UKSpirituality

Jars of happiness

2013-01-03T04:27:00.000-08:00

I like the idea of these jars of happiness -- you put in a note every time something nice happens and then pull them out at the end of the year.

Happiness Jar Project
Homemade happiness jars (an idea by Elizabeth Gilbert) to be filled with inspiration, joy, tiny bits of paper with things that make you happy.

New Year's resolutions and the like seem too much like yet another way to set oneself up for "failing" and then beat oneself up for it, whereas this seems like a way to boost self-esteem gently.

"Do without doing and everything gets done" (Lao Tsu)

Are you a Christian? Gandhi, Jesus and Professor Dawkins

2012-02-27T11:03:00.001-08:00

My sister contacted me the other day to tell me that she and my mum had been arguing over whether or not I was a Christian. She wanted me to settle the argument, to answer whether or not I was. By the way she contacted me by text, so my answer had to be brief. I said “well it depends what you mean”. She replied a little later to say “well we’ve stopped arguing now and have both agreed, that you are an awkward bugger”...well at least they’d stopped arguing about me, I thought.

No doubt the conversation had been kick started by the findings of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. During last year's census it conducted a survey on religious attitudes in Britain. It found that only 54% identified themselves as Christian, compared 72% in 2001. Almost three quarters who described themselves as Christian said they did so because they were born into the faith rather than it being their current belief. Only a third believed that Jesus was physically resurrected and that one in five did not believe in the resurrection, even in a spiritual sense. Almost half did not believe that Jesus was the son of God, while one in twenty five of those who declared themselves as Christian did not believe he existed at all.

The findings have concluded that most people who identify themselves as Christian turn out, when questioned on what they actually think, to be overwhelmingly secular in their attitudes on issues ranging from gay rights to religion in public life. It concludes that these people who identify as Christian are not actually Christian at all. The report triumphantly heralds the end of faith in this country and the victory of secularism.

During a a recent conversation on Radio 4’s “Today Programme”, between Professor Dawkins and Rev Giles Fraser, the former Canon of St Paul’s, Professor Dawkins announced triumphantly that an “astonishing number (of Christians) couldn’t identify the first book in the New Testament. In Professor Dawkins view people who identified as Christians and yet were not fully conversant with the bible and did not follow and subscribe to the teachings and or doctrines of the church were wrong to do so. Rev Fraser questioned these Rev

Fraser: Richard, If I said to you what is the full title of “The Origin of Species”, I’m sure you could tell me that.

Prof Dawkins: Yes I could.

Rev Fraser: Go on then.

Prof Dawkins: On the Origin of Species...uh...with, oh God, On the Origin of Species. There is a sub-title with respect to the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life.

Rev Fraser: You’re the high pope of Darwinism...if you ask people who believed in evolution that question and you came back and said two percent got it right, it would be terribly easy for me to go “they don’t believe it after all.” It’s just not fair to ask people these questions. They self identify as Christians and I think you should respect that.

I heard an awful lot of hysteria from all sides during the debate over the findings of Professor Dawkins foundation. I occasionally heard a little sense. My favourite quote came from Linda Woodhead, a professor of Philosophy and religion at Lancaster University. She said:

"There's nothing new in Richard Dawkins's findings about the British way of being religious. But it's always good to be reminded of the findings of a poll commissioned by his Foundation for Reason and Science: that most of us are not "true believers" in either religion or in secularism and that Britain is neither a religious country nor a secular one, but an interesting mix of both. That doesn't make us muddled, or woolly, or confused – it just makes us British."

“It just makes us British” I love that.

What has always troubled me about the fundamentalists either of religion or secularism is that they believe that they have the right to define what makes a person a believer or not. I find such positions arrogant. Who decides whether a person’s is a believer or not? Who has the right to set the boundaries? Of course no one is immune from this; I know I’ve done it myself. I could be accused of it in a previous blog (naughty me).

Anyhow I'd just about given up on them all when something remarkable happened, during a debate between Professor Dawkins and the Arch Bishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams at Oxford University. The two men politely discussed “the nature of human beings and the question of their ultimate origin”. They also touched upon the meaning of consciousness, the evolution of human language and the Arch Bishop’s beard.

For most of the discussion the Arch Bishop quieltly listened to Professor Dawkins explanations of human evolution and said that he was inspired by the elegance of explanation for the origins of life and agreed with much of it. Professor Dawkins told the Arch Bishop "What I can't understand is why you can't see the extraordinary idea that life started from nothing - that is such a staggering, elegant, beautiful thing, why would you want to clutter it up with something as messy as a God?" Dr Williams replied that he "entirely agreed" with the "beauty" of Professor Dawkins argument but added. "I'm not talking about God as an extra who you shoehorn on to that."

And the something staggering happened, Professor Dawkins acknowledged that he was less than 100% certain of his conviction that there is no creator. At this Sir Anthony Kenny, who chaired the discussion, interjected: "Why don't you call yourself an agnostic?" to which Professor Dawkins answered that he did. To which the flabbergasted Sir Anthony replied: You are described as the worlds most famous atheist." Professor Dawkins went on to say that he was "6.9 out of seven" sure of his beliefs that the probability of a supernatural creator is very low.

Later the Arch Bishop said that he believed that human beings had evolved from non-human ancestors but were nevertheless “in the image of God” and added that the explanation for the creation of the world in the Book of Genesis could not be taken literally. Stating that “The writers of the Bible, inspired as I believe they were, they were nonetheless not inspired to do 21st Century physics,” he said.

Sanity at last after a week of madness. The God of surprises does indeed appear to be alive and well and at work in the most remarkable of places. I do wonder though if some people will now accuse Professor Dawkins of not being a proper Atheist and if others will claim that Dr Williams is not a proper Christian...I wonder what my sister and mum think...

We have now entered into the season of Lent, perhaps the most important period of the Christian calendar. For many Lent is about giving things up, it is about self sacrifice. It is about that central religious message of self giving love.

According to the Biblical accounts at the beginning of his ministry Jesus is “led by the spirit” into the wilderness, a place of transformation and temptation. He is taken to the pinnacle of the temple and to the top of a high mountain. Here he is offered the world, but rejects the allure of an easier showier more obvious path. Instead he chooses the road less travelled, the heroes path.

This is a universal tale; many of the great sages went on similar journeys, before embarking on their missions to heal their people. The Buddha had to leave the comforts of home, abandon his weeping family, shave his head and don the robes of a world renouncing ascetic when he began his journey to discover a cure for the pain of the world. Long before his revelations Muhammad use to retreat to Mount Hira, outside of Mecca, where he fasted, performed spiritual exercises and gave alms to the poor. He did this in an attempt to discover a remedy for the troubles of his time. When Ghandi began his mission he left the comforts of the elite in which he had lived his whole life and travelled India carefully observing the plight of the ordinary people.

During their own times in the wilderness the great sages found their answers. Through taking the road less travelled, the hard road, the difficult road, the answers came to them. They discovered the knowledge they needed to impact positively on their people in their time and place.

This is the spiritual life in its essence. It is often the hardest most difficult path and it can certainly appear to be the loneliest. That said it is the one where the answers are usually found.

Now none of these meanderings answers my sisters initial question I know. I promise I am not being evasive. I’d like to explore one of the more recent great sages Gandhi and his relationship with Christianity and specifically Jesus in an attempt to answer her question.

Gandhi saw Jesus as an ideal Satyagrahi, which is resistance to evil through soul force . Gandhi studied the Bible everyday for years and was greatly impressed with the New Testament particularly “The sermon on the Mount”. Like many Hindu’s it was the gentle figure of Jesus that he admired, who taught his followers not to retaliate and to resist violence. For him it was not the historical event of Jesus that mattered, but what the example of the message of his life had to offer humanity. For Gandhi Jesus exemplified what it meant to serve your fellow humans and saw this as the guiding principle of his life. He saw the cross as being the perfect example of this sacrifice.

He said:

“Of all the things that I have read what remained with me forever was that Jesus came almost to give a new law – not an eye for an eye but to receive two blows when only one was given, and to go two miles when they were asked to go one...The message of Jesus as I understand it is contained in the Sermon on the Mount unadulterated and taken as a whole...If then I had to face only the sermon on the Mount and my own interpretation of it, I would not hesitate to say, “oh, yes, I am a Christian.” But negatively I can tell you that in my humble opinion, what passes as Christianity is a negation of the Sermon on the Mount...I am speaking of the Christian belief, of Christianity as it is understood in the west.”

Gandhi saw Jesus as the example to humanity, for Gandhi he pointed the way to liberation through self giving love. He believed that within all of us is this impulse for compassion and that this spark of divinity will one day burst into full flower and that Jesus was the personified example of this to every person. As he said “I believe that he belongs not solely to Christianity, but to the entire world; to all races and people, it matters little under what flag, name or doctrine they may work, profess a faith or worship a God inherited from their ancestors.”

So to answer my sisters question as to whether or not I am a Christian my answer is still the same, “it depends how you define Christianity.” For me, like Gandhi, Jesus is the example of self giving love that I aspire to. If being a Christian means following Jesus as the example to humanity then I am a Christian; if it means that I have to believe in the teachings of the established church then I am not. I am sure that by the definition of the fundamentalists of Christianity or Secularism then I am not. That said I do believe in the Jesus that Gandhi held up as the perfect Satyagraha. I see him as the embodiment of self giving love, as the example to us all. That said I do not see him as the only one, many of the great sages have also shown the way too and I also see those same heroic figures in my world today. We are all capable of being them.

Lent for me is about attempting to practise this in my life day by day. It’s not about giving up sweets or chocolate etc, it’s about giving of myself to life each and every day in whatever small ways that I can. It’s about practising non-violence not only with myself but others too, it’s about facing up to my own demons, those within and those without and about attempting to build the commonwealth of love here on earth. It’s about self transcendence; it’s about the full realisation of the truth that it is giving that we truly receive and that it is in these moments that we can know God.

Wilderness: A Lenten Reflection

2012-02-22T01:33:00.000-08:00

This is a story from the native American, Comanche tradition, “She-Who-Sits-Alone”.

A terrible time once befell the Comanche people. It was a time of drought. The land was dying and the people were dying too. In their despair, they called upon the Great Spirit.

“Great Spirt,” they implored, “our land is dying and our people are dying. How have we angered you? Bring an end to this drought and save your people, for soon there will be nothing left alive.”

And so they prayed, and they danced. They waited, and they prayed. But no rain came. And the little ones and the old ones suffered, and no one knew how to end the suffering.

But there was one small girl who had not yet died of hunger. Her name was She-Who-Sits-Alone. Sitting alone, she watched her people pray and dance, and she held her beloved doll in her arms. The doll was her ultimate companion, her second self, dressed in its warrior clothing, with a bone belt and beaded leggings, and bearing the feathers of the blue jay on its head.

She-Who-sits-Alone watched, with her doll, as the elders went to the top of the mountain to receive the wisdom of the great Spirit. Several times did the sun rise above the mountain, and several times did the light fade behind the mountain’s bulk before they returned. On the mountain top, the people gathered round to hear the message of the Great Spirit, and this is what the Great Spirit said to them:

“For many generations, the people have taken from the earth whatever they needed and wanted, but they have given nothing back to the earth. Now the earth is in distress, and the people must make a sacrifice. They must bring to the fire of sacrifice their most treasured possessions. The ashes of the sacrifice must be scattered to the four winds. When this has been done, the rains will come and the earth will live again”

The people gave thanks and then returned to their teepees to search out their most treasured possessions.

“surely the Great Spirit does not want my bow,” said the archer. “Nor could the Great Spirit possibly desire my treasured blanket,” said the mother.

“I know that the Great spirit could not be asking for my herbs,” said the medicine man.

And so it continued. Everyone had a reason not to give the Great Spirit their greatest treasure.

Meanwhile, She-Who-Sits-alone took her warrior doll into her arms, held it tight and whispered, “It is you the Great Spirit desires. I know what I must do.”

So that night, when everyone slept, She-who-sits-alone threw off her sleeping blanket and climbed to the top of the mountain, carrying her warrior doll in one hand, and a lighted stick from the campfire in the other. When she reached the mountain top, she spoke to the Great Spirit.

“Great Spirit,” she said, “here is my warrior doll, the gift of my mother and my father before they died, and my most treasured possession. Please accept it,” As she kindled the fire, she wept, and she remembered her parents and grandparents and friends who had died of hunger, and she thrust her doll into the flames.

Soon the fire died down. She gathered the cooling ashes and cast them to the four winds. Exhausted, she lay down on the mountain top and fell asleep.

When the rising sun kissed her awake the next morning, she looked around, dazed. There, where she had offered her sacrifice, lay a shinning feather of the blue jay. And as she knelt to look more closely, the first drops of rain caressed her face.

From then on, She-Who-Sits-alone was given a new name by her grateful people. she became known as One-Who-Loved-Her –People.

Today marks the beginning of Lent. Lent reminds us that there are journeys we all have to make in life; physical journeys, spiritual journeys. Some journeys we can share with others, but other journeys lead us into the wilderness alone.

The New Testament accounts tell us that Jesus was baptized in the river Jordon. At that very moment the heavens opened and he heard God accepting him as “my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

You would have thought that this would have been a moment to savour and enjoy; a moment to soak up this incredible realisation; a moment of total bliss and happiness, but it wasn’t. Instead what happens is that he is led “by the spirit” into the wilderness to be tested. There is no time to rest on his laurels and enjoy this moment of connection and wholeness. For some reason Jesus had to immediately live out his calling, rather than sit around and enjoy his moment of blessing.

