The last judgement is the day we’re no longer afraid to be alive again, it when we come back to our real state , our divine self, where we feel a communion of love with everything in existence (Don Miguel Ruiz, The Fifth Agreement)
This is a far cry from what I grew up believing.
Though I was spared ‘The Left Behind’ series, UK evangelicalism hadn’t fallen for this work of christian cult fiction (or taken it as the underlying influence for US christian education policy) , I still had given to me, from Sunday school and home, a deep worry of what ‘the last judgement’ could mean.
Hades, Hell and eternal damnation, or absence from the love of God permeated in my prayers, behaviour, diligence and attempts to be good christian boy/man – with the requisite states of shame for failings and repeated eradication of sin.
The Last judgement stood as a place of reckoning – appearing even in the Family game ‘The game of life’ . I imagined a replaying of the TV screens in a production room of all the scenes of my life, the good, the bad and the ugly, and everything else. I was going to be judged, and fearing this judgement, and the possibility of ‘going to hell’ featured heavily in my evangelical upbringing as well as further theological studies. The conversations about the end times rattled around endlessly, when a so called 1000 years might occur and how it related to the fires of Hell and end times. No one could even consider that it was more metaphorical than real. That wasnt the question, the question was which.
The heat of hell was to be feared and avoided.
Hell was real……and ….
there were many sermons that would decry that ‘one of the tricks of the devil, is to say that he doesn’t exist, that hell isnt real’ – stoking the fear of disbelieving hell even more – even in slightly more compassionate theological evangelicalism in the UK, this was still a thing said.
As a good christian boy, I believed it all. Every action was seen through a lens of being judged one day.
So in effect I did a very good job of judging it each time myself.
Did I hurt that person? Did I make a mistake? Could I have done better? That was embarrassing James…
The fear of judgement, created my own personal judgement.
Id push myself to the brink, because being self critical was a skill, and being ‘reflective’ was a thing people consider me known for. Asking questions.
None worse than the judgement I gave myself.
Judgement poured inwards.
All questions, and almost no heart. Restless frustration that world should be a better place – whilst im wallowing in an ache of hurt, pain and internal suffering that im judging myself for. Spewing criticism outwards, as an outpouring of my own conditioning.
Hell was what I was living, it wasn’t just in my own mind, it was the drama of all around.
The last judgement. The decision time.
Without question, part of my awakening process has been to see my faith in different ways, and though rejecting some of it, re appropriating other aspects, and so whilst I probably rejected the notion of ‘end times Hell’ a long while ago, realising that I was living in my own personal hell and taking power to change it, has taken a very long while.
Since the moment in 2023, after an emotional breakdown, and undergoing therapy for the 4th time, I saw myself differently.
I felt as if I had been swimming in shark infested water all my life, and now I was standing on an island in the sunshine that I didnt even know existed, I couldnt even see it. I felt light, joyful, whole.
It was a feeling, a sense, a reality that has, with the exception of a few challenging situations, been a place that I have been able to stay in, to return to – because I know now that it exists.
Some might call it awakening, or realisation of consciousness or the moment when I walked through my own personal shadows and hell, to gently loving let these parts of me go.
The last judgement might just be the last time you make a judgement.
I didnt believe it would continue. There was a part of me that would envisage me falling back into the waters, and theres been moments of my toes and maybe knees getting wet again. But these moments haven’t been met with self criticism, or failure, or disregard (you know that voice that wants to disregard the ‘good’ moments as blips, and suggest that ‘real’ is the struggle)
The last judgement.
Is a place thats possible to create- but its a place the finds you. I didnt go after it, there isnt a magic formula, it arrived when I was ready.
Judgement is a place of safety, security and dependence, it’s also a place of fear and lack of self trust – and this stuff is hard to work through. But when it happens, you know, you just know.
It’s like that inner spaciousness that gets bigger.
It’s not just a crack where the light gets in- thats the start – , more an embodied lightness of being, where being is love and light – and its judgements, of self, of the other, of the past, of the future, of the world – that become the blockages in the light tube.
Maybe they were the true ‘sins’ after all. Not the actions, but the judgements.
