Turning the Page

Our brains can keep reminding us. ‘My Sin is Ever Before Me’ writes the poet, but what if we had a purifier?   Read more here  [https://turningthepage.co.nz/my-sin-is-ever-before-me/]

I’ve got too much going on in my life, but I want to keep my life simple, so I discard the complex.   He’s a fictional character and I like the freedom he has. His name is Jack reacher and is the creation of Lee Child. Jack Reacher [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Reacher] has the life of a nomad. He wanders from town to town and solves problems, generally with a lot of violence. That part is not what I’m keen on, but there is something unique about his life. It’s extremely simple. He travels mostly by hitchhiking, and all he carries is an ATM Card and a toothbrush. That’s all. If he needs new clothes, he buys them. He doesn’t carry a bag or even a cell phone. He is free from all the possessions that we would normally call essential. His possessions don’t own him. Sounds good doesn’t it? Maybe, but he doesn’t have a spouse, girlfriend, kids or relational commitments. It’s a simple life, which has an appeal, but it’s a life of a loner. Does this appeal to something in you?  Is there something within you that would love to walk away from the complexity of stuff? I’ve shifted house three times in the last three years and I have got rid of a lot of things. Trailer loads. It’s freeing. It’s liberating to cut your life down to the minimum. I don’t think I will ever get to the ‘Jack Reacher’ phase, although I wouldn’t mind trying it for a few weeks to see what it would be like.   https://turningthepage.co.nz/keep-my-life-simple/ [https://turningthepage.co.nz/keep-my-life-simple/]   https://turningthepage.co.nz/writing-that-connects/ [https://turningthepage.co.nz/writing-that-connects/]   https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/ [https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/]

Being caught in a trap was felt by the poet who wrote ‘The Snares of Death Encompassed Me’, but they had a way out.    I was recently watching one of those ‘survival’ reality T.V. shows where people are thrown into the wilderness and they have to survive. The show was called ‘Alone’ [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alone_Australia] and was in Tasmania, Australia. To survive, they had to catch their own food and build their own shelter, etc. One contestant decided to try to catch a Pademelon  [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/pademelon?variant=zh-cn]which is like a tiny kangaroo. So he made a snare trap  [https://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Snare-Trap]https://turningthepage.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/snare.png A snare trap is basically a rope noose that, when an animal passes through, it triggers the rope to tighten quickly around the animal and it is caught and can’t escape. The hunter can then come and kill the animal. But imagine the sense of being trapped by a rope. A rope that has grabbed you and you can’t get free. The more you struggle, the tighter it gets. It might even be a net, and you are knotted into the mesh of the net. Your heart is thumping. You’ve lost control and freedom. Enter a poet who has been in that place.   read more here [https://turningthepage.co.nz/the-snares-of-death/] Give a donation here  [https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/]

I need wisdom ointment, but so much ointment contains flies. Wisdom that comes from above, wisdom that is pure and holy.   I was visiting a friend the other day, and she noticed I had some eczema on my hand. It had been there a few days and was slightly irritated and red. She offered to rub some ointment into the skin. I gladly accepted. Touch is a wonderful thing, especially when it regards a skin disease. She gently worked in the ointment and I could feel the pain ease away. I almost teared up because someone had noticed, cared and offered ointment and love. I checked out the tube of ointment she had taken a small dab of ointment from. Looking over the ingredients, I noticed that there were no dead flies in the mix. There were no ‘flies in the ointment’ as such. It’s a funny litt   le saying, but I think it comes from the wisdom writings of Ecclesiastes. Dead flies make the perfumer’s ointment give off a foul odour; so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honour. Ecclesiastes 10:1 [https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes%2010%3A1&version=NRSVA] The eczema is no longer there, but maybe the touch and the offering of wisdom to pain remains. So I wrote a poem!   Read more here [https://turningthepage.co.nz/wisdom-that-comes-from-above/]

We all have painful experiences in life, but redeemed pain is more impressive than removed pain. What good can be found within in our pain?   Sometimes I am given a gift voucher. It has no value tangibly in itself. It is but a piece of plastic the size of a credit card. The value lies within what has been loaded onto it. Some kind person has placed a dollar value into its electronic magnetic memory (don’t ask me how this works).https://turningthepage.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/christian-wiediger-90NNkvqBdtE-unsplash.jpg Then, if I remember that I have this card and the money on it, I can go to a store and ‘redeem’ the value of what has been placed on this card. I can exchange the card and receive back something good.  We don’t use the word ‘redeem’ very much but it comes from the two words re- ‘back’ + emere ‘buy’. Redeem means to ‘buy back’.  I present the card and the shop owner buys it back to the value placed on the card. I would like to suggest you have a card in our purse or wallet and on it contains all the painful experiences you have had. Ouch, for some this card would have a lot of weight to it. A lot of energy, grief, pain, loss, anger, resentment, bitterness, etc is locked up in that card. That card is heavy and you carry it around with you everywhere you go. It eats away at us. It changes us. The thinking patterns in our brain are trained by this burden. What can be done with the energy of this pain?   Read more here [https://turningthepage.co.nz/redeemed-pain-is-more-impressive-than-removed-pain/] Give to Turning the Page  [https://turningthepage.co.nz/give/]