This journey that was forced on him was not a pleasant jaunt through the Cheshire countryside, like I have begun to enjoy in my time living in Altrincham, it was not a saunter through Dunham Park. It was in no sense a picnic or walk in the park. Instead he spent forty days enduring extreme deprivation and confrontations and endured a great deal of self examination. The Biblical accounts describe him being tested by the devil, by temptation. He suffered greatly and he struggled with this suffering and he suffered alone. His solitary struggle to remain true to his covenant and his calling echoed those of his ancestors who had spent forty years in the wilderness establishing a religious community after they had escaped the Pharaoh and Egypt.

Jesus and his struggles are a great metaphor for our common human experience. Entering into a time of wilderness is something that every person’s soul must journey through. At some point we all have to leave our childhoods behind and enter into adulthood. We cannot live in our childish Eden forever, we are all cast out into the wilderness at one point or another. We gain knowledge of life and when we do, this hurts. So what do we do? Well we discover the resources that we need in order to live, or we flounder.

I have experienced this sense of being cast into the wilderness many times in my life. Sometimes I have risen to the challenge and overcome the obstacles, sometimes alone and at other times with friends. On other occasions I have not. I have run away and I have hidden from whatever life has thrown at me, thus destroying my “self worth”.

During the last few years I have generally risen to the occasion, less and less do I run from life. This is what faith, the religious life, has given me above anything else. It has given me the strength to be who I am and to live with honesty and integrity. I can look the world in the eye today and say, this is who I am. I do not hide in shame, I speak my truth in love. I no longer need someone else to define who I am. That is the power of faith!

The journey into the wilderness reminds us that we are alone and yet we are not alone. Neither are we where we have been or where we are going to. The time in the wilderness is a time of danger and possibility, a time of risk and a time of promise. While we wander in the wilderness the spirit may well descend like a dove and lift us up on its wings of hope and then drive us down into the depths of despair. It may affirm us with gifts of grace and then challenge us to change. In all the great religious traditions of both the east and the west this journey into the wilderness represents a time when we both pursue and resist the Holy.

The poem “A journey” by Edward Field portrays that sense of letting go of something at the end of the journey and how this is often a struggle, to open up the clenched fist. How even at the end of something when we are about to release these pent up emotions, we can often still be afraid of how vulnerable and exposed we can appear to others. I love and identify strongly with the man hiding behind his newspaper before he is able to allow the tears to roll from his eyes.

“He hid his head behind a newspaper

No longer able to hold back the sobs, and willed his eyes

To follow the rational weavings of the seat fabrics.

He didn’t do anything violent as he had imagined.

He cried for a long time, but when he finally quieted down

A place in him that had been closed like a fist was open,”

Powerful imagery

In the story “She-Who-Sits Alone” has to go up the mountain top to let go of her doll. The rain fall, like tears on her face, only comes at the end of her journey. Jesus, of course, often went away from his people to commune openly and honestly with his father.

I have had similar experiences myself. I often go away on my own, either in the countryside or sometimes in the chapel to have those private moments, and I live alone. I do sometimes experience them while walking in a busy bustling street, but it rarely feels appropriate; I am still haunted with the age old saying “boys don’t cry” One of my demons.

This time in the wilderness is meant to be seen as one of purity, that is why one element of Lent is this idea of fasting, of giving something up. It is of course worth noting that virtually every religious tradition throughout human history has a period of fasting. There is value in this cleansing purifying commitment. It’s not just about food though, that is symbolic.

This time in the wilderness is not only a time of purity of letting go of things it is also a time of self sacrifice. Lent has a double meaning, it is about purification of the self and self sacrifice, universal religious principles. In the story “She-Who-Sits-Alone” is prepared to give up her doll her most prised possession, given to her by her now dead parents. She calls this doll her second self. She gives up this doll as she wanders into the wilderness and to the top of the mountain and sacrifices it. She falls asleep and when she awakens she finds the feather of a Blue Jay, just like the one that had sat on her dolls head. The rains soon follow, falling on her face, like tears, which save her people. From that day she becomes known as One-Who-Loved-Her –People. It is important to realise that she does not give her life, only her prized possession, this is because she loves her people more than her doll, her other self. Her people are more important to her than herself identity.

Most of us though cannot do what “She-Who-Sits-Alone” achieved. We are unwilling to let go of those things that we believe define and protect us, remember her doll was her id and it was her warrior too. Most of us are more like the archer, the woman, or the medicine man, unwilling to give up our blanket or bow or herbs, we are human. We believe these possessions identify and protect us.

Jesus, the great example, is difficult for us to live up to. He endured many tests during his time in the desert and was offered many temptations, but he resisted each time. I do not always resist these temptations, but I no longer beat myself up about my imperfections.

I do not think that Lent is asking us to be perfect; it’s a mistake to view it that way. That said it can be interpreted this way and there are real dangers in this. Trying to be perfect can create a paralysing fear that leads us to flee life and stops people doing the simple things they are more than capable of.

I love this line from the song “Purity” by New Model Army.

“Purity is a virtue, purity is an angel, purity is for madmen who make fools of us all...so forgive yourself my friend all this will soon be over what happened here tonight is nothing at all”

This constant gnawing need for perfection, to transcend our humanity does us no good, in fact it can paralysing...I firmly believe in the mantra “progress, not perfection”...progress is tangible...where as perfection is something that seems way beyond my means.

Like everyone I will keep wandering off into the wilderness and experience the pain of battling with my demons. I will give what I am able to give to others too, but I won’t do it perfectly...I do not know what perfection is. That said I will do what I am able to do and perhaps that’s the real message of Lent, to give or give up what you can.

More lessons from Transylvania: Symbols

2012-02-21T14:33:00.000-08:00

Transylvanian Unitarian Symbol

During my recent visit to Transylvania I was invited to preach at the anniversary service of our sister congregation of Maros St George. While preparing I was asked to wear a badge depicting the symbol of the Transylvania Unitarians. Tamas, the minister explained to meaning of the images on the badge. They are deeply symbolic it would seem.

There are four distinct features to the symbol: a dove, a serpent, a mountain and a golden crown. The dove symbolises peace; the serpent symbolises wisdom; the mountain symbolises height; the crown symbolises kingship. It is inspired by a passage from Matthew's Gospel chapter 10 v 16 “Behold I am sending you forward as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be therefore wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” In this passage Jesus is warning his disciples of the dangers that they will face in carrying their message of radical love, to a wounded world. He is saying that they will be no safer than lambs amongst wolves; he is saying that they must employ wisdom in the way they impart this message, in a hostile world.

The Transylvania Unitarians have adopted this symbol because they have needed to be as wise as serpents and as gentle as doves. Throughout their history they have always been a minority group and have faced persecution, from both religious and secular sources because of this. During the sixteenth century the threat came from many sides. Other none trinitarian thinkers of the time, such as Michael Servetus, were burned at the stake for proclaiming their heresy. Somehow the Unitarians in Transylvania survived, some might say miraculously. How did they survive? Well probably because they took head of this simple message, they were as wise as serpents and as gentle as doves. A message that they still need to take heed of today.

At the centre of their symbol is a dove, an important image in the Judeo-Christian tradition. It makes its first appearance in the story of Noah’s Arc. Noah sends out a dove to find land, eventually it returns with an olive branch. This symbolises the re-birth of life, something very important to Transylvanian Unitarians. They are very much tied to the ground, to the soil and the cycles of life.

The dove of course is the symbol of peace. A dove is gentle, but only when it is free, when it can fly as it is meant to. A dove can become aggressive if enclosed in a cage. The dove symbolises the soul, our essence, our being. The dove symbolises our soul's need to remain open to all that life offers. We all need the openness of innocence in order to live peaceful, harmless and gentle lives. The dove is standing on a mountain, on solid rock. This symbolises the ethical heights that we need to reach in order fulfil our human potential and appreciate the earth on which we all stand. The rock is also symbolic of stability. To reach our potential we need to stand on solid ground.

I see parallels between the soaring of the dove to the top of the solid mountain and the chalice symbol, that identifies Unitarians globally. The flames of the chalice reach out beyond the cup of love in which the fire is set. This reminds me of the words from that beautiful Unitarian hymn "Spirit of Life"

The serpent symbolises wisdom. In the bible it first appears in the story of Adam and Eve. It reveals the forbidden knowledge of life and death. For this the serpent is cursed to sneak around on its belly near to the rocks. The wise serpent lives close to the water, the source of life and for this it is respected by people of desert cultures. They consider the serpent to be very wise indeed.

When we think of serpents or snakes we think of danger. Some can be venomous and can kill, but their venom can also heal. The serpent is indeed a source of life and death; it does carry the knowledge of life and death and it is of course the gaining of this knowledge that leads to the loss of innocence.

In the Transylvanian symbol the serpent is in a cirlce, a ring. This symbolises eternity, and the continual rebirth of life. As they say in Transylvania “life is eternal and the soul is invincible, we can be reborn every day” The dove stands within the circle. The wisdom of the circle protects the innocence of the dove. The message is to remain wise and innocent in order to live a full life.

There is a golden crown at the top of the Transylvanian symbol. This is the crown of the only Unitarian king in history John Sigismund, who by signing “The Edit of Toleration” in Torda in 1568, gave Unitarians protection. This meant that they were not wiped out as they were in other parts of Europe.

The crown is no ordinary crown, it is golden, it symbolises the God or Goddess, the creator of the universe. It also carries the message of infinite and perfect happiness, a goal worth striving for; it is a source of aspiration for the Transylvanian Unitarians. They believe that we can all be kings and queens, that we can all wear the crowns.

What a powerful image this Transylvanian Unitarian symbol is. It teaches that we can all reach the summit of the mountain and wear the crown of happiness. A difficult journey no doubt, but one worthy of taking. It also teaches that we can attain this if we are wise enough to remain innocent and aspire to that perfect happiness.

I learnt a lot in Transylvania

Our lives are surrounded by symbols. Symbols are far more than pictures; they carry a story within them that is bursting to be let out. The great twentieth century theologian Paul Tillich talked extensively about symbols. He believed that they were more than simply signs pointing somewhere; they also possessed, within them, an element of qualities that they were pointing to. The purpose of the symbol is to open us up to deeper levels of reality that cannot be grasped by other forms of communication. They therefore reach the parts that words alone cannot. They enable us to connect to an ultimate reality (his name for what religions call God). They are seen as a window to a transcendent reality, rarely touched. The symbols are of course not the reality itself, just as the word describing it is not the reality either. They do though reveal something of this greater reality, that is called God.

The Transylvanian Unitarian symbol describes almost perfectly the soul of those beautiful people that I spent a short time with, last Autumn.

As a student minister I spent a year at the Unitarian Chapel and One World Centre in Oldham. Outside the chapel is a sign. It reads, “open to all who wish to worship with an open mind, in a spirit of freedom, reason and tolerance. We do not hold the same beliefs; rather each person is encouraged to develop his or her faith in a continuing search for truth.” I believe that this speaks powerfully and coherently to the Unitarian tradition that I am a part of.

The Unitarian faith is ever evolving, as all life is evolving. It has its roots in the Liberal Christian Tradition, inspired by the life and teachings of Jesus. Our symbol, the chalice exemplifies this perfectly. It is a kind of cross, but an evolving one, with the flames reaching out much further to a place way beyond our imaginations. So while we are rooted in the Liberal Christian tradition we have evolved beyond this starting point and embrace truth from a myriad of sources.

A flame burning in the cup of love is deeply symbolic of the roots from which we were formed, but the flames seem to indicate something more, something eternal, something way beyond the limits of human vision. I see parallels with both the dove and the serpent and that golden crown of the Transylvanian symbol here. There is freedom in the flames, there is wisdom yet to be unearthed in those flames and there is that crown that we can all aspire to. I also see the rock on which all this stands; the solid base that sustains us as we reach further, to who knows where.

This is religion in its truest sense, this searching together, this working together, and this giving together. Each individual Unitarian adds to that flame and also takes from it. It is this continual communal search and struggle that is the rock, or the cup on which the Unitarian free religious faith is built. Where this leads, no one can know, certainly not I.

St Valentine: Love Hurts

2012-02-13T15:58:00.000-08:00

Who was St Valentine?

The truth is that no one knows for certain. It seems that there were several early Christian martyrs who bore the name. The best known and the one who the legend is probably built around was a third century physician priest, who conducted weddings for soldiers in Emperor Claudius II army. The Emperor had outlawed marriage for his conscripts, believing that it made them poor soldiers. Many defied these orders and secretly married, Valentine was one of the priests who conducted the ceremonies. He was eventually discovered and imprisoned for this. While in prison, awaiting execution, he fell in love with the jailers blind daughter who it is said he restored to sight. Shortly after his execution a love letter was found addressed to her, it read “love from your Valentine”. The date was 14^th February 269. Two centuries later Pope Gelasius declared 14^th February to be Saint Valentine’s day, and Valentine became the patron saint of lovers.

Charles, Duke of Orleans, who was taken prisoner at the battle of Agincourt in 1415, and held in captivity for twenty-five years, was the author of the earliest known written Valentines. He left about sixty of these love poems for his wife.

One of his Valentines reads as follows:

Wilt thou be mine?
Dear Love, reply.
Sweetly consent or else deny.
Whisper softly,
none shall know,
Wilt thou be mine, Love?
Aye or no?

"Spite of Fortune,
we may be Happy by one word from thee.
Life flies swiftly
- ere it go
Wilt thou be mine, Love?
- aye or no?"

The first commercial Valentines card was manufactured in the mid nineteenth century by Esther A Howland and today Valentine’s day is celebrated all over the world. It has become a huge commercial enterprise and like Christmas it appears to have lost much of its true meaning. We can though still discover some of it's magic, if we look beneath the ribbons.

