Supporting grief better

I was so pleased that on Saturday I had chance to get to a pop up grief shop in town. I bought some postcards that I will be able to send when needed, and was asked why I had gone in (not in an unhelpful way, the point of the people there was to assist conversations about grief). I explained I was keen to support them (they're touring with this concept) as I feel we don't support grieving well in our culture. I don't feel we encourage or even allow people to grieve deep enough or long enough.
https://www.blogpreston.co.uk/2018/09/shop-to-help-people-talk-about-grief-opens-in-preston/

Then today I saw a great short video on how we're often so keen to have people feel better we just don't stay with people in their pain when what is really needed is simply acknowledgement of it. I often struggle with this even tho I do know this is the thing to do. Even today I hurried my friend on to a more positive place rather than gave enough space for them to stay with the difficulty.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l2zLCCRT-nE

So we're all still learning and practising. I'm sharing this link here cos it looks great and next time I need to share it I can find it right here.

https://www.refugeingrief.com/

Rainbow weekend

I'm delighted that something positive has blossomed from the ill advised and poorly named 'festival of hope' happening at my nearby town. To have as it's main attraction a speaker well known for his denigration of Muslims and gay couples, in a place that works hard to ensure all are welcome, makes no sense to me. Happily tho, a whole host of lovely people showed up to proclaim that not all Christians, and not everyone in Blackpool, think it's ok. It was great to be embraced by big Jesus, and to look for decorated pebbles placed earlier in the day by young people declaring #Lancashire4Love

I'm back tonight for a prayer service as part of the rainbow weekend. There's a fantastic article about it here: https://honesttogodweb.wordpress.com/2018/09/19/the-truth-about-the-rainbow-weekend/
If you don't have time for the whole thing, this paragraph sums it up for me:

"...to welcome people that Graham’s brand of Christianity would exclude. Week after week our churches welcome people in God’s name. Week after week we take God’s love into our communities. We include people – often people that some other churches have excluded. We affirm people – again, often when other churches do not affirm them. We respect our Muslim brothers and sisters and engage with them, rather than dismiss them as “evil and very wicked”. For us the Rainbow Weekend is about being ourselves – “doing” church as we always do, to send out a signal that Graham’s brand of intolerant Christianity is not the only one out there."

Great thinking whoever organised for the tower to be lit up with a rainbow :-)

Journallling

My quietness may last a while. Partly the shift into the new job whilst I still juggle other things means I simply have less time. Partly because I read an ace piece on the power of journalling - but a key factor is to write privately so you can really explore what you need to rather than for an audience. My plan is to keep sharing my reflections when I can, but for now some of that reflecting has gone offline :-)
Meanwhile I can't recommend Brene Brown strongly enough. It's a bit spooky as each time I read it, that section then turns out to be on whatever key word had jumped out at me already that day. I wonder what tomorrow's revelations will consist of?

Wholehearted

I'm enjoying my new job and new colleagues and new thinking far :-)

Interestingly today we were encouraged to think what we were each bringing with us on our journey and for me the word that came up was wholehearted. So how excited am I to start my new book received for my birthday, by Brene Brown, the gifts of imperfection, and discover that it's all about being wholehearted. I love it when I spot a theme :-)

An identified facet of a wholehearted existence tho is a balance of rest and play as well as work. So if my reading for fun overlaps my reading for work I'll have to be extra vigilant about getting enough rest :-)

I hope you too are delighting in whatever your own particular current theme is.