Practising Redemptive Love

Mother and babies of fluff on Tiverton Canal. Irresistible to my camera - these are only a few of the photos I took on Saturday.

And this baby moorhen squeaking for its mother - lighter and fluffier than a kitten.

Today.

It's 23 degrees in the car driving back from the solicitor's office this evening at 5.30pm. I wanted to deliver the bundle of documents and complicated forms that I've been working on for the last few days, collecting all the evidence of the building and  improvement work we had done on the house over the last 15 years....and get them all off the dining room table so I can think about what to have for supper instead of our  house history.

Then I cut a swathe through the daisies in the lawn which have grown Tinkerbell tall. I need to calm down after an awkward conversation on the phone....leaving me upset and jangled and conflicted.

I'm practising a Matt Kahn forgiveness process which goes like this.

1.You are triggered by something someone says or does.

2. Identify the emotion  in your body.

3.Name it - anger, defensiveness, jealousy, sadness, fear of abandonment.

4.Go back to the first time you felt it or who you associate with  those feelings.

5.Release the person who triggered you in the first place - nothing to do with them,

and give those feelings back to the original person.

6.Give them back with blessings for their journey ahead.

7.And you are forgiven for all of it.

He calls it self responsibility. Healing our own wounds without blaming or shaming....the other person or ourselves.

I'm still practising ...sitting with the feeling from my phone conversation... my fear of getting it wrong, that I've done something wrong ...giving it back to my school teachers.....and blessing them.

It's still there but I'm feeling my way into a resolution.

I suppose you could also call it practising redemptive love. Thank you Bishop Michael Curry.