I have a Valentine in my family, My nephew is called Johnny Valentine Budby. He is named after two members of the rock band Electric 6. His older brother is called Joey Ramone Budby. He is named after Joey Ramone, from the punk band The Ramones. Joey and Johnny’s dad Rick has been a drummer in bands for years, he’s an old mate of mine from my past, when I was in bands too. He’s a great dad, although I do wonder about the stick that might come the way of these boys later in life. That said if either become famous, they’ve already got names that belong "up in lights."

On Valentine’s Day we are supposed to express our love for those who we feel passionately about. We are meant to do this publically, but we are also meant to express the love we dare not reveal, our secret love. The love we dare not name. I’m sure everyone has, at one time or another, either sent or received a secret Valentine’s card.

There seems to be something very painful in all of this. Valentine’s day is really not about flowers and bunny rabbits it would seem. Is Valentine really about the love between two people or is it more about unrequited love? Is it about the light of love, or shadow side of love? Certainly its history, its mythology, is bathed in sadness and pain and loss.

Does Love, as Roy Orbison once sang, hurt?

In Greek Mythology passionate love begins when we are wounded by Eros’s Arrow. This suggests that we must first be pierced by it before we can experience its joy; that we must be opened up to hurt before we can begin to experience love. This message appears to be shared by many of the faith traditions. In Christianity God’s love is expressed through the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross. The classic example in Judaism is Hosea’s continued faithfulness to his cheating wife, a metaphor of God’s faithfulness to his unfaithful people. Examples are found in Hinduism, which depicts Krishna continually returning to fight evil and in Buddhism where the Bodhisattva refrains from entering Nirvana in order to save others. All these positive, beautiful expressions of love are grounded in pain. It would appear that the faith traditions are suggesting that in order to experience the joy of love we must first know its pain..Cupid’s arrow must first pierce our skin before it can penetrate our hearts.

I recently attended the annual interfaith dinner at Altrincham Boys Grammar School. It was a fascinating and joy filled evening, it was great to see people of many faiths mixing and enjoying each other’s company. During the evening I had a conversation with Alan Morris, the Deacon at Holy Angels Church in Hale Barns. He asked me why I’d entered into the ministry? This is one of those questions I never like to answer, mainly because it begins with sadness. As I have expressed before my journey really began as I came to terms with Ethan’s death and witnessed the incredible compassionate love shown by the whole community to his family, in their time of need. The love I experienced through his short life and even through his death is why I entered into the ministry. His life and death changed me. If I had not felt that pain, would I have entered into the ministry? God knows. As I have said before, we do do not get to choose our pain, only our response to it.

I agree with Roy Orbison “love hurts”, however it manifests itself.

The Song of Songs reads:

Set me as a seal upon your heart,
   as a seal upon your arm;
for love is strong as death,
   passion fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
   a raging flame.

Can love be as strong as death? Well I believe so. It is love that gives life meaning and purpose, even in its pain. Real love can survive and overcome just about anything, any hurt any pain. When we love someone deeply, we create an eternal bond. This is a spiritual connection in which personal anxiety and pain is dispelled through our relationship to one to another.

Victor Franklin in “Man’s Search For Meaning” wrote about his life as a prisoner in the Nazi death camps. He remembered that those who had no connection to people, or hopes or dreams or to God gave up very quickly and died. This he said was because they had nothing to believe in but their own bodies, which were imprisoned; where as those who communed in their thoughts, dreams or prayers with someone or something they loved survived much longer.

Frankl recalls

... We stumbled on in the darkness, over big stones and through large puddles, along the one road leading from the camp. The accompanying guards kept shouting at us and driving us with the butts of their rifles. Anyone with very sore feet supported himself on his neighbor's arm. Hardly a word was spoken; the icy wind did not encourage talk. Hiding his mouth behind his upturned collar, the man marching next to me whispered suddenly: "If our wives could see us now! I do hope they are better off in their camps and don't know what is happening to us."

That brought thoughts of my own wife to mind. And as we stumbled on for miles, slipping on icy spots, supporting each other time and again, dragging one another up and onward, nothing was said, but we both knew: each of us was thinking of his wife. Occasionally I looked at the sky, where the stars were fading and the pink light of the morning was beginning to spread behind a dark bank of clouds. But my mind clung to my wife's image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look was then more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise.

A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth -- that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way—an honorable way—in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, "The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory...."

Frankl later reflected that even if he had know that his wife was dead, their relationship would have been as strong in that moment because the reality that their love created was stronger than death. It was a flame that neither water nor flood nor human frailty could quench. It was a power that could overcome any suffering and sustain him in in what was perhaps the darkest period in human history.

Love, however it may manifest itself, is what gives life meaning. Be it for wife or partner, family, friends, community, life, nature or God, it is the expression of this love that gives life its bliss, even in the darkest of hours.

Happy Valentine's Day. May you know the love that is present in life.

Limbo or Serenity?

2012-02-12T08:47:00.000-08:00

This is a short extract from "Have a Little Faith" a book by Mitch Albom. It is set over an 8 year period and explores the lives of two extraordinary men. One the author's childhood Rabbi Albert Lewis and the other is a former drug addict and criminal Henry Covington who spends his time serving a community of primarily homeless people, alcoholics and addicts in a run down old church. The extract is from a sermon delivered by the Rabbi.

“A man seeks employment on a farm. He hands his letter of recommendation to his new employer. It reads simply, `He sleeps in a storm.’

The owner is desperate for help, so he hires the man.

Several week pass, and suddenly, in the middle of the night, a powerful storm rips through the valley.

Awakened by the swirling rain and howling wind, the owner leaps out of bed. He calls for his new hired hand, but the man is sleeping soundly.

So he dashes off to the barn. He sees, to his amazement, that the animals are secure with plenty of feed. He runs out to the field. He sees the bales of wheat have been bound and are wrapped in tarpaulins. He races to the silo. The doors are latched, and the grain is dry.

And then he understands.

`He sleeps in a storm.’

My friends, if we tend to the things that are important in life, if we are right with those we love and behave in line with our [beliefs], our lives will not be cursed with the aching throb of unfulfilled business. Our words will always be sincere, our embraces will be tight. We will never wallow in the agony of `I could have, I should have.’ We can sleep in a storm.

And when it’s time, our good-byes will be complete.”

...I recommend this book...

As I mentioned in my last blog I am a very deep sleeper. I was apparently like this as a child. It would appear that this is my natural state.

My mother often recounts a tale of me wanting to watch Brendan Foster run in the 1976 Olympics. She promised me if I went to bed early she would wake me up when the race began late at night. I was only four years old at the time. She tells me that she found it virtually impossible to wake me, but she persevered and eventually I awoke and watched the race. I wept at the end as my cheering him on did not lead to his victory; he only won a bronze medal for finishing third. Brendan Foster was my first sporting hero. I have had to overcome many sporting disappointments since. My heroes rarely come in first it would seem.

As a child I slept well, but this changed as I moved into my teenage years and young adulthood. By my mid twenties this got progressively worse. I could not sleep sober, my mind never stopped, it was over laden with worry, concern and regret. This only changed as I found faith, as I found spiritual connection to a power greater than myself and began to live by spiritual disciplines. This of course did not take any of the problems away, but it seemed to take the weight off them and reduced them to right size. My mind has never spun uncontrollably since.

Now I’m not saying I never have disturbed sleep, of course I do. From time to time it takes me a while to process things. I can get caught up in worry and resentment, but not for very long.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said “Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense.”

One of the disciplines that I attempt to follow each day is to put my day to bed before I put myself to bed; I put my mind to bed, before putting my body to bed. On the whole it works very well. I reflect over my day meditatively and then spend a short time in prayer. Ever since I began to practise this simple discipline the insomnia has gone away. Of course sometimes I don’t do this as carefully as I could and interestingly it is often on these occasions that I find it harder to settle down.

This is not an easy practise to get into and of course patience and persistence is required. Results do not usually come over night. As I’ve said in a previous blog “Wax on Wax off” from the Karate Kid, always helps me to maintain spiritual disciplines. Patience and discipline is required and slowly results do come. We may not notice them immediately, but they can and do come.

I do love that little story above, from “Have a Little Faith”, The man sleeps in the storm because he has taken care of what he can take care of; he sleeps soundly at night because he has done all that he can during the day. This to me is the essence of faith, well actually to put it accurately it’s the essence of faith and works, taking care of what is our business and trusting that the universe will take care of the rest. We cannot control the wind, but we can usually set our sails accordingly. I love this simple, open and honest humility.

This brings the words of the serenity prayer to my mind “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.” If only we could all find the wisdom to know the difference.

I love the serenity prayer for many reason, but primarily because it is humble, honest and open. It is not a petition demanding that the universe conform to our will, instead it is asking for guidance and strength to do our part and to see what our part is, while also accepting the realities of the world in which we live. Finally it also points to the fact that we need to discover the wisdom to know what our stuff is, what our stuff is not and what is in our power to change.

It is not a passive prayer about simply accepting the status quo, quite the opposite. I see a lot of faith and works in these words. It is a prayer about seeking out what we can do and doing it. It brings to my mind those words from Edward Everett Hale that became my Lenten meditation last year:

“I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything; but still I can do something: and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.” No it’s definitely a prayer about doing what you can, but it is also about accepting your individual human limits and not playing God. Of course it is not always easy to keep faith and to simply keep doing what one needs to do day by day, especially when the storms of life hit us.

We should never confuse serenity with passivity or lack of care. It is not a state of limbo. I see limbo as a state of self protection, where there is no faith and no room for God. In Catholic theology it is a state preserved for the innocents. If we translate this into our lives as we actually live them it seems to be a frozen state where there is no life. It is a state ruled by fear and not faith. Limbo is the fear of going out, because we are not certain that we will enjoy ourselves; Limbo is staying silent over an injustice, because we don’t know if anyone will listen to us; Limbo is expecting the wind of change to blow in our direction, instead of setting our sails accordingly; Limbo is fleeing from life just because it is becoming uncertain and or a little out of our control; Limbo is for people who will postpone a decision or action until they are absolutely certain that it will work out in their favour; Limbo is procrastination, it’s what we put off until tomorrow, what we could have taken care of today: Tomorrow does not yet exist; Limbo is a lifeless state where nothing exists; Limbo is the domain of the zombie and not the human.

I have a confession to make. I can be very impatient, especially when it comes to those inbetween moments when I’m waiting for something to happen. It doesn’t seem to matter if I’m waiting to hear good news or waiting to start on a new adventure; or whether I’m waiting to hear something that is potentially awful, that would put a stop to my plans. I do not like waiting on the cusp of things. More than anything this tests my faith. I’m fine in the middle of a crisis I can stay calm in the storms of life and set my sails accordingly. My problem is during those inbetween days when I have to wait and there is nothing I can do about a situation. I don’t suppose I am alone in this. I want to push, I want to impose my will and it only causes trouble. I am getting better at this though, progress not perfection as they say.

Faith alone cannot build that commonwealth of love that I’m sure we all desire for our worlds, on both a micro and macro scale. Human salvation requires human action. As it says in James 2 v 17, “Faith without works is dead” We are responsible for the world in which we live. That said it is important that we accept our human limits as well as our potential. This though is not about simply passively accepting life as it is, that this is somehow how it is meant to be. When I look at my world and my own life, there is much that I and we have done to create our troubles. Accepting our limits is not about accepting the status quo; it is about accepting that we cannot do everything though, humility is essential. That said there is much we can do. It is also about clearing up after ourselves each and every day and having faith in the simple spiritual principles that are there within all the great faith traditions of human history.

And do you know what this all starts with a good night’s sleep, which I have discovered only comes if I have taken care of everything that I can, both in the physical, mental and spiritual sense.

We can all become men and women who sleep through the storms.

A Dreamers Odyssey: The Sea is Calling Me

2012-02-07T15:40:00.000-08:00

During the last couple of weeks I have felt an overpowering urge to be beside the seaside, to be beside the sea...it keeps on calling me...Something from the depths of my being is crying out to go and stare at that wide open vastness. Or maybe it's a call from beyond...is God calling me?...All I know is that it is an irresistible urge...the sea keeps on calling me.

As I'm sure you've noticed the title of my blog is “I Dream of the Ocean”. Now truth to say is I don’t actually dream of the ocean. I am rarely even aware of dreaming. This, I am told, is due to the fact that I sleep so deeply that I am rarely conscious of my unconscious. I am only really aware of dreaming three or four times a year and this is usually when I’m suffering from anxiety or dealing with guilt.

A friend recently told me that water in dreams is tied in with our emotions and that it symbolises something moving from an unconscious level to the conscious level. The sea it would seem represents the transition between the two. It suggests the coming of a new perspective and a new hope no matter what the current difficulties may be.

This makes some sense to me. Maybe this yearning for the sea is keeping me looking forward in hope. It is drawing me out of myself, I do believe in “The Lure of Divine Love”. I have come to know it so well.

I am not dreaming of the ocean though am I? I am experiencing this urge, this calling, in my conscious moments. It is occurring in my waking hours and not my sleeping ones. Well actually I’m sure it is occurring during my sleeping hours, it’s just that I’m only aware of it while I’m physically awake.

This calling has had a grip on me for about a year now. It struck on a trip to Blackpool. I had gone to the Aquatic centre. It’s an amazing place, but it did not hold my interest that day. All I wanted to do was go outside and look at the sea and feel the wind all around me. I wanted the space and I wanted the freedom. I will never forget looking up and seeing the seagull floating above as I stared out to sea. On reflection I suppose that all of this was deeply symbolic. A relationship was sadly coming to an end and I was in denial about it. The sea and the seagull were drawing me out of myself, I can see this now.

The call of the sea really took a hold at last year’s Unitarian Annual Meetings in Swansea. They were set by the sea and each day I would walk on the beach alone, stare out into the nothingness and feel the wind coursing all around me. The relationship had just about come to an end by then and I was no longer in denial about this. The walks on the beach and the staring out into the abyss were partially about me letting go, but they were also about reconnecting to hope, to God and understanding what I am here to do. That “Lure of Divine Love”, felt very strong there. Those few days in Swansea were a celebration of Bob Pounder, Daniel Costley and myself becoming Unitarian ministers.

