Take me to church

I was a regular attendee at my local Church of England for ten years between 2008 and 2018. I found it quite helpful, but the church wasn't well attended and the vicar seemed to resent getting up early for so few people. I fought a little to keep the service going, but now I enjoy my lie-ins on a Sunday morning. I kind of miss church and maybe, when I have more energy, I may become a regular church goer again.

Virtue Haiku

I started my virtue project in 2007. First I was using wise quotes from wise people like Mother Theresa and the Dalai Lama. Then I started to write my own Virtuous Haiku inspired by these wise quotes and wise people.

The four cards at the bottom were also inspired by a book of typography. Diligence is a great virtue, but Humility, Patience and Kindness are often what I need to get me through life, as well as a lot of love, peace and forgivenss.

Humility

I started my virtue project in 2007. Since then I have created artwork, writing and crafts, all reflecting the qualities of the various virtues. Humility is sometimes described as the greatest virtue, from which all other virtues flow. Whether it is the greatest or not is debatable, but I still think it is highly important. I use purple to portray humility, as it is the contrary virtue to the vice of pride and pride is often illustrated with a purple peacock.

Spiritual Therapy

I was a regular church of England church goer from 2008 until 2018. I thought there was something therapeutic and helpful about the church, aside from all the God and Jesus stuff. I liked the hymns, especially Christmas Carols. Churches have an inspiring and mystical feel about them, but they can also feel cold and unfriendly. I discovered Buddhism in March 2018, which marked the end of my church going life. Since discovering Buddhism I have found what I was hoping to find in the Christian church. I couldn't get the hang of prayers but the breath awareness, body scan and loving kindness meditations I do with my daughter have been very therapeutic and healing. There seems to be more Christians than Buddhists in my area, so socially the Christians are winning, although the Christians I know have not been good friends to me and my family. I think seeking spiritual connection is important, it can help you feel less lonely, even if it doesn't bring you more friends.

Faith, Hope and Charity

Faith, Hope and Charity are the three theological virtues. I find they are very useful in helping me to be a better person and helping me to live a better life. To me Christianity has not been about what is going to happen to me after I die, but how to be a better person and live a better life now. I think that trying to live life more virtuously helps me everyday. The most important everyday virtues to me are, possibly, kindness, humility, diligence, love, hope, generosity and temperance.

May Fair

I hadn't set foot in a church since before Christmas. I miss churches, so it was really lovely setting up my craft stall in the URC Northwood Hills for their Christian Aid Coffee Morning. I was on my own this time and that was really nice too. It was a slow, quiet morning, but seeing as I mostly like slow, quiet times, I liked that aspect aswell. I was very pleased with my craft stall set up. I have a calmer mind now since doing mindfulness for over a year, so I think that helped. The cards and owl lavender scenters proved quite popular. The experience was so enjoyable I am looking forward to the chance to maybe coming here again, perhaps nearer Christmas.

  

   

   

Exploring Bhuddist-Christianity

After completing my '5B450' projects last year, leading up to my 50th birthday, I have found myself on some kind of spiritual-psychological-philosophical quest. One of the journeys this has taken me on is a progressive shifting away from Christianity towards Buddhism, which is surpirsing and refreshing. These are the three books that have been accompanyinging me on my journey.

When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron

I was going through a very difficult time when I read this book. I found it very wise. Pema has written other books too, which I have enjoyed reading, 'The places that scare you', 'The wisdom of no escape' and 'Start where you are', but I enjoyed this book the most. In 'When Things Fall Apart' Pema first talks about her spiritual inspiration from doing nothing for twelve months. The book is about giving up struggles against fear and anger and a lot of other negative emotions as well. It explores the Buddhist ideas about letting go of everything. A lot of what I have been reading echoes what I was exploring through writing about aspects of surrender in my poetry group SubVerse. I think a lot of things are related but none of them hold the complete answer. Possibly because there are no complete answers. I think that's possibly a very Buddhist conclusion. It also explains why the best thing is to just live in the moment, hopefully the present moment is OK. I have only just started exploring Buddhism, at the moment I am getting a good deal out of it. I hope I will pursue this spiritual practice further, possibly with the help of the Vietnamese Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh.

The Book of Joy by Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu

The Book of Joy is a big book about the week when the Dalai Lama met his friend Archbishop Desmond Tutu, to celebrate a big birthday. The book starts with a reflection on human fragility and moves on to exploring negative feelings that mask joy; these are fear, anger, sadness, despair, loneliness, envy, suffering, mortality. The book then goes on to discuss the eight pillars of joy which are perspective, humility, humour, acceptance, forgiveness, gratitude, compassion, generosity. The three most practical things I got from this book were the Breathing Practice, Tonglen Practice and Acceptance Meditation. The book is written in a simplistic, friendly way. The Buddhist books I have been reading by Thich Nhat Hanh and Pema Chodron have been a lot more in-depth.

