Mental Re-alignment

Glancing through the paper… tonight’s television… ‘The Secret Life Of Our Pete’. My imagination set off… our son Pete… What’s he been getting up to?

I looked back… The title read ‘The Secret Life Of Our Pets’. My blurry-early-morning eyes had misread it. …Mental re-alignment… I continued:

‘It is more than 20 years since the Post Office began prosecutions of 844 subpostmasters wrongly accused of theft, fraud or embezzling their takings. Only now is a full government inquiry beginning into the greatest miscarriage of justice in English legal history… the Post Office was to ruin the lives of the men and women who for years had faithfully served it up and down the country.’

Criminals deserving punishment? No! Good people, serving their communities, victims of gross injustice. …Mental Realignment.

Chatting yesterday… My friend Neil had a massage. He’d been looking forward to relaxing… gentle hands soothing his body…

Instead he received a pounding and pummelling…  including rarely visited anatomical areas. Neil’s mental realignment… What’s ‘massage’…? But he did feel better!

My Christian faith says I believe in an unchanging God, the unmovable Rock… ‘Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, forever’… ‘We have this hope as an anchor for the soul steadfast and secure.’ Beware against mental re-alignment!

And yet… trying to understand my faith better… new challenges confronting me… seeing things in a fresh light… Musing on St Paul’s: ‘Don’t be conformed to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.’ Mental re-alignment… a continuing process.

We focus on our deficiencies – the car, holiday, clothes that I ‘need’… covid-world has pointed to our deficient social lives… we examine our character or personality deficiencies… health and fitness experts point out our physical deficiencies… We’re restless, dissatisfied…

The Christian, counter-cultural, view deliberately chooses to focus on our riches… materially, physically, socially, spiritually… I have more than enough! This ‘abundance mentality’ reminds me that I’m blessed… My gratitude and generosity increases…

True mental re-alignment!