Courage To Speak

 

This is in my kitchen - ignore it - couldn't think of a suitable photo.

God wants us to grow up, to know the whole truth and tell it in love—like Christ in everything

Ephesians 4

I think I have always sort of avoided speaking the truth in love. Mainly because, in my limited experience growing up as a Christian, it seemed to be a big excuse for some people to be quite horrible to you and then tag on the end "I'm saying this in love" I am also a bit of a coward who is bad at confrontation so that's another reason I avoid it. However, I got myself in a bit of a pickle this week by not pulling someone up on something they should have been doing (or not doing in this case). This had been going on for a quite a while and I had kept quiet about it (partly because it was a troublesome time for the person in question) and then I kind of lost it a bit resulting in me being pulled up for over-reacting. After I had got over my massive sense of the injustice of it all, I thought a bit about speaking truth in love. Not all of this is positive and scattered with Christian Fairy Dust. 

• To speak the truth takes courage. Sometimes we try and avoid doing it because it will often cause confrontation. It will need you to gird your loins or loin your girds (I can never remember which)
• To speak in love does not mean you can say what you want and then tag "I am speaking in love" at the end as if it justifies all the bile you have just dished out. You say what is true as you see it - always thinking of the other person and the effect this is having.
• It is not a bully's charter.
• It is not permission for someone to bully you.
• Sometimes it is essential even though it is unpleasant. It is like spraying spiritual Febreeze into a situation (or opening a window if you live in our house - air freshener makes me cough) It prevents build up of quiet, muttering misunderstandings. It stops silent bad feeling breeding quietly in a dark corner.
• As Ephesians says - you have to be grown up to know the whole truth. Always be awake to the possibility that your perception of the truth may not be the whole story. This is where the telling it in love comes in. Makes it more balanced and puts the tellee first. 
• Sometimes it is a very pleasant thing, it is you telling someone something good about themselves motivated by love for them rather than you getting on their good side.

Am feeling bit better about this now - just putting it into practice is the killer. Another weird Christian cliche - "I love you in the Lord" - what's that about? No  - I'm leaving it.

This Girl Can

This is really good. Don't you think this is really good? I think this is is really good.

Shop

To church on Friday to help with a clothes swap thing. The idea being to raise money to send a team to Nepal so that they can dig a well or buy text books or some other good and life affirming thing that makes me lie on my face in bed and question what I am doing with my life. All went very well I think. Plenty of money raised. Everything was a pound or you could pay more. I ended up paying more for two bags I'm not sure that I like very much. (Although the red one is not as scary as the lighting makes out and the Cath Kidtson still had its label on and is therefore "a bargain") I am now aware that retail is another thing that I cannot do as the following shows.

I am very bad at making small talk with potential customers. I really have no idea if that suits you or not. Look at me - do I show any signs of having any idea of what looks good on a person? 

I have no patience. If I think it unlikely that we have that top in a size 20 - I am unlikely to come with you to have a look. I feel that life is too short.

The clothes are there for people to look at. It is not acceptable for me to want to cry because someone has just shaken that jumper out for the umpteenth time after I have carefully folded it - again.

It is ABSOLUTELY not acceptable to snigger behind the clothes rail with someone because a generous person has brought a basque in. My trouble is I have lived too sheltered a life. I expect someone, somewhere looks really good in it. Hopefully the weather warms up a  bit for you.

Retail is quite tiring I have found. 

Believing

I took part in this on Monday. I don't know if you have heard of it. I haven't found many people that have; although I am not helping with that because I keep calling it "Beyond Belief".  It is a series of discussions after watching a DVD which is supposed to break down barriers to faith. The DVD is full of talking heads, most of whom are what I suppose you would term Christian Intellectuals (whatever one of those is) Then you all have a chat with the people in your group - some of whom are not Christians about what you have just seen. It's sort of like Alpha but without the pasta bake at the beginning. I'm not sure yet if I prefer it to Alpha. It certainly covers meaty topics - suffering, religious violence, is the Bible true? Also the coffee is better than Alpha but I liked Alpha as well so we shall see. 
It always surprises me how open people are who come to these things. I suppose you would have to be fairly interested in faith to turn out on a freezing cold Monday night in January but people seem to ask interested and interesting questions, and seemed to be quite untroubled by the fact that I didn't really feel that I could answer any of them satisfactorily. I did enjoy it though, which surprises me because, as you have probably worked out, I am scared of most people so I wouldn't expect me to enjoy this. Anyway. Wolf Hall awaits.

Wolf

BBC

There are lots of times when being culturally a Brit makes me go a bit humm - The Sun's Page 3 scam (showing a breathtaking contempt for women), Mrs Brown's Boys (He seems really nice, I have tried really hard - it doesn't make me laugh. Don't hate me ) and most of the content on Channel 5. Then something comes along and it makes me want to stand up and sing God Save The Queen. (Which I don't mind - I think it's a tune and I am very keen on our Queenie. Prefer Jerusalem if I am pushed though) This is a long drawn out way of saying that Wolf Hall is mercifully very good. 
I LOVED the books. I was a little bit "really - are you sure?" about a screen adaptation and the TV programme is certainly different from the book - it jumps around the timelines like crazy. I am not sure you get the depths of Cromwell quite the same way here but maybe a book is better for that. I read a post by an author saying more or less how sick she was of the Tudors - Tudor This, Henry VIII that and of course she is completely right. Trouble is, this is just a super-duper watch. It rattles along. 
All the women are too pretty. Anne Boleyn, who I understood got by on her French sophistication is just lovely and the so-called mousy Jane Seymour can stop traffic with her looks but there you are. Henry VIII is  - well you can see how he is but I read this week that he was quite hot as a young man so all well there then. Just loved the clever little two minutes with the Mark Smeaton character who is nothing now but will be so significant later. It is also my first time seeing Mark Rylance. I only know him as an actor who plays long weird roles that seem to make other actors sob that they are not worthy but you see him here and you get an idea what all the fuss is about. Course, later on there will be a lot of shouting and sawing of necks etc but I will deal with that as it comes.