Category: Thought

What’s the rush?

We live in a culture deeply uncomfortable with grief. We rush people through heartbreak. We hand out silver linings while wounds are still open. Even in faith spaces, we sometimes move too quickly toward redemption language because suffering itself makes us uneasy. We want resurrection without sitting at the tomb. We want healing without fully acknowledging what was lost.

The Slow Return of Hope

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On the web – 4

Slow Return of Hope

It’s quite easy in life to bounce from one thing to another without paying much attention to anything. It’s the usual mode of the world we live in. But when we do that, we miss a very great deal. We don’t really get into the deeper aspects, we don’t think things through properly. On the one hand we don’t see the wood for the trees, but on the other hand we don’t have time to even get to know one, single tree in the depth it deserves – the crevices in the bark, the shades of green in the details of the leaves, the patterns of the veins in those same leaves, the gentle sound of the breeze filtering through the canopy. The aroma of moist earth and leaf-mould.

Sandy doesn’t make that mistake, it’s even in the title of her blog – Run with Patience (KJV Heb 12:1). Here’s an extract from a recent article to give you a flavour of her approach, at the end of the extract I’ll place a link so you can read the rest direct on Sandy’s site.

Extract from Sandy’s article – The slow Return of Hope

There are seasons when the soul does not sing easily. Seasons where faith feels less like soaring and more like sitting quietly in the dark, trying to remember what light once felt like.

I think that’s why I keep returning to Book of Lamentations, not because it resolves suffering neatly nor because it offers quick comfort, but because it refuses to lie about pain.

The older I get, the more I realize how rare that is.

We live in a culture deeply uncomfortable with grief. We rush people through heartbreak. We hand out silver linings while wounds are still open. Even in faith spaces, we sometimes move too quickly toward redemption language because suffering itself makes us uneasy. We want resurrection without sitting at the tomb. We want healing without fully acknowledging what was lost.

But Book of Lamentations lingers in the ruins. It lets the smoke rise, the silence ache, and grief breathe.

And strangely, that honesty feels sacred to me.

Because there are losses in life that cannot be reduced to inspirational lessons. Some grief changes the architecture of a person. Some suffering rearranges the nervous system, the body, the assumptions you once held about safety, love, God, or the world itself.

Sometimes you survive something, but you do not emerge untouched.

I think Scripture knows this better than we often allow ourselves to admit.

Read the full article on Run with Patience

Here’s the entire article on Sandy’s site. I suggest you read it to discover the precious truth it contains. Explore the other articles on Sandy’s thoughtful site as well. Perhaps bookmark the blog, or sign up for email notifications whenever new articles appear.

See also:

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You might also like:

John 16:12-15 – The Spirit
Another great post
Run with patience

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A great resource, for free

Read the rest of Jonathan’s article in its original form – System or Ecosystem. And don’t forget to download a copy of the book, read it, and share it with anyone who might benefit.

System or Ecosystem?

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On the web – 3

System or Ecosystem?

An online friend (Jonathan Rovetto) mentioned this book and website to me. He posted about it himself and invited me to re-post his article here on JHM. I’m minded to reproduce part of his article to get you interested, and then point you back to his original to read the rest as a way (hopefully) of increasing his readership as well as mine. I’ve done this before, it might be something I’ll do often. We’ll see.

Extract from Jonathan’s article

The System or The Ecosystem is a new book by author Michael H. Peters. It contains great words of wisdom, seasoned with over forty years of practical experience, presented in concise, easy-to-digest segments. I highly recommend this book. It’s free to download or you can request to receive a free hard copy. You can check it out here along with some excellent resource materials.

AS AN ENGINEER and “Expert in Residence” at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, home of the #1 ranked School of Architecture in the world, I can tell you: architecture and design determine outcome.

You cannot build the 500,000-ton, 2,717-foot Burj Khalifa (the Mission-Impossible-Tom-Cruise-climbing, “world’s tallest building” in Dubai, a Harvard Architect product) on a foundation designed for a three-foot doghouse.

You cannot modify a bicycle into an F-16 no matter how many parts you replace.

You cannot optimize a failing system into success if the system itself is wrong for the task.

Would you try to fix Alaska to grow an orange tree? Perhaps optimizing Alaska weather isn’t the right solution. If Orange Tree Habitat Life is the goal, why not try to grow any Lifeform in the place it grows naturally?

It is the same with “Growing a Christian.” Why not use the Ecosystem God Designed for JesusLife in humans, that they might grow as mightily as they possibly can in the shortest amount of time, to harvest the best fruit? And that CANNOT be the System of Sunday attendance, programs, missions and clergy.

Similarly, learning how to dribble an American football is a really dumb thing to try to optimize. Why not just do it right in the first place? Trying to optimize the wrong system versus allowing the Ecosystem to flow.

But that is Precisely what Christianity has tried for centuries:

Optimizing a thing Jesus never designed. Jesus designed a“walk along with Me daily real-life apprenticeship,” and the apostles then of course did the
 same with those they encountered and shared life with: the priesthood of
 ALL believers.

Just to demonstrate further why “The Master Teacher” chose to bring an Ecosystem of Life from Heaven, a daily hand-to-hand apprenticeship
 (the Greek word for “disciple” is well-translated apprentice), rather than
 a classroom or “study” or speech, is convincingly portrayed in the book
 On Combat, by Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman.

Colonel Grossman tells of the necessity of “high fidelity” training, true
 life training rather than classroom or theoretical incomplete practice.
 Everything is different when life is authentic, rather than theatrical
 or an academic exercise or information dump.

