Turning the Page turningthepage

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/

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 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/

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/

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 Tasting
We 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 loved
All 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 t