Turning the Page turningthepage

 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?
 
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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.
 
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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 corridorsx empty sunlit roomsx upstairs indoor silencesx attics explored in solitudex distant noises of gurgling cisterns and pipesx 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 of
If 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 of
I 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 Niet

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 forget
I 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 clean
One 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 sakeand 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 pas

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 Sign up for my weekly email full of help for your Mental Health, Faith and Spiritual Formation. 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/