Here’s how it went. A police officer in training practiced disarming an intruder or criminal who was pointing a gun at him. Literally, hundreds and
 hundreds of times he had friends and family members surprise him with
 a replica dummy gun pointed at him. The policeman understudy would
 practice responding instantly, by snatching the gun out of the hand of the
 bad guy. Again and again. He became very, very proficient at snatching the
 gun in a smooth, lightning-fast move. He would then hand the “gun” back,
 and they would soon sneak up on him again-training, training, training.

Then, finally and predictably, came the moment of truth. As the rookie 
police officer was in a convenience store bodega with a partner, he stepped
 around an aisle and a criminal pointed a gun, close range, at the officer.
 They were both shocked at how fast he disarmed the thief.
 Good on you!

And both the officer and the criminal were also equally
 shocked when the officer, having magically stripped the 
gun right out of the gangster’s hand, proceeded to hand
 the gun back to the criminal. Just as he had practiced 1,000 
times with his friends and family members. True story…

Read the rest of Jonathan’s article in its original form – System or Ecosystem. And don’t forget to download a copy of the book, read it, and share it with anyone who might benefit.

See also:

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You might also like:

Another great post

Useful? Interesting?

If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!

Mentioned in News

It’s a great place to stay up-to-date on all sorts of important topics. Furthermore, you need a university degree as the bare minimum if you want to write articles for the website. This results in a high standard of writing.

The Conversation

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On the web – 2

The Conversation

I’ve started reading The Conversation, not every item but whenever I spot something that catches my attention. This happened back on 8th April when I added a news item based on a post from ‘The Conversation’. This time I’d like to write about the website itself, not just an item that I read and liked.

The web as intended

I mentioned this in the news item. Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World-Wide-Web, made his original intentions very clear in his recent book, ‘This is for Everyone’. The web, especially recently, has significantly tampered with and damaged what he had hoped to create. If you read the book you’ll see what he means and how he intends to fix things and is already working to do so.

The Conversation is a website that already conforms rather well to Berners-Lees’s intentions. For one thing it’s completely free to use, like Wikipedia, the Internet Archive, and my own site which you’re reading now. Everything here is free to read, use, copy, and re-use. Check my copyright page for more details.

‘The Conversation’ presents world news and updates and articles on research and development; so it’s a great place to stay up-to-date on all sorts of important topics. Furthermore, you need a university degree as the bare minimum if you want to write articles for the website. This results in a high standard of writing and articles you should be able to trust. There are different versions for different nations and regions, every Conversation page has a drop down list near the top where you can select the version you want to view.

That’s all I wanted to say about ‘The Conversation’. If you subscribe for notifications and read whatever grabs your attention, you’ll stand a good chance of being better informed than ever before and enjoying the process as well. Happy reading!

See also:

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You might also like:

https://jhm.scilla.org.uk/2026/04/01/current-roundup
Another great post

Useful? Interesting?

If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!

This is very good

Aforgetfulsoul

Just a short message this time, I read the latest from ‘Aforgetfulsoul’ and she expresses very clearly what it really means to follow Jesus. So if you want some good, wholesome, thought-provoking wisdom, look no further. Here’s a brief extract…

I am excited to think that my life as a believer is not a matter of rigid scheduling of ‘religious’ activities, but is a pattern woven by my Father according to his purposes, where he asks for my yielding, my desire to be attuned to his promptings, my availability to be ‘interrupted’ and to recognise in the smallest event some sign that God is at work and asking me to share it.

But do read the whole article. This is exactly the way I feel about my own life, it’s one of the reasons I often add a tiny, ‘throw-away’ remark in my articles whatever the major topic, drawing attention to spiritual aspects of the everyday things I notice or am involved in. If he’s worth following (and he is) Jesus will be in every little part of my life. Often partly hidden – but there.

We often make things far too complicated. Too structured. Too organised.

Dark sky, bright light

The cloud was really, really dark; no doubt it was raining hard not far away. And the honey-coloured Cotswold stone of the Parish Church glowed in the afternoon sunshine.

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Image 115 – What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every day or so.

Enlarge

When there are heavy rain showers with dark clouds and gaps of blue sky, it sometimes happens that a sunlit object has a backdrop of dark cloud. This photo shows a particularly powerful example of this phenomenon.

You may be surprised to learn that the colours have not been enhanced in any way. I’ve cropped the image and modified the perspective to improve it, but I have not tweaked the colours or the contrast. This is just as the camera recorded it.

The cloud was really, really dark; no doubt it was raining hard not far away. And the honey-coloured Cotswold stone of the Parish Church glowed in the afternoon sunshine.

Contrasts

Of course, contrasts of other kinds can be very striking too; here are a few to contemplate:

  • The mean cold of winter – The warmth of a summer day
  • Living things – Inanimate objects
  • Church as we make it – Church as Jesus intends it
  • Springtime when animals reproduce – Autumn when animals hibernate
  • Russia deliberately targets civilians – Ukraine does not target civilians
  • Youth – Old age
  • Small village, people interact – Large city, people segregate

If you think of some more contrasts, drop them in a comment for all of us to consider. Thanks!

When: 23rd November 2023
Where: The Market Place, Cirencester

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Cirencester

For convenience, here’s a list of all the Cirencester area images:

A417 roadworks, Advent Market, Bishops Walk, Baunton, Canal 1, 2, Castle Street, Christmas lights 1, 2, Church 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, Churn flood, Countryside, Fallen tree, Fleece, Gasworks, Gloucester Street, Hare 1, 2, Hospital, Market Place 1, Phoenix Fest, Riverside Walk, Stone plaque, Stratton Meadow, Tank traps, View, Wonky 1, 2, Yellow Iris

Themed image collections

The links below will take you to the first post in each collection

Cirencester, Favourites, Irish holiday 2024, Roman villa

Useful? Interesting?

If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!