Becoming like Jesus by C.J.H. Wright

I've been a church-going Christian for over ten years. My favourite bit of the bible is St Paul and in particular his verses on the fruits of the spirit; 'The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, against such things there is no law,' Galatians 5: 22-23. There is a lot of love in this book and to me that is what jesus was all about; love. It was about replacing the old testament law enforcement with this one statement 'the entire law is fulfilled in keeping one command: love your neighbour as yourself,' Galatians 5: 14. I've always tried to an open minded, free thinking person, a liberal Christian, I find myself now leaning more towards, Buddhism, due to life difficulties and embracing both Stoicism and ACT. That said I still have room for Jesus in my life and this book helps to explain why. There is a lot to think about and at the moment I am looking for positive practical stuff to keep me going. Positive practical Christian stuff you can do is go to church, pray and bring more of the fruits of the spirit into you own life and sphere of influence.

Framed Prints

 

I haven't sold any framed prints from my craft stall, however I have sold one when I have participated in the St. Mary's summer exhibition. This is a selection of the art Amy and I have displayed in the church over the years.

     

The 13th Craft Stall

I held my thirteenth craft stall on the 16th June 2018. My daughter came to help out which was very gracious of her.

The morning was in aid of the London Church's Refugee Fund, it was slow and quiet, but a couple of people bought brooch cards and someone bought a knitted purse.

     

It was quite sad as I found out that the URC in Eastcote was going to close soon, to be replaced by a Hindu temple.

In the last couple of years I have become more interested in philosophy, mindfulness and Buddhism, rather than church and crafts, so I'm not sure what the future holds for my craft stall. However to have got a craft stall together and put it on public display on thirteen different occasions since 2013 has been a bit of an achievement for me.

        

Summer Crafts for St Mary's

 
 I've not had so much to do with the church, or my crafts, this year, but I still wanted to donate some of my lingering makes for the 2018 St Mary's Summer Fete.

    

On her 50th birthday my friend set me a craft challenge, to turn these three items into a selection of knitted purses and pouches. I'll see how I get on; watch this space, but don't hold your breath.

Sunday School Ideas

From September 2010 to June 2011 I was a Sunday School teacher at my local church. I was helped a lot by the website Sermons4Kids and built ten main lessons from it, which I have listed below.

1. What to wear. This lesson revolved around a dress up doll and the words compassion, kindness, humility, forgiveness, patience, gentleness 'and above all love'. These words have since formed the basis of my virtuous flower brooch.

2. Don't bury your talent. In this lesson we did a lot of origami.

3. All you need is love. In this lesson we discussed the things in life we love and drew hearts.

4. Don't be afraid. In this lesson we concentrated on things we were afraid of and drew lots of candles to cheer ourselves up.

5. The tater family. This lesson was about the fruits of the spirit: joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. We spent our time drawing a big tree, cutting out paper fruit with spirit words on them and sticking them onto our tree.

6. Look on the inside. In this lesson we discussed what makes someone look great on the outside and also what qualities make someone great on the inside.

7. Things that go together. In this lesson we discussed things that go together in the material world like fish and chips and also things that go together spiritually like faith and good deeds.

8. A topsy-turvy world. This lesson was more ambitious as we tried to write upside down poems, 

9. Riddle me this. In the lesson we answered various riddles and tried to make up our own.

10. The greatest gift of all. In this lesson we made origami gift boxes and made special note cards featuring the spiritual gifts of grace and love to put in them.

I was pleased with my ten months of Sunday School teaching, although quite overwhelmed with other stuff in my life at the time, so I was also pleased when I gave it up. Below is a collection of some of the resources I built up in my time as a Sunday School Teacher and the virtue card matching game I created is at the top of this post.

Twelve of the best

After being caught short on the church art exhibition in July I decided to work on getting six paintings by Amy (above) and six paintings by me (below) ready for the next church art exhibition or in preparation for another opportunity to show our art somewhere else in real life. I'm pleased with the results.

St Mary's Summer Fete and Art Exhibition

We managed to get to the church fete this year, unlike last year when we enjoyed an early holiday in Llandudno instead. Due to a preoccupation with getting the house repainted, thoughts about our artwork were a little overlooked. I am going to revamp our collection of prints and paintings in preparation for the next exhibition opportunity.