As soon as I returned from Swansea I began my blogging adventure. I gave my blog the title “I Dream of The Ocean” after a line in the New Model Army song “Ocean Rising”. One of the major themes of my blogs is hope growing from despair and I think that this is what this call to the ocean is all about.

The call to the ocean and the call to the sea is a common theme. Our history and literature is rich with such stories. Several friends of mine have recounted personal tales when they were called to sea over the last few days.

It is the story of Odysseus that always springs to my mind when I think of the sea. Homer’s Odyssey is rich in metaphor and speaks to a universal human condition. He sets out from Troy for the Isle of Ithaca where his wife and son await his homecoming. The journey is fraught with danger and distractions.

Trouble begins when Odysseus blinds one of the sons of Poseidon during battle. Poseidon in his rage blows his crew off course by sending storm after storm and brings all kinds of trouble to the adventurers. At one point they land on the Isle of Lotus Eaters. Here they eat poisonous leaves which produce a memory erasing, death inducing waking sleep; as a result they lose sight of home and become lost. Eventually they escape and fortune appears to turn in their favour as they arrive at the island home of Aeolus, the king of the winds. Here the weary travellers finds rest bite and Aeolus puts all the winds that have been blowing them off course in a bag and sets them back on track, they can now head for home. But just as they sight Ithaca, the men let the winds out of the bag and once again they are blown off course. They land on the isle of Aeaea, home of the Greek Goddess Circe. Here they become trapped and spell bound by the beautiful allures of the island. The men are cursed and turned to pigs. The curse is only lifted when Odysseus agrees to become Circe's consort. Once again disaster appears to have befallen them but somehow Odysseus is rescued from the comfort of her arms and persuaded to continue on his journey home, by his men.

On the way back to Ithaca the crew pass through the Underworld. Here Odysseus is guided by the blind prophet Teiresias, who reveals the dangers he has yet to face before he can once again gain Poseidon’s favour. He is offered full knowledge of the dangers of the Sirens songs and even a solution to them, which he passes on to his crew. The crew ignore the warnings and become trapped by the Sirens songs. Odysseus secures himself by chaining himself to the mast, but most of his crew, enchanted by the sirens songs, plunge into the reef and to their deaths.

Odysseus must now navigate the channel between the six headed monster Scylla and the whirlpool of Charybdis. He has by now lost most of his crew and in order to pass through must sacrifice six more men. He passes through and is finally washed up on the shores of Phaecia. Here he tells his story and wins Poseidons forgiveness. Finally he can return home.

Finally Odysseus reaches Ithaca, but fails to recognise it as home. In his despair he drags himself along the shoreline and comes across the goddess Athena, dressed as a young shepherd. Exhausted and seemingly close to death he begs her tell him where he is. She gazes at him through her star like eyes and replies “Sir, you must be a simpleton or have travelled very far from your home to ask me what country this is.”

How true this, how few of us recognise the treasure we are surrounded by. We go on wild adventures seeking oh so many things and we lose so much on the way, including friends who are dear to our hearts. The truth is, of course, that what we were searching for was there all along, we just couldn’t recognise it. We still can’t recognise it some days, even when we return to that place of love after we have escaped from disaster. We rarely recognise the treasures in our very hands. We already have the answer deep within us, imprinted in our DNA we just need to connect to it.

The Odyssey is a story that speaks powerfully to me. I fell in love with it due to the Coen Brother’s modern day adaptation “Oh Brother Where Art Thou”. A film that offers bitter sweet memories for me. You see the film always brings Ethan to my mind, a song from it was played at his funeral “Fly Away, Oh Fly Away.” The seagull on the beach in Blackpool got me to think of him too, I felt his presence there and then. I always do when I feel a little lost.

Birds are just as important to me today as the sea is. They keep calling me too. In many traditions the bird is of course a symbol of the soul and as I have said before it was Ethan, in his short life, who showed me how to connect to my soul and to the universal soul that I call God.

We can all connect to that that is deep within us and all life. No matter how far we get blown off course we can return home. We cannot control the wind, we do not get to choose what happens to us; but we do get to choose how we respond to these event. We can set our sails accordingly. Remember Odysseus and his crew were given directions on how to avoid the sirens but most of the crew chose to ignore this advice and as a result they perished.

These days I try to head the call, however it comes to me; whether it’s the call from the sea or the birds in the air or the birds in the tree, or from the folk around me. Yes sometimes I still go off on my own and I get lost and sometimes I even flee but eventually I remember that everything I’m searching for is already here. The gifts are bountiful and all around me, I’ve just got to open my eyes and see.

Love is universal it is open to all, no one is excluded from it and no one can flee its range and reach. All that we have to do is learn to recognise it, because I know that sometimes it is hard to see. Even so it is always there calling, calling us out to sea.

Mr Pain & Man's search for Meaning

2012-01-31T13:20:00.000-08:00

It still amazes me how I am constantly discovering meaning, seemingly from nothing.

A few months ago Rev Jane Barraclough asked me to lead the Wednesday lunchtime service at Cross Street Chapel. I was delighted to be asked to do this and duly agreed to do so. Seemingly no meaning there and then last weekend it dawned on me that it was exactly seven years ago to the day that I had first entered Cross street chapel on a cold Wednesday lunchtime. Just a beautiful bit of synchronicity, or at least I saw it that way.

It was a wonderful and wonder filled day that seemed so rich in meaning. I loved listening to the little conversations on the tram on my way to Manchester. I enjoyed my walk around the city, watching all the people going about their business. I felt so connected, so in harmony with what was going on. Every snippet of conversation I overheard seemed to be addressed directly to me.

After the service I met a friend for coffee and shared what I’d been experiencing. I told her how I felt so excited and alive and that I seemed to be seeing meaning in everything. She looked at me and said “really, I see little meaning in anything; I’m pretty much sceptical about everything.” It made me pause and it also reminded me of the man I was not long before I began my Unitarian adventure. I could find no meaning in anything; I was pretty much sceptical about everything.

The conversation has been on my mind ever since. I saw no meaning because I was asleep to meaning it would seem. I was suffering from a kind of colour blindness and tone deafness. Something inside was locked in and therefore I could not experience all that I can today and as a result I denied the possibility that there could be a deeper richer meaning. My rational reflection on my experiences back then revealed nothingness and yet my rational reflection, on my current experiences, reveal a life that is rich in meaning. I hear music where I could not before; I see a myriad of colour that in the past was only grey; I experience that under lying meaning that was just an empty void in the past.

But what is meaning? And can it be discovered in what many see as the emptiness of life?

When I think of meaning and our search for it, Viktor Frankl immediately springs to mind.

In “Man’s Search For Meaning” Frankl gives an account of his struggle to find meaning when held as a prisoner in the Nazi death camps of the second world war. He lost most of his family and friends in the camps and yet he never lost hope in humanity.

Frankl was the founder of what has often been referred to as the “Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy” Freud founded the first which was based on the central role of the libido or pleasure principle in human psychology. Alfred Adler founded the second which emphasised the importance of the will to power and the significance of the superiority/inferiority complex in human behaviour. In contrast to these two schools Frankl’s psychology is based on the will to meaning which he saw as the primary motivating force in human life. He named it “Logotherapy” taken from the Greek term logos, which means “word”, “reason”, or “meaning”. Think of the opening words from John’s Gospel, “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.” The word here of course is “Logos”. There is an implication here that meaning has a transcendent origin.

Frankl saw a spiritual dimension beyond the biological and psychological. He saw the suppression of this as the root cause of our human malady. Therefore the task of “Logotherapy” was “to remind patients of their unconscious religiousness” and to uncover the spiritual dimensions of their lives and enable them to recover the capacity to choose those values which give our lives worth and meaning.

Now this meaning is of course different for everyone. As Frankl said himself:

“For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.”

Frankl claimed that meaning is discovered through creative and worthwhile activites, by creating something beautiful or doing good – I believe that one of the greatest sadness’s of our age is the fact that the phrase “do-gooder” has become a term of mockery, that it is somehow seen as wrong and suspicious to do good - Meaning can be found through experiencing and sharing in the beauty of art or nature or through loving or ethical encounters with others.

Even in the most horrific and terrifyingly hopeless situations we still have the capacity to choose our attitude towards whatever circumstances we are faced with. It is our response to life’s events that shapes our souls. Remember Frankl developed his theory during the utter despair and horror of the Nazi death camps. As Frankl himself said “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”

I witnessed a wonderful example of this on Sunday night. I went to see the performance poet “Rodney Chris Paradox” he really is worth checking out. During the night he delivered a song poem entitled “Mr Pain”, which is essentially about him dealing with the suffering he experienced while losing a limb. Before he began he explained that he’d been on a journey throughout the world in search of meaning, his life had become empty. The journey ended in Mexico where he had an accident which led to him having half a leg amputated. From this grew the story “Mr Pain”.

The poem describes how he had developed immunity to pain killers. He is assigned a “pain team” who try every form of western medicine to fight off the excruciating agony, every attempt failed. He then called upon all he had learnt from all the eastern traditions, which again failed. Finally he screams out to God and enters the emptiness. Here in this place of nothingness he surrenders to the pain and accepts his lot and from here the pain no longer seems to matter. By surrendering to it, it lost its power.

Everyone suffers pain in their lives and often there seems no justifiable reason for it. It just seems so unfair. I believe the mistake that we make is that we look for reasons in the past instead of making reasons out of what has happened. You see by remaining locked in the past we isolate ourselves, we say look this is my suffering and pain and we seek out someone to blame. What we ought to doing is understanding that we all share pain in life, it’s a part of existence and seeing what we can give back to life from our shared experience. I have discovered by doing so meaning begins to burst out of the seeming nothingness.

None of us gets to choose our pain and suffering and none of us can avoid it. That said we can choose how we respond to it and pass those lessons on to one another. No one can take that away from us. It is perhaps our one and only true freedom. How we respond to life’s circumstances.

I discovered that the real meaning in life emerges by trying to help others find meaning in their lives. Do you know what ever since this discovery life has become so rich in meaning. These days I see meaning in everything.

Remember “there’s no turning back because we are in this together all the way."

What is mysticism?

2012-01-26T02:57:00.000-08:00

I like to think of mysticism as the art of meeting reality, or the art of richer and deeper awarenesses. ... It is an experience that comes unbidden ... [It is] a very special experience ... of that Oneness, a rare and wonderful realization of what always is but of which we are seldom aware, flooding in to overwhelm the illusion of aloneness, separateness. ... There are moments when life seems vivid and resplendent, when a more than mortal splendor breaks in, when there is a touch of grandeur and of glory in just being alive. ... In our experience ... of those moments when we're rapturously one with the wonder of all that is, we have some indication of what has been meant by the mystic experience.

Jacob Trapp was a Unitarian Universalist minister who served congregations in Salt Lake City, Denver, and Summit, New Jersey, he was the editor of Modern Religious Poems and author of the hymn, “Wonders Still the World Shall Witness.”

Prayers by Jacob Trapp

Mindfulness: Wax on, wax off...wax on wax off...Daniel-San

2012-01-25T10:36:00.000-08:00

I was travelling to Urmston last Thursday evening for the “12 Steps to a Compassionate life Group”. It was not a pleasant journey. I didn’t make it so. Ok the traffic was appalling, which was exacerbated by a broken down truck. I was convinced that I was going to be late and found myself becoming increasingly frustrated at being held up. After all I was on my way to an important engagement, don’t you know. My thoughts, my internal dialogue, were appalling.

I’ve been reflecting quite a bit on my thinking and behaviour since. It seems I’ve a lot to learn and a long way to go. I am not alone in this and it is one of the reasons that I am embarking on this journey with Karen’s work on Compassion. I need it; I think most of us do.

When I listen to myself sometime these days all I can do is laugh...and anyone who knows me will tell you it's usually a Muttley laugh.

I’ve been reflecting on this quite a bit since. Don’t get me wrong I have not been beating myself up, but it has made me take a good long look at myself. I need to be more mindful of my thoughts and feelings, both about myself and those I share life with. I remember some time ago Joyce (a member of the Urmston congregation) saying how she believes that cars feed into the more base aspects of our natures. They enhance our sense of separation and lead us to think more selfishly. Well if you’d witnessed me last Thursday evening, you would not have argued with her assessment.

Karen Armstrong, in “12 Steps to a Compassionate Life”, highlights that it is the four “F’s” that are the cause of so much of our pain. That these four basic drives, that are thread into our DNA, are part of our humanity and drive so much of what we feel, think and do. The four “F’s” are feeding, fighting, fleeing and...reproduction (for want of a better word). She describes them as the old brain, as they are part of our inheritance from the reptilians that climbed out of the primordial swamp that we evolved from all those millions of years ago. Of course this is not all that we are, these drives are only one aspect of our common humanity, we also have compassionate, loving aspects too. She describes this as the new brain, which developed much later. If we feed the four F's they come to dominance but if we feed our compassion that comes to the fore instead. This is why spiritual practise is a vital part of the development of our compassionate natures. If we do not feed the compassionate wolf that is within each of us the other wolf will win out. We human beings are capable of such destructive action, as our history has proved. It is so easy to be ruled by the four “F’s” of feeding, fighting, fleeing and...reproduction.

In the fifth suggestion of “12 Steps to a Compassionate Life” Karen Armstrong advocates the practise of mindfulness. She says that: “With mindfulness, we use our new analytical brain to step back and become more aware of the instinctive, automatic mental processes of the old brain. The Tibetan word for meditate is gom, ‘familiarisation’, and mindfulness should give us greater familiarity with the four “F’s” that are the cause of so much pain.”

