the gleanings. Leave them for the poor and the foreigners. I am God, your God.” Leviticus 23:22

So Ruth goes to harvest from that which was left behind.

Now Naomi had a rich relative named Boaz, from Elimelech’s family.

One day, Ruth, the Moabite, said to Naomi, “I am going to the fields. Maybe someone will be kind enough to let me gather the grain he leaves behind.”

Naomi said, “Go, my daughter.”

So Ruth went to the fields and gathered the grain that the workers cutting the grain had left behind. It just so happened that the field belonged to Boaz, from Elimelech’s family. Ruth 2:1-3

The rest of the story goes on to a love story of Boaz and Ruth marrying and having a baby.

Oh, and the name of the town where this story was unfolding? It was Bethlehem. Yes, that Bethlehem of the Christmas story.

Pregnant Mary She was a pregnant teenager. She had been told by an angel that she was going to be pregnant with God. That she would have a baby, but it wasn’t going to her fiances. Her fiance, Joseph was also told that it wasn’t going to be his, but he was to look after Mary and to carry on to marry her.

A lot of mysterious stuff going on. Probably everyone thought it was terrible having a baby outside of marriage, but God was on the move.

Luke doesn’t record the words ‘And it just so happened’, but I think it would fit into the Christmas story.

At that time [And it just so happened], Augustus Caesar sent an order that all people in the countries under Roman rule must list their names in a register.

This was the first registration; it was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to their own towns to be registered.

So Joseph left Nazareth, a town in Galilee, and went to the town of Bethlehem in Judea, known as the town of David.

Joseph went there because he was from the family of David.

Joseph registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was now pregnant.

While they were in Bethlehem, the time came for Mary to have the baby, and she gave birth to her first son.

Because there were no rooms left in the inn, she wrapped the baby with pieces of cloth and laid him in a feeding trough. Luke 2:1-7

It just so happened that a census was being taken.

It just so happened that Joseph was from Bethlehem and, according to the rules of the census, he had to return to his hometown.

It just so happened that Mary gave birth to Jesus there in Bethlehem, the same place Naomi returned home to with Ruth, who had just so happened to glean in a field owned by Boaz.

It just so happened that there is a direct genealogical connection between Boaz and Joseph. Read the family tree in Matthew 1: 5-16.

It’s a mystery, unfolding It’s interesting. It brings an assurance to know that there is a bigger picture to be seen and there is a larger story going on.

But it’s not something to get obsessed with. I don’t believe God would want you to look at every little thing to see if there is a secret meaning, code, or theory.

No, I simply believe that God can use the most seemingly hopeless of situations to bring about the larger story going on.

There is a pilgrimage, not a plan of precision perfection. There is a path, not a tightrope where you worry about falling off. There is a dance not a demand to follow in rigorous legality.

God doesn’t take away our free will to choose. Ruth still had to choose to go to a field and gather grain. Joseph and Mary still had to choose to take the long pregnant journey to Bethlehem.

You still have to do the work, get out and L.O.F.O. (Look Out For Opportunities). But perhaps in your grain fields there might be instances of ‘and it just so happened.’

Quotes to consider * Often times we’re looking for nice clear linear logical explanations about why we feel this compulsion and need to give efforts to something. There might not be any explanations other than something within you that says if I don’t head in this direction something within me will die. Rob Bell https://robbell.podbean.com/e/a-hymn-for-the-curve/ * A full search into our soul causes life to begin, not end. And then it’s as if we’ve never lived before. Dark nights may not go away, but they hold the promise of a bright morning. This world’s sunsets become another world’s sunrises. And joy comes into sight. Larry Crabb Soultalk * Every hard thing we endure can put us in touch with our desire for God, and every trial can strengthen that desire until it becomes the consuming passion of our life. Larry Crabb Soultalk * Whether life is bumpy or smooth, the most supernatural thing we can do is to want to know God better, to value his pleasure and his purposes above everything else, and to want directions for the journey into his presence more than a plan for making life work. Larry Crabb Soultalk * Immature spirituality focuses on experience. Mature spirituality focuses on seeing and knowing. David Benner * Mysticism is simply the longing for heart knowing of God. David Benner

Questions to consider 1. How does it feel to be part of something much larger going on? 2. Can you reflect back on your life and notice some ‘And it just so happened’ moments? 3. What part does you taking action have a role in God being able to orchestrate those ‘And it just so happened’ moments?

Further reading

Barry Pearman

Photo by Héctor J. Rivas on Unsplash

Get a weekly email full of help for your Mental Health and Spiritual formation * indicates required Email Address *

First Name *

Last Name *

Read this further here

FOLLOW ME! Email me: barry@turningthepage.co.nz Website: https://turningthepage.co.nz/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/turningthepage1atatime Twitter: https://twitter.com/barrypearman Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barry_pearman/ Podcast https://turningthepage.co.nz/podcast-listen-mental-health/

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

There are times when I have doubts. I question God, and I wonder. But over the years, I have built up a memorial of stones that reassure my soul.

I have questions.

I have doubts.

Places in my thinking where I question what I have taken to be true.

Evidence is presented thoroughly and convincingly in the courtroom of my thinking, and so in a logical place, it must be true, but other factors make me waver. ‘Surely, this can’t be true.’

If God is good, then why so much pain
If God is good, then what is God good for

I can wrestle these questions out with good well-founded theology, but it’s a kiss on the lips that I need—a heart connection of compassion to my human need for surety.

What is doubt? A doubt can be a thin slither of a question that slides into our garden of security.

The first offer of doubt was when the serpent whispered a question to Eve’s beauty and Adam’s strength.

“Did God really say?” Genesis 3:1

A question asked promotes a question to be considered and not always to be resolved. We like answered questions.

But a question brings us to consider options, and that is where we can have a seed of doubt germinating, growing, and digging deep into our thinking.

A doubt is a double stance—a shifting between two positions, a wavering, and an uncertainty.

Having doubts is not a flaw of our humanity; it’s not a black mark against your soul; it’s more a healthy sign that you are thinking.

Puppets don’t have doubts. Machines don’t have doubts.

It’s only we humans that have doubts.

Perhaps your doubts are the fertile soil for Spirit to bring new certainty.

An intimate farewell party It was an intimate party. Not everyone was invited, but only a select few.

Don’t you feel special when you have been selected to attend a private party—you’re one of the insiders, one of the cool gang.

And this was the farewell party of Jesus.

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted. Matthew 28: 16, 17

Here they were. The eleven disciples (Judas was no longer with them) having their final connection with the fully human and fully divine Jesus, and they were worshipping him. It must have been full of glory and wonder, but some doubted.

You would think after all the events and experiences that they had had, there would be no doubt in their minds at all, yet for some, there still was.

Im glad Matthew wrote that little note down. It tells me that those that doubt are still welcome to worship. We don’t have to have everything together, and we can still have questions and ponderings.

Did Jesus have doubts? I don’t think the fully divine Jesus would have had doubts.

But the fully human Jesus could have had doubts. Maybe in the garden of Gethsemane when he was betrayed and knew crucifixion was ahead of him. Perhaps a question briefly flitted across his anxious mind.

Leaving there, he went, as he so often did, to Mount Olives. The disciples followed him. When they arrived at the place, he said, “Pray that you don’t give in to temptation.”

He pulled away from them about a stone’s throw, knelt down, and prayed, “Father, remove this cup from me. But please, not what I want. What do you want?” At once an angel from heaven was at his side, strengthening him. He prayed on all the harder. Sweat, wrung from him like drops of blood, poured off his face.

He got up from prayer, went back to the disciples and found them asleep, drugged by grief. He said, “What business do you have sleeping? Get up. Pray so you won’t give in to temptation.” Luke 22:39-46

The questions.

Is this really what you want me to do?

Is this path of suffering truly my path?

The tempter allures us with doubts.

Pray so you won’t give in to temptation.

Pray so that the slither of a doubt doesn’t become a wedge that drives deep into his thinking.

Calming the emotional brain I’m reading The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk.

Here are some quotes for you to ponder on.

No matter how much insight and understanding we develop, the rational brain is basically impotent to talk the emotional brain out of its own reality.

If you feel safe and loved, your brain becomes specialized in exploration, play, and cooperation; if you are frightened and unwanted, it specializes in managing feelings of fear and abandonment.

Psychologists usually try to help people use insight and understanding to manage their behavior. However, neuroscience research shows that very few psychological problems are the result of defects in understanding; most originate in pressures from deeper regions in the brain that drive our perception and attention. When the alarm bell of the emotional brain keeps signaling that you are in danger, no amount of insight will silence it.

When our emotional and rational brains are in conflict (as when we’re enraged with someone we love, frightened by someone we depend on, or lust after someone who is off limits), a tug-of-war ensues. This war is largely played out in the theater of visceral experience—your gut, your heart, your lungs—and will lead to both physical discomfort and psychological misery. Bessel van der Kolk – The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma

That final quote speaks to me about the fertile soil of doubt. Our emotional and rational brain being in conflict and wavering, uncertainty, and indecision. I am in doubt.

I need someone a millimeter ahead of me to calm and reassure my emotional brain.

Someone who can say, ‘I am with you, I understand and accept your doubts, and I’m not going to try and talk your emotional brain out of its reality, but I am going to hold you in the midnight of your fears.’

I have doubts, and my emotional brain still longs for certainty, but I have a friend who reminds me of truth.

Times when my emotional brain feels truth flow as fact. I look for grace showing up when logic is breaking down.

Thresholds As I write this, it is 5 am. It’s dark outside, but soon light will banish the dark away.

I am on the threshold of a new day. The threshold is the object you step over when entering a house. You have crossed over; you have entered the building.

I am about to cross the threshold of a new day. I am about to step over and into something new.

Thresholds are the space between, when we move from one time to another, as in the threshold of dawn today or of dusk to dark; one area to another, as in times of inner or outer journeying or pilgrimage; and one awareness to another, as in times when our old structures start to fall away and we begin to build something new. Christine Valters Paintner The Souls Slow Ripening: 12 Celtic Practices for Seeking the Sacred

As I look to my day, I can prayerfully reassure my emotional brain that it will be ok. I’ve done this many times before.

The tempter presents slithers of doubt about the surety of what’s beyond the threshold. Not just today but six months down the track.

I pick up a few smooth stones to fight my goliath of doubt.

Stones that speak to me of previous skirmishes I doubted, but God came through.

Memorial stones had been removed from the river Jordan and placed down as a reminder to the doubters. Joshua 4

I face down the doubts with my personalized reminders. I have small notebooks full of them. I read them and recite them. I banish doubt to the backseat as I cross over thresholds. My emotional brain calms with the reassurance I provide it.

I wonder if sometime in the future, my children, when sorting out ‘Dad’s stuff,’ they will come across my notebooks and ask, like the children of Israel, ‘What do these stones mean?’. Perhaps they will see my humanness and how God met me in my garden.

Do you have doubts? Thats normal.

Do you have a collection of stones? Thats abnormal.

Build a memorial today.

Quotes to consider * St. Thomas Aquinas taught that the corruption of the best is the worst. So the Bible is capable of great good, but we all understand it at our own stage of emotional and spiritual development. If you are still a black-and-white, rigid thinker who needs certitude and control at every step-well, the Trinity will feel out of reach. Grace shows up where logic breaks down, so you won’t go very far. No matter what passage is given to you, you will interpret it in a stingy, vengeful, controlling way–because that’s the way you do life. Richard Rohr * Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart. Joshua Heschel * Faith is not the opposite of doubt. Faith is the opposite of certitude. Where you don’t need to be certain to be happy. If you can’t go there, you’ll never be happy because you’ll never get logical certitude. If you’re waiting for 100% certitude, you’re never going to happy. Richard Rohr. * A changed life demands having new understandings in place when you need them. Store them up now and lubricate by revision. D. Riddell * Without the inner discipline of faith, most lives end in negativity, blaming, or deep cynicism—without even knowing it. Richard Rohr

Questions to answer 1. How much reassurance did you gain from knowing the disciples of Jesus still had doubts? 2. What do you do when a slither of doubt appears? 3. Jesus said, ‘ Pray so you won’t give in to temptation.’ How would having an active prayer life offer us a place of protection from giving into temptation?

Further reading

Barry Pearman

Photo by Aziz Acharki on Unsplash

Read this further here

FOLLOW ME! Email me: barry@turningthepage.co.nz Website: https://turningthepage.co.nz/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/turningthepage1atatime Twitter: https://twitter.com/barrypearman Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barry_pearman/ Podcast https://turningthepage.co.nz/podcast-listen-mental-health/

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

View Details

A shadow passed over them. An eclipse shadow of the soul, but I didn’t want them to be alone, so I sat and listened to the darkness.

The light slowly changed.

What was the middle of the day seemed more like dusk, but I looked at my watch, and sure enough, it was midday.

The time when it was supposed to be full sunlight. Something beyond my control had moved between myself and my source of light.

I was living in the shadow of an eclipse.

Every analogy and metaphor breaks down somewhere, but the shadow of an eclipse has often helped me understand the interconnected relationship with my body and soul.

We want clean-cut precise connections. We like concentric circles drawn with accuracy and perfection.

This affects this, and that affects that.

If I do this, then that will happen.

We want to chess play our lives to manage out a particular outcome, but there is always the unpredictability of an eclipse that could shadow our effect.

What is an eclipse? Lets get our definitions and understandings correct.

For a technical definition here is what Wikipedia has to say.

An eclipse is an astronomical event that occurs when an astronomical object or spacecraft is temporarily obscured by passing into the shadow of another body or having another body pass between it and the viewer. This alignment of three celestial objects is known as a syzygy. Apart from syzygy, the term eclipse is also used when a spacecraft reaches a position where it can observe two celestial bodies so aligned. An eclipse is the result of either an occultation (completely hidden) or a transit (partially hidden). Eclipse Wikipedia

It sounds very techincal, but simply put, it is when an object, typically the moon, comes between the Sun and the Earth, and so a shadow is cast over the Earth.

A total lunar eclipse is when we can see the outline of the moon against the backdrop of the Sun, and we are sitting in the shadow.

A simple image may help. Source – simple.Wikipedia

It’s a wierd feeling when you are in the shadow of an eclipse.

Things have changed. It’s shadowy and slightly dark. it’s so eerie that animals act differently. Birds stop singing and puzzlment grips the lands.

I want you to hold in your thinking that picture and the feelings of living in an eclipse.

An eclipse generally doesnt last long. Everything is moving. The Earth rotates, the Moon as a satelite spins around us and shadows flee.

But what if the eclipse lasted longer than expected. What if it took up a kind of permanent residence over us. A shadow falling on us seemngly forever.

Then answer these questions.

What is it like living with a physical illness?
What is it like living with a mental illness?
Whats it like to be living in the shadow of anothers illness, particulary someone you love?
What is it like to be living in the shadow of past trauma – large or small?

Three kinds of problems Larry Crabb considers that we face three kinds of problems when people come to us for deep conversation.

These three problems are related to the brain and the soul.

Brain/ Soul problems
Soul/ Brain problems
Mostly Soul problems

Let’s unpack these further

Brain/ Soul problems The problem is primarily related to the brain. It is chiefly a physiological issue and, secondly, a soul-related issue.There is something wrong with the physical functioning of the brain.It might be a chemical imbalance, a physical injury, or other physical brain-related condition.Other bodily organs, especially hormonal glands, might affect a person’s ability to think and process information.But this person also has a soul, an inner world that needs some degree of soul care, nurturing, guidance, and hope.Many times, I have sat with people in states of confusion. They see things, hear things, and feel things that no one else can perceive.The stresses of various events around them have cracked the fragile balance of the brain, and now they are subject to forces seemingly beyond their control.With its human fragility, the brain is casting its imbalanced view over the soul.
Soul/ Brain problems The problems are primarily related to the inner workings of the soul. There is a deep hurt and a struggle with some life issues. Perhaps a coming to terms with a loss, etc.With all the struggles being faced, there may need to be some form of medication to help the brain with the processing that is going on.The medication is not the solution to the problem; it is more a means by which the brain can function so that the soul can attend to the issues it faces.The soul’s pain-filled shadow casts its effect on the operation of the brain and body. Therefore, it needs help to process.
Mostly Soul The issues are primarily related to the Soul, as in category two, but it could be better than the functioning of the brain and body is impaired.

These three categories are very useful in helping others and ourselves. I would also add to this model the general effect of the body on the brain.

Today I will go and do probably a physically heavy day.

Tonight my body will be tired and possibly sore in certain places.

My brain, the supercomputer between my ears, will be processing this pain, and I may feel quite down. But I have to understand that this comes from a place of physical exhaustion.

Wisdom tells me to relax, go to bed, and maybe take some painkillers if the pain is too much.

I enter the shadow Good conversations enter into the shadow.

I listened to someone recently, and the shadow cast from bodily pain. This pain was affecting their thinking. Certain behaviors resulted. Can I forgive them?

Then there was someone with a soul injury from many years past that was now expressing itself in the body. The healing for the body may come from a recovery of the soul. (read The body keeps the score)

It’s shadowy work. Stumbling and knocking into things.

I enter into the shadow as much as I sit in the shadow that passed over the body/soul of Jesus.

It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last. Luke 23:44-46

I sit in the shadow and pray for resurrection.

For whatever is blocking the light to dissipate and the fullness of light to flood over us both.

What’s your shadowland like?