But 45 years of self critical programming, I realise had to be reorientated. The language I used for myself, in how I spoke to myself – had changed in the preceding 5 years – but the voices of my inner protective dialogue hadn’t been dug out at their roots – and they were my default programming, I was unconsciously competent at beating myself up, for everything I did or didnt do. That was the voice. I didnt need God to do this for me – though deep down I believed in a God that was about to… I did it to myself.
After the moment when my therapist heard my story of taking myself into the shadows, and telling me that ‘James, you are incredible’ and my response, instead of self denial, or reluctant acceptance, was ‘I think I believe you’
I walked down to the bookstore and wrote the positive words of being incredible, down, and repeated and repeated. I bought a blank journal for 2024 and wrote down only positive messages of myself to myself each day, sometimes it was wrestled determination, but most days, using coloured pens, there were stars and hearts and rainbows and words of grace and love and joy and power for myself – from my imagination or the universe to myself……and a re-writing of my inner dialogue – to retrain or to give more practice – or to give more weight to my inner God, my inner heart, the voice of my soul.
Using language to become acquainted with the beauty of love and life for myself. To create on a daily basis a space of the island within my being. Using words of love and not self judgement for myself. Writing it daily embodied my belief in it. Writing it daily fed the loving voice. And where there is love, there isnt judgement.
I get how positive psychology is both derided and believed in – (this could come across as this). This wasn’t a path I chose, it just found me, as I realised that self belief was something that I could make for myself. But I couldnt allow myself to do so, whilst I was in place of self judgement.
Fear of the beyond, where critical judgement wasn’t the dominant voice wasnt a known place, it was a prison of my normal…so it was easier to obey and stay at its mercy.
Faith in yourself is the real faith. Real faith is to trust in yourself unconditionally , because you know who you really are, and you really are the truth
(The Fifth Agreement)
When you find the place of self truth, it will become apparent that the ways of living previously were prisons that you (and I) had made ourselves more comfortable in than we would like to believe. And one of those was the place of judgement – where someone, something, some system, some part of ourselves – is to blame or causes us to blame ourselves.
Judgements are fractures in our wholeness, beliefs to keep us stuck in places of restraint and comfort, they feel easy – they lie easily and are believed easily – especially when we feel we need to belong in the very systems that permeate them (religion, family etc) as moral codes or stated behaviours….until we realise, or start to notice….that to buy into the judgement is to remain stuck, in someone else’s personal hell or even our own. Judgement creates it.
Notice what happens when you stop making judgements.
Notice what happens, when you stop yourself beating yourself up.
Notice what happens when you feed the voice inside that is gentle warm and kind.
Notice what happens when you completely accept yourself. Your body. Your actions. Your past. Your emotions. Your thoughts,
Notice what happens when you let go of being judgemental
Notice what happens when judgement feels wrong and not normal anymore.
Notice what happens when the lie of judgement is exposed.
The last judgement, might be the last judgement you might make – before life actually begins.
Beyond judgement beckons, as place of deep agreement – where no-thing but love, light, life matters – it just is and it feels like heaven.
Maybe the last judgement is the last tine you make a judgement.
I got to the Coffee shop
After a walk that included
more work chat.
Sitting down.
I
Open the blank lined page
Green tea poured.
Red pen chosen.
Ready.
Tired.
But ready,
The page.
Blank.
Inviting.
Alive with possibility.
Daunting with expectancy.
Weary limbs picking up the pen.
Mind unsure.
Facing the unknowingness of what to write.
This side of the release.
Blank page
Bleak page.
Write,
The place of comfort
as the words flow from you
to you.
As inside your heart breaks open its loose edges
Awakening itself from the slumber of the tired mind.
Pen
Writing
a melody.
A tune echoing in the line of ink flowing onto the page
Uneven, breaking, heart leaking its colour on the page
Giving itself as it appears,
To be immediately read by the eyes,
A message from the heart eyes.
Eyes read,
What the heart bleeds.
Colour lines appear as meaningful imaginations of the soul
Read back into the same mind that consumes it all with acceptance
Rage, Wonder, Hurt, Joy
All taken in in the moment of the hearts disposal in the pen
Soul imagination writing its truth
Soul imagination writing its love
For your mind to keep reading
Head healed by Soul
The Delicate passage of time.
Imagination working at the speed of consumption
Consumption furthering the flow of imaginaion
One stoke
One flow
One ink bleed at a time
Word by word.