You see it is vital to become familiar with these aspects of ourselves and see how quickly they come to the fore when we feel that our security is under threat; how quickly they can make us become irrationally hostile, angry or greedy; to try and grab what we can, before somebody else does. We should not hate these parts of ourselves, they are there for a reason, we need these instincts, nor should we despise them when we witness them in others. Armstrong suggests that through spiritual practise we can learn to stop identifying with them and begin to develop the compassionate aspects of our natures.

By the way mindfulness is not some practise that is done on a mountain top away from the world or in isolation tucked away in near dark candle lit room. No it is practised in the muck of life in our everyday interactions with ordinary everyday people. It ought to be practised when stuck in those traffic jams of life or when chaos is descending or when we are just going about our ordinary every day business. Mindfulness is not about escaping reality, but about living within life itself. It is about paying attention to our thoughts and feelings as we meander through life. Through practise we can begin to become familiar with these drives and instincts that are within each and every one of us, we can begin to observe our anger and frustration and all our fear driven compulsions. At the same time if we continue to practise compassion for ourselves and others and carry on giving of ourselves to others those instincts that once ruled us and continue to rear up from nowhere will just simply begin to lose power. The selfish wolf will start to die off and the compassionate wolf will begin to take over. It is of course vital to realise that the selfish wolf never dies completely, that it can easily resurface again if we do not continue to practise mindfulness, loving kindness and of course self giving love.

Mindfulness ought never to be confused with self absorption; it is actually quite the opposite. It is not an end in itself. If spiritual practise is purely about us feeling good about ourselves then it has defeated its purpose and become narcissistic. Its real purpose is to help us live more compassionately with our fellows and to begin to build the commonwealth of love here on earth.

Embarking on new things is never easy, especially spiritual practices that do not immediately show results. In fact at first they may appear to be not only pointless but can actually bring more pain and difficulty to the surface. We can quickly become aware of the things about ourselves that we would perhaps rather not face.

A few years ago I was struggling to implement some spiritual disciplines that were to become an integral part of my life. The man who was offering direction at the time could see this and asked me if I had seen the film “The Karate Kid?” Of course like most men of my generation I had, it was one of my favourite films as a kid.

In the film a young lad named Daniel is beaten up by a gang of bullies. An old Chinese man named Mr Miyagi saves him from them and offers to help him to learn Karate, so he can defend himself. This he does and after many trials and tribulations Daniel not only learns Karate but becomes a champion.

The path to becoming a champion was by no means an easy one and Daniel, or Daniel-San nearly gives up many times, but he stuck with it. By the way my sisters fond nick name for me over the years has been “Daniel-San”...there are worse things to be called.

“The Karate Kid” is the classic hero’s tale; it is full of trials and tribulations. When Daniel first goes to Mr Miyagi he expects him to teach him how to fight immediately, but this does not happen. Instead he gets him to clean and wax his car, by practising specific motions “Wax on, wax off...wax on, wax off” He then gets him to paint a fence and polish a floor, all by hand, all applying simple hand motions. He also reminds him to breathe; he continues to remind him to breathe. After several days of this Daniel is worn out and decidedly unhappy. He thinks Mr Miyagi has taken him for a mug. After an argument he storms off, but Mr Miyagi calls him back and begins to perform some Karate moves which Daniel finds he can easily block.

Finally Daniel-San sees the purpose behind what he has been doing. He can see that all those seemingly meaningless hours polishing and painting etc have equipped him to block the punches and kicks when they come. He can see some tangible results for all his hard work. Daniel-San continues with his training and at the end of the film he becomes the hero as he beats the bullies in the competition and of course he also gets the girl.

Whenever I get stuck in myself and think I’m not doing so well in my attempts to live more compassionately I try to remember Daniel-San and those lessons I learnt many years ago. I remember to wax on, wax off and I also remember to breathe.

Like everyone I have my days when I get lost in my pain and worries and I don’t always feel love towards my fellows or myself. I can cut myself off in my metal box, but I can also begin painting the fence and or polishing the car. I know if I continue to practise compassion my life and the lives of those around me are bound to improve. I must also remember that I am not journeying alone. We all have friends and supporters to help us on our individual ways and we have that power that runs through all of life that can help and sustain us, when the going gets really tough.

Remember “Wax on, wax off...wax on, wax off and don’t forget to breathe”

"Somewhere Over The Rainbow"

2012-01-17T09:24:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday afternoon I was lounging on my settee, just feeling good about life. I looked up out of my window and saw the most beautiful purplely pink sky. For whatever reason I decided to post a comment about this on Facebook, I received some interesting responses. Other people in Manchester looked out of their windows and enjoyed the scene; a friend in Edinburgh said that the sky was the same there, as it was in Blackpool and other places too. It seemed right that the sky over Manchester was pinky purple that night. After all it had been derby day and red and blue mixed together does make purple. So a pinky/purple sky over Manchester seemed appropriate as the light turned into the dark and the people of the city settled back down to normality.

A little later another friend reported that as she had been travelling back from Birmingham that day, she had seen the perfect rainbow. I’ve been thinking an awful lot about rainbows these past few weeks and that pot of gold that lies at the other side of them. In fact ever since the flight to Transylvania, last Autumn, Dorothy, her red slippers, the Wizard of Oz and the saying “there’s no place like home” keep on emerging into my consciousness.

On a recent flight to Transylvania I had noticed a young family who were obviously returning home. The daughter and the mother spent quite a lot of the flight teasing the dad, this both amused and delighted me as we passed over Europe. I had noticed that the little girl was wearing ruby slippers, like those worn by Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.

On both the flight into Transylvania and the flight back I sat with the same young woman. She had obviously been visiting family for a few days and was now returning to Paris. Interestingly she was also wearing red footwear, but of a more adult version. She was wearing red knee length boots. I was wearing red shoes too, trainers in my case. Now I don’t know what all this means, if anything, but I cannot seem to get these images out of my head. I can’t seem to get Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz out of my head either.

Legend promises a pot of gold at the end of every rainbow. We all live in hope of this. Hope is vital, it helps us to keep walking down the yellow brick roads of life, especially when the going gets tough. This though can become problematic, especially if we focus too much on what is at the end of the road. If we gaze too hard at the pot of gold we may miss the treasures that are already here. The kingdom of God need not be some place way off into the future, maybe it’s already here. Maybe we already possess all we need within ourselves and each other.

In his classic fantasy tale “The Wizard of Oz” L. Frank Baum tells the story of Dorothy a young Kansas girl who wishes to escape the drudgery of her existence. In the film she sings the lament “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” She sings “Birds fly over the rainbow, why then oh why can’t I.”

Dorothy longs for a better, more exciting colourful life. In the film the scenes in Kansas are grey, but when she reaches Oz everything is in glorious Technicolor. All that she cares about in Kansas is also under threat, her dog Toto is about to be taken from her - Toto in Latin means everything - In Kansas not only has life no meaning, but everything that matters is under threat.

I was chatting with a friend the other day who was suffering the same problems. He was saying that his life had lost meaning and nothing seemed to give him any joy. That it all seemed grey and colourless and even tasteless. As a result of this all that seemed to matter the most to him was under threat. Now of course this wasn’t wholly true he was just voicing some fear. A fear everyone experiences at times. I spoke to him again a little later and he was feeling much better, the colour was returning to his life again. Sometimes all we have to do is voice our fears and they begin to diminish.

Often in life we only really appreciate what we’ve got when we come close to losing it. It is only after Dorothy returns from her Technicolor adventure that she begins to appreciate all that she has. Yes it is just as grey as it was before, but now everything appears different. What she had been searching for had been there all along. Yes there are pots of gold at the end of every rainbow, because there are pots of gold already inside our hearts.

Dorothy’s travelling companions also learnt the same lessons. The Tin Woodman wished he had a heart and was prepared to go to any lengths to get one. He would risk life itself just to find a heart. Yet throughout the tale he displays tenderness, sensitivity and compassion. He weeps when the lion threatens to kill a deer and pleads with him “Don’t! Please don’t. I should certainly weep if you killed a poor dear, and then my jaws would rust again.” When he kills a beetle he weeps so much that his jaws do indeed rust shut. Dorothy is beside herself with anguish but the scarecrow comes to the rescue, takes oil from her basket and lubricates the woodman’s jaw and before long everything is as good as new. It seems the Woodman definitely has a heart, he just isn’t aware of. Perhaps the real problem is that he is afraid to feel too much?

The Scarecrow is much the same. He is also searching for what he believes he lacks. In his case a brain. Yet when push comes to shove he is the one who saves the day. He is the one who possesses the foresight to find the way out. He is the one who can think under pressure. When they come across an impassable ravine it is he who suggests that the lion jump across, with them on his back, one by one.

Here we see the supposedly cowardly lion stepping up to the mark. He leaps at this opportunity to help his companions. Yet he cannot see this himself, he still considers himself a coward as he is so aware of his fear. But is courage about the absence of fear? I do not think so. In my eyes courage is about overcoming fear and not the absence of fear. Courage is about finding faith in the presence of fear.

Finally they arrive at the Emerald City and ask the Wizard to give to them what they believe they lack. This he promises to do if they would kill the wicked witch, a task which he believes is beyond them. But of course they succeed and return to the Emerald City expecting their reward.

They return disappointed though. During a frantic scene Toto pulls back the curtain revealing the truth about the Wizard. It had all been a case of smoke and mirrors he is an ordinary man, with no magic powers. Dorothy tells him that he is a very bad man. To which he replies "Oh, no, my dear; I'm really a very good man, but I'm a very bad Wizard, I must admit."

A disappointing end it would seem, there was nothing there at the end of the rainbow. But is this true? Well let’s look a little more closely.

The scarecrow did indeed find his wonderful brains; the tin man did indeed find his lovely heart; the lion no longer lived as a coward. And in the end Dorothy did find her way back to Kansas as she clicked her ruby slippers and recounted the chant...“there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.”

Surely this is the lesson from this beautiful tale. Wherever we journey, however we get there and whatever it leads to in the end the real purpose is to uncover that pot of gold that we already have within each and every one of us. Hopefully by uncovering our own pots of gold we will help others to do likewise.

The Ache of Loneliness Continued: To Everything there is a Season

2012-01-13T12:19:00.000-08:00

I have spent much of the last few weeks watching the world from my car window. Several moments have really stood out for me and I’ve been carrying them with me in the memory bank of my soul. The first was the journey to Great Hucklow for the Urmston Christmas dinner. It was a beautiful sight to behold, the pure white fields and the lonely winter trees, stretching out from cold pale ground. There is something very beautiful about the trees in winter. These lifeless stick like sculptures stretching out from the ground are stripped right down to the bone. They look vulnerable and exposed, but they are not. By next spring life will have returned and I know this scene will be very different. If I travel that way again I will see the new lambs and the rolling fields, separated by dry stone walls and the trees will once again be bursting into life.

To everything there is definitely a season

I have also been carrying the most wondrous image of the deepest richest coloured rainbow I have ever seen. I saw it on the morning of the Advent Service on my way to Urmston. I always like to travel the back way there and it was a beautiful morning that day. I saw the rainbow as I got near the football training grounds - no it wasn’t coming from United’s or City’s or Sale Shark’s for that matter. It was stretching from the Lymm area and it only seemed half formed when I first caught sight of it - As I turned towards Flixton I saw the other side of the rainbow. It seems that the pot of gold is actually in Flixton and not those training grounds full of those rich and famous men.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time on the M62 these past couple of weeks, travelling to and from Yorkshire, visiting family and friends. I love that time in the car, looking ahead, focused but relaxed about what I am doing and listening to music I love. So many times as I pass the white rose symbol at the side of the road I am listening to “Green and Grey” a song by my great love New Model Army. It is a song about where I come from in the world and it’s also a song about never forgetting where you come from; it is a song about remembering your roots, where ever you are in the world on your journey of life. This always brings “The Wizard of Oz” and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and that simple message of “there’s no place like home”, to my mind. Home for me these days in anywhere I no longer feel alone.

I have been reflecting and talking a lot about the ache of loneliness this winter, ever since I heard the news of the suicide of Gary Speed. Gary was one of my footballing heroes, part of that great Leeds United midfield that pipped Alex Fergusons Manchester United to the title. Fame and fortune does not make us immune from life’s troubles. That beautiful rainbow stretched to Flixton, it did not land on the training grounds of Carrington.

I witnessed a beautiful manmade site from my car window. It happened on Boxing Day as I travelled back to Altrincham. I was approaching Stott Hall farm (the farm in the middle of the two carriageways of the M62), coming towards me was this stream of yellow lights and moving away from me was this stream of red lights and smack bang in the middle of all of this was this farm, this island. Two streams of traffic going in opposite directions, to who knows where and who knows why. For some reason this brought Ecclesiastes 3 to my mind, especially the lines “a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and time to dance.” I suppose this view from my window brought these words to my mind because this is exactly how I have experienced the last few weeks. I have known moments of joy and great laughter but also mourning, sadness and some weeping. There have been times to cry.

Ecclesiastes 3 has stood the test of time. There is good reason for this; it speaks an eternal and universal truth that everyone can relate to. These words from this ancient source link we who live today with the generations that have walked the earth before us. People who have travelled one way or another, ok they may not have travelled in streams of red and yellow lights, but they have journeyed through life. They have travelled through their own dark valleys and emerged at the other side. These words remind me that the strength and patience that can elude all of us at our worst moments has felt elusive to all people in all generations at some point or another and yet they came through the tough times.

I see parallels here with the phrase “This too shall pass”. Nothing is permanent and nothing lasts forever. Some folk are travelling in one direction and others perhaps in another and we all usually travel back the same way at some time. No will ever escape the pain of life, but that’s ok because if we remain open we will also know life’s joy. Yes there is a time to mourn, but there is also a time to dance; there is a time to weep, but there is also a time to laugh.