Quotes to consider * Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom. I am not, as will be seen, in any sense attacking logic: I only say that this danger does lie in logic, not in imagination. G.K. Chesterton * There is a persisting notion in some circles that the medications used to treat depression and other psychiatric illnesses can somehow interfere with deeper spiritual processes such as the dark night [of the soul]. Nothing could be further from the truth. To my mind, there is never an authentic spiritual reason to let any illness go untreated. Jesus Wept: When Faith and Depression Meet by Barbara C. Crafton * We are unfinished creatures– longing, reaching, stretching towards fulfilment. Eugene Peterson * Spiritual paths and practices that distance us from what it means to be a human are not good for humans. David Benner * Spirituality can and should help us become more deeply human and more fully alive. David Benner * The route to wholeness is not perfection but embracing the realities of our lives David Benner * If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world. C.S. Lewis

Questions to answer 1. What is your shadow like? 2. What do you most long to do When you’re sitting in the shadowy land of someone’s pain? Run? Fix? Something else? 3. Which of the three categories – Brain/ Soul, Soul/Brain, or mostly Soul, do you most understand in yourself and others?

Further reading

Barry Pearman

Photo by Aziz Acharki on Unsplash

Read this further here

FOLLOW ME! Email me: barry@turningthepage.co.nz Website: https://turningthepage.co.nz/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/turningthepage1atatime Twitter: https://twitter.com/barrypearman Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barry_pearman/ Podcast https://turningthepage.co.nz/podcast-listen-mental-health/

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

A shadow passed over them. An eclipse shadow of the soul, but I didn’t want them to be alone, so I sat and listened to the darkness.

The light slowly changed.

What was the middle of the day seemed more like dusk, but I looked at my watch, and sure enough, it was midday.

The time when it was supposed to be full sunlight. Something beyond my control had moved between myself and my source of light.

I was living in the shadow of an eclipse.

Every analogy and metaphor breaks down somewhere, but the shadow of an eclipse has often helped me understand the interconnected relationship with my body and soul.

We want clean-cut precise connections. We like concentric circles drawn with accuracy and perfection.

This affects this, and that affects that.

If I do this, then that will happen.

We want to chess play our lives to manage out a particular outcome, but there is always the unpredictability of an eclipse that could shadow our effect.

What is an eclipse? Lets get our definitions and understandings correct.

For a technical definition here is what Wikipedia has to say.

It sounds very techincal, but simply put, it is when an object, typically the moon, comes between the Sun and the Earth, and so a shadow is cast over the Earth.

A total lunar eclipse is when we can see the outline of the moon against the backdrop of the Sun, and we are sitting in the shadow.

A simple image may help. Source – simple.Wikipedia

It’s a wierd feeling when you are in the shadow of an eclipse.

Things have changed. It’s shadowy and slightly dark. it’s so eerie that animals act differently. Birds stop singing and puzzlment grips the lands.

I want you to hold in your thinking that picture and the feelings of living in an eclipse.

An eclipse generally doesnt last long. Everything is moving. The Earth rotates, the Moon as a satelite spins around us and shadows flee.

But what if the eclipse lasted longer than expected. What if it took up a kind of permanent residence over us. A shadow falling on us seemngly forever.

Then answer these questions.

What is it like living with a physical illness?
What is it like living with a mental illness?
Whats it like to be living in the shadow of anothers illness, particulary someone you love?
What is it like to be living in the shadow of past trauma – large or small?

Three kinds of problems Larry Crabb considers that we face three kinds of problems when people come to us for deep conversation.

These three problems are related to the brain and the soul.

Brain/ Soul problems
Soul/ Brain problems
Mostly Soul problems

Let’s unpack these further

Brain/ Soul problems The problem is primarily related to the brain. It is chiefly a physiological issue and, secondly, a soul-related issue.There is something wrong with the physical functioning of the brain.It might be a chemical imbalance, a physical injury, or other physical brain-related condition.Other bodily organs, especially hormonal glands, might affect a person’s ability to think and process information.But this person also has a soul, an inner world that needs some degree of soul care, nurturing, guidance, and hope.Many times, I have sat with people in states of confusion. They see things, hear things, and feel things that no one else can perceive.The stresses of various events around them have cracked the fragile balance of the brain, and now they are subject to forces seemingly beyond their control.With its human fragility, the brain is casting its imbalanced view over the soul.
Soul/ Brain problems The problems are primarily related to the inner workings of the soul. There is a deep hurt and a struggle with some life issues. Perhaps a coming to terms with a loss, etc.With all the struggles being faced, there may need to be some form of medication to help the brain with the processing that is going on.The medication is not the solution to the problem; it is more a means by which the brain can function so that the soul can attend to the issues it faces.The soul’s pain-filled shadow casts its effect on the operation of the brain and body. Therefore, it needs help to process.
Mostly Soul The issues are primarily related to the Soul, as in category two, but it could be better than the functioning of the brain and body is impaired.

These three categories are very useful in helping others and ourselves. I would also add to this model the general effect of the body on the brain.

Today I will go and do probably a physically heavy day.

Tonight my body will be tired and possibly sore in certain places.

My brain, the supercomputer between my ears, will be processing this pain, and I may feel quite down. But I have to understand that this comes from a place of physical exhaustion.

Wisdom tells me to relax, go to bed, and maybe take some painkillers if the pain is too much.

I enter the shadow Good conversations enter into the shadow.

I listened to someone recently, and the shadow cast from bodily pain. This pain was affecting their thinking. Certain behaviors resulted. Can I forgive them?

It’s shadowy work. Stumbling and knocking into things.

I enter into the shadow as much as I sit in the shadow that passed over the body/soul of Jesus.

I sit in the shadow and pray for resurrection.

For whatever is blocking the light to dissipate and the fullness of light to flood over us both.

What’s your shadowland like?

Further reading

Barry Pearman

Photo by Jordon Conner on Unsplash

Read this further here

FOLLOW ME! Email me: barry@turningthepage.co.nz Website: https://turningthepage.co.nz/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/turningthepage1atatime Twitter: https://twitter.com/barrypearman Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barry_pearman/ Podcast https://turningthepage.co.nz/podcast-listen-mental-health/

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

We retain them. All the hurts and pains of life, but what if we could forgive and let them go? Perhaps then we could dance freely and lightly.

It’s so easy to do. Holding on to the hurt others have done. The brain seems to retain it, keeping it and holding it tight as a clenched fist. Perhaps it’s some self-defense mechanism.

‘Been there, done that, now I will self-protect.’

The problem is that whatever we hold onto can gather a life of its own.

One trauma coalesces with other traumas and makes connections that weren’t there. Current hurts connect with past hurts, and our brain is off to the races.

False conclusions can be made, and then those beliefs join with other beliefs, and we create a powerful belief system where our soul takes up residence.

Living freely and lightly seems impossible under the weight of this pain upon our tired shoulders.

We have retained what needed to have been let go of, and the longer we keep it and hold it, the deeper it digs into the neurons of our brain and the streams of our soul.

Whatever you retain What have you retained in the container of your heart, mind, and soul?

It could be good things. Hopefully, it is.

Promises of God. Moments of delight, times when hope was fulfilled. All of which you have stored away and retained.

But the brain has a negativity bias. We have this brain that has a habit of being like Teflon for the good and Velcro for the bad. So we cling to the negative, and it shapes our thinking in ways that naturally look for the negative.

There was a time when for the followers of Jesus, it must have felt like a giant roll of velcro had spun around their lives.

All the hopes had been crushed. The dreams had turned to nightmares. The miracle man, the one with all the power, who had walked on water and worked words into them that had exploded their lives with hope, was now dead.

He had been brutally murdered, and all of them had thought spirals that went back to when they had let him down, denied him of presence, of commitment. Velcro was winning over Teflon.

What were they to do with this pain? So what do we do with pain?

For the most part, we retain it with the habitual strength of a piece of velcro.

But a resurrected Jesus steps into the room.

Spear wound in his side and nail holes in his hands, arms, and feet. Scars and scratches adorn his body. But there is also something mystically glorious about his new appearance.

He breathes on us and says …

‘If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’ John 20:22-23

They had a lot of events to process.

The brutality of the mocking soldiers. The jeers of the crowd. The cries of pain and agony. It was still fresh in their thinking.

Then there was their response. How they had walked away or had even betrayed Jesus. All of them had their burden of guilt velcroing to their brains.

Jesus comes with the direction to forgive and not to retain.

Forgive others; forgive yourself.

Don’t retain or hold into yourself the hurts you have done and those done to you by others.

Forgive others; forgive yourself.

The word ‘retain’ in Greek is the word krateó and it is an energy word and means to be strong or rule.

It’s used in this way

I am strong, mighty, hence: I rule, am master, prevail I obtain and take hold of I hold, I hold fast. Place under one’s grasp (seize hold of, put under control).

Can you sense the energy locked up in those definitions?

I have a retainer I have a vast retaining wall near where I live. Built years ago, it holds back the soil supporting a busy road. If it wasn’t there, the earth would fall away, and the road would collapse.

But more so, it’s a retainer of energy. The force of the soil and water is held back. Designed by engineers to hold a specific weight capacity, it is strong and holds fast the energy that wants to spill out.

I think I have a retainer in my body.

It’s this place in my heart where I have chosen to retain all the little and the big hurts. Carefully designed and built, I store behind it so much rubbish. The things I could have gotten rid of years ago I have hoarded away just in case I need them for future self-defense.

But it’s a rubbish dump: festering experiences, pus-filled wounds, toxic waste.

I never want to go there, but I often do and pick over the past.

What happened yesterday was just like what happened twenty years ago. So I merge the two with the twenty.

This toxic waste leaks out into my everyday life.

If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it. Richard Rohr

It depresses me, keeps me anxious, has me on high alert for similar experiences, and prevents me from dancing and freedom.

It’s Cinderella’s ugly stepsisters who say you’ll never go to the dance.

Learning to live freely and lightly Jesus, at the start of his earthly ministry, says these words

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me, and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me, and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” Matthew 11:28-30

Perhaps I have held onto things that have weighed my dancing feet down.

I was always meant to dance freely and lightly, but perhaps the retainer I have created has held me back.

Jesus points to this as a choice to hold on or let go. To retain or to forgive.

And it’s not easy when the hurt has gone deep.

Some hurt needs deep dislodging work before they become free enough to be released. But you’re never going to dance while you are manacled to a retaining wall.

Dismantling the retaining wall It takes careful and considered work to dismantle the retaining wall. There is so much rubbish and energy behind it that ripping it down would cause downstream destruction.

The soul’s work is slow, steady and could be considered an act of beauty and restoration in its own right.

Little bit by little bit, we dismantle the self-made retaining wall from the top down.

Forgiving takes time and tenderness. It’s a sacred act of self-hygiene—a purification of what has tarnished the beautiful cup.

Only one who has forgiven all and not retained anything has the tenderness capable of helping us.

Jesus steps into our brokenness and breathes life on us.

Quotes to consider * We can only live inside the flow of forgiveness if we have stood under the constant waterfall of needed forgiveness ourselves. Richard Rohr. Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps * As long as we don’t recognize and forgive faults in ourselves, we’ll find an individual or group to project them onto. Richard Rohr -Job and the Mystery of Suffering * He condemned nothing in haste and without taking circumstances into account. He said, “Examine the road over which the fault has passed.” Victor Hugo Les Misérables * If it is true that forgiveness is the most therapeutic fact in all of life, then guilt must be the most destructive. We are simply not built for it David Seamands * To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you. C.S. Lewis * If we really want to love we must learn how to forgive. Mother Teresa * Forgiveness is a choice. You choose not to be held hostage in the present to the injustices that occurred in the past. Shirley Glass * Forgiving is not a single event, but a gradual process of increasing compassion and reducing resentment. Shirley Glass * You forgive so that you can finally get rid of the excess emotional baggage that has been weighing you down and holding you back; so you can be free to do and be whatever you decide instead of stumbling along according to the script painful past experiences wrote for you. Dr. Sidney B. Simon and Suzanne Simon

Questions to answer 1. Think of a retaining wall near where you live. How mush energy is contained behind that wall? 2. What have you retained in your life that leaks poison into your thinking? 3. Why is it hard to forgive?

Further reading

Barry Pearman

Photo by Karyna Panchenko on Unsplash

Read this further here

FOLLOW ME! Email me: barry@turningthepage.co.nz Website: https://turningthepage.co.nz/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/turningthepage1atatime Twitter: https://twitter.com/barrypearman Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barry_pearman/ Podcast https://turningthepage.co.nz/podcast-listen-mental-health/

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

Turmoil – a state of unease, disquiet, and storm, but what if you weren’t alone in that drowning boat? We need a confidant to share the storm with.

Often people say that life is like a rollercoaster ride. Ups and downs, highs and lows. But I think life is more like being in a small boat in a vast ocean.

Some days your little boat is cruising along, wind in the sails, direction known, and seas calm. All is good, and life is a breeze.

But then at other times, a huge storm comes upon you seemingly out of nowhere.

Clouds grow deathly dark and waves, high as mountains, tower over us.

We lose direction, our sails are torn, and we hold on to whatever we can grasp.

The worst part is that we don’t know how long this will last. Some storms seem to become permanent residents.

I am in turmoil Before I began writing, I made myself a hot drink. As I watched the water come to the boil, I had an image of what turmoil is like—bubbling, churning water.

I look to the meaning of the word turmoil.

A state of great disorder or uncertainty
Harassing labour; trouble; disturbance.
chaos, disorder
constant motion

Life is never a stagnant pond, it always has movement and winds blowing across it, but then there are the extremes, and we long for the quieter days and wonder if they will ever return.

Times of turmoil shape us and our little boat. Maturity comes from the storms we face and who we cling to when things get tough.

But turmoil comes The biblical character Job comes to us as a fellow human being and moans, an expression of chaos.

I am not at ease, nor am I quiet, And I am not at rest, but turmoil comes. Job 3:26

From Job, we can find other definitions of turmoil

not at ease
not at quiet
not at rest

Looking into the Hebrew word used here, we find the word rogez, meaning agitation, excitement, and rage.

It’s not the excitement of hopeful anticipation; it’s more the excitement or stirring up of those water molecules in a boiling kettle. Molecules get excited, bump together, create upheaval, and I and my little boat have to ride those waves.

I’ve had enough of that kind of excitement in my life. I want those times of ease, quiet, and rest, just like Job.

A confidant gives confidence Can I confide in you?

When someone says these words, you know they want to give you something precious. Something that comes from a deep place. A secret they would never share openly. It’s wrapped in the dark paper of guilt and shame. It’s been hidden away. No one knows.

For some reason, they have felt you have a pair of safe hands. You won’t do anything rash or wild with their gift. You’re not going to make a public announcement of whatever they are going to share.

You will hold the secret they have been carrying and treat it with the deep respect it deserves.

A confidant will enter the storm-tossed little boat and share in knowing the agitation, stirring, and darkness.

They will give you slithers of confidence as you face the next dark wave.

In my rollercoaster ride of turmoil, I want someone strapped in beside me—a confidant, a friend, a soul talker that has traveled through the dark storms.

Confidence grows through facing the storm waves one at a time with a friend. Moments of stillness, rest, ease, and quietness restore each other’s souls and build a friendship before the foul winds build again.

What does a confidant look like?

First, check for signs of wear and tear. Callused hands, salt-bleached hair, wrinkled skin.

They are not box tickers, legalists, mechanics, engineers, chess players, or sergeant majors.

More likely, you will find them in the garden, the dance studio, the kitchen, or behind an easel. They know the sun and soil, the rhythm and rhyme, the herbs and the spices, the pastels and paints.

They can sit comfortably with disorder and allow it to be what it is.

What to do in turmoil In my little boat tossed in turmoil, my confidant brings me back to the surety of what they know will help.

They bring my focus back to those deep anchor-like habits.

In my turmoil, I return to the habits of prayer, listening and reading scripture, serving others, silence, and confession.

Confession of my confusion. I vomit out my soul to my confidant.

Tears flow. Wild, untamed thoughts lash out.

I don’t want to be F.A.S.S.’ed (Fixed, Advised, Saved, or Set straight). I want to be known and have a companion. I don’t want to be alone.

Only some people can handle that. Only some people are equipped to carry that load, but some are, and they are very precious.

Can I sit with you and journey a few thoughts?

Quotes to consider * Genuine presence involves being genuinely myself. I can be present for another person only when I dare to be present for myself. Dr David Benner * To confide is sometimes to deliver into a person’s power. Victor Hugo Les Misérables * Opening up your soul to someone, letting them into your spirit, thoughts, fears, future, hopes, dreams… that is being naked. Rob Bell * Can you be vulnerable yet? We all need touch and hugs, but first we must take down the walls that have been built too high around our hearts. D. Riddell * Every hard thing we endure can put us in touch with our desire for God, and every trial can strengthen that desire until it becomes the consuming passion of our life. Larry Crabb Soultalk * Whether life is bumpy or smooth, the most supernatural thing we can do is to want to know God better, to value his pleasure and his purposes above everything else, and to want directions for the journey into his presence more than a plan for making life work. Larry Crabb Soultalk * Every hard thing we endure can put us in touch with our desire for God, and every trial can strengthen that desire until it becomes the consuming passion of our life. Larry Crabb Soultalk * Everyone is dealing with some hardship that may be invisible to you. Judith Orloff * Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom. I am not, as will be seen, in any sense attacking logic: I only say that this danger does lie in logic, not in imagination. G.K. Chesterton

Questions to answer 1. What’s your little boat on the ocean like as you read this? 2. What are the qualities that you look for in a confidant? 3. You’ve been through times of turmoil. What have you learned from them?

Further reading

Barry Pearman

Photo by Matt Hardy on Unsplash

Read this further here

FOLLOW ME! Email me: barry@turningthepage.co.nz Website: https://turningthepage.co.nz/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/turningthepage1atatime Twitter: https://twitter.com/barrypearman Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barry_pearman/ Podcast https://turningthepage.co.nz/podcast-listen-mental-health/

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

Often you need a little acronym to remind you of a path to follow. Here are nine acronyms to help your mental health.

Over the years, I have collected a set of acronyms that have helped my mental health and those I have conversations with. These are acronyms that aid in recovery. They are like little guide posts to get you thinking.