Connecting the disconnect within the fracturedness
As mind embraces the speaking heart
Consciousness watching the cyclical orbit around it
Increasing as the mind and soul unite in divine imagining
Heart creating space for the soul to expand
One
Flow
Of
Ink
at
a
time.
Soul words written by flesh hands
Transported back into the mind
Sealing the divine circle
With love within
Eyes read,
What the heart bleeds.
Bleed love
Bleed kindness
Bleed it all through the hand
Restoring fragments buried underground
Subconscious soul connection in the pathway of the pen
Ive just come back from a week holiday away in the gorgeously delightful tiny village of Port Appin, on the west coast of Scotland, almost equidistant between Oban and Fort William.
I wrote lots, and read less, but didnt write anything here (or on my substack – if you’d like to subscribe to me there heres the link https://substack.com/@jamesballantyne1) , mostly wrote out alot in my journal and some ideas. But mainly I walked, along either way of the coastline.
The first thing I noticed when driving into the village was that the road was single track, with passing places every so often. The village was only accessible by two small roads, and on the Monday I walked back along the road (no pavement, as you can see)
Because at the end of the road was the jubilee bridge, across the estuary. A bridge, incidentally that was so narrow it fit one person at a time.
The Passing places on the road fascinated me though.
The bridge added to it as well.
It meant that there was always going to be some kind of interaction between people (or people in cars) to negotiate the passing of each other.
Speed was only rude. Barging past the other as likely to cause accidents.
So it meant that entering the village was only an opportunity to acknowledge the other, a raised hand of ‘thank you for letting me pass’ or ‘thank you for waiting for me’ . Im not sure what happens on the bridge though, as in 4 days I didnt see how this would be negotiated as there were so few people.
It was a gentle reminder to me of the passing places, and letting things pass, holding things lightly.
As Micheal Singer writes in ‘The Untethered Soul’, so much of our internal suffering is due to ‘Clinging’ onto things, holding them too tightly, whether emotions, memories, responses and anxiety, or being so close to something we care about it too much. The Irish describe emotions and something has ‘come upon me’. But decisively it is not me.
In a passing place two things meet, in the places in our lives, it might be many more, two emotions, work, people, feelings, fears, thoughts, dreams and pasts, all meeting with each other, and sometimes the path feels laden heavy, and entering a passing place can feel like leaving it heavier than prior to entering. We picked up more than we left down, more weight, more fear, more responsibility, something else clung to us. To the point of sometimes stopping moving. To weighted down by what someone else gave us in that passing place, guilt, expectation, shame – and yet they left lighter having disposed of their weightiness.
On other occasions the passing takes place with no one else, its those moments when memories pass with emotions, when dreams pass with thoughts, when thoughts and thoughts pass by each other, and sometimes the two parts stick together rather than pass – and clog up the whole road, blockages, or theres tension between the two and peace has shifted.
Prior to being away a number of things were in my passing place, lots of anger, stuff to do with work, and for quite a few weeks , the passing place was more clogged up, heavy, weighted, tension between so many parts that I couldnt see how beautiful the scenery was around, couldn’t be grateful, struggled to be anything like calm or separate from what I was feeling. And though much of that had begun to clear the week before, the image and reminder of the passing place on the holiday, early on was a tiny reassurance and remembering of allowing myself to be, and to let go of the things that were causing harm, for….they are and were not me, just things that hurt.
I can, and you can, leave the passing places, you have more power than you realise. Yet in the passing places so much can demand our attention, combine, circle around each other – and for there not to be gentle movement, noticing of the speed, and grateful acknowledgement of what the moment was there to teach us, and softly, still gently we give ourselves distance from it, until the next passing place around the corner….
Forgive the slightly meandering nature of this piece of writing, I may be writing out loud some of my inner musings over the last few weeks and months as it feels like a long time I’ve written, maybe not for you, but for me it does, and most of that time I’ve been engaged in some deep inner work, thats given insight to some of the below, I’ve also been giving more time to being creative in other ways, including trying to get the book (s) on track. Over the last 24 hours I’ve been pondering something that I thought was worth sharing, and so….here goes…
Do you find sometimes that theres some overused cliches in the ‘healing’ world? resurrection to life, caterpillar to butterfly, autumns letting go of leaves….and that Japanese art thingy (Kintsugi) where they put gold between cracks of the jar or pot to make it more beautiful than previously. There isnt a week that goes past that someone refers to it somewhere, and for your joy, it’s me today.