I was invited to party on Christmas Eve. There were many people there, most of who I have come to know during my time in Altrincham. It was a really good time, lots of jollity and laughter was had by all. In the middle of the party I got into conversation with someone I quite like, someone it would seem I have grown to love to talk to in short time I’ve known her. She knows a little bit about my life and was asking some questions, that I found difficult to engage with. The subject of Ethan and Claire came up and for whatever reason I found it difficult to talk about them, there and then. I suspect that this is because I haven’t for a while or maybe it was because I was in a public place and I was afraid to express my pain. This is probably the more honest reason. I am someone who still finds it hard to show their pain, to express my vulnerability. I am making progress though.

It is a familiar trait that so many of we men seem to suffer from, some women do too, but I suspect that it is we males who suffer from it more. I suspect that half the reason is that we fear that if we let the pain out we may never be able to make it stop. This is of course crazy and a denial of our humanity. There is a time to cry. During times of loss an acknowledgement of weakness and softness suggest a tender heart. If there exists, in this world, a single person who cannot find something worth crying about I do not think that I would like to meet them. Such people frighten me.

I spent a few hours with Claire last Monday evening and we talked and shared and remembered her remarkable little boy and all that he brought to our lives and so many other people in the short time that he lived. I shed my tears and she let me. Afterwards I could see that this had been the trouble recently I had not been able to talk about my pain and grief for my loss and it would appear that in actual fact she is the only person with whom I can share these things. I had forgotten this and it would seem I had been seeking elsewhere.

Grief truly is the price we pay for love, to not grieve is to not truly live and to deny this grief is to deny this love and I am no longer into the denial of life, not these days...there is a time to cry.

The author of Ecclesiastes is so correct in saying “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” I have shed a few tears these last few days as I have remembered the people who have loved me and who I have loved, but who are no longer physically in my life. They are of course still with me though, I know this because I have experience of the truth that love never dies. As a result I noticed that some of those barriers that block me from life, from love, from God have been removed; I feel that I have been opened up once again.

There are many seasons in our lives, just as there are many different emotions. Yes sometimes we can experience all those emotions in one single day, just as we can experience four seasons in one day. There is a time and perhaps a place for all them, for to diminish any of them is deny what it is to be fully human. Yes there is a time to weep, just as there is a time to laugh and there is a time to mourn, just as much as there is a time to dance.

Living a full, productive, and involved life is a wild ride at times. There are many hills and valleys, there is green and grey, but there are rainbows and pots of gold too. If we are ready for whatever comes our way we will find rich blessings amongst life’s trials and tribulations.

Let’s keep on looking out of our windows, let’s keep our heads held high and our minds, hearts and souls open.

Problem with our website

2012-01-09T02:07:00.000-08:00

You may have noticed that there is a problem with our website - the domain is being squatted.

Andy has contacted the internet service provider to get this resolved, and we hope to get the site back up and running as soon as possible.

In the meantime, if you have an event you want publicised, post it in the comments here, and we will blog about it.

Apologies for any inconvenience.

New Years Day: Holding on to what is Good

2012-01-03T07:22:00.000-08:00

Look to this day!

For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course lie all the verities and realities of existence:
The bliss of growth, the glory of action, the splendour of beauty;
For yesterday is but a dream,
And tomorrow is only a vision
But today, well lived, makes every yesterday a dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore, to this day.

words attributed to Kalidasa, a 3rd century Indian author.

New Years Day is a time for new beginnings, a time for hope of what might be and a time to reflect on what has been before us. And yet it is just a day, much like any other day really. The sun has risen, as it has always risen and in a few hours time it will set, as it has always set.

As we look out into the unknown future, it has become our custom, on this day, to resolve to do things differently than we have in the past. We make New Year’s resolutions and begin to practise them, on this day. The problem is of course that we rarely keep them up; we quickly slip back into those old habits.

I wonder if this will ever work. I suspect the reason it doesn’t is that we focus too much of our attention on the negative, on what is wrong. Perhaps what we ought to be doing is focusing on what is healthy and good and actually work and practise these habits. Maybe by focusing on what is wrong all that we end up doing is actually strengthening these weaknesses and give them more power. Perhaps the problem is that we spend too much time living in our problems, as opposed to living in the solutions to our problems. By doing so are we actually strengthening the destructive aspects of ourselves as opposed to our compassionate sides? As I keep reminding myself - the wolf that wins is the one that we feed.

Life is constantly changing, nothing ever stays exactly the same, and no moment is like any other. Each of us experience these moments differently too; we each bring our pasts with us to each moment and this always impacts on the present. We cannot completely let go, nor should we. Yes we need to let go of what stops us living as best we can, but we also need to hold on to what is healthy, that which feeds and nurtures us. We need these lifelines to live happily and healthily.

But what is it that we need to develop? What should we hold on to? What do we need to nurture in order to live healthy and happy lives? And what are the lifelines that sustain us, when life seems really tough?

Paul of Tarsus, in the 13^th Chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians names three truths that can hold us through any of the storms of life. These truths are secured, they are rock solid, they are eternal and they are of course universal. We can hold on and depend on these three, but only if we nurture and strengthen them. Something we will find difficult if we focus all are energy on what is wrong with us on what we must let go of. Actually we may well find that our troubles begin to disappear as we develop these three.

And what are these three?

They are faith, hope and love.

And what do these three mean?

Faith is about trusting in life itself; it is about living as openly and honestly as possible; it is about accepting that there is pain in life, but that there is also so much joy; it is realising that the mere fact that we exist at all is life’s greatest gift. This allows us to sing the joy of living, in all its mystery. It is also about seeing that we are all in this together and that we need to connect as much as possible to the life in which we share. We need to ensure that this lifeline is secure and not worn or frayed at the edges. This is something we need to hold onto and not let go of. Why, you may well ask? Well because it sustains us through the vicissitudes of life. Life does not offer much certainty, but we need not despair at this. Again you may ask why? Well because from despair grows hope.

Hope is the second of those eternal, universal truths. Hope is rooted in despair; it grows from the same place. To live in hope is to believe that if we live with conviction and compassion that we can effect positive change in our world, even if we ourselves do not get see to see its full fruition. Hope is about planting those seeds when and where ever we can. This is why I have committed to leading the 12 Steps to a Compassionate Life Reading groups in the congregations I serve. This is an attempt to develop the connection to our compassionate natures and therefore improve our own lives and those around us. I have faith in the hope that Confucius’s concentric circles of compassion can bear fruit in our age and that by developing our compassionate natures we can go out into our communities, our regions, our countries and even our world and be the change we want to see.

To live with hope is to live with the attitude that the future is genuinely open. The God of my understanding works with us and guides us but leaves life open, it is not pre-ordained. “The Lure of Divine Love” draws us out of ourselves, but it also allows life to develop freely. I accept that the past does have power, I have a strong sense of history, this is very important. That said I do not believe that the past defines the future, not everything is inevitable. The future is unwritten.

Life is definitely a journey worth taking, even during its toughest moments. Yes we all despair at times and we all live with uncertainty, but the beacon of hope is always there. This brings to mind a line in from "Proverbs" “Where there is no vision (no hope) the people perish.” Hope is a vital lifeline it both holds and sustains us. It is an eternal and universal principle and one that requires nurture. It is all about love.

But what is love? How can it sustain us? By the way I am not talking of romance here; I am talking of spiritual love, self giving love. Spiritual love is that power that connects us to our true selves, one another, the life we share and whatever it is that connects all life. What I myself call God; that power that is greater than all and yet present in each. Love is about caring deeply and passionately about life itself. This of course requires attention; it is a life line that requires nurture. Love reminds me that we do not live for ourselves alone or by ourselves alone. “no man is an island” or as Kurt Vonnegut once put it “one human being is no human being”. The universal and eternal truth is that we need the love, the care, the companionship of others in order to fully experience what it is to be alive. By ourselves we are never fully alive.

So my New Year’s message this year is not really about letting go, it’s actually about holding and developing those lifelines that sustain and nurture us. Instead of focusing on the problem, let’s focus on the solution. Remember the wolf that wins is the one that we feed. Therefore if we spend our time focusing on the problem we may well end up making it bigger than it actually is; where as if we simply feed and develop our compassionate sides, thereby feeding the solution, the problem will simply wither away and die.

Whatever this year brings us, let us resolve to develop lives of faith, hope and love and be the change that we want to see. The future truly is unwritten, no one knows what tomorrow will bring.

Lao Tzu once said:

If there is to be peace in the world,

There must be peace in the nations.

If there is to be peace in the nations,

There must be peace in the cities.

If there is to be peace in the cities,

There must be peace between neighbours.

If there is to be peace between neighbours,

There must be peace in the home.

If there is to be peace in the home,

There must be peace in the heart.

The Ache of Loneliness Continued: Grief & Suffering

2011-12-19T00:46:00.000-08:00

The Ache of Loneliness Continued: Grief & Suffering

No person on this earth is immune from suffering and grief, it is part of human life as is joy and love and of course mystery and wonder. Everyone has experienced the loss of someone they have loved with all their heart. If we have not, then we have never truly loved; if we have never truly loved, then we have never fully lived. This sounds like the worst kind of suffering of them all.

While life may well be simple it is not always easy. M Scott Peck began his seminal book “The Road Less Travelled” with these words: “Life is difficult."

"This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult – once we truly understand and accept it – then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.”

Life is awry, there is pain and suffering in life and no matter how hard we try this cannot be avoided. Modern day attitudes to grief and death highlight this growing immaturity. We live in a death denying culture that so often wants to rush people through grief and sorrow to some imagined place at the other side of the rainbow, where there is no pain. Oz does not exist! Sorrow and suffering are conditions that we must acknowledge and accept. They cannot be simply let go of and thrown in the bin of life. Not only can they not be thrown away it would wrong to do so and disrespectful to those we have lost and claimed to have loved. Where is the love in this?

In trying to flee our suffering we actually intensify the pain. Herman Hesse saw the truth in this when he said:

“Love your suffering. Do not resist it; do not flee from it. It is your aversion that hurts, nothing else.”

It is this aversion that causes the suffering within the suffering. It is this that causes much of what so many people describe as the loneliness of modern life. In trying to suppress our pain all we succeed in doing is cut ourselves off from the joy of life. While life may well be difficult and does involve grief and suffering, it does not have to involve “the suffering within the suffering”. Life itself is not suffering. We need not be identified by our suffering.

Eckhart Tolle suggest that we create needless suffering when we blame others for all our personal pain. He claims that the habit of blaming and cultivating outrage, anger, resentment and other negative emotions, what he names as our “pathological ego”, is what blocks us from knowing the truth about ourselves and the human condition.

He explains that although we do suffer, we are not our suffering, it is not our whole identity. The trouble is that we can become trapped in it and then it identifies all that we are. He calls this the “pain body”. He claims that we can step outside of it, but not by simply ignoring the pain and hoping it will just go away.

There are other forms of suffering that can never be justified. We should not simply passively accept all forms of suffering. Dorothy Soelle rightly criticised the claim that suffering is justified because it was the only way to achieve Salvation or Nirvana. As she said

“No heaven can rectify Auschwitz”.

She did not believe that suffering was ordained by God. Instead she saw God within the suffering. For her God suffered with humanity. For her salvation was achieved through experiencing God within humanities suffering, not as a result of it. She saw God as being in solidarity with the victims of oppression in human society. Therefore in her view to fully experience salvation is to work for liberation of the oppressed and to end man made suffering, not passively endure it.

What is required is a compassionate response to suffering.

Compassion means to suffer with. We can learn to be with others in their suffering and with ourselves in our own. The opposite of compassion is apathy. To be apathetic to the suffering not only of ourselves but also that of others is the worst kind of hell any one can suffer from, it’s inhuman, it creates our loneliness and it creates our isolation.

To suffer with is to experience compassion and of course to grieve is to love.

Forrest Church claimed grief is not really about death at all but more about life and the courage to love. Grief is truly about love and therefore it is not an end point, it is not a land of sorrow and regret in which we become lost, but a bridge that leads us back to life from death. He claimed that grief is so intensely powerful that it has the capacity to lift up our lives to the most sacred of moments and remind us what really matters. That said it loses its power if the grief is suppressed or silenced or neatly packaged and sanitised. Life is not neatly packaged so why on earth should we expect grief to be?

When grief is allowed to speak its truth it does so powerfully. It is personal in its power to change individual lives and it is also universal as it will visit all who dare to love what is mortal.

I agree with Forrest’s belief that the choice is not between love and death but between a life lived in fear of love, because of the reality of death and loss, and a life lived courageously with love despite death’s presence.

Love and grief have the power to change us forever.

As Forrest has reminded me once again, from the grave, the purpose of life is not to avoid grief and death. Instead the “purpose of life is to live in such a way that our lives will prove worth dying for by the love that we leave behind.”

The trees in winter

2011-12-17T10:07:00.000-08:00

The trees in winter

I was travelling through the Derbyshire hills the other day, on my way to the Nightingale centre at Great Hucklow. I spent most of the journey simply staring out of the window and taking in the beautiful winter scene. The fields were white with snow and sheep. I also noticed the lonely winter trees, stretching out from cold pale ground.

There is something very beautiful about the trees in winter. These lifeless stick like sculptures stretching out from the ground are stripped right down to the bone. They look vulnerable and exposed, but they are not. By next spring life will have returned and I know this scene will be very different. If I travel this way then I will see the new lambs and the rolling fields, separated by dry stone walls and the trees will once again be bursting into life.