I am sure there are probably others, but here are my contributions.

Mental Health Acronyms 1. F.A.S.S. – No Fixing, Advising, Saving, or Setting one straight This comes from the work of Parker Palmer and focuses on the kind of relationship we need to offer others.In my conversations, I keep F.A.S.S. in the back of my mind as a kind of guiding light.I try not to fix, advise, save, or set the person straight. Instead, I ask gently curious questions. Now there are exceptions. Sometimes you need to give advice and even save if someone is seriously unwell, but these are the exceptions, not the rule.I want to ‘listen people’ into wellness and help them discover their path to change. F.A.S.S. challenges our need to be in control and to soothe our anxieties.Read further here. Please. No Fixing, Advising, Saving, or Straightening Out 2. P.L.O.M. – Poor Little Old Me I discovered this one from Brennan Manning. It’s the unhealthy victim mentality.There are healthy and unhealthy victims.Healthy victimhood sees the pain of life and wants help to go through it. They take responsibility for their lives and don’t constantly blame others.An unhealthy victim has a P.L.O.M. attitude and wallows in what has happened. There is no shift in focus. If you talk to them a year later, they will still have a P.L.O.M. in their mouth. It’s an attitude all of us can easily slip into, but for some, it becomes a home where they live everything out of. Self-pity can be seen as a season, a time which you are passing through, but if you always stay in the winter, something of spring will never emerge.Mental health comes when we accept responsibility for ourselves and do not perpetually be the victim.Read further here – 7 Steps to Help Those with P.L.O.M’s (Poor Little Old Me) in the Mouth 3. S.H.A.M.E. – Should Have Already Mastered Everything. Do you make mistakes, or are you a mistake?S.H.A.M.E. helps me understand that I am discovering and learning. Have I mastered everything? Of course not. It’s the ‘Should have’s’ that dig in deep into the soul. Either we say them to ourselves, or others say it to us.It recognizes the shame stones we pile up for ourselves. Read further here – What to Do With Shame Slingers 4. H.A.L.T. – Hungry Angry Lonely Tired This acronym comes from the recovery movement and acts as a kind of warning system reminding you to pause (halt!) and take notice of what’s going on for you that makes you want to go to the pain relief strategy, such as picking up a drink or a drug.The question to ask is, ‘Am I Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired, or Stressed?’ Then, ask yourself further questions such as ‘What are the healthy options I can choose rather than the old destructive patterns my brain is offering me? Read further here. What Is HALT? The Dangers of Being Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired 5. S.T.A.N. Plan – Simple, Timed, Aimed, Negotiated This is a little acronym that I discovered in the story of Daniel and the plan he created to get him out of a tough situation.I often use S.T.A.N. when helping someone create a plan of action. When creating a plan of action, I like to ask these questions.Is the plan … Simple to understand by all involved. It’s not complex, long, or difficult. Timed for review, not completion. Good plans have a time for a review to see how progress is going and if anything needs to change in the plan. Aimed at achieving something of deep importance. Sometimes the reason we don’t achieve the plan is because the outcome simply doesn’t matter that much to the heart. Negotiated with key others. Who is helping you achieve the outcomes of the plan? Have you discussed this with them?Read further here – Lessons Daniel Taught Me About Achieving Goals. Part 2 6. E+R=O – Event plus Response equals Outcome We all have events happen to us, but how we respond will determine the outcome.The key to a different outcome is to choose a different response. Learning new responses to the events happening around us can bring us new outcomes. Read further here How to Stand Firm when the Rotten Tomatoes are Thrown 7. A.B.T. – And, But, Therefore. This is an acronym I use in my writing, similar to E+R=O. It comes from the work of Randy Olson and his study of great speeches.And these things happened But this was the response Therefore this was the outcome. Read further here – The ABT Framework for Listening Well 8. B.G.E.S.C. – Brief. Gentle. Early. Specific. Consequences. This comes from the work of David Riddell and relates to expressing yourself to someone else when you have been hurt.

Brief. Make your reply short. Don’t go on and on. Keep it short Gentle. Speak in a tone appropriate to the situation. We don’t need to yell, and we don’t need to be meek and whisper. Look at them and speak gently. Early. Give your reply as soon as possible. Don’t leave it till later unless you need to prepare your response. You don’t want this anger to go on and on. Paul writes,” Don’t go to bed angry” Ephesians 4:26 Specific. Make sure your reply is specific to the issue. Don’t go on to past hurts and problems. Deal only with the current issue. Consequences. A good reply points out the consequences of what has happened and will happen. It is important to state how you feel about what happened. “By you doing this, I felt very sad, etc.”. You may also need to point out what will happen if they do that again. ” I have decided that if you behave like that again, then I will….”Read further here – 16 Tips When There Is Socially Unacceptable Behavior In A Group Setting 9. J.A.D.E. = F.O.G. – Justifying, Arguing, Defending, or Explaining = Fear, Obligation, Guilt This is one that I have only recently added to my toolbox of acronyms.J.A.D.E. is an Al-Anon 12-step slogan that reminds us not to engage in justifying, arguing, defending, and explaining. When you do this with unhealthy people often they will throw something back at you that will stimulate feelings of Fear, Obligation, and Guilt. F.O.G.Often the healthiest response is to give no response at all.Read further these articles. Dealing with Difficult Family Members: Dont Justify, Argue, Defend, or Explain Circular Arguments, Emotional Reasoning and JADE (Justify, Argue, Defend, Explain) The Narcissist-Codependent Trap: Having Boundaries Ends the Relationship More Thoughts on FOG, Hoovers and No Contact When Ending a Relationship with a Narcissist, Borderline, Histrionic and/or Sociopath

Another one, as a bonus. 10. T.T.A.Q. = Title, Theme, Affect, Questions This is a useful acronym to help us understand our dreams

Title. Always give it a title. It is a short story or movie and deserves a title. The act of choosing a title offers insight into the meaning of your dream.

Theme. What is it principally about? This is a short phrase that describes the topic. If it was a movie, would it be a thriller, a comedy, a romance? Ask God to help you identify the overall theme.

Affect. What was the emotional affect expressed in it? What were the feelings felt by the principal character in the story or movie? Were there certain emotions expressed by others? What feelings did you experience when you awoke? Describe the emotional tone or impact of the dream.

Questions. What questions does the story seem to be asking of you? The authors of this technique suggest you listen to the story as if it were a friend asking you a meaningful question. The act of formulating the question/s will give an interpretation.

Read further here – How To Prayerfully Listen, Interpret, and Understand Your Dreams

I hope you found this helpful and will be able to put some of them into action for your mental health.

Let me know if you have some acronyms that help you. Use the contact form to send me a message.

Barry Pearman

Photo by Carly Kewley on Unsplash

Read this further here

FOLLOW ME! Email me: barry@turningthepage.co.nz Website: https://turningthepage.co.nz/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/turningthepage1atatime Twitter: https://twitter.com/barrypearman Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barry_pearman/ Podcast https://turningthepage.co.nz/podcast-listen-mental-health/

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

Dreams and Spiritual Growth: A Judeo-Christian Way of Dreamwork

View Details

People can let us down. We let others down. But there is one that we can entrust our ‘self’ to that is solid and true. Deep knowing grows that makes us strong.

I’ve been dwelling on a word lately. Entrust.

Words carry power. They connect thoughts, memories, ideas, and wisdom to produce further connections. I love words, especially ones we seldom use.

Entrust means to put something into someone’s care or protection.

A parent with a sick child that needs surgery entrusts the welfare of their child into the hands of a skilled surgeon.

You entrust your money into the care of a bank.

In romance, you entrust your heart into the hands of someone you love.

You choose to entrust It’s a choice, a decision. You act out of the best knowledge you have at the time.

We entrust ourselves, and for the most part, we get it right. Banks are generally more secure than us hiding money under the mattress.

But who do you entrust your very heart to?

People can let us down badly. They can use our vulnerability for selfish reasons and even take pleasure in our demise.

Something deep within every human is a longing for connection. To be loved, held, and known. But the other side of this shiny coin is tarnished black memories of rejection. I want connection – soul to soul-but to get that I risk rejection.

I need someone who knows where I live. The streets of my mind where I wander every day. Someone who knows the dark corners I hide in. The escape alleyways I run down when I am under threat—those walls I have built to self-protect.

I need someone to keep vigil beside me as I sleep at night. Someone to make sure the monsters of my dreams don’t become real.

I am alone but want to be known, loved, and held. Who can I entrust myself for that?

He entrusted himself I was reading the story of someone who entrusted himself entirely to others as an act of love. He was vulnerable to others. People could do whatever they liked with him, and they did.

Then he felt the full human expression of being used, abused, traumatized, and ultimately murdered.

One of those that abused his trust was his best friend, Peter.

Peter went on to write about Jesus in this way.

‘He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.’

When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. 1 Peter 2:22-23

Put yourself in the dusty sandals that Jesus walked in. He entrusted himself to us as humans.

He was like a river of love flowing out towards us. Overflowing acceptance and love even to those who hated him.

But he was abused. Don’t think just crucifixion. No, it was every little slight and rejection of his perfect love. It was a suffering that took him to places of weeping and pain for the rejection he experienced.

He entrusted his openness to us, and we spat on his vulnerability.

I’ve been judged I’ve been accused of things I have never done. I have been labeled, boxed, and parcelled up.

How about you?

Have you received the rejection letter? What about the cold shoulder of others?

Times when some stones of shame have been picked up to throw at you.

Jesus is in solidarity with you. He knows the loneliness of it all.

It’s empowering to see how Jesus handled all the abuse.

He entrusted himself to the one who judges justly.

Human judges have a difficult task. They weigh all the evidence presented to them and make a judgment.

We do the same. We are presented with a particular set of facts and draw conclusions.

Jesus entrusts himself to the one who sees all and knows all. Therefore, he is secure in God’s judgment of him.

Who are you entrusting your ‘self’ to? Can I trust God, who has known me before my birth, to judge fairly?

The God I know sits with boundless amounts of mercy and grace. God knows all our failings yet still calls us to the softest place of the heart.

This word ‘entrust’ in the original language of Greek was ‘paradidómi,’ meaning to hand over, to give, or deliver over.

Think of loving parents watching their small child being wheeled away to surgery. They hand what’s most precious to themselves over to someone to do something beyond their capability.

I am entrusting my ‘self,’ handing over all I am to God.

I am nurtured, held, loved, and known in that profoundly secure place.

It’s a daily handing over and entrustment of my life.

Mental health becomes secure and solid.

Quotes to consider * Any approach to life that doesn’t center in trust eventually produces misery. Larry Crabb * Only love can soften a hard heart. Only love can renew trust after it has been shattered. Only love can inspire acts of genuine self-sacrifice.Only love can free us from the tyrannizing effects of fear. David G. Benner * God is no stranger to the process of repairing damaged relationships. His trust has been broken many times by those he loves. John Townsend and Dr. Cloud Henry * When you stand before Me [God] in mystery, you will eventually rest within Me in trust. When you can’t figure Me out, you will give up the illusion of predictability and control and discover the joy of freedom and hope. Larry Crabb * You will never turn your will and your life over to any other kind of God except a loving and merciful One. Richard Rohr. * The surrender of faith does not happen in one moment but is an extended journey, a trust walk, a gradual letting go, unlearning, and handing over. Richard Rohr.

Questions to answer 1. What does the word ‘entrust’ mean to you? 2. What stories capture the meaning of ‘entrust’ for you? 3. Where have you felt the coldness of rejection and how has this shaped your heart?

Further reading

Barry Pearman

Read this further here

FOLLOW ME! Email me: barry@turningthepage.co.nz Website: https://turningthepage.co.nz/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/turningthepage1atatime Twitter: https://twitter.com/barrypearman Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barry_pearman/ Podcast https://turningthepage.co.nz/podcast-listen-mental-health/

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

The tears start to form and flow, but who will wipe my tears? A soft and gentle hand comes with tenderness to the pain.

I could feel them start to congregate right in the corners of my eyes. They were coming together, and I had no control over them. Soon they would tip over the edge and be seen.

Grab the tissues. Dab them away. Silence the flow.

Don’t want them to be seen by anyone and have attention drawn to me. That inner world must remain unknown, unrevealed, and untouched. Tears show vulnerability.

Then I felt a hand gently under my chin. It lifted my head, and with the gentleness of soft knowing, they dabbed and touched the corners of my eyes. Every tear that was formed was absorbed seemingly into themselves.

They took them in like long-lost strangers. I heard a whisper – ‘Your tears are safe with me.’

I was known I was loved I was held

Sometimes as I talk with people online, I wish I could reach through the screen and sacrificially wipe and dap at their tears. Simply as a gift of connection from one teary-eyed pilgrim to another.

We all have, I believe, seemingly a vast reservoir of tears unshed.

Grief, loss, hurt, and pain all contribute rivers that flow into the reservoir. But, then, a moment happens that turns the tap ever so slightly, and the pressure of holding it all in breaks through.

Our emotions become a tangible, tactile reality in the corners of our eyes.

I keep thinking of those who cannot wipe their tears away.

Perhaps they have no limbs to do so with.? Maybe they have lost the neurological capacity to move their limbs. They require someone else to do much of what we take for granted.

Then a tear begins to form and needs the most gentle and compassionate touch. Perhaps there is no one there to notice and attend.

Who will wipe my tears? I am reassured that the God of the vast, vast universe is also intimate with every tear. Those that have been shed, those stored up, and those about to tip over the edge.

The songwriter of Psalm 56 describes this intimacy

You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book. Psalm 56:8 Bottle – a (skin or leather) bag (for fluids)

Imagine someone wiping the tears from your eyes.

A follower of Jesus, John, writing to some persecuted early believers, sheds these beautiful words of hope.

[God] will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away. Revelation 21:4

In the first place, God is not taking away the pain, instead, God is coming with connection to the pain. Gentleness and compassion reach out to the sensitive corners of our lives and pulls the vulnerable release away. ‘I am with you’ becomes ‘Your pain is known.’

When your tears become a flow, when whimpers become deep moans, when you’ve truly lost any sense of self-composure, you want silence from others, a warm hand, and a presence that accepts the tiredness of holding it all in.

Your tears are safe with me. Life is hard.

People can be harsh.

Broken world, broken people, broken decisions and broken choices.

We bare the pain of choices we have made and the choices others have made.

It can be a mess.

I want something new to come together out of all this brokenness, rubble, and mess.

I wonder if all the tears that we have shed are to be used as a kind of water source for some new gardening project God has in store. What are they there for if they are stored up in some metaphorical leather wineskin as the Psalmist sings?

John, the prophetic pastor, continues to show what God is up to.

And the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘See, I am making all things new.’ Revelation 21:5

Out of brokenness comes the germination of something new.

Out of death comes resurrection.

I hold on to my box of tissues and dab away at my tears and the tears of others.

I often wait, with some impatience, for something new to be made out of all this overflow. It will come, I get glimmers of it every day, and so I wait and participate in God’s ‘making all things new.’

It takes some courage and vulnerability to dab at the tears of others. The intimate closeness that says, ‘Here, let me. You don’t have to go it alone.’

It’s always uncomfortable when your learning to walk on water.

Quotes to consider * Most of us are spared life-wrenching tragedy, but none of us escapes the heartache of living in a fallen world. Dan Allender * In cultivating compassion we draw from the wholeness of our experience—our suffering, our empathy, as well as our cruelty and terror. It has to be this way. Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity. Brené Brown * Compassion for yourself is where you start when things are tough, not where you stop. Rick Hanson * Compassion means entering the suffering of another in order to lead the way out. Rosaria Champagne Butterfield * Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours. St. Teresa of Ávila

Questions to answer 1. What emotions and thoughts swirled within you when I wrote about those with a physical inability to wipe their own tears away? 2. Who has been there for you when the tears have touched the corners of your eyes? 3. What makes someone safe enough to touch your tears?

Further reading

Barry Pearman

Photo by Vicky Hladynets on Unsplash

Read this further here

FOLLOW ME! Email me: barry@turningthepage.co.nz Website: https://turningthepage.co.nz/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/turningthepage1atatime Twitter: https://twitter.com/barrypearman Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barry_pearman/ Podcast https://turningthepage.co.nz/podcast-listen-mental-health/

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

Thoughts can come and go, like a pendulum they reach a point and then swing to another point. We can slow the pendulum down and bring it to a place of stillness.

The pendulum on the old clock swung back and forth, left to right and then right to left.

Tick tock, and the sound of seconds passed out.

That pendulum helped to keep the clock on time.

Smooth and rhythmical. Things were functioning as they should, and as I watched the old clock, I realized that my thoughts also had a similar pattern.

Extremes of arc began to fill my awareness.

The Pendulum of Thoughts My thoughts seem to swing to places of depression and then to places of anxiety.

Sometimes the arc is wide, and they travel to extremes of despair and then to fear.

Sometimes the pendulum seems to stick at one point for more than a brief moment. It feels like it wants to live there, that a magnet has my thoughts in a grip, but then off to the other extreme.

Then other times, the arc is small, even tiny, and imperceptible. It’s like the pendulum is hardly moving at all, but it is. In the background, an energy still wants to keep the pendulum clock ticking.

It takes attention to notice the pole that my thoughts are swinging into.

Are they in the depression zone or the anxiety zone?
How long have I been sitting in that place?
What keeps me in that zone?

It begins with noticing and a kind of self-acceptance that this is happening.

I’m not talking about mood swings. No, this is more about your thoughts and discerning whether these are scripts of despair or fear.

Return to your rest I love to listen to the Psalms. These are the songs of people like ourselves who also had a pendulum of life.

Hope, joy, anger, despair, and every other mood and thought explosion are contained within the pendulum poems.

This morning I was listening to Psalm 116:1-9 being read in the Daily Lectio Divina.