The problem with cliches, is not them. Its us. It’s me, because I dismiss it too quickly, too soon, and not give its complexity time to dwell. Overuse breeds complacency, popularity causes it to be dismissed.
Yesterday Japanese pot mending (Kintsugi) was brought to my attention at a time when I noticed it, it snuck up on me unannounced….a time when I was ready for it, not to be a meme, but something that yielded something of depth, and has taken me on a little reflective learning journey.
Broken Shell
More beautiful for having been broken.
Yesterday, as part of my work, I was in the role of chaplain for a retreat that I had helped to organise for the worship leaders and preachers for the Methodist church in my district (Darlington , UK), the theme was pilgrimage, and it was led by John, who had travelled the Santiago de Camino around 15 years ago. It was a beautiful day, and the first time I heard personal stories of the route, bringing to life for me some of the stories I had read in Paulo Coelho’s book ‘The Pilgrimage’ that has been influential to me over the last few years.
During the day, we learned about the scallop shell, the emblem of the pilgrammage, a shell that is attached to the bags of those along the way, and has become an emblem of pilgrimage. (we used the same shape for id badges and also gave people a shell stamp as they departed yesterday (heres mine)
John shared how a few months after he had completed the pilgrimage, he was sharing about his experiences on the route in a local church, and was showing them the artefacts, boots, his bag and journal ..and the shell. In a turn of events, he left the shell attached to his bag, but someone dropped a chair onto his bag and as a consequence, the shell broke into two.
He described how the broken shell now reminded him of how following the way of pilgrimage is more often about following the way of brokenness and the shell, that was naturally imperfect now gives him this reminder.
But I went to somewhere else.
I went to the Japanese art gold thread concept.
The last few months ive been a simmering rage pot.
Inner boiling water has been one open lid away from explosions. Ive felt hurt, ive felt pain, ive been digging into the source of it all (yes childhood abuse, being stolen from emotionally, being child therapist/responsible one, feeling alone/suicidal at 9) , and realising much, not all for here.
But rage, heat, fire
And reflecting on the broken shell, i shared some of this with John, as the participants also reflected in their groups.n
I shared how I noticed that if the shell was able to withstand the heat of the golden meld required, that the heat of the material softens and prepares the two parts for integration, but whilst the meld is furnace hot, the two parts can still move, they can still be split apart, they are not integrated. I noticed as I gave this concept time, that it is only when the bonding material cools, that integration occurs.
Heat causes the possibility of integration, rage exposes the rawness of it all.
But heat alone is not enough.
The key materials of kintsugi are: ki urushi (pure urushiol-based lacquer), bengara urushi (iron red urushi), mugi urushi (a mixture of 50% ki urushi and 50% wheat flour), sabi urushi (a mixture of ki urushi with two kinds of clay), and a storage compartment referred to as a furo (“bath” in Japanese) where the mended pottery can rest at 90% humidity for between 2 days to 2 weeks as the urushi hardens.
The cooling down period from that extreme heat is variable.
The cooling down period from that extreme heat requires the right conditions – stillness, gentleness, the ‘right humidity’ (according to wiki)
It’s only after the cooling down period that there is integration.
In the heat, theres still damage, but heat is required.
Taking the shell as the example, im not sure this kind of fracture could be melded using such extreme heat, and like the bones in our body, fusion is delicate, and sometimes best left to nature, until we dont have the capacity to. The broken clay pot though can withstand the heat, requires the heat.
Coolness beyond the rage seems to be a place of integration.
It would require careful manual handling to bring the two parts together, not forced, not so squeezed the meld disappears, not too lose as the materials then don’t bond. Our parts require gentleness, there are no bad parts (IFS).
Perpetual rage, however, is not a place of integration. It’s a place of heat, its loose, its bitter, it keeps the fragmentation, it keeps the possibility for the wound to expose itself again (and wounds are deep, wounds hurt, wounds require rage 100%).