I am enjoying this winter, I have a new found sense of appreciation for it today. This is because I am able to empathise with it. I feel that I have been stripped of some unwanted and unneeded skin these last few weeks; I feel that some of those barriers that block me from life, from love, from God have been removed; I feel that I have been opened up once again. Now some may see this as making myself vulnerable, well I have no problem with that. Life is a vulnerable experience; you cannot be protected from it. Actually by trying to protect myself from life is to actually live in fear and I do not believe that this is living at all. I know that my attempts to protect myself in the past have only ever made me feel increasingly lonelier and cut off. I need to feel the cold this winter, to truly experience it. I need to feel bare and stripped at times because I know by doing so I am preparing myself for the new birth of the new year and the coming of spring; I need to prepare myself for the pink snow that I use to see falling from the cherry blossom in the courtyard at Luther King House. But first I must feel the cold and not fear it. It’s funny I don’t seem to mind the cold this winter, in fact I’m actually enjoying the fact that I can feel it. I know that I am alive and by golly do I want to be alive.

I have been talking an awful lot about the coming of light these past few weeks, this is of course in celebration and appreciation of Advent. I have also talked about darkness and the “ache of loneliness”. Well now I am beginning to question myself. Is the dark all bad? Should we fear it? I am not wholly convinced that we should, it has its place in the circle of life, just as much as the light. The winter Solstice will soon be upon us. This year it will fall on the 22^nd December. This is the shortest day of the year, in terms of daylight hours of course. Every day last 24 hours, obviously. This shortest day marks the end of the descent into darkness and the beginning of the new light.

In Hinduism, which has recently celebrated its own festival of lights, the Deity most associated with darkness is Kali. On the surface she is seen as destructive, she drinks blood and wears a chain of skulls. Seen literally she would have to be viewed as monstrous and terrifying. This though is not what this icon is about, at all. There is something much deeper going on in the imagery. It is a mistake to get lost in the metaphor, this is true of all religious symbolism by the way. “Kali” in Sanskrit is the feminine word for time. In time we all die, it is a fate that cannot be avoided, no matter how clever we think we are. She is black, not because there are racial undertones here but because death is a mystery; we cannot know what will happen to us when we die. Kali represents the mystery of life and death and the continuing cyclical relationship between the two.

This is an image that seems particularly pertinent during the winter when everything has died off. The ground is hard and the trees are bare and generally speaking people’s moods seem a little lower. This though is not something that we should fear, in fact perhaps it should be celebrated. Everything that lives and grows, including we humans, needs to lie fallow for periods of time. We need this because we need to rest and regenerate. The leaves that fell from the trees in the autumn are now regenerating in the soil. By spring this will lead to new life. It is the death of these leaves that actually makes new life possible.

We need not fear the dark it is both regenerative and nurturing. Darkness symbolises the holy, just as much as the light. There can be no Easter without Good Friday. To ignore the darkness or to try and flee from is to ignore elements of the Divine revelation in life itself. There is nothing in life that is beyond the range and reach of God. These words from Psalm 139 always come to my mind when I think of darkness and light.

⁷ Where can I go from your spirit?

Or where can I flee from your presence?

⁸ If I ascend to heaven, you are there;

if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.

^{⁹ If I take the wings of the morning}

and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,

^{¹⁰ even there your hand shall lead me,}

and your right hand shall hold me fast.

^{¹¹ If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me,}

and the light around me become night’,

^{¹² even the darkness is not dark to you;}

the night is as bright as the day,

for darkness is as light to you.

Advent truly is the season of darkness and light. Both of these qualities offer vital religious insights and both are worthy of our reflection during this sacred season. In the symbol of Yin and Yang, we see clearly the relationship between the light and dark. Where the whiteness of Yin is most dominant we see the seeds of Yang emerging and where Yang is more dominant we see Yin emerging. You see the light and dark give way to one another, they complement each other. You cannot have one without the other. Neither is beyond the reach of the Divine either, for they are both a like to this universal love. I do not believe that God would reject anything or anyone. This is not the way of love.

This year I am learning to appreciate the cold bareness of winter. Yes I am celebrating the coming of new hope and light, but not by ignoring the dark. I need the dark, I need to be stripped bare at times, I need to lose this skin that sometimes I feel so imprisoned in. I need to let the new life within me spring into being and thus allow my soul's recycle to continue.

I now understand how important it is to really feel the cold at times.

Myth & Mystery: Glad Tidings of Reason and Fact

2011-12-14T03:26:00.000-08:00

Myth & Mystery: Glad Tidings of Reason and Fact

From “Lifecraft” by Forrest Church from the chapter “A Mystery Story”

"Reckon the odds. That we should even exist staggers the imagination. Then take it back further, back to the ur-paramecium. All of us are connected genetically to the beginning of life and kinetically to the beginning of time. The universe was pregnant with us when it was born. I find this far more amazing and inspiring than most theological reflections. Simply being here - my having written, your reading - is a miracle. Consider my awe at the underwater world on the Great Barrier Reef, how impossible is was to be blasé in the presence of a giant clam. We should never be blasé when reflecting on the creation or our place in it. As it is written in thirtieth chapter of the book of proverbs,

Three things are too wonderful for me;

four I do not understand:

the way of an eagle in the sky,

the way of a snake on a rock,

the way of a ship on the high seas,

and the way of a man with a woman.

Physics, anatomy, biology, and psychology can begin to decode such mysteries. Yet knowledge has its limits. Quoting an academic study, novelist Saul Bellow observed “that an average weekday New York Times contains more information than any contemporary of Shakespeare would have acquired in a lifetime.” That includes Shakespeare himself. The Times is a fine paper. I read it every day. But for all its information, it only hints, and then only occasionally, at what Shakespeare knew so very well: that the beauty of the bird, the symbol of the snake, the courage of the pilot, and the wonder of human love will always be touched by mystery."

Oh I do love Forrest Church...he speaks to my condition...

I was round at a friend’s house the other night, we were just chatting away about a few things that we as adults see as being so important. My friend has a six year old son and during our rather serious conversation his son burst in with incredible excitement. A tooth had fallen out and obviously he wanted to show it to his dad. I am told that the going rate for a tooth these days is £5 and a set of football cards. It seems that the global recession has not yet impacted on the tooth fairies. A little later he burst in again this time desperate to show something he’d received on his laptop. It was a personalised video message from Santa Claus. Santa addressed him by name and was in possession of a great many details about his life, He had pictures too. Santa discussed how my friend’s son had been behaving for the last few months. At the end of the message Santa told him to be nicer to his brother.

It was an absolute delight to hear this little boy asking when his brother would be home, as he wanted to give him a hug. It was beautifully magical just getting lost in this family's little world, if only for a short time. I had gone to the house to help someone, spiritually I suppose, I had gone to teach. That said I left feeling I was the one who had learnt a lesson and I was one who had received the greatest gift; the gift of joy and wonder; the gift of seeing life through the eyes of a child. A priceless gift if ever I have received one. We can learn so much from children.

They do indeed bring “Glad tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy”

Sophia Lyon Fah’s is so right when she says that every night a child is born is a holy night. For in every child is that wonderful gift of potential. It is important to always remember that we did absolutely nothing to deserve the gift and privilege of being born; we truly had no say in it, it is a gift freely given. What we do with the Grace that is life itself though is another matter all together. This we do have some say in, but we did absolutely nothing to deserve it.

We are now well and truly into the Christmas season. The music is being played in the coffee shops and the other shops too no doubt. I am yet to venture into the other shops and can only vouch for what is being played in Cafe Nero in Altrincham. The adverts are everywhere. The season of Christmas re-runs has already begun. As has the bah humbugging. I heard a bit of it the other morning from a friend. A friend who always makes me chuckle when I sit with him. He makes me chuckle because he reminds me of the cynical guy that I was a few years ago, I was the emperor of scepticism. This was back in the day when my brother would call me Alan Rickman. This was because I reminded him of the character he played in Galaxy Quest, I used to be a real ranter back in the day. And yes Christmas really was a humbug. The awe and wonder at the mystery of life that I had once possessed had become covered by a cloak of cynicism and bah humbug.

Advent is about preparation. Now I used to be someone who was well prepared for misery, I sought it out in actual fact. You may well say I was utterly addicted to it. I certainly worshipped it. What I am becoming increasingly aware of is that I now have to make myself equally prepared for joy. This is my focus at the moment to open myself up as much as possible to the joy that is there in life. This will not take away the pain and disappointment that is there in all our lives. That will hit me just has hard as it always has. That said it will not have the same impact as it once did, because I am also working on preparing within myself a nest, a home, for the joy that is present in life, in love, in mystery. I am learning not to dwell on my troubles, because I keep remembering the lessons that the children I have known in my life have taught me. This advent for me is about preparing for joy and magic and mystery.

A friend recently sent me this play on the Christmas carol “God rest thee merry gentlemen”, it was written by the Unitarian Universalist minister Rev Chris Raible. He is playfully mocking himself and our tradition for its idolatry of reason. Reason and fact aren’t everything. There is more to humanity, and to life itself than we are ever capable of seeing and knowing. True humility always leads to a greater openness to new and wonder filled experience.

"Glad Tidings of Reason and Fact" by Rev Chris Raible

  God rest ye, Unitarians,
  Let nothing you dismay!
  Remember that there is no proof
  There was a Christmas Day
  For Christmas really started as
  A pagan holiday.

  Oh, glad tidings of reason and fact,
  Reason and fact.
  Glad tidings of reason and fact.

No wise men travelled from the East,
  The journey's far too long.
  There were no shepherds in the fields,
  The time of year's all wrong;
  We don't believe in angels;
  That rules out the angels' song!

  (Chorus)

We're too sophisticated to
  Believe in tales so old.
  We know that human avarice means
  Too much bought and sold;
  We only celebrate because
  This season is so cold.

  (Chorus)

Now I will not argue with the factual accuracy of the words, but is this really what the Christmas story is about? Is it really about what actually happened or didn’t happen all those years ago? Does this really bring glad tidings of anything? Does it help us to live better lives, to offer love and compassion to one another?

Advent is about preparing us for the coming of hope that can be found in a humble birth of a lowly child in a lowly stable. A child with incredible potential and yet who is rejected. Isn’t this a universal tale? Doesn’t it speak of all of us at times? There is more to the Christmas myth than the historical accuracy or inaccuracy of the Biblical accounts. In fact to get lost in detail of what did or didn’t actually happen is to miss the whole point of the story. It sounds as ludicrous as those medieval theologians who argued over how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. Is that what really matters? Surely there is more to the story than reason and fact. Gosh I’m starting to sound a bit like Alan Rickman again.

Joseph Campbell taught that myths such as the nativity story are actually metaphors for human life. That they are eternal and universal tales that can teach us about our lives right here right now. He believed that by understanding these mysteries we can begin to understand who we truly are and what life is all about.

Carl Jung taught that these myths originate within our “collective unconscious”. He said that we each have a conscious level that we are aware of in our waking moments (this is what is operating now as you read this blog, or at least I hope it is, are you still awake?). Beneath this is our personal unconscious level, our closet. This is where we store memories, experiences, desires, fears, urges, compulsions etc. It is here that our personal “stuff” is stored, which from time to time we dip into. Some of this stuff is beautiful and some of it is terrifying. This is the domain of our devils and demons.

Jung described our “collective unconscious” as our “collective closet”. He uncovered common themes, symbols and motifs while working with his patients and he noticed that these same themes, symbols and motifs were also to be found in the religious stories and myths. From this he concluded that these common myths and stories are part of humanity's “common closet”. These myths are drawn from a common human well of memory and thought and that they teach us about ourselves and the mysteries of existence. The problem today is that when we hear the word myth we equate it with an untruth, a lie, instead of seeing them as revealers of deeper universal truths. As Campbell observed, to view them as lies is to actually get “stuck in the metaphor” and to fail to see the deeper universal truth that is being revealed.

Why these are imprinted into our human consciousness I cannot answer. Richard Dawkins talks of the evolution of the meme (pronounced like cream) that these ideas, tunes, catchphrases and stories are just past on down the line to help us cope with life. He sees the myths as untruths as lies, as I once did and my friend in the coffee shop still does. Today though I see more; there is something in the corner of my life that I cannot quite see and yet I can experience, so long as I don't get stuck in the metaphor.

Yes the reductionist can dissect life and understand the minutiae but by doing so they can still miss out on its beauty and true meaning. You see the truth is the more we know, the more we realise how little we can ever know and so the mystery grows. I suppose it is here where the magic is and where the God of my misunderstanding is discovered, in the unknown and unknowing. This power is both redemptive and it is divine. It brings out our heart and it brings out our soul. By opening myself up to the unknown I have discovered the hope and joy that I had once lost and I have found the peace that passeth all understanding.

So yes this advent I am preparing myself for the coming of hope, love, peace and joy. I invite you to come and join in too.

Come Christmas come...most needed of seasons.

Do you believe in angels? Do you believe there is something good in everything you see?

2011-12-11T13:58:00.000-08:00

Do you believe in angels? Do you believe there is something good in everything you see?

There are messengers of love and hope all around us. The real problem is that we just don't see it and just don't believe it...Do I believe in angels? I see them everywhere...Do I believe that there is something good in everything? I cannot fail to see it, If I would but open my eyes.

I love the following story is say so much about how even people of great faith can fail to see the blessings right in front of their eyes...I see angels everywhere...

A terrible storm came into a town and local officials sent out an emergency warning that the riverbanks would soon overflow and flood the nearby homes. They ordered everyone in the town to evacuate immediately.

A deeply faithful man heard the warning and decided to stay, saying to himself, “I will trust God and if I am in danger, then God will send a divine miracle to save me.”

The neighbours came by his house and said to him, “We’re leaving and there is room for you in our car, please come with us!” But the man declined. “I have faith that God will save me.”