There was a verse that grabbed my attention.

Return, O my soul, to your rest Psalm 116:7

That’s what I want my pendulum to do. To come to rest.

I know for this brief moment of my existence, it won’t stay still for very long and will continue to swing, but it doesn’t have to go to such extremes and seemingly take up residence in places it was never meant to live in.

I want to find for my soul places of rest and stillness.

I think of Jesus and his followers in those days after he was crucified.

Imagine the pendulum of their thoughts.

Despair, loss, grief, puzzlement, fear, anxiety, worry, mystery unsolved and unresolved.

He steps into the pendulum swing and speaks words.

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”

After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. John 20:19,20

The pendulum comes to rest. The attention of the soul rests itself on the awareness of the Christ.

Jesus speaks the word ‘eirḗnē’ (Phonetic Spelling: (i-ray’-nay) to his children.

eirḗnē – (from eirō, “to join, tie together into a whole“) – properly, wholeness, i.e., when all essential parts are joined together; peace (God’s gift of wholeness). Strongs

Bringing the thoughts to peace I long for my thoughts to come to a place of wholeness – peace. No more pendulum swings into depression – a focus on the past or worry – a focus on the future.

It takes practice and discipline. It trains your brain to know that this is the new way we do things.

Here is what has helped me.

Regular daily quiet times For me, it is the first thing I do every morning. The day begins with my going to sleep, and now I wake fresh to spend those first few moments with God. First, I listen to a Bible reading via Daily Lectio Divina. My brain knows this is my daily pattern. So I am training it to pay attention to the little words there for me today. Today it was ‘Return, O my soul, to your rest.’ I will ruminate and chew on this morsel of goodness throughout the day.
Noticing where the mind is drifting to. During the day, I quietly notice where my thoughts are drifting to. Are they floating away to the pendulum swing of despair and sadness or to a place of fear and anxiety? The invite is to stand back from them and notice them. Where are they going?
Speaking truth and love Please don’t be hard on your self but quietly speak love and compassion to the ruts in your thinking. For me, my favorite little reminders are these.I am loved I am held I am known As I speak these, the pendulum slows and comes to a sense of stillness.

You could also add journalling, centering prayer, and mindfulness.

Paying attention to the pendulum can help you slow down and bring a new sense of quiet to the busy places of your life. Remember that where you focus is where you will go.

Quotes to consider * Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity. We have to try to cure our faults by attention and not by will. Simone Weil * We cannot attain the presence of God. We‘re already totally in the presence of God. What’s absent is awareness. Richard Rohr * What I focus on gets me. Focus on the negatives/ challenges will always take me down. Focus on the positive/ good things will always give me hope. * What’s the most important minute in life? I think it’s the next one. There is nothing we can do about the past, and we have limited influence over the hours and days to come. But the next minute—minute after minute after minute—is always full of possibility. Rick Hanson * Without the inner discipline of faith, most lives end in negativity, blaming, or deep cynicism—without even knowing it. Richard Rohr * Metanoeite, or change of consciousness, can only come with time. Patience is the very shape of love. Without it, religion is merely about enforcing laws and requirements. Richard Rohr Patience * Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability — and that it may take a very long time. Teilhard de Chardin

Questions to consider 1. What swings of the pendulum have you noticed? 2. Where does your pendulum seemingly want to take up residence? 3. What helps you to bring your ‘soul to rest’?

Further reading

Barry Pearman

Read this further here

FOLLOW ME! Email me: barry@turningthepage.co.nz Website: https://turningthepage.co.nz/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/turningthepage1atatime Twitter: https://twitter.com/barrypearman Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barry_pearman/ Podcast https://turningthepage.co.nz/podcast-listen-mental-health/

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

Read this further here

View Details

Life can bring times when we feel completely abandoned, but we have a place of feathers that can hold us secure, so we enter that place of being loved, held, and known.

I’m not sure why, but for many years the final words of my day as my head rests on my pillow are these. ‘Spirit Come.’

My mind often pendulum swings between places of depression and its twin sister anxiety. Entering the new day by going to sleep, I think the little child within me wants to be held warmly and affectionately by love.

So I murmur the words ‘Spirit come.’

I pray for Spirit (Holy) to float and feather around my small human self. It’s a gentleness and peacefulness that I need to rest in and find security.

It’s a place of feathers. Downy feathers, all soft, warm, and fluffy. Pinion feathers, the ones used for flight, strong and enfolding.

I sleep within those feathers. Then I peek out from under those feathers as I face the day and all it brings.

Do you live in a place of feathers?

A place of feathers How do we describe God?

The Bible describes God as being like a place of feathers.

How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. Psalm 36:7 Psalm 57:1 Psalm 63:7 Psalm 91:4

Matthew and Luke record Jesus expressing his protecting and nurturing love to us like a mother hen and his frustration at the independent streak we all have to try and go it alone.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! Matthew 23:37 Luke 13:34

Then there is a love-filled Boaz expressing his heart welcome to Ruth, a Moabite, and her desire to live under the shadow of Yahweh’s wings.

The Lord repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge! Ruth 2:12

Warmth and strength There are three things I believe our soul needs to hear.

I am held I am loved I am known

Three messages for our soul to secure itself in.

Looking at the feathers of a bird, we see beauty and strength. The pinions are strong but light, enabling the bird to fly, but they can also be tucked in to surround the body.

Then there are those fluffy inner feathers that provide warmth and insulation to the bird’s body. Downy and fluffy, soft compared to the strong flying and protecting wings.

I am invited to snuggle in between the two. Held, loved, known.

Held Yes, I am held close and protected from the harsh world outside. I can push my way out whenever I want, but I always know where home is. I know where I am held.
Known Inside and out, I am known. My uniqueness is cherished. There is no rejection or abandonment.
Loved Loved for all that I am and all that I am not. No ambivalence to my presence; instead delight in the eyes of the other to see you—a spark to see who you will become. A desire to never let go of your presence.

A place of feathers Can you provide a place of feathers for someone else?

There is a time and place for being the one who can demonstrate these God qualities of being Held, Known, and Loved to someone else.

I have been reading Soul Therapy by Thomas Moore, and I read these words last night before going to sleep in a feathery place.

My main rule is to love my client’s soul. That is not romantic love, because it’s not so personal. You see the seeds of what this person could be. You glimpse the tragic events she had to go through, and you feel with her. You sense the promise and the possibilities. Your love of her soul is so intense, the very fulfillment of your vocation, that other kinds of love-romance, sexuality, personal intimacy-do not get in the way. The love of soul is too big and powerful. Thomas Moore – Soul Therapy

That’s the place I want to know myself and offer to others.

Email me

Quotes to consider * Learn to get in touch with silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences; all events are blessings given to us to learn from. There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace. You will find that deep place of silence right in your room, your garden, or even your bathtub. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross * The greatest favorites of destiny make mistakes. Our joys are composed of shadow. The supreme smile is God’s alone. Victor Hugo Les Misérables * The opposite of love is not hate , it’s indifference. Elie Wiesel * Where there is great love there is always miracles. Willa Cather

Questions to answer 1. What would happen in you if you were to know the fulness of being held, known and loved? 2. How does seeing God as a place of feathers inspires further trust? 3. Jesus said, ‘How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!’What does this say to you about God’s allowance of free will?

Further reading

Barry Pearman

Read this further here

FOLLOW ME! Email me: barry@turningthepage.co.nz Website: https://turningthepage.co.nz/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/turningthepage1atatime Twitter: https://twitter.com/barrypearman Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barry_pearman/ Podcast https://turningthepage.co.nz/podcast-listen-mental-health/

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

Read this further here

View Details

Safe places and safe people ask good questions that may not feel safe at all, but they have goodness flowing through them.

I need a place where I can go and feel safe.

So many people have opinions and are quick to share them. Lightning fast to draw a conclusion and speed of light to share it.

I’ve seen people shrivel up and wither under the bombardment of others’ opinions. Something dies within them. They become like Hydrophobic soil. That’s a type of soil that actively repels water. Add a drop of water to the surface, and it runs away and isn’t taken in.

You get to the point that you don’t share anything because you know what you get back will feel like an attack. I stress the word ‘feel’ because it may not be an attack, but you have been abused so often that everything now feels like a threat.

So what’s a safe place? Is it a fortress where you can hide away and no one comes near?

Perhaps the place behind a mask of ‘everything s fine.’ Got to keep up appearances.

Could it be a physical place where you know you won’t be interrupted? You can hide away and ‘be yourself’ whatever that might mean.

Is a safe place somewhere where you won’t be asked questions?

Maybe it’s a kind of soul place where you know others will welcome you with open, nonjudgmental arms and with a sort of gentle curiosity.

How would you define a safe place?

Not safe, but good When I hear the word ‘safe,’ my mind often goes to the C.S. Lewis book The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.

In the story, some children are on an adventure and are exploring a cursed and frozen land called Narnia. They are welcomed into the home of Mr. and Mrs. Beaver and learn about the great king Aslan and that he is a lion.

One of the children asks a very fearful question about this lion.

“Is he—quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”

“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver. “If there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”

“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.’

Do you want ‘safe’ or do you want ‘good.’?

We want safe first but in the context of goodness going forward.

Is God safe?

Is God good, and if so, then what is God good for?

The quick and the slow place James, a early church pastor, wrote these words to the little home groups of Christians meeting together in what we would now call church.

You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness. James 1:19-20

Quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger.

Here are some definitions

Quick –taxýs (Greek) – swift, speedy, without unnecessary delay.
Listen – akoúō (greek) – properly, to hear (listen); (figuratively) to hear God’s voice which prompts Him to birth faith within. Akoúō is the root of the English term “acoustics.”
Slow – bradýs (greek) – as in taking time to deliberate. A sense of being unhurried.
Speak – laleó (greek) – talk, chatter in classical Greek, but in New Testament, a more dignified word. I speak, say.

Does your church have good acoustics? Is it a place where there is a quickened delight in listening?

No F.A.S.S. It’s a discipline, a training ground, a practice to work at. It’s the humility of listening well.

I fail at it constantly because my brain wants to F.A.S.S. – fix, advise, save, or set straight. Using a taxi (taxýs – Greek) I quickly resolve the problem and then move on to F.A.S.S. someone else.

James wants us to go slow and be unhurried in our conversation.

Can I ask more questions? Gentle open-ended questions? Curious to know the acoustics of the heart of the other.

To be a safe person and to offer a safe place is to slow down. Be deliberate and unhurried in your conversation.

Anything outside of this may come from and generate a place of anger. Frustrations leak out into the space and stifle love.

Have I listened well?

Often, I will ask these questions at the end of a church conversation.

What are you going to take away from our time together?
What have you heard?
What have you written down in your notebook that you can consider in unhurried leisure?

Safe places and safe people ask good questions that may not feel safe at all , but they have goodness flowing through them.

Quotes to consider * It’s time we paid whatever price must be paid to become part of a spiritual community rather than an ecclesiastical organization. It’s time to build the church, a community of people who take refuge in God and encourage each other to never flee to another source of help, a community of folks who know the only way to live in this world is to focus on the spiritual life – our life with God and others. It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it. Our impact on the world is at stake. Larry Crabb The Safest Place on Earth * Churches that pedal beliefs and belonging as a substitute for following the Way are offering spiritual junk food. Beliefs and belonging are certainly tasty and they may temporarily satisfy some apparent needs but they do not meet our deepest spiritual longings. David Benner * No one person can fulfill all your needs. But the community can truly hold you. The community can let you experience the fact that, beyond your anguish, there are human hands that hold you and show you God’s faithful love. Henri Nouwen * Sensitive listeners respond to comments with words that convey an interest in hearing more, sentences that open the door to information. Words that open doors transmit two messages: 1. ‘I am interested in whatever you have to say.’ 2.’I will accept you regardless of what you say.’ Larry Crabb * It is usually most helpful to ask questions that are more about the person than about the problem. Parker J. Palmer * There are questions which illuminate, and there are those that destroy. We should ask the first kind. Isaac Isador Rabi.

Questions to answer 1. What would it be like to be listened into wellness? 2. Why do you think we are quick to speak and slow to listen? 3. When have you been listened to at a deep level? Why was this significant?

Further reading

Barry Pearman

Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash

Read this further here

FOLLOW ME! Email me: barry@turningthepage.co.nz Website: https://turningthepage.co.nz/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/turningthepage1atatime Twitter: https://twitter.com/barrypearman Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barry_pearman/ Podcast https://turningthepage.co.nz/podcast-listen-mental-health/

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

Read this further here

View Details

There’s work, home, and loneliness, but maybe a third place can be the place of hope. Let’s make one together.

I’m looking for a third place, and I think you might be too. It’s a place where I feel that I belong and there is no pressure to perform, to do, or to be someone for someone else. Where I can come and go, people know me, respect and love me, and I can do the same for them.

Would you like a place like that?

So what’s a ‘Third place.’

Third Place To define a ‘third place,’ perhaps we need to know what a ‘first’ and ‘second’ place is.

Ray Oldenburg was an American urban sociologist who wrote about spaces where people would gather.

The First place was the home. This is where you live and the people you live with – spouse, children, in-laws.

It’s where you rest your head at night. Your place of residence and the relationships – good or bad- that exist there. For the most part, you can’t get away from these relationships. You will probably be with them for a long time. They know you and you know them.

The second place is your place of work. I know this has changed for many with the rise of people working from home, but essentially, in a relational way, it’s that place you go to for work.

The relationships you have are because you go there for a common purpose – to work. Outside of this place, you might not normally have a relationship with these people. You probably spend most of your awake time in this place.

A Third place is where you relax in public and where you see familiar faces and make new acquaintances.

Third place qualities Typically Third places have these qualities.

Neutral ground In contrast to the home and workplace people who come to the Third place have little to no obligation to be there. They are free to come and go as they please.
It’s level ground. There are no hierarchy or status requirements. Anyone can come and feel welcome.
Good Conversations are had. Words flow easily. There is wit and banter and a genuine delight in simply being in conversation with a few others.
Accessibility and accommodation Third places must be open and accessible to the community. They flex with the needs of those that come so that people feel accepted.
The regulars There is a group of regular attendees that you will most likely see if you go there. They are the glue that keeps the place humming.
A low profile There is no extravagance or grandiosity. It has a homely feel. The warmth and connection of openness and welcome. It accepts all types of individuals, from various different walks of life.
The mood is playful This is not a place where there is tension or hostility. Instead, third places have a playful nature, where witty conversation and frivolous banter are not only common but highly valued.
Belonging People who come to third places will often have the same feelings of warmth, possession, and belonging as they would in their own homes.I think possibly that there is a ninth quality that is not in the list provided by Wikipedia.
A place to go deep when needed. Within the context of frivolous banter and conviviality there is an opportunity to get to know the person well so that when the hard times come, and they surely do, a few special others will notice the struggle and go deep with the soul of the other.

If you have a place that you go to that offers all of those nine qualities then you are truly blessed.

Every sitcom typically has a third place. It’s where everybody knows your name as the T.V. show Cheers sings out.

Sometimes you wanna go Where everybody knows your name And they’re always glad you came You wanna be where you can see (ah-ah) Our troubles are all the same (ah-ah) You wanna be where everybody knows your name

Place is important because it can be a container for the types of relationships it offers.

Meet me at the … I don’t see third places mentioned specifically in the Bible.

Perhaps it might have been well from which people drew their water. A common meeting place. Certainly, Jesus had a good conversation with a woman there.

Maybe it was the gateway to the city or village. That was a place where you went to discuss and talk with others about the topics of the day. Prov 1:21; 31:23; cf. Ruth 4:11; Job 29:7

Possibly the early Christian church was a kind of third place. People meet in small groups, share a meal, talk about faith, and hold hope. Good conversations flowed. No hierarchy, and no demands to perform. Taking a walk and discovering Jesus walking alongside.

I long for that kind of place.

But I’m finding it hard to find a place where all of the nine requirements of a third place can be found.

I had dinner with some neighbors a few weeks ago that came close. Much banter, openness, and laughter were had. Would I go deep with them? Maybe if I got to know them more and felt safe with them.

I was recently asked why men don’t go to counseling. I wrote a post giving 10 reasons why, but maybe under all of those reasons is a feeling that it just feels like work and yet another place to potentially fail.

I believe that both men and women want a place where they are welcomed, warts and all, and know they are being listened to.

A place where maybe a few others who have ‘been there, done that’ can come alongside and walk with us through the tough times. A place where they are known, held, and loved.

Stray Dogs Cardmaking A Canoe ‘Church’ I recently shared with a couple of friends that I would like to start a group called Stray Dogs.

It would be a kind of place, where stray dogs like myself who need a place to connect would meet and wag our tails at each other in delight. No sniffing of butts though 😉.

I’ve seen third places develop around a craft or hobby. It could be meeting somewhere to make cards, brew beer, tell stories, write stories, build a canoe, grow vegetables, etc.

The outcome is not the finished product, it’s more the intangible quality of the relationships grown in this place. A place where everybody knows your name and possibly the story within the limp you have.

And please don’t call it ‘church’ because that loaded term may just destroy the qualities of the early church – love, friendship, generosity, and hope.

Quotes to consider * To say “I am going to church” both reveals and promotes bad theology. Marva J. Dawn * When spiritual friends share their stories, the others listen without working. They rest. There’s nothing to fix, nothing to improve. A spiritual community feels undisturbed quiet as they listen, certainly burdened . . . but still resting in the knowledge that the life within, the passion for holiness, is indestructible. It needs only to be nourished and released. Larry Crabb

Questions to answer 1. Where do ‘Third places’ exist in your community? 2. What qualities, of the nine mentioned above, do find most attractive? 3. How would having a ‘Third place’ helps one’s mental health?

