Rebuilding Well-being Begins With The Individual

Isaiah 55:6

 

⁶ Seek the Lord while he may be found,
    call upon him while he is near;

Taking responsibility for our life and for the lives of those committed to our care is a responsibility that is being eroded in our culture causing a dependency on external agencies that can, and often do let us down when we most need them. The people I come across express a dissatisfaction with the level of wages in relation to the cost of living as well as with the ‘social wage’ of health, housing, education and welfare provision. People feel they have provided the wealth they have created via increasing taxes but are experiencing a diminishing return. People feel poorer. 

Family and community care are the primary scenes of the care and nurturance that ensures our individual and family well-being. 

The creation of healthy, nurturing and enriching environments in the family, in schools and in the wider community depends on each member of the community looking after their own health and well-being as best they can. This ‘self-care’ is a form of wealth creation. It creates a  ‘surplus’ of well-being that can be shared with others. This establishes and promotes an ‘economy of well-being’. It provides resources for all its members. Self-care is not a selfish radical individualism that disregards those with fewer well-being resources. An economy of well-being is based on individual self-care in order to be able to care for people with whom we are intimately linked, namely our family and functionally linked with, namely the wider community. 

The starting point is the individual, family and community forming interdependent not dependent relationships. It’s based on the principle of maximising and maintaining individual freedoms while minimising interference with that freedom from external authority or the State.  The State becomes a ‘facilitator ‘of family and community resources, not the director or indeed the dictator over individuals, families and their communities. 

The Judeo-Christian principle of the Love of G-d and love of neighbour underlines these principles with the care for others built on the foundation of care for the self, family and wider community. We can make a start on the rebuilding of the self-care / care of neighbour pathway by having a review of our Faith and Feelings, Family and Finances, Friends and Food and Fitness for the Future balance in our lives. 

Some folks need to begin by reducing stress and anxiety and getting into the position where they have enough energy to make a start. Some need to escape the endless distractions of life so they can concentrate long enough to make some progress. Others of us need to cultivate some positive feelings for ourselves and others and develop the skill of simply sitting long enough to experience the space to recover the person we were created to be and rebuild our families  and community.

A few years ago a small group of disciples asked me to explore such a process of creating the energy, concentration, positive regard and space to begin to recognise the persons G-d created us to be. I have been asked to provide some of the materials used by that group. The materials work through the skills that group found helpful in beginning the ‘self-care’ pathway that leads to healthy families and community.  They are drawn from the tradition of Christian meditation and contemplation. I have personally found them helpful.  I hope you find them useful.

Maranatha

Thanks to:

John Main, OSB: WCCM (https://wccm.org/)

Fr Thomas Keating (https://www.contemplativeoutreach.org/centering-prayer-method/)

Richard Rhor (https://cac.org/)

Kenneth D Boa: Conformed to His Image: Zondervan

The Open Space Meditation Group 

Lent 2025: Living in a Precarious World

In our home, here, in the UK (and indeed throughout the West), we feel we are living in an increasingly precarious world. The issues and dilemmas that face us feel uniquely complex to our generation. We feel as if we are entering uncharted territory. Old friends feel more distant, less involved than they have been in the past. Feelings of increasing vulnerability are making us doubt the wisdom of long-standing decisions and commitments of our forebears. Our world feels occupied. Those people and practices that we have traditionally turned to for security seem to us much less confident that they can help in our dilemma. 

 

On Ash Wednesday the imposition of ashes is a Judeo-Christian practice (see Job 42:6; Jonah 3:6; Daniel 9:3; Esther 4:1; Matthew 11:21) symbolising a profound acknowledgment and questioning of the way things are and our role in them. This questioning leads us to a change of mind and heart characterised by humility, sorrow, prayer, fasting and almsgiving as a sign of our turning back to God’s way of being in the world.  These practices embody the Lenten season. Lent leads us through Holy Week, Good Friday and the commemoration of the crucifixion and death of Jesus and then on to the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead on Easter Sunday. 

 

The pathway of Lent is a pathway of taking responsibility of our part in a life of meeting our needs our own way. It is a pathway that recognises that we have in our ‘self-centred’ way turned our back on the most important aspects of life. It is a path that allows us to recognise the price that is paid for meeting our own needs our own way regardless of others. It culminates, not in guilt, but a turning towards renewed life, the power of resurrection and a new community of cooperation, peace and the rule of God. Those who through the self-sacrifice of destructive ego, recommit to the care of others find what it truly means to be human.  

 

Joel 2 (NRSV)

 

¹² Yet even now, says the Lord,
    return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
¹³     rend your hearts and not your clothing.
Return to the Lord, your God,
    for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,
    and relents from punishing.

 

 

The opening of Joel the prophet is unusual insofar that it's difficult to date his work and place it in a specific time. I think this is the point. Joel is writing to all of us across time. He could mention this leader or that leader or mention some demonstration of power or some event from his time and place, like other prophets do, but he does not. Why? Because Joel’s message is for all time and for all of us. Joel knows that political and religious leaders come and go but the values of the G-d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, remain forever. Joel’s message is of the importance of taking responsibility for our values, attitudes and beliefs that define and direct our behaviour both individually and collectively; Now! It’s not too late!

 

So, will we take the path, the ‘Narrow Path’ that leads to life? Will we return to the values, attitudes and beliefs that lead to Jesus the source of life? These Judeo- Christian values are alive and we can find them in the person and work of Messiah Jesus the focus of our meditations during lent. 

 

In humility, will you take the imposition of ashes on your forehead and tell your world that you acknowledge your part in the way things are and that things need to change? Will you tell the story of your sorrow and that you commit yourself to change, prayer and meditation for yourself, others and indeed the whole world? Will you accept these ashes to tell your world that you have begun a fast, a giving up of a costly practice or resource as a symbol of the seriousness of how you view your current situation? Will you accept these ashes as a commitment to live under the authority of the cross of the Messiah Jesus our Higher Power for the benefit of others. Will you accept these ashes as a symbol of your commitment that will be demonstrated by conscious acts of kindness and generosity through Lent.  Finally, will you commit to putting into practice in your everyday life what you learn throughout this time after the Lenten period has passed?

 

Will you remember today and everyday, from now on, that you are ashes and to ashes you will return? 

Grace and Peace to you

Thanks to: 

The Bible Project

NRSV Bible 

Grace Community Church Open Space Ministries