There were times, in the last few months that I couldnt function due to the rage, especially in places that had harmed me. Yet similarly, that rage was fully justified (and as ive shared before, anger itself was suppressed in me, by parents and also church) So….there was a lot.
Every now and then in the last few years, anger and rage has been a visitor to me. As I realise what happened to me, and what I didn’t have, and should have done…and how frustrating it is to have to be ‘brave’ all the time… and not be believed… It’s completely understandable.
I may not like it when rage is a visitor, but a lifetime of avoiding it, was far far worse.
Im getting slowly used to letting rage do its melding work. But it’s hot and uncomfortable.
The cliche of the Japanese pot art as it revealed itself to me yesterday through a broken shell.
I began to see something, and realise that time (2days to 2 weeks) is required, for the heat to cool, and it is only when it does does integration happen. Theres something deep in cliches if we give them time. Theres something held in our wounds if we gently let them speak, and sometimes they need to shout, rage and boil.
Thank you for reading.
I was going to share more, but I’ll save that for the next piece, for as ive reflected on the pots, something else has revealed itself.
Im definitely not going to be the first person to give some thought to the themes in the film ‘The Truman Show’ which was released in 1997 (I think), in fact on of my best friends wrote her Masters thesis on it, linking it to the christian faith.
But I think nearly 30 years later (ouch) I can do a few spoilers.
Truman is born into an artificially created universe for the purposes of being filmed constantly on TV, he is the star of his own TV show, that he doesn’t know, from birth, to school, to friends, to girlfriend, all are actors in the set, and this is his life.
On a number of occasion people invade the set to try and ‘free’ him, and gradually, and accidentally he begins to realise that what he thought was normal, was actually scripted, and regular behaviours by actors on the set, people going to work, the street cleaner always in the same place, the lift actually not being a real lift in the lift shaft next to the one he usually used. His ‘wife’ talking to the camera to advertise a cereal product, in the midst of a conversation. Branding was everywhere because this funded the series, and it was big money.
It was Big brother before big brother came to being, yet big brother was voluntary act, Truman show was about the story of Truman – being the only True Man, and everything around him being fake.
What Truman had to start doing was realising that there were patterns to peoples behaviour.
What Truman had to start doing was realising that whilst no one was completely lying, they were all affected by the desire to control and contain, because, they were being paid to ‘keep the show on the road’ sponsorship, branding and advertisements were driving, and popularity moments (like first kiss and wedding) were big popular national collecting moments, in which sponsorship craved.
What Truman had to start to do was disrupt the patterns.
What Truman then started to have to do was decide when and where he was going to believe and accept the lies happening around him. His Mate on the truck on the bridge, they have a long conversation, ‘I wouldn’t lie to you’ he says. But he is.
Truman starts to realise that inner pull to something closer to the truth.
He only knows the structured world of his existence, a world in which everyone is lying to him, a world which has been cleverly constructed and formed.
But he starts to realise that he has been lied to for all of his life.
And he starts to express the emotions of this
He begins to realise that the world in which he has been contained in – even if its being broadcast to millions, wasnt free and wasnt big enough, for though he had dreams to go to far off lands, every boat he tried to use to get through was subject to ‘fake’ storms and weather incidents…. fake weather he began to notice….
His anger at being lied to began to fuel the energy for him to find freedom, and live a life of truth, beyond the falsity of containment, marketing and to also realise and find the person who once loved him.
For so many of us … actually
I am definitely in a phase of ‘middle age rage’ at the moment, and im sure I am not the only one.
Whether we feel small, and been kept small for too long
Whether we realise that we’ve been lied to, or not believed
Whether we feel like our world has been clipped and shrunk
Whether we’ve been told were not good enough, clever enough, pretty enough, worked hard enough, in the right job etc etc…
Or told to stay within the confines of lies to stay safe, small and loyal.
Whether were not able to be ‘true’ to our purpose, destiny or calling
Whether we’re being or have been abused and contained.
Whether our minds have been conditioned by all of this, happening to us, in childhoods, churches, systems, workplaces, relationships, wherever.
And often, subconsciously we swap one place of lies for another, because its what we got used to.
Im realising now quite how much I experienced suppression.
Realising how I made myself small.
I realised that my mum was lying about me, and to me, and always was, but I had to go along with believing her, whilst I was in the house, until I was 18 and until I was free, so free that I was sick on the train leaving home. Free to not have to navigate suffocating and destructive lies on a daily basis.