Further reading

Barry Pearman

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

Read this further here

FOLLOW ME! Email me: barry@turningthepage.co.nz Website: https://turningthepage.co.nz/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/turningthepage1atatime Twitter: https://twitter.com/barrypearman Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barry_pearman/ Podcast https://turningthepage.co.nz/podcast-listen-mental-health/

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

Four types of power play a part in our lives, but the power that will transform you enters your ditch and is with you.

I’ve seen it all.

Through the eyes of my half-dead body, I watch them come, look, and then go.

Will no one stop to do what I cannot do for myself? I am alone, and no one wants to engage, connect, look upon my swollen face, and pierce my life with hope.

It’s a gift of power I need.

I need someone to cross the line and do what I cannot do for myself.

The disempowerment of abuseAbuse, in whatever form it comes, has a nasty way of taking the life out of you.

You are left feeling less than others. You’re small, weak, and insignificant. You get stripped of something of the gloriousness that you once were.

Abuse that harms doesn’t have to fit into the major categories of sexual abuse or violence. It could be a little well-aimed slight by a child in the schoolyard. A put down by a bully. A lack of basic essentials such as affirming touch and encouragement.

No one escapes the blows and cuts from living in a broken world. Unfortunately, many of our wounds can remain untreated or undertreated for our lifetime.

Many people come to this website because they pray into an internet search engine the words ‘God, I want to die.’. But I wonder what it would be like to pray, ‘God, I want to live fully.’

I don’t want to live a half-dead life. I want a life where I am fully alive, where wounds have been changed into scars. Abuse cuts and traumas have become beauty marks and toned muscle.

The harm now brings something of God’s life to others, and as we connect, we ‘mouth to mouth’ resuscitate those who robbers and thieves have violated.

What would it be like to be fully alive?

OverpoweredJesus tells a story about power.

“A man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his clothing and wounded him and departed, leaving him half dead.

By chance a priest came down that way. And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.

So likewise a Levite, when he came to that place, looked at him and passed by on the other side.

But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion on him, and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine. Then he set him on his own donkey and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.

The next day when he departed, he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said to him, ‘Take care of him. I will repay you whatever else you spend when I return.’ Luke 10:30-35

(denarius, a coin worth about a day’s wage.)

In Jesus’ story, we find a man experiencing the effect of Power over. He had been assaulted, robbed, and left half dead. Thieves, robbers, bullies, and tyrants had stolen something of his glorious humanity. Perhaps a fellow human was the only way to restore something of power within.

If you were to look through the eyes of the dying man, what would you see?

What expressions of power would your heart engage with?

Perhaps it comes down to three questions.

Are you with me in my need?
Are you against me in my need?
Are you ambivalent about my need?

Power with, power against, power withheld.

Four types of powerWhat does this dying man see?

Power withheld
The eyes see the avoiders. Those who create a void. They have the power to do something, but they hold back.Maybe it was fear or a sense of inadequacy. Perhaps they were too busy, or they were holding on to some sense of self-importance.
Let’s not make excuses for those who withhold good. Instead, we can all do for one what we wish we could do for everyone.
Power over
He had already seen the violence of ‘power over’ relationships, but now another human was moving towards him.
But this was a different expression of ‘power over.’ This was someone doing for him what he could not do himself.
People often use this parable as a justification for rescuing people. Yes, this was a rescue mission because he could not do what was needed for himself.
One of the most challenging and saddest moments of my life was when I worked at the coal face of people with mental illness, and I would encounter people so unwell with their illness that they could not make rational decisions. Illness had thrown them into a ditch.
There was typically a psychosis involved. They were lost in a ditch of hearing, seeing, and feeling things that no one else was experiencing. Often they were a danger to themselves and others.
I would have to use ‘Power Over’ and call others who had formal power, by law, to take this person into care. So it was ‘power over,’ but not to take something away from them; more so, it was to give them something back.
The Samaritan did what the man could not do for himself.
Power with
I like this form of power the best. It’s the idea that I will do what I can do, you will do what you can do, and together we will make a difference.
The Samaritan went to be with the half-dead man. He crossed the lines. He poured out oil and wine to clean and disinfect. Bandages were bound around the wounds. I wonder if these strips of cloth came from his clothes being ripped apart.
This was ‘withness’ in deepest connection.
Power given
The ‘power with’ transfers into enabling others to give power to the recovery process. The Samaritan knows that others can help in ways he can’t. He uses his own money, two days’ wages, and the promise of more to ensure empowerment continues. A healing nest is needed.

A power within begins to grow.Something happens in this man. The power within him begins to grow. Strength returns to his body and also to his soul.

Perhaps because he has experienced both the worst of power and the best, he now has a deeper awareness of humanity.

It is lovely to see someone grow in their internal power. They begin to see the lines of their unique shape. They see those who have used ‘power over’ badly. They see those who have ‘withheld power’ and leave them alone.

But then they begin to see those with them and want to continue to be with them. As a result, inner beauty and strength grow.

Something both glorious and good begins to grow within the soul. Its beauty and strength begins to transform the dangerous roads we travel on. Its love is unstoppable and dangerous, and it must have release.

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud
was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. Anais Nin

These four types of power play a part in all our lives. The power that will transform you, will enter your ditch and be with you.

It’s your eyes I want to see
Looking into mine
Got you live on my mind
All the time. Bruce Cockburn

Quotes to consider* Therapists accomplish good results because they are lovers, in the personal sense of that word, and not experts. Only genuine, unpurchaseable love does what needs to be done in the human soul. Larry Crabb. The Safest Place on Earth. * Give a Man a Fish, and You Feed Him for a Day. Teach a Man To Fish, and You Feed Him for a Lifetime * Christ taught us that the supernatural love of our neighbor is the exchange of compassion and gratitude which happens in a flash between two beings, one possessing and the other deprived of human personality. One of the two is only a little piece of flesh, naked, inert, and bleeding beside a ditch; he is nameless; no one knows anything about him. Those who pass by this thing scarcely notice it, and a few minutes afterward do not even know they saw it. Only one stops and turns his attention towards it. The actions that follow are just the automatic effect of this moment of attention. Simone Weil Simone Weil. Waiting for God * Giving and receiving unconditional love is the most effective and powerful way to personal wholeness and happiness. John Bradshaw * We live in the shelter of each other. Celtic saying * I don’t see how we can show anybody we love them if we do not sacrifice for them. Richard Rohr -Job and the Mystery of Suffering * Sacrifice of oneself for the other is simply love in its later stages. It’s a very old-fashioned word. Richard Rohr -Job and the Mystery of Suffering

Questions to answer1. Which of the four types of power grabbed your attention? 2. How can we cultivate more ‘power with’ in our relationships? 3. Lines get crossed all the time. What type of power helps restore the soul? 4. We are all traveling from a Jerusalem to a Jericho. What has happened on your pilgrimage?

Further readingBarry Pearman

Photo by Derick Daily on Unsplash

Read this further here

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

When we’re half dead and want to be fully alive, we need a love that crosses a line.

He was half dead. She had been stripped naked.

They had worked him over, taking enjoyment from the assault.

I leaned down over her nakedness and heard a whisper, ‘Help me.’

I saw beauty under her bruises. I saw his potential slipping away. I saw it all, felt it all.

I had crossed a line. I was in their world now.

Others walked up, noticed, and avoided. I held her close, hoping something of my life would breathe into her. He draped his arms over me, fingers clasping for connection.

I didn’t have much to offer, but all that I had, I gave.

‘Stop walking by,’ I screamed at all the self-righteous with their self-protective rules. They would look with millisecond attention, focus elsewhere, then quicken their pace.

The thugs who had assaulted this naked soul were probably still around. Perhaps I would be next.

Love crosses a line.

Love crosses a lineThe relationship between the first woman and the first man must have been incredible. Sure, there was a line around the unique identity that was a man, and that was a woman. They were different but also complementary.

There was a deep desire to outdo the other in the expression of love. So it flowed. It overflowed. One into the other and back again.

No hint of selfishness or holding back. No walls or hiddenness.

The line was there, they knew they were different from each other, but there was such an openness to both give and receive.

Love crossed a line where they didn’t even know a line existed.

Lines with wallsWe now have walls built on top of our lines: fences, barricades, and even razor wire in some cases.

A little hurt here and there, and we build a wall. The wall becomes thicker and higher with repeated experiences.

The ‘I will never let my heart be hurt like that again’ sentence becomes a mantra most likely learned as a little child. Repeated over and over again, it becomes an anthem.

Repeated experiences of abuse, both small and large, help validate our wall-building program.

We are secure inside our walled city. Isolated but safe. Alone but in control. Strong, but actually fragile.

But we need community. Someone to leave their travel plans and venture into the ditch where we are half-dead. Someone who wants to see us become fully alive.

Can we be vulnerable to some line crossing?

To love at all is to be vulnerable.
Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.
If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal.
Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements.
Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.
But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change.
It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.
To love is to be vulnerable. C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

A good neighbor crosses linesJesus tells a parable of what vulnerable love looks like.

A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.

Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.

So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

But a Samaritan while travelling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity.

He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.

The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, “Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.”

Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?’

He said, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise.’

This agape love leaps across mountains and bounds over hills (Song of Solomon 2:8). It runs through bands of robbers and thieves and jumps over walls built high. (Psalm 18:29)

It’s absurd to the rationalist and rule-bound.

It’s real, costly, and puts the lover at risk. It kisses the leper and breathes life into corpses.

The legalists, the accountants, the Pharisees, and the scribes will definitely look down upon it. They will critique the gifts poured out as much as they did the woman who kissed and poured perfume over the feet of Jesus. (Luke 7:36-39)

To Cross a Line is to take a risk.To show us love, God crossed a line. God came to us in the form of someone like ourselves – Jesus. We killed God on a cross. Christianity is the only religion in the world where God dies.

Love died and rose again.

Now we are called to take a risk and cross a line.

It doesn’t have to be large. It could be giving someone a glass of water or some clothes. On the other hand, it might be visiting someone imprisoned by illness, poverty, or crime (Matthew 25:31-46). Crossing a line, moving beyond self to enter another self, always carries an element of risk.

Would you do it for me?

Do for one, what you wish you could do for everyone.

Quotes to consider* Our charity must be real and costly love, with deep feelings for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner – no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses … for in him also Christ ‘vere latitat’ – the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden. C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory * If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.
If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.
If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love. 1 Coronthians 13:1-3 * When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. Henri J.M. Nouwen * Research teaches us that the capacity to reach out to others for help in dealing with fear and pain is the best single remedy for emotional injury. Whether the person is struggling with the effects of combat, rape, or childhood injury, the best predictor of trauma resolution is good social support. Terrence Real, I Don’t Want To Talk About It * Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one. C.S. Lewis * The opposite of love is not hate , it’s indifference. Elie Wiesel * Where there is great love there is always miracles. Willa Cather * Human life must be about more than building boundaries, protecting identities, and teaching impulse control. Richard Rohr

Questions to answer1. What do you think of the sentance ‘Christianity is the only religion in the world where God dies.’ ? 2. Who would you cross a line for? 3. Who has crossed a line for you (please dont say Jesus) and entered into your distress?

Further readingBarry Pearman

Photo by Will on Unsplash

Read this further here

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

There is a kind of loneliness that feels like a huge void has been opened up, and you’re broken on the other side. But there is one that crosses the void to bring connection.

I’m still trying to understand why they avoided me.

They knew I was in a mess, and I thought they were my friend, but they never contacted me.

They a-voided me. Break that word ‘avoid’ down.

The word void, in this sense, means an empty space, and that is what it felt like. It was like there was an empty space between them and me.

Loneliness and abandonment can kill. We were always meant for intimate community, but instead, we so often find empty voids in our relationships. No one is willing to cross a line to touch and engage the soul of a neighbor.

Have you ever felt that someone is a-voiding you? You don’t know why there is a void between you and them? Or perhaps you do know why, and it’s because of something that you have done or has been done to you.

You’re on the outside, and no one comes near.

Perhaps you’re doing the avoiding. Making sure there is a distance between yourself and them—sometimes, you need to do this to feel safe.

The VoidSo who is my neighbor?

That was the question posed to Jesus.

Jesus tells a story and invites us to look through the eyes of the first person mentioned in this story—the half-dead victim of abuse.

Jesus replied, ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.
Now by chance, a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. Luke 10:25-30

Imagine yourself as that man.

You’re half dead, eyes barely open, naked, and you’re slipping in and out of consciousness.

You see someone come, and a glimmer of hope springs up, but when they see you, they create a void. Then, a second person comes, and they do the same.

What goes on in your mind? ‘Will no one help’

It’s abuse to neglect the other that is in obvious need.

We say to ourselves in our defense that there are so many that cry out for our help. The victims of earthquakes, natural disasters, crime, and poverty, and we can’t help everyone. But perhaps that is not the point.

Perhaps we are called to do for one what we wish we could do for everyone. To cross the line and fill the void with one other soul.

Does God love me?There is a question or a series of questions that I get continually asked. They are based around a central heart struggle – Does God love me?

I’ve been abused and hurt, and surely if God loved me, God would not have allowed this to happen. Surely God can fix this situation?

If God is good, then what is God good for?

Dan Allender states

‘Abuse provides the raw data that seems to prove that God is not good,’ the ‘devilishness of abuse is that it does Satan’s work of deceiving children about God’s true nature and encouraging them to mistrust Him. Dan Allender The Wounded Heart.

God steps into this broken world with all of us making broken world choices. God comes in the form of Jesus. Fully divine and yet fully human.

Jesus experiences the fullness of abuse – intentional and unintentional.

He experiences the darkness of the void. He knows the void you experience.

I’m unsure if this neglect of giving love and creating a void isn’t more abusive than a full-on physical attack. It’s more subtle and hidden.

This a-voiding by others can reinforce and strengthen a belief that you genuinely are nothing. Everyone else has their life together, but you don’t. As a result, you are further dehumanized through loss of connection.

Filling the voidI will wait for someone to come and fill the void. Someone who will step across the line and move into my world with grace and kindness. Someone to welcome me into their embrace and banish the darkness of the void.

‘On the cross, the dancing circle of self-giving and mutually indwelling divine persons opens up for the enemy; in the agony of the passion, the movement stops for a brief moment, and a fissure appears so that sinful humanity can join in.
We, the others – we the enemies – are embraced by the divine persons who love us with the same love with which they love each other and therefore make space for us within their own eternal embrace. Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace, 129.

I am welcomed with their embrace.

The word ‘vicarious’ is one of my favorite words. It simply means to serve instead of someone or something else

When someone steps across the line and enters my ditch with grace and love, I sense something of the nature of Christ filling the void and giving me hope.

I wait for someone like me who has dirt in their toenails to wander down, cross the line, and fill the void made by others.

Quotes to consider* No victim is responsible for having been abused. But abuse does provide strong reasons, potent stories, to ask, “Where was God? Does He love me? Can I trust Him? If can, what am I to trust Him for?” The devilishness of abuse is that it does Satan’s work of deceiving children about God’s nature and encouraging them to mistrust Him. Fearing to trust God, the abuse victim will naturally choose other gods to provide her [or him] with life, whether alcohol, promiscuity, or approval-seeking. Dan Allender The Wounded Heart * I think not touching a child for decades at a time is a form of injury. I think withholding any expression of love until a young boy is a grown man is a form of emotional violence. And I believe that the violence men level against themselves and others is bred from just such circumstances. Terence Real, I Don’Don’tt To Talk About It * No one person can fulfill all your needs. But the community can truly hold you. The community can let you experience the fact that, beyond your anguish, there are human hands that hold you and show you God’s, faithful love. Henri Nouwen Inner voice of love * Beneath what our culture calls psychological disorder is a soul crying out for what only community can provide. There is no “disorder” requiring “treatment.” And, contrary to hard-line moralism, there is more to our struggles than a stubborn will needing firm admonishment. Beneath all our problems, there are desperately hurting souls that must find the nourishment only community can provide—or die. Larry Crabb – Connecting * We are saved by those whom we go to save, and both of us are then saved in spite of ourselves. There is a mysterious “third” which is doing the saving. Suffering for and with the other seems to be the only way we know that our lives are not about us. Richard Rohr -Job and the Mystery of Suffering

Questions to answer1. Where have you experienced the a-void? 2. Who did Jesus cross the a-void to minister to? 3. Do you think the neglect of giving love is worse than a full-on physical attack? Look through the eyes of the man in the ditch.

Further Reading

Barry Pearman
Photo by Kristopher Roller on Unsplash

Read this further here

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

It’s a human experience to know the trauma of falling into the hands of robbers and thieves, but there is one who joins us in our ditch.

I was robbed a few years ago. I had parked my truck in a parking lot and had gone into a shop to purchase a few things.

When I walked out, I saw someone looking into the back of my truck. I thought that was strange, so I began walking briskly toward them.

When they saw me coming, they rushed to their vehicle, climbed in, and took off. Two adults were in the car, a male and a female, and two children were in car seats in the back.

When I got to my car, I saw some gardening tools were missing.

I jumped in the truck and took off after them. This is where you hear upbeat Hollywood music!

But they had gone, couldn’t see them anywhere, so I returned to the parking area and went into the shop to see if they had security video footage of the event.

They did, but these thieves were cunning. They didn’t drive close enough to the cameras to get good images. The security guard said that this is what robbers do. They cruise around the carparks looking for opportunities. They are fully aware of where the cameras are and the quick exit routes.

I watched as a van cruised around the parking lot, found a spot next to my truck, and went back in next to it for a potential quick getaway. Then the male and female rummage through the gear on the back. They tried to open the doors but found they were locked. They then started to take equipment from my truck and put it in their car.

I called the police and filed a report, but nothing was returned. Fortunately, insurance covered the loss, enabling me to buy better-quality tools.

But ever since then, I have been more careful with where I park my truck and what I leave on the back. I will soon buy a van where everything will be fully enclosed and secure.

When you’ve been robbedWild thoughts and feelings raged through my mind about what I would do if I caught them. I did still have my pitchfork!

I had been violated; someone had crossed a line and stolen what I had worked hard to earn and purchase.

What a fool I was to leave my tools exposed like that. I was naive.

Then more self-accusing thoughts pounded through my brain—stupid, idiot, dummy.

Past shaming events triggered memories. I was a little boy again, being bullied.

Everyone will think even less of me than what they think of me now.

It is a downward, deepening spiral into despair.

Then there were those children in the back seat. They were being formed in their thinking that is what you do, this is normal. They would grow to think it’s perfectly normal to cross other people’s lines to get what they want. They were being robbed of truth every time this scenario played out before them.

Robbers and ThievesJesus once told a parable about us and how we have been robbed.

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’

He said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What do you read there?’

He answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.’

And he said to him, ‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.’

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbour?’

Jesus replied, ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Luke 10:25-30

In the original greek, the word Jesus used to describe the robbers was léstés

lēstḗs – a thief (“robber”) stealing out in the open (typically with violence). lēstḗs (“a bandit, briard”) is a thief who also plunders and pillages – an unscrupulous marauder (malefactor), exploiting the vulnerable without hesitating to use violence.

There was more than one robber, and they only saw this man as someone they could take from. He was stripped naked, used for violence, and abandoned.

Types of abuseMark Laaser, in Healing the wounds of Sexual Addiction, describes two kinds of abuse: invasion and abandonment.

He places the types of abuse, invasion, and abandonment, into the four areas of human experience.

Emotional* Yelling
Screaming
Putdowns
Name-calling
Profanity
Mind rape
Physical* Hitting
Slapping
Pushing
Shoving
Spanking
Sexual* Touching or penetrating the genital area
Teasing about body
Sexual humor
Sexual misinformation about sex
Spiritual* Punitive or angry messages about God
Self-righteousness
Negative messages about sex
Modeling unhealthy lifestyles

As you look over the list, you will probably see items you will connect with as either a receiver of this abuse or a giver. There is grace and forgiveness for us all, whether we are the victim or the violator.

Abandonment abuse we will look at in the next post.

Jesus in the ditchFor this parable to have the most significant effect, one must see themselves as that man.

Someone going about their daily business only to be attacked and left half dead. Naked, stripped of anything of value, and left to die.

Robbers and thieves. The obvious invaders and marauders across the line of our humanity. Everyone I have met can relate to some experience of abuse where someone has crossed an obvious line.

But we are not alone in our half-dead state. Jesus knows the invasiveness of what man can do.

He knows the invaders, thieves, robbers, and marauders. Jesus experienced the dehumanizing effects of living in a broken world.

He, too, was stripped naked and left to die. Christianity is the only religion where God dies.

When we fully face our wounds and how we have wounded others, we need someone to cross our lines with a message of self-sacrificial love and hope. That’s the message of the purest form of love. It’s where someone leaves the road, crosses the line, and enters our ditch with an invasiveness of resurrection hope.

Quotes to consider* Any spirituality that does not lead from a self- centered existence to an other-centred mode of existence is bankrupt. Brennan Manning. The Signature of Jesus * It is so difficult to admit to ourselves and others that we can’t control everything. Only when we name the ways we are powerless do we create space for God to step in. Richard Rohr * Change is possible and substantial, but not perfected until heaven. “Substantial healing”, a phrase used by Francis Schaffer, underscores the possibility of deep and meaningful alteration, without blinding our eyes to the fact that permanent and final change awaits the transformation of the world through Christ’s return. The wounds of living in a fallen world with fallen people (including ourselves) make being damaged (internally and externally) a certainty. Dan Allender * [Christianity is] the only religion in the world where God dies at the end. People say they’re Christians, but you know what? You never see them nailed to anything. (T.V. series – Inside man) * I had never confronted the utter helplessness of rape, of knowing that it just did not matter that I existed; that I did not want this; that I was a human being; not a thing to be invaded, punched, or possibly killed. Rape denies that you are a person, that you exist. In contrast, lovemaking affirms your existence. Lynne Henderson, ‘What Makes Rape a Crime’, Berkeley Women’s Law Journal 3: (1988), 226.

Questions to answer1. What happened to you as you read this post? 2. Where have you been robbed or assaulted? 3. What heals the wounds of invasive abuse?

Further readingBarry Pearman

Read this further here

Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

The Shape of YouEDIT What’s your shape? I’m not talking about your body shape, i.e., weight, tall, thin, short, or wide. I’m more interested in who you are under the skin. What has happened to shape you into the person you are?

What is your personality like? What do you like to eat? Favorite music tastes. Are you a cat person or a dog person, or neither? Where were you born? What do you do to relax? What are the multiple facets that make you wonderfully different from someone else?

Who are you?

“Today you are you!That is truer than true!There is no one alive……who is you-er than you!

Shout loud, “I am lucky to be what I am!Thank goodness I’m not just a clam or a hamOr a dusty old jar of sour gooseberry jam!I am what I am!

That’s a great thing to be!If I say so myself,HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!”Dr. Seuss

The circle of your ‘I.’I often like to share with people that I support the concept of the ‘I,’ ‘WE,’ WORK’ shared originally to me by psychologist Renier Greef. It’s comprised of four circles.

The first circle is that of the individual. The ‘I’ refers to you. Who you are.

It’s not a perfect circle. It’s imperfect. It’s freehand drawn to represent how unique and irregular we all are. No two circles are the same.

But this circle contains all of who you are.

You may only know a small percentage of what is within your circle. Much of the essential information is subconscious. It can be discovered if you want to go there. That subconscious below-the-surface flow of heart talk has been in the shaping process from before birth.

Every one of us has ‘I..’ It’s what makes us uniquely human. You have a shape full of delight.

Your neighbor does, also.

A man was traveling. Jesus was in conversation with someone who had been shaped into having a litigious personality. They loved a good argument and getting their opponents tied up in knots.

This expert in the law enjoyed making people feel small and foolish by using their intelligence and cunning. There was no gentle curiosity in them. It was more a legal ‘I win, you lose.’

He asks Jesus a question.

Just then, a religion scholar stood up with a question to test Jesus. “Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life?”

He answered, “What’s written in God’s Law? How do you interpret it?”

He said, “That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence—and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself.”

“Good answer!” said Jesus. “Do it and you’ll live.”

Looking for a loophole, he asked, “And just how would you define ‘neighbor’?” Luke 10:25-29

You can sense the tossing of words back and forth. A question is asked, and a question is given in response. The legal and correct answer is given.

Another question is presented. This is a question of defining who is in and who is out. Who is a ‘neighbor’ and who is not? What shape of persons are acceptable?

But actually, it’s a question of lines. Who will I cross a line for and love, and who I don’t have to cross over to know.

Jesus answers the question with a story.

There was once a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. Luke 10:30

Those listening to this story would have immediately noticed that Jesus was telling a parable and that the primary character, the one that this parable was about, was the first person mentioned in the story. It was a man. It was an ‘I.’

Jesus invited them to view everything about this story as if they were this man. They were to look through his eyes.

They knew nothing about this man other than he was a man and that he was traveling.

But this man had a shape to him. He was human.

Jesus tells them nothing else about the man with which they could box him within. Jesus said nothing about his ethnicity, wealth, marital status, age, or occupation. Nothing that we might be able to codify or label him with. Nothing from which we could decide if he was in or out of the ‘acceptable’ shapes to mix with.

He was simply a man on a journey. He could have been any one of us.

And that’s the first point Jesus was making. This anonymous man is us. It is you. This is someone in the shape of you.

The RoadJesus tells us that he was on a road and that he was traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho.

Those early listeners would have known this road well. It was a steep road from Jerusalem in the heights to Jericho in the plains. It was scorched and arid.

Eighteen miles long, this road was a major route for trading caravans, military personnel, and the pilgrims who visited Jerusalem multiple times each year. It was a busy road.

But it was also a dangerous road where bandits and robbers would attack travelers. There would have been many hiding places and escape routes into the desert where no one would pursue them.

This road from Jerusalem to Jericho was a dangerous route.

Your roadWhats your road been like?

In the shaping of your ‘I,’ what has happened on your pilgrim’s road?

I once walked the Camino de Santago pilgrimage in Spain. On the very first day of the walk, I encountered some robbers and thieves. They didn’t come with fists and fury. They were more subtle. They wanted a signature on a petition and a donation to a cause. They were sly and cunning to the many innocent travellers.

On the journey I met other similar scam artists preying on the vulnerable.

They were willing to cross a line of truth to elicit some funds. I found out later that there was a gang supporting their deceit.

Have you ever experienced being robbed?

For the most part, the fellow pilgrims on our path are helpful, friendly, and respectful.

This is our journey, and it shapes us.

What has shaped you?

How do the lines around your ‘I’ look from the pilgrimage so far?

Our road through life is the same. We will have others with us. We will connect the shape of us with the shape of them. Lines around us will intersect. Some will enhance our shape, while others will rob and bring harm. Many will bring both.

I’m in love with the shape of you.There is something about you that has divine imprinting. Like the masterpiece artwork with the artist’s signature in the bottom corner. It’s a picture of your journey, and it has all the heights and all the lows.

The battle scars are seen for the story they tell. Callused feet and well-worn clothes. There is a ‘Mona Lisa’ smile that no one can truly work out. It’s there, and it tells its own story of completion.

I want to hear the story. The footsteps of your journey from Jerusalem to Jericho. I have my own experiences that may help you. You will help me. I’m in love with the shape of you. I’m interested in your ‘I.’

As I finished writing the above sentence, I received an email from someone unknown to me. A fellow traveler to Jericho.

I’m suffering so bad with mental illness, I am a Christian and want to trust God has a plan for me, I just can’t get through this and I want so bad to go be with Christ. I feel so rejected and alone, and see no hope for my future.

Something has robbed this traveler. I can see through their eyes and know the dark hole. They have a shape to themselves that God is in love with.

Quotes to consider* Love is the outbound movement that trains people to heal injustice and kindly embrace the world. Norman Wirzba * Loneliness is the first thing which God’s eye named not good. John Milton * As pilgrims must discover if they are to complete their quest, we are led to truth by our weaknesses as well as our strengths. Parker Palmer * Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart. Abraham Joshua Heschel * To be more aware of the other person, first become more aware of yourself. Without self-awareness, self cannot be laid aside, in order to listen. D. Riddell * Love yourself as you love others. If you don’t care for your own needs, you’ll soon be unable to care for those who need you. D. Riddell * Spiritual growth begins with the easily overlooked disciplines of attentiveness and surrender. David Benner * Love yourself as you love others. If you don’t care for your own needs, you’ll soon be unable to care for those who need you.D. Riddell * Be there for others but never leave yourself behind. Dodinsky

Questions to answer1. What has happened in your pilgrimage to shape you into who you are? 2. How would you describe your ‘I’? Likes, dislikes, hobbies, skills 3. We all have areas in our lives that are ‘no-go’ for others to explore. What would it be like to have someone listen to those with fullness of grace and love?

Barry Pearman

Photo by Mohammad Hoseini Rad on Unsplash

Read this further here FOLLOW ME!Email me: barry@turningthepage.co.nzWebsite: https://turningthepage.co.nz/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/turningthepage1atatimeTwitter: https://twitter.com/barrypearmanInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/barry_pearman/Podcast https://turningthepage.co.nz/podcast-listen-mental-health/Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

We all have lines around us. Mostly invisible. People cross the lines, and we are hurt, but we also cross the lines of others.

The line had been crossed so many times that they were losing their own personal identity. Bullies, thugs, robbers, and thieves had crossed over into their personal space so many times that there was nothing left of who they were.

They felt like they were simply someone others used for their pleasure: a punching bag, a toy to play with, a commodity to be used and abandoned.

Lines had been crossed that were never meant to be. They were an object to be used and then discarded. No glory in them, no beauty inside. Impotent of purpose, much like a speck of dust in a corner.

For them, it felt much like this account from an abuse survivor.

I always felt that I was like a sort of Martian-I wasn’t from this planet.

I was never meant for this earth. And I was waiting to die, basically, just waiting for the day … I was waiting to die.

And I couldn’t relate to anybody. I felt so inferior and all the negative things, you know, so unworthy, or not worthwhile-without value.

And nobody would want to know me anyway and things like this.’ Peter Dale, John Allen and Lynda Measor, ‘Counselling adults who were abused as children: Clients’ perceptions of efficacy, client-counselor communication, and dissatisfaction’, British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 26(2): (1998), 146.

It had started as a child, but it was still being played out in the whispers of today.

A line had been crossed.I don’t think there is anything more harmful to the core of a person’s existence than to be used as an object for others’ gratification.

To be treated as something less than fully human.

To be dehumanized is to be deprived of human characteristics or attributes, to be made inanimate, and to be treated as an object.

The other is used to vent one’s anger, to play out one’s fantasies, to rob, steal and destroy.

The other is no longer someone made in the image of God. They are now someone to be used, abused, and left for dead.

The outcome is traumatized people.

We’ve all had lines crossed.Every one of us has had the experience of having a line crossed.

It could be in the extreme, but it could also be in the small and seemingly insignificant. Little cuts add up. We play down and minimize some wounds because we don’t want to examine the core terror of being hurt.

We also cross other people’s lines. We say things, do things, and behave in ways that are abusive to others. Often we don’t even realize that we might be crossing someone’s line.

Recently, someone said something to me that cut me to the core.

They didn’t realize how much they had peeled off an old scab and that I was being re-traumatized. They went on with their daily business, but I’m still thinking about it daily.

We are indeed broken people living in a broken world where broken choices are made. But we hold on to the hope of God making all things new.

I’ve met many broken people, but in everyone, I have seen something unique, beautiful, and powerful. Someone wanting to be known, loved, and held.

There are no ordinary people.I don’t think we understand simply how glorious we genuinely are.

We are so curved in on ourselves that we don’t have a good view of how much we are image-bearers of God.

I genuinely love sitting with people and asking God to reveal how this human bear’s something of Genesis delight. I look for sparks of firework creation. I notice the smile, the humor, the sparkle of some garden long ago. I want to smell the wafts of Eden’s creativity, touching my senses.

Where you focus is where you will go.

It’s in every one of us.

Read what C.S. Lewis writes.

It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbor.

The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. …

It is in light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.

There are no ordinary people.

You have never talked to a mere mortal.

Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat.

But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit. … Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Holiest object?What would change in you if you were to see your neighbor as a holy object? Someone of God’s divine creative expression.

And then looking into the mirror and seeing yourself as a holy object. Someone who has infinite God beauty and presence radiating out of your being.

Impossible, you may well say. Nothing of God’s delight is to be seen here, yet there is. Under all of what we think we are, there is something bursting with life.

It’s all contained within some lines.

Invisible lines. Some people have strong lines like concrete walls that shout, ‘Stay away. You’re never going to see the real me.’

Others have tissue thin lines that seem not to be there at all, and people ignore them. Abusers walk through as if there is nothing there at all.

Lines are needed, and they are always built from the inside out.

Quotes to consider* There are no little people in God’s sight, so there are no little places. To be wholly committed to God in the place where God wants him [or her]—this is the creature glorified … This is the way of the Christian: he [or she] should choose the lesser place until God extrudes him [or her] into a position of more responsibility and authority. Francis Schaeffer No Little People * Internalized or toxic shame lethally disgraces us to the point where we have no limits or boundaries. John Bradshaw * Can my world ever be rebuilt? Do I have any value? Can I be useful again? Is there life after failure? My answer is yes. That is what grace is all about. A marvelous, forgiving, healing grace says that all things can be new. Gordon MacDonald * Tell Moses, Zechariah and Elizabeth, and St. Paul that the broken-world experience is an addendum, an add-on, to life. Tell them that pressure, failure, and embarrassment are not part of the course of human development and maturation. They simply won’t agree. They will say that sorrow, pain, and stress are the “graduate school” of godly character and capacity if people are willing to enroll. The problem, they may suggest, is that this school has too many no-shows and dropouts. Gordon MacDonald * In pain, failure, and brokenness, God does His finest work in the lives of people. Gordon MacDonald * If the church has a future it is a future with the poor in whatever form.—Henri Nouwen. * Brokenness is a condition, one that is always there, inside, beneath the surface, carefully hidden for as long as we can keep a facade in place. We live in brokenness. We just don’t always see it, either in ourselves or in others. Larry Crabb * A central task of community is to create a place that is safe enough for the walls to be torn down, safe enough for each of us to own and reveal our brokenness. Larry Crabb

Questions to answer1. Where have lines been crossed in your life? 2. Where have you crossed others’ lines? 3. How did you respond to the idea that your neighbor and even yourself as being a ‘Holy object’?

Barry Pearman

Photo by Devin Avery on Unsplash

View Details

You may feel alone, but you have a purpose, and that is to co-create with God, so lets L.O.F.O.

Recently a friend asked me to pray for them. It caught me by surprise, but as I listened to the struggle they were facing, I felt it was a privilege to listen to the coalface experience they were inviting me into. I held them and prayed. Later they said it made all the difference. I co-created with them.

What a privilege we have to be able to co-create.

We use the word co-create sparingly, but it means working with someone to create something. So there is an invitation to a partnership.

I received an email the other day with the question. ‘Why won’t God let me die’? My immediate thought about their pain was that ‘God needed them for something.’

Why would God need us?

The God of infinite power that can speak a universe surely doesn’t need us, but God does need us, and there is an invitation to co-create.

We co-create with God.I look at the garden and see a rose I planted years ago. It’s flowering now with generous white blooms.

I prune, feed, and water it, yet I do not control this beauty. I have limited power over its glory.

It will most likely be there in fifty years, blessing someone else. I am co-creating with God for future generations’ enjoyment. I am simply a steward of the now for the hope of the future.