With so much disorientation around him, Truman grew up in a place that the blurred lines between what was real and what was fake were difficult to notice. The people themselves were real, physically, but they were being pulled by invisible strings (often also with ear pieces in ) . Invisible strings of a controlling director and a team of producers and TV staff. When I was 18/19 and watching the movie the first time I had so little ability to see how relevant it was for me.
‘The Truth will set you free…… but it will piss you off first’ (source contested)
‘For centuries, even millenia, humans have believed that a conflict exists in the human mind between good and evil. But this isnt true. Good and evil are just the result of the conflict. The real conflict is between truth and lies. (Ruiz, The Fifth Agreement)
The Lies on Trumans wall were keeping him safe.
They were also keeping him contained.
They were told they were for his benefit .
What are the ones you believe in, that you can’t let go of?
But they were for the TV viewers, for the paid actors, for the paid TV staff, for everyone else.
Everyone else benefitted by Trumans containment.
The lies on Trumans wall needed rage, needed awareness, need for him to see them, and see the effects of them on him. How nothing made sense and nothing was real.
Nothing emotionally was real in a world played by fakery, by sheen, and for performance. Truman was the star of a show he didnt want to be in. Yet he played it until he realised it was fake. Yet he played it until he realised it was doing him harm.
For I have come that you might have life, life in all its fullness (John 10:10, The Bible)
And that might mean being a sheep free from a pen that Jesus describes, in which the thief is present, to roam and explore the hillside, knowing that theres a safe shepherd at the gate as a touchpoint back.
Truman didnt know what lay beyond the wall at the edge of the known world to him. He didnt know how even to get out. But something real was burning inside.
He didnt even know there was an out. He just kept going. With the belief that there was one day a person who showed him what love was and that she was waiting.
Maybe it’s beauty that does save us in the end (Dostoevsky) , but it might take a period of rage at the unreality to get there. The Lies on Trumans wall, at the edges of his universe held him in, until he realised there was something else, something deeper at the source of his soul that urged him to look, urged him to find it.
Freedom was beyond the lies on Trumans wall. Freedom is to live a life free from lies, from the lies we believed and and the lies we inherited. Freedom from the lies we tell ourselves.
And Truman after all that rage. Just walked through. Once he found the door.
The Universe conspires to help the dreamer (Paulo Coelho)
As I walked home from town the other day, I noticed the sad sight of this butterfly on the pavement in front of me.
Nearly dead.
Prematurely dead on concrete that wasn’t its destiny.
I walked past at first, my heart somehow ached for it.
And then I went back, slowly, no one was around and so….gently, lifted it up, its wings so so delicate in my open palm, and still reflexing, or having its last few beats. I so so gently placed it over a wall and into a garden, so that at least it could spend its last few hours on soil and not pavement. Slightly closer to where it was meant to be.
A colourful butterfly dying a premature death, probably hit by a car and then concrete.
A soul less death after spending so long in its life to be, finally who it was meant to be, the end of the cycle. (possibly unless it laid eggs)
It at least had a slightly softer death rather than a sudden one.
And I said goodbye to it, and walked on, for at least in that moment, it had been cared for.
And I heard a voice saying to me, as I walked away from it.
You did not go through being small.
You did not go through being silenced.
You did not go through scraping around on the floor.
You did not go through being afraid.
You did not go through eating fifty times your body weight.
And then…
You did not then die a thousand deaths
or
sink into a darkness
or surrender to change
nor melt into a secret sacred home
nor hide away nor stay
to then emerge
and fly…..briefly….only
to live a curtailed life.
You did not change to live a soul less concrete life
You did not die, only to die again and again
The cocoon doesn’t have a return door.
You can’t go back.
The universe is waiting for your flight,
The universe is waiting for your colour,
The universe is waiting to look up and watch and wait for you to dance upon the wind, and be interrupted by your joyful wonder.
You were chosen for this life,
You were chosen for this life to be life,
You were chosen to be light and in the light,
You were chosen for colour and to be colour,
You were chosen from the beginnings of silence,
From before colour and before time.
To radiate eternity, poured out from hearts sacred colours.
James Ballantyne 