The early church leaders Paul and Apollos co-creator with God.

Paul co-creates words in a letter to his friends in the city of Corinth.

What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.

So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.

The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each.

For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building. 1 Corinthians 3:5-9

Paul could see him and Apollo working together as God’s servants to co-create God’s field, God’s building. Paul’s desire to dieI don’t think Paul was suicidal, but I do believe Paul desired to be somewhere else, and that somewhere else was to be with Christ.

If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which I prefer.

I am hard pressed between the two: my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better, but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you.

Since I am convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in faith, so that I may share abundantly in your boasting in Christ Jesus when I come to you again. Philippians 1:22-26

I believe Paul carried a heavy load of shame and guilt for how he treated the early church. It was his ‘thorn in the flesh,’ but God had not finished with him yet and desired to co-create with him. Read – Paul’s Thorn in the Flesh and its Meaning for You.

It was ‘fruitful labor’ that held him firm. Those times when he was able to co-create with God and others and see something good grow from a seed into a flourishing rose bush, filling God’s world with beauty.

We co-create when we L.O.F.O. and act on them.

We L.O.F.O.L.O.F.O. is an acronym for Look Out For Opportunities.

It’s straightforward. We look for opportunities to co-create with God. Little things.

Picking up a piece of rubbish and putting it in a bin.
patting someone on the back and saying well done
Changing someone’s flat tyre.
Sowing some seed
Buying a friend a cup of coffee
Sharing a photograph you have taken of a little bird to the world via social media.
Adding a dollar into the churches collection plate
Sweeping the floor
Mowing your neighbour’s lawn
Sharing your thoughts through a blog post

This list could go on forever, but its little things done with love help co-create this world. It’s the antidote to suicidal thinking.

It’s the thinking that this world was created out of and for – self-giving love.

Quotes to consider* Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love. Mother Teresa * Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours.Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world.Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world.Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body.Christ has no body now on earth but yours. Teresa of Ávila * Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up. Anne Lamott * Nothing digs ditches like shovel fulls of dirt. Rick Hanson * Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart. Joshua Heschel * Faith is not the opposite of doubt. Faith is the opposite of certitude. Where you don’t need to be certain to be happy. If you can’t go there, you’ll never be happy because you’ll never get logical certitude. If you’re waiting for 100% certitude, you’re never going to be happy. Richard Rohr. * To accept some degree of meaninglessness is our final and full act of faith that God is still good and still in control. Richard Rohr

Questions to consider1. How does it feel to be a co-creator with God? 2. How can you incorporate L.O.F.O. into your daily life? 3. What does ‘fruitful living’ look like for you?

Further readingBarry Pearman

Read this further hereFOLLOW ME!Email me: barry@turningthepage.co.nzWebsite: https://turningthepage.co.nz/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/turningthepage1atatimeTwitter: https://twitter.com/barrypearmanInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/barry_pearman/Podcast https://turningthepage.co.nz/podcast-listen-mental-health/Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

Photo by Jake Thacker on Unsplash

View Details

Writing blog posts over many years teaches you many things, but what are the key learnings? Knowing these can help you create words that connect.

This blog post recognizes the momentous occasion of publishing 500 posts. Some posts are from guest writers, but most are from my authorship.

Five hundred posts are a lot of words, and when you create something of worth for an extended period, you begin to hone the craft. You pick up skills and techniques that work for you.

So I am going to share nine key learnings since I started writing in July 2012.

Do you want to create something meaningful? These pointers will help.

What I have learned from publishing 500 blog posts1. Everything starts with listening.Before you write a single word, you will need to listen. Listen to the multiple streams of thoughts that come flowing around your brain. It might be something you read or a podcast you have heard. A verse of scripture, a poem, or a song. It comes down to listening and discerning the one idea for you to focus on. Listening takes time, unhurried time, and permission to give yourself for that seed to germinate. 2. Your vibe attracts your tribeThere are people out there who will connect to your writing style, thoughts, and wisdom. You simply need to connect with them. Your vibe, what you find helpful and interesting, will attract your tribe, those who truly get you and want more. So share what you are reading and finding helpful—little quotes and thoughts. When you do this, others like you will gather around your campfire of wisdom and form a community. Please, be yourself; everyone else is taken. 3. Be consistent, and show up.Every week at the same time, share your creation even if you think it’s not that great. People, and search engine algorithms, will get to know when to expect your latest piece. Showing up creates habits in your brain and patterns in your lifestyle. ‘This is what I do, this is who I am, and this is when I do it.’ You will start to see everything as a potential idea for writing. You will move from being someone who writes to being a writer. 4. Do it anywayYou will have your detractors. You will have people close to you that are ambivalent about your calling. You may have people who might thoroughly criticize and seek to destroy your work. Write and build anyway.At times, I have had to hold onto this beautiful writing from Mother Teresa.‘In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.’ Mother TeresaThe full quote is in the quotes section. 5. Write from your coalfaceI have a little phrase that keeps singing to me. No one knows coal like a coal miner.I want to hear words from people digging away at their dark coal face. I don’t want theories, philosophies, or any unlived truths.So I write from my heart first, then the head, and then dance between the two. I want to connect with the dark coalface of other people’s lives and shed some light. To connect, I have to share something of my coalface. I am a beggar myself, searching for bread and sharing a few crumbs. 6. Write and then editIt’s so easy to write and edit as you go. Try and resist this. Getting all the words out on the page first is best, then go back later and edit. When I want to get the words out with no distractions, such as spelling checkers, I use a free app called Write Monkey. It’s a simple, distraction-free tool that’s like writing on an old-fashioned typewriter. Make as many mistakes and errors as you like. Then, you will find yourself free to pour out the words without distraction. 7. Keep the focus on One ideaWhen hammering a nail into a piece of wood, you have one nail and one hammer. The point of what you are writing is that one nail. What is that nail? What is the one point? If you have multiple points, you will confuse the reader. If you confuse, you lose. Noise is the enemy. Too many ideas will dilute the one that truly needs the focus. 8. Have an overarching theme. My focus in my writing is Mental Health and Christian Spiritual Formation. If I were to sprinkle in articles on car mechanics, recipes, or shoe repair, it would confuse you. Everything I write and share has a connection to my overarching theme. Perhaps this post doesn’t, but it’s my party, and I have the microphone! 9. Become a quote collectorThere are so many wonderful authors who have been there and done that. As I read them, I come across wonderful little jewels of sentences. I have to collect them. I can’t help myself. So I highlight them if they are on my kindle or underline them in a paper book. Then I go back later and organize them into categories in Google docs. So when I write a new blog post or a book, I can easily find and share them as I have done below. I can also share on Social Media, and this vibe attracts my tribe.

Nine learnings from 500 blog posts. There are many more I could share, so I am writing a book about writing. I hope these nine gleanings have helped you.

If you have questions or would like to talk more about your writing, please feel free to contact me.

Quotes to consider* Christianity is one beggar telling another beggar where he found bread. D.T. Niles * People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.Mother Teresa * People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it. George Bernard Shaw * I have learned one thing. As Woody [Allen] says, ‘Showing up is 80 percent of life.’ Sometimes it’s easier to hide home in bed. I’ve done both. Marshall Brickman * Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner. Lao Tzu * Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it. Madeleine L’Engle * We write to heighten our own awareness of life. We write to lure and enchant and console others. We write to serenade our lovers. We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection. We write, like Proust, to render all of it eternal, and to persuade ourselves that it is eternal. We write to be able to transcend our life, to reach beyond it. We write to teach ourselves to speak with others, to record the journey into the labyrinth. We write to expand our world when we feel strangled, or constricted, or lonely…When I don’t write, I feel my world shrinking. I feel I am in prison. I feel I lose my fire and my color. It should be a necessity, as the sea needs to heave, and I call it breathing.” Anaïs Nin * Thoughts disentangle themselves when they pass through the lips and fingertips. * I always try to preach from my scars and not my wounds. So, talking about depression is not in any way a wound for me. Nadia Bolz-Weber * Our great problem is trafficking in unlived truth. We try to communicate what we’ve never experienced in our own life. Dwight L. Moody

Further readingBarry Pearman

View Details

Life can go on and on from day to day, but when we stop to notice little moments of delight, something profound can begin to grow—hope, joy, and thankfulness. Bible stories come alive.

For me, there is nothing quite like sinking my teeth into a perfectly ripe Black Doris plum and tasting the fullness of flavor as its juices flow across the taste buds.

As I write this post, it’s mid-January in New Zealand, and it’s summer. The Black Doris plum tree has come to its time of harvest, and I gorge myself on its delight daily. I have pruned this tree, given it fertilizer, and watched it flower.

I have longed for this harvest time whenever I have walked under its canopy. It’s the moment of tasting and seeing that Lord is good. God has provided a tree full of delight for me and others to enjoy.

This is a time of delight.

It is the little things that I need to train my brain to focus on.

The sip of coffee first thing in the morning.

The attention my grandchild gives to the story I am reading her.

The way a mother bird feeds a demanding chick hopping around behind her.

Where do you find delight?

It’s too easy to find dismay. Far too easy to find rotten fruit, bitter moments, anguish, hardship, and despair.

The brain is trained to have a magnetic pull to the dark.

Delight yourselfThe songwriter of the Psalms sings these words.

Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4

What does the word ‘delight’ mean in the Bible?

In Hebrew, the word delight is ‘anog’ and has the meaning of to be soft, delicate, and dainty. To be pliable and tender.

Something good for the brain happens when we stop and notice that which is soft, delicate, and dainty. There is an element to delight that is fleeting. You will miss it, and it will cut you unless you stop to take it in.

As I write this, my thoughts wander to the story in the Bible of Jesus feeding the five thousand.

Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns.

When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.’

Jesus said to them, ‘They need not go away; you give them something to eat.’ They replied, ‘We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.’ And he said, ‘Bring them here to me.’

Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.

And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children. Matthew 14:13-21

All those loaves and fishes being multiplied and given out.

Questions float through my thinking about the delight of this moment in the Bible.

I wonder what the fish tasted like?
What sort of fish were they?
Was the bread soft or chewy?
Was there anything unique about the flavors?
Did anyone slowly roll around a piece of the fish and morsel of bread in their mouth? Delighting their brain in the flavors?

Delighting in something takes a conscious noticing and slowing down.

Now my mind is wandering to the delight of connecting a few words together that might help you, the reader, find new ways of living. The gift I am giving is vulnerable. You could easily skip over the words and not take them. I will write anyway because I find delight in them.

I take delight when someone emails me and shares their life with me.

How do we grow delight?1. Open yourself to notice. You probably don’t realize how many moments of delight are happening around you. Open yourself to noticing. 2. Be intentional in your quest. Have an intentionality in yourself to look for the delight. Make it an exercise every day to notice little delights. 3. Take delight. When you find something to delight in, go for it. Immerse yourself into that taste, smell, beauty, and feeling. 4. Soak in itSoak yourself thoroughly in the delight. Be with that delight for 30 seconds or more. Give the brain the message that this is something that is deeply meaningful. Take a deep inhalation of that rose’s delicate scent. Taste all the flavors of that piece of fruit deeply. 5. Give thanksBe thankful to God for those gifts of delight brought to your attention. God delights in us finding delight. 6. Ask questions.Why is that object of delight so meaningful to you? What’s the invitation God is offering you in this delight? 7. RepeatContinue to practice this enjoyment of delight every day. Notice the little things, take them, and give thanks. 8. Journal the delightWrite about the delights you have found in your day or week. Writing helps to strengthen this discovery.

Perhaps as you discover the world of delight around you, you will also find the way God gives you the desires of your heart.

Quotes to consider* The key to growing any psychological resource, including compassion, is to have repeated experiences of it that get turned into lasting changes in neural structure or function. Rick Hanson * The brain is like Velcro for negative experiences, but Teflon for positive ones. [This] shades “implicit memory” – your underlying expectations, beliefs, action strategies, and mood – in an increasingly negative direction. Rick Hanson * Most of the things we need to be fully alive never come in busyness. They grow in rest. Mark Buchanan * In the inner stillness where meditation leads, the Spirit secretly anoints the soul and heals our deepest wounds. John of the Cross

Questions to answer1. What stories in the Bible offer us a moment where people would have experienced delight? 2. Where do you find moments of delight? 3. How can you cultivate moments during everyday to rest your mind in delight?

View Details

Ever found yourself in a dark place? A simple state of sadness can throw you in such a place. At least l experience that often.

I used to be depressed, severely depressed, the kind of state that makes it hard for facial muscles to react to other people’s joyful interaction. Know the feeling?

Another indicator I find that confirms my sadness is when I walk through the yard after dark with the lights out: the dark strikes you even darker as it merges with the sadness inside, despite a wonderfully star-lit sky.

I often feel peace looking up at the stars. The sight of them makes me feel as if I’m in the company of close friends and closer to where I belong.

In my understanding, sadness happens as a reaction in our social living. A tone of voice can often be the simple trigger for sadness in the sensitive heart. Or maybe a broken relationship, or the absence of a loved one, can easily be the causes for sadness that will throw you in a dark place.

I’ve learnt not to ignore my sadness but it wasn’t always like this. Over time I learnt to acknowledge my inner state and act on it with some self-care actions. Washing my hair often helps. Or trimming my nails. These are very simple daily actions that can have an impact on how I feel. Do you have your own self-care actions sorted out for the darker days?

I often think of the time I find myself in the dark as a time of fasting. Not that I actually fast the sadness away but my state of sadness is equivalent to fasting.

In a way it makes sense as sadness prevents you from engaging in day to day joyful fuzziness. It’s a kind of emotional fasting.

View Details

Sometimes you can feel like you are a problem to be fixed, but you're not that. You may have problems, but not a problem.

You're not a problem to be fixed. Neither are you a personality to be probed. You're not a diagnosis, a number, or a category.

You may feel like you are being analyzed so that you fit in a box, but No, you're not a tick in a box.

You are human.

They may have a file on you that is lifetime long, yet you're not that file.

You are not a disorder, an addiction, an anxiety or a depression.

You're not a mood or a melancholy.

You're not a problem to be fixed.But it felt like I was another problem to be fixed and they had the solutions. 'Just do this and that, and life will get back on track.'

'Next patient, please.'

Have you ever felt that? That feeling that you are simply another problem to be solved. That you are interrupting somebodies journey, and they want to fix you as soon as possible so they can get on with life.

It's called dehumanisation.

That's a very big fancy word that means to deprive a person of human qualities. You are no longer a human. You are more of a problem to be solved, a number, a disorder.

I once wrote an essay titled 'Dehumanization and Sexual Abuse.' Not an easy read, but one that takes the reader to the story that Jesus told of The Dehumaised Man or what many call The Story of the Good Samaritan.

It's the man in the ditch, dying from the abuse of robbers. They saw him for what he had, not for who he was.

View Details

We can easily go from one year to the next, but before you start the year, you need to stop the year. Stop it well.

As I write this, it’s the middle of the most interesting week of the year. It’s the week between Christmas and New Year.

Here in New Zealand, it’s summertime,e and for most people, it means the beginning of the summer holiday period. Most businesses close, and people often head to the beach for a swim. It’s a ‘kicking back’ time of year when all you want to do is to eat the leftovers from Christmas day, find a good book to drift off into, and swim, sleep, and relax.

Stop before you start.In this week, I like to stop before I start. I like to stop the pressure of the normal, where it’s going from one thing to the next before I start the next year.

For me, this week is where I make sure to have time for personal reflection. I pause before I hit the pace again of another year.

It’s a time to note the changes, feel the losses, value the gains, and lean into the learnings.

This stopping before you start could be done any time of the year, but it requires some intentionality to hit the pause button. To slow down the machine of your life and retreat to an internal place of rest.

It’s allowing yourself to discover yourself and letting it catch up to you. You’ve had so many things happen to you that they are like little children tagging on behind, crying out for attention. They want to be seen, known and acknowledged. If you don’t, their wisdom for the next stage may well be lost.

So please stop before you start.

Read this further here FOLLOW ME!Website: https://turningthepage.co.nz/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/turningthepage1atatimeTwitter: https://twitter.com/barrypearmanInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/barry_pearman/Podcast https://turningthepage.co.nz/podcast-listen-mental-health/Support Turning the Page with a Donation https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

Confusion can tear our lives apart, but perhaps a dream can clarify. For Joseph, a dream tipped the balance to trust a Christmas mystery.

Have you ever felt like your brain is caught in a tug of war? You are pulled and torn in different directions. Your values, rules, expectations, and beliefs pull you to behave in a certain way, but you have a pull dragging you to another point.

Contradictions to the normal pull at you to step out of your comfort zone. To walk on water, climb a mountain to make a sacrifice, marry a prostitute and eat the forbidden food laid out before you.

The mind in turmoil needs a voice of security to cut through the tension of conflict.

Do you want to stay safe, or do you want adventure?

I feel for JosephThere is a character in the Christmas story that I think goes under applauded. All the focus is on the baby and mother.

We read the story every year at Christmas, full of wonder and light. We sing joyful carols and celebrate a birth, but there are backstory questions that probably never get fully answered and tied off as neat as a bow on a Christmas gift.

View Details

Fear can be like a shadow creeping up and over you, but what do you fear the most? Understanding what you fear the most can bring assurance.

It was a simple wire bridge on a confidence course. Not very high, the three-wire bridge was a challenge for some and not for others. When I was a pastor to a group of people with serious mental illnesses, we would go away for weekends to a campsite with a confidence course.

People would climb to the top of the 2-meter-high platform. Then they would look down the wires to the other side about 15 meters away.

Taking the first step onto the single wire was hard. Afterward, you would stretch your hands to the wire on the left and the right and then creep across.

The trick was to keep an eye on where you were going and not necessarily where your feet were landing.

Others would be speaking encouragements, and some would hold the wire still for you, but this was the walker facing the fear of what?

Falling?
Failure?
Injury?
Humiliation?

It was the brain saying that this was dangerous. That it was different from normal walking.

It was the brain doing what it was supposed to do. Protect you.

But what if you did this three-wire bridge every day? That it was part of your daily commute?

You would eventually get very confident because the brain had been trained to accept living outside the norm.

When the worst thing you could imagine happens, and you survive and possibly even thrive, a new understanding of security grows in you.

If you fear drowning, then learning to swim helps calms you.

Perhaps it’s cancer, but as you go through the dark valley, you come to new places to experience God’s closeness.

Maybe you have feared a relationship breakdown, but going through it, you learn new trust and experience God meeting you in new ways.

You realize how much fear has controlled your life

You probably don’t know what you fear the most. It’s buried away in subconscious land and will only surface when your lifeboat begins to rock, and water comes in over the side.

SUPPORT TURNING THE PAGE

https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

We want God to answer our prayer our way, but there is a larger story going on, so we wait to see the way God answers prayer.

Most weekends, when my children were young, I made buns for lunch. First, I would make the bread dough in a breadmaker, then take the dough out, cut the dough into the number of buns needed and then stretch out the dough before twisting it into a bun.

Then I would let them rise before putting them into the oven.

Fresh hot buns for lunch. Yum.

The stretching and folding of the dough add strength to the bread. In addition, all those gluten networks are helped to develop.

Within my prayer life, I sometimes wonder if God is stretching and folding me. It is developing me into someone with deeper glutenous faith networks that give me strength and texture.

I keep praying, but my prayers seem to go unanswered because they don’t get answered in the way I want.

Is God listening? I keep praying, but nothing seems to change.

It’s so frustrating. You seriously wonder if God is there, does God care, and does prayer make a difference.

Surely if God loved me, then God would change the situation?

I have concluded that God does answer prayer, but maybe the answer is not what we expect.

Maybe God’s hands are tied, as such, because of the free will God has given humanity to choose whether to follow God or not. There is a stubbornness in all of us that flexes its muscles against God.

View Details

Sighs and groans can come with such ease, but inhaling is also necessary. So we take note of our diet of breath.

‘That was a deep sigh,’ he said to me.

I hadn’t noticed it, but he was right. I had let out a long deep sigh into the safety of our conversation. It was a release of something within me that needed to be exhaled: tiredness and exhaustion.

Bound-up tension had relaxed, and breath had escaped and flowed like water.

Somewhere, deep in my soul, the groan escaped as a sigh. Long and deep.

The body has a way of expressing the soul that we have limited to little control over. Noticing the involuntary communications of another can help us with connection to their deepest places.

Can I sigh and find an inhalation of hope? Is there something that I can take in to help me with the next few moments?

There is exhaustion. Physical tiredness from the work of the day.

But there is soul exhaustion from the long journey of struggling in a broken world. We breathe out and breathe in.

View Details

You wake up and see a new day, but you didn’t want to wake up. So it’s a call to endure and go deep with God.

They want the pain to end. The struggle of the journey has become too much.

That’s the underlying theme of many of the emails I receive from people every week. They have taken the vulnerable step of reaching out to a stranger who wrote about someone like themselves.

They will use various phrases to describe their situation and their prayers.

Some of them relate to wishing to die in their sleep. That they would not wake up. They don’t want to take their own life. Instead, they wish for their departure to seem quite natural.

Have you ever been in this dark and sad place?

It’s the prayer of suffering.

It’s heart knowing only pain.

You sleep, but you wake to light. The new day shines through the window. Light flows around the misery one is in, and you ask why?

This is where we find our friend and fellow human struggler, Job—the one who knows endurance.

Read this further here

FOLLOW ME! Website: https://turningthepage.co.nz/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/turningthepage1atatime Twitter: https://twitter.com/barrypearman Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barry_pearman/

View Details

We pick them up. Little hurts, big hurts. But how do we learn not to keep a record of wrongs that clogs the arteries of our life?

I visited a friend the other day, and they invited me into their home.

As we wandered from room to room, everything was immaculate. Paintings hung perfectly, furniture was set at the right angle, flowers were on the table, and everything was clean and supposedly in their control.

But as we walked down the hallway, a door was shut. It was locked. I tried to open it but to no avail. Finally, my friend said I wouldn’t want to go in there as it didn’t contain anything of interest. But after some gentle words and assurances, they took the key from their pocket and unlocked the door.

I stepped in and saw a single wooden chair in the center of the room. The walls were covered in post-it notes. I walked around the room and read some of the notes. All the hurts and pains of their life were written—list upon list.

Many were written in child-like writing. Some of them had math on them, but that was wrong in the summation.

2 x 3 = 10
4+9 = 49
Mummy is angry; therefore, I am bad
Daddy doesn’t talk to me; therefore, I am not lovable

The walls were full of notes.

All the wrongs had a list. What they had done and the shame shadow of the event.

Some had been written over and over again—the same note but with a bolder pen.

The notes had been categorized into themes and conclusions. Some colored notes meant a different theme, while others meant another.

They had brought these notes to whatever home they lived in.

I looked at the wooden chair and saw that it was well-used. Beside it sat a small table with fresh new post-it notes and a pen ready for new expression and confession.

I asked my friend how long they spend in this room.

It was most of every day. They sat in here and memorized every post-it note. Line upon line, they had observed and recorded, and rehearsed.

Read this further here

View Details

When you’ve hit the brick wall, the question may arise. Why was I even born? But over time, new depth may come through. A new birth may evolve.

I want you to imagine that you have a bungee cord tied around your waist. You are flying through the air, and that bungee chord is loose and free. You are alive, fully alive. It is scary but good. Life couldn’t be much better than this.

Then all of a sudden, the bungee chord tightens. You have reached the limit of its extension, and it pulls you back. But this time, the bungee cord pulls you back completely the same length in the opposite direction. There is no gravity to slow you down. You are heading directly for a brick wall.

You smash into it with the same force you had when flying in all happiness.

You’re broken, destroyed, and you ask the same question millions of people have asked before you even existed.

Why was I even born?

It’s the extremes that hurt the most. From the highs of happiness to the lows of misery.

You sit crumbled below the wall of a dead-end street and wonder what this life is all about.

Why was I even born?

What’s the purpose of all this?

Where’s the logic, the reason, the knowing?

Worst still are the friends and family who supposedly come to your aid and ask further ‘Why’ questions. You don’t know why, fully. You can’t even offer any explanations though they demand you do.

So they draw their own conclusions and begin to shoot the dying body.

Why do we shoot our wounded?

Because we don’t like their story. It makes us uncomfortable, and life is meant to have order, peace, and harmony. Not ditch-dwelling dehumanization like a man beaten up and left to die on the side of the road.

Read this further here

View Details

We can get angry to the point where we want to curse the day we were born, but being held in our anger allows us to go through and not around the pain.

It was about time they got angry.

As the words vomited at me, through me, and around me, I thanked God. Finally, they were letting some of their real self be seen. No more holding back emotions for appearance’s sake. Now it was raw, unfettered, and verbally violent.

It wasn’t just the irritation of the current painful situation. It was the culmination of stuffing down the resentments of a lifetime. It was anger at me, anger at God, and anger at everyone in between.

And I encouraged the outflow. They needed to express themselves and get it out.

Afterward, they would be tired, perhaps ashamed they had been so angry, but they needed to know that it was safe and that even God, full of love, mercy, and grace, can be angry like this yet not lose the mark of love.

Sometimes I am angry like this. I want to throw rocks, punch the wall, and smash things. It’s ok.

Life doesn’t run the way I think it should, so I lose it inside. I rage with a smile on the outside but boiling on the inside. Not good, not healthy when I religiously repress.

What do you do with the pain of being human?

What do you do with emotional pain that entombs you in a dark hole?

Read this further here

Give to Barry https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/

View Details

When you are living in the shadow, you may feel unseen, but that place of the hidden may be the best place to be, so let’s make the most of it.

One of my favorite plants lives in the shadows. It can live in full sunlight but does best and shows off its brilliant flowers when it’s under the darkness of larger plants.

It’s the Clivia, the Queen of the Shadows.

In the spring, when I’m walking past some tall shady trees, I often see the Clivia with its dark green leaves and bold, bright red flowers shouting out to me that it has its place and role in the garden ecosystem. Little bugs will be living in the soil under it, turning over the decay and building soil life for the Clivia and other plant life.

It’s a system, a community, and a home for everyone to enjoy.

Living in a shadow Sometimes I feel like I live in a shadow.

Do you feel like that too?

You feel undervalued, overlooked, discarded, and second-class. Everyone else is getting the attention, and I have little value and purpose. So where is my place in the sun?

My Myers-Briggs personality type is INFJ.

I’m an introvert, which may seem strange to you, seeing as though I have a blog, Youtube channel, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts. So it would appear that I am pretty extroverted, but it’s more about where I get my energy.

I prefer alone time rather than being with others. So give me solitude to refill my cup rather than a busy mall or party.

But I have a message gained through solitude: I simply must get out into the world. The brilliant colors of the Clivia shine out from the dark contrast of the shade that speaks to the world. Alone time can shout life into the darkness of other lives.

View Details

Every Saint Has a Past. Every Sinner Has a Future. So what choices of forgiven acceptance are you making in the moment of the now?

The source of the phrase ‘Every Saint Has a Past Every Sinner Has a Future’ comes from Oscar Wilde’s play A Woman of No Importance.

It is spoken by Lord Illingworth, a self-serving, pleasure-seeking, and dishonorable man. In the context of the play, Illingworth thinks that saints are fools for giving up self-centered lives of pleasure, while sinners still have much more pleasure to come. Source

So let’s be ‘sinners’ and do whatever we like, and to hell with the consequences.

But there is another way of looking at this phrase.

It’s about owning our past and choosing in the moment of the now to define our future.

I have a little coffee coaster on my desk. It’s solid glass, and underneath, you can place a picture.

Through the glass, I see the words …

My past does not define me. It is the decisions and choices I make today

Read this further here

View Details

Like a steady stream, a diet of words can shape us in ways unintended, but what if we had someone feed us good words? Perhaps then the heart would find a new course to flow from.

As she climbed a couple of lectern steps to read the passage, I wondered if she would be able to read the words. She was short in stature but powerful in voice. She seemingly hid behind the eagle lectern.

For this Sunday, it wasn’t a text from the Bible that she spoke but some poetry. (You can read it in the quotes section below)

I listened, watched, and feasted. I opened my heart, and it was fed.

As she spoke, she engaged herself with the words. At times she would lean around and seemingly look directly at me as she said the final words of a sentence.

She finished reading and slowly returned to her seat right behind me.

We have a section in our service where we can greet each other and pass the peace. We turn to our neighbors and wish each other peace. I turned around, clasped this dear lady’s hands, and thanked her for how she said the words.

Words had fed me.

Anyone could have read those words, but she had chosen to serve them with gentleness and purpose. This was not a robotic, A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) rendition of a text. No, this was more an ‘I’m going to feed you some words to nourish your tired heart.’

It’s not only what you say; it’s how you say it. Words can sing together and shake the world.

Read this further here

View Details

Are you out of balance? Perhaps what you need for your mental health are more activities that are tangible and tactile.

In the 1980s, my father and I spent many months building new fences on the farm.

We would clear the old post and wire fence away and make a new fence. First, posts would be driven into the soil, wires run out, stretched tight, and nailed to posts. Then, wooden battens would be fixed to the wires, and we would be done.

But not quite.

Then we would stand by the fence, look at it with wires so tight you could play a tune on it, and admire our work.

Something good here needed to be noted and nourished into our souls. We had created, and it felt good to look at our handiwork.

We improved at the craft every time we built a new fence line.

But the absolute joy came when you would come to that fenceline years later, and it would still be there. Proud and true, you could say with some pride, ‘I built that.’ It was tangible and tactile, not intangible and abstract.

It’s forty-plus years since I built that fence. I don’t know if it’s still there or not. I have moved on, and the salt-borne winds have probably eaten away at the shiny steel to the point it will have needed replacing.

But I often think about that fence because here was an achievement that Father and son accomplished together. I remember pausing for a moment to let it sink into our brains and nourish the good.

Read this further here

View Details

God, I need a miracle, but perhaps I need something more, and that is what God offers me and you. Something of depth and hope.

There are times in life when there is a cry from the heart for a miracle. It’s that diagnosis, the loss of a job, a relationship breakdown, a financial loss. Search your heart, and you will know the times when you have cried out, ‘God, I need a miracle.’

What’s a miracle?

One definition describes a miracle as ‘an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs—eg the healing miracles described in the Gospels.

The word miracle comes from words such as mīror (“to wonder at”), from mīrus (“wonderful”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)meyh₂- (“to smile, to be astonished”).

A miracle should cause you to be astonished, smile and wonder. It should cause you to think about something beyond yourself.

Take note that in these definitions, there is no sense of a time frame. We add the time frame, which is usually in the impatient NOW!

We, like impatient demanding toddlers, want it all, and we want it now.

But we look at the stories of Jesus and see the immediacy of people being healed, bread and fishes being multiplied, people being raised from the dead, etc.

We see the outcome, the cessation of struggle, and we want it now, now, now. Yet in God’s poetic economy of time, ‘a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.’ 2 Peter 3:8

Still, we pray and beg and plead for miracles. We sing, fast, give, and stand on our heads. We are much like those prophets of Baal dancing around the sacrifice, thinking that if they dance more, their God will do the miracle. 1 Kings 18:26-29

Perhaps that version of God has to die or at least be told to leave the building.

Something sad within me gets touched when I sense people are waiting for the miracle to happen. They use language that speaks to some sort of magic God. They are waiting for God’s magic wand to be swept over their problem so that with an ‘Abracadabra,’ the problem disappears.

I want a miracle, but actually, I want to know God more than the relief of earthly struggle, and that is where the tension is. Better life or deeper knowing.

The miracle may not happen according to my terms of reference. The cancer may not go away, the marriage may continue to crumble, and a hard heart refuses to soften to grace.

Read this further here

View Details

So many good things go unnoticed, but when we learn to take in the good and let it nourish, then our whole direction of a life can change.

My neighbors have some small children.

Yesterday, while walking in the garden, one of the little boys ran up to me to say hello. I then led him over to where some grass seed was beginning to come through the soil. We both got down on the ground and looked at the little seedling poking its way into the world. We were taking in the good.

Then we went over to the roses, and there were multiple rose buds about to burst their way into the world. We were taking in the good and letting it nourish. Finally, we saw a rose that had come out displaying its beauty. I picked it, and we smelt it—no perfume, which was a letdown.

I suggested he give it to his mother so she could take in the good and let it nourish.

I went into the orchard and saw a plum tree ablaze with flowers, then a Kereru (New Zealand Native wood pigeon) landed in the tree. So I stopped and took in the good and let it nourish. That was until I found out it was eating the flowers, which meant I wouldn’t have plums in a few months’ time. So today I am putting some net over the trees.

Read this further here

View Details

So many good things go unnoticed, but when we learn to take in the good and let it nourish, then our whole direction of a life can change.

My neighbors have some small children.

I suggested he give it to his mother so she could take in the good and let it nourish.

Read this further here

View Details

It’s a breakdown, a mental health breakdown, and it’s happened again, but there is a way to recover, and it’s something you can achieve.

The end result was exhaustion. They were empty of life and totally drained. So it was no wonder they were depressed and simply wanted to die.

It’s a story I hear all the time.

The body can only take so much. After that, it begins to break down.

Nervous Breakdown You don’t hear this term so much these days, but it was pretty common to be told about someone having a ‘Nervous breakdown.’ For me, it meant someone not being able to cope. To crash into a wall of complete mental exhaustion. Unable to do much at all.

“Nervous breakdown” isn’t a medical diagnosis. But, it’s a type of mental or emotional health crisis. You may feel an overwhelming amount of stress, anxiety, or depression. In turn, you’re not able to function in daily life. Cleveland Clinic

These days we might use the term Burnout to describe what has happened.

But it’s that zone of existence where you have nothing left to go on.

It’s the heap of metal on the side of the road, commonly called a car, but it has broken down. It’s run out of fuel, blown a radiator hose and all the tires are flat.

It has no use to anyone other than being an obstacle to avoid. You’re that old heap of a car pulled over to the side of the road and have come to the end of your ride. You’re depressed to the point of wanting to die.

Read this further here

View Details

It’s a breakdown, a mental health breakdown, and it’s happened again, but there is a way to recover, and it’s something you can achieve.

The end result was exhaustion. They were empty of life and totally drained. So it was no wonder they were depressed and simply wanted to die.

It’s a story I hear all the time.

The body can only take so much. After that, it begins to break down.

These days we might use the term Burnout to describe what has happened.

But it’s that zone of existence where you have nothing left to go on.

It’s the heap of metal on the side of the road, commonly called a car, but it has broken down. It’s run out of fuel, blown a radiator hose and all the tires are flat.

Read this further here

View Details

They were always wrestling with comparisonitis, but that changed when they accepted themselves and became a peacemaker to their parts.

It seemed they were always striving. I was wanting this and wanting that. They couldn’t make peace with the fact they weren’t meant to be superman or wonder woman.

They wanted to be someone else. They wanted something else, and the world’s economy pandered to this lust and obsession.

I think the most dangerous disease in this world is called Comparisionitis. If it doesn’t kill you, it will undoubtedly suck the life out of you.

It’s contagious and affects everyone I know. Yet, we continue to compare ourselves to others.

We look at others and make judgments on a thousand different aspects. You will have made some judgments about me.

I have made peace with myself that I am not someone else and don’t want to be someone else. I want to be fully me.

Is there still work to do? Of course. This Comparisionitis disease is ancient and old.

Are you comfortable with you?