As the man stood on his porch watching the water rise up the steps, a man in a canoe paddled by and called to him, “Hurry and come into my canoe, the waters are rising quickly!” But the man again said, “No thanks, God will save me.”

The floodwaters rose higher pouring water into his living room and the man had to retreat to the second floor. A police motorboat came by and saw him at the window. “We will come up and rescue you!” they shouted. But the man refused, waving them off saying, “Use your time to save someone else! I have faith that God will save me!”

The flood waters rose higher and higher and the man had to climb up to his rooftop.

A helicopter spotted him and dropped a rope ladder. A rescue officer came down the ladder and pleaded with the man, "Grab my hand and I will pull you up!" But the man STILL refused, folding his arms tightly to his body. “No thank you! God will save me!”

Shortly after, the house broke up and the flood waters swept the man away and he drowned.

When in Heaven, the man stood before God and asked, “I put all of my faith in You. Why didn’t You come and save me?”

And God said, “Son, I sent you a warning. I sent you a car. I sent you a canoe. I sent you a motorboat. I sent you a helicopter. What more were you looking for?”

There are angels all around us bearing gifts of love and compassion, they are truly heaven sent. The problem is we just do not see it or we cannot believe it.

Last week I attended an interfaith friendship circle at the home of Michael Jackson, no not the recently deceased prince of pop, but a local solicitor. Michael has been practising Buddhism since the early 1970’s, is married to a Jewish woman and also attends and leads a meditation class at the local Anglican Church. He is a great example of religious pluralism in action.

Michael led a conversation on Buddhism, his personal experiences with it and his understanding of the tradition. It was an enjoyable evening and we shared a lively discussion. I have been listening to a lot of different Buddhist recently and each time I seem to hear a different take on it. This happens in all walks of life and in all faith traditions I suspect, I know it is not unique to Buddhism.

During the conversation Michael talked about the Buddha finding enlightenment under the Bodhi tree and his experience of doubt and confusion as to what he ought to do about it. Michael described how a Brahmin Angel descended from the heavenly realm and spoke to the Buddha and told him that he must go and teach what he had learnt. For some reason it was this part of the discussion that made me sit up and really listen. Mohsin, a Muslim, also took particularly interest. I suspect that this is because Mohammad had experienced a similar encounter. He saw the arch angel Gabriel by the Lote – tree. I had never heard a Buddhist talk about angels before, nor have I heard a Brahmin Angel described before. The Brahmin is the Hindu word for the Divine. I was a little puzzled by all of this, it certainly got me thinking.

I have been thinking about angels ever since, both in the religious traditions and in ordinary everyday life. If angels are messengers from God, then surely we can all meet them in our everyday encounters. I have come to believe that the Divine speaks through everyday life. As one of my favourite hymns goes “God speaks to us in bird and song , in winds that move the clouds along , above the din of toil and wrong, a melody of love.” I think the problem is not so much whether angels exist or not, it’s that we are just not aware of them. We don’t see them and we don’t hear them because they are everywhere. We cannot see the wood for all of the trees.

Angels are of course central to the Christmas story. At this time of year we are surrounded by them. Just go to virtually any primary school up and down the land and you will see little boys and girls dressed as Angels, somewhere in the background. No they don’t get the central lead roles, but they are there quietly and serenely watching over the main players.

The Hebrew and Greek words for angel (malak and aggelos) simply means “messenger”. In the Christmas story it is the Arch Angel Gabriel who delivers the news that Elizabeth will give birth to John the Baptist and that Mary will soon be carrying Jesus. These are both described as miracles as Elizabeth cannot have children and Mary is a virgin. Gabriel appears again to the Shepherds and it is said during the Easter story too. Within the Judea-Christian tradition angels are seen as the deliverers of the “good news”. The Jewish scriptures are littered with individuals encountering angels. In some of these accounts it is suggested that not only are these angels delivering a message from the Divine but may well be God itself. They are sometimes referred to as “the angel of the Lord” and not just simply an angel (by the way another memeber of the Altrincham Interfaith Group is called Ann Angel and yes she is).

Angels are found in other traditions too. In Islam they are depicted as messengers of Allah. Belief in angels is one of the six articles of the Islamic faith. The Baha’i faith depicts angels as beings who have been released from the bondages of self and become endowed with the attributes of the spiritual and are therefore revealers of God’s Love and Grace. In Zoroastrianism angels are not messengers of the divine but are instead associated with different aspects of the divine creation, in this sense they are similar to the Hindu Deva’s. Zoroastrians also believe that each person has their own guardian angel. Angels or their equivalent are found in many other traditions too, both ancient and modern.

It is untrue to see belief in angels is not some relic from the past that has been dismissed in the modern age. I have met many people who talk of their belief in angels and who claim to have encountered them in their lives. When they do talk of angels I suspect that they are not talking about some winged genderless character such as is depicted in art of even in films like “Dogma”, although I know that some are.

In 2009 a survey by the economist revealed that 55% of Americans believed in angels. The same survey revealed that only 39% believed in evolution; 36% believed in anthropogenic global warming; 34% believed in ghosts; and 34% believed in UFO’s. A similar survey in Britain revealed that 34% of the population expressed a definite belief in angels, as messengers of God. Similar results can be found in surveys conducted around the world. Many people believe in angels. some people who do believe in angels express a disbelief in God. Many of those who say that they believe go further, claiming that they have actually encountered angels in their lives.

What can be made of all of this? Well I personally have too much respect for humanity to merely dismiss these claims. I hope I never mock people for what their honest reflection on their own life experiences have taught them. Personally I am not aware of encountering angels in the way that some people describe them, either today or in ancient times. Therefore I find it difficult to believe in angels in a literal sense. That said when they are described as a presence that either watches over us or as a messenger from God, then I can say that I am constantly experiencing them. I certainly hear messages of peace and goodwill increasingly in my life, even during the hardest of times. These guardians and or messengers do not have to have wings or halos. Nor do they have to live in some celestial realm. They are here amongst us, right here right now.

I have come to know the lure of Divine love, I have experience of the Divine constantly offering itself to me and believe this is happening to all life. I believe that God or at least God’s love is constantly speaking in and through life waiting for a response. If I pay attention to what is around me, I know that I am surrounded by angels. I see them in ordinary everyday life; people carrying messages of love to one another, people who are sent to rescue one another. I have witnessed it in the world I inhabit and I see it in my daily interactions. That said I also see darkness too. I see people turning away from love and hurting one another. Maybe we do this because we cannot or will not listen to the messages of love trying to burst into our lives.

I have also heard about these angels in the conversations I have with ordinary everyday people. I am not just talking about acts of kindness here, but also moments when something has spoken to directly to people and they felt guided and led at important moments in their lives and as a result have responded appropriately. I offer a prayer of thanks for every single one of those messages of love that people have shared with me. Thank you.

I believe that there is that of God in each and every one of us, we are all made from the same stuff and we all return to it in the end. God to me speaks through life. Therefore all of life is potentially a messenger of the Divine. We just need to be open to the love within life and respond to it in order to experience and express it and pass it on to others. We certainly need it.

We encounter angels in our lives each and every day. They are here among us; they are in our homes and in our communities.

We are all sent by God. We are all God sent. We are all messengers of that Divine love.

The language of the heart is universal. It can break through any barrier. The key is to listen for it and learn to express it and to let love have its way.

The Ache of Loneliness continued: Hell is a place where nothing connects

2011-12-04T14:23:00.000-08:00

There is no greater ache than the loneliness of no longer being touched by life, this is hell. Hell is a place where nothing connects, where as Heaven is a place where everything connects.

T.S. Elliot said that “Hell is a place where nothing connects” and that “Hell is oneself,” John Paul Satre replied to this by saying that no, “Hell is other people.”

The truth is that to some extent they are both correct. Hell, at least on earth, can often be oneself and it can be other people too.

Elliot believed that self absorption and self protection was what caused people to feel separate and alone. Many people today have a great deal of self awareness and yet they still feel cut off from life. Are we too self absorbed and are we suffering because we are experiencing over examined and under connected lives? Have we become lost in ourselves?

I believe there is truth in this, although it is not the whole truth. Perhaps some people feel cut off and alone because they are too focused on the faults in others. How often do we hear folk blaming others for all of their problems? This builds barriers and creates loneliness and cuts people off from one another. Yes hell can be ourselves and yes it can be other people too.

For many years of my life I felt disconnected cut off, lost and lonely. I felt like I was living in hell. I saw hell as myself and I also saw it as other people too. From a young age I learnt to protect myself from life, from pain. Of course I failed utterly in my attempts to do so, all I succeeded in achieving, eventually, was to cut myself off from any joy and actually experienced a deeper more ingrained suffering, what I have heard described as “the suffering within the suffering”.

I have learnt that Heaven and Hell, at least here on earth, are two sides of the same coin. They possess similar characteristics, although there is one important difference, how they are experienced. How we respond to suffering illustrates this perfectly. Two people can go through the same difficulties in life and yet they will often react to them very differently. For one it may well be described as a living hell and yet for the other they may well claim that they got a taste of heaven as they walked through it.

Suffering can cause division within ourselves and others either through self pity, or embarrassment or through the sense that life is treating us unfairly, that fate is singling us out. That said the very same experience of suffering can also unite us through a deeper shared sense of compassion and empathy. Suffering can lead us to feel as though we have been cast into hell and yet through it we can also get a taste of heaven. Or as Forrest Church put it “At times of trouble, alone we are often lost. But by reaching out to and for others we entertain the possibility of redemption.” In our suffering we can build up walls of self protection and yet at the same time this same suffering can foster compassion within us.

The fostering of compassion is I believe the purpose of religious community. By developing our compassion we can create heaven in our own lifetimes. By not fleeing from suffering, our own, or that of others, we can show to one another that in times of trouble we are not alone, we are not lost. By reaching out both to and for others we get a taste of heaven. Karen Armstrong says” that religion isn't about believing things. It's ethical alchemy. It's about behaving in a way that changes you, that gives you intimations of holiness and sacredness." For me these intimations of holiness and sacredness is what connection is all about.

Heaven is a place where everything connects.

The Ache of Loneliness

2011-11-28T02:22:00.000-08:00

I was listening to the radio this afternoon, relaxing and preparing myself for leading worship this evening when I heard the tragic news of the death of Gary Speed, the forty two year old manager of the Welsh football team. Gary was a onetime hero of my mine as he was part of the championship winning Leeds United midfield of 1992. It emerged a little later that Gary had taken his own life. This was perhaps even more shocking. Why had this healthy talented and seemingly well balanced man taken his own life? No doubt more will be revealed in the coming weeks, but I suspect no satisfactory explanation will ever be unearthed. Suicide, depression and the aching loneliness that so many of us suffer from has never been adequately understood and it has never been resolved. In fact it would appear that has humanity has progressed materially it has regressed emotionally and spiritually. Loneliness, mental illness and suicide appear to be on the increase. I have been there myself and I have witnessed friends and loved ones going through this living hell too. Haven’t we all. I suspect that there is not a family in the land that has not experienced the shadow of suicide.

Today is Advent Sunday, which marks the beginning of the Christmas season; a time of joy and celebration, a time for family and fun. For most folk Christmas is the happiest time of the year. That said for others it can be the hardest. It can bring all those feelings and emotions that they have been trying to deal with to the surface. For some people Christmas can bring them face to face with their own loneliness. For some people Christmas can be hell.

For many years I struggled with Christmas as I struggled with my own humanity. For me Christmas brought me face to face with the extent of my own loneliness and isolation. This is no longer the case I’ve danced with most of my demons, but I do remember how it felt and I know that so many people still suffer with these feelings. I know this because they tell me. Yes people tell me of their joys and triumphs but they also tell me of their pain and suffering. One of the hardest aspects of ministry is being with people in utter despair. It does keep you humble though, as it shows you the limits of your power. Sometimes all that is left is tears and prayer.

Loneliness is a horrible, horrible thing. It separates us from others; it makes us believe we are the only ones. It saps our vitality. It makes us feel scared, insecure and vulnerable. The isolation and disconnectedness that it fosters leaves us feeling unloved and worse still unlovable, Loneliness is an assault on our humanity and our worth and dignity. It makes us ask the question, do I really belong here? It brings us face to face with the void, with those questions and fears we do not want to entertain; the fear that we are alone and of course the fear of death. It brings to the surface the suspicion that there really is no rhyme or reason to life, no purpose, no meaning.

Loneliness can be terrifying. We do all we can to avoid it. We spend an awful lot of time convincing ourselves that we are not alone. How many times a day do we check our e-mails, our facebook updates, or mobile phones, or convince ourselves that someone has knocked at the door? How often do we think we have heard someone call out our name in the street?

Loneliness appears to manifest itself in three basic forms. I have heard them described as intimate loneliness, social loneliness and loneliness of the spirit, an existential or cosmic loneliness.

The primary cause of intimate loneliness is the loss of a loved one. Such as a partner, lover, parent, friend, sibling or god forbid a child. It is not the only cause though. Many people long for an intimate connection that goes way beyond the closeness of everyday friendships.

Social loneliness occurs when we feel cut off from others, when we feel isolated from the social networks that we need. It stems from a lack of companionship and or community. Modern living is a major source of social loneliness. Modern life provides decreasing opportunity to visit friends and loved ones. We increasingly communicate through technology and less so face to face. We expand far less energy on human social interaction. Our culture sees more people working longer hours. Productivity is increasingly prized, while connecting and interacting with friends is seen as a luxury and not a necessity. When I look at how we live today I am forced to ask the question, is this really progress?

The loneliness of the spirit, this emptiness of the soul this existential or cosmic loneliness is more difficult to understand and or explain. Some describe this as a ‘God sized hole’ or hole in the soul. This makes sense to me. How else can this feeling of being lonely or longing for something, without knowing what it is be explained? How else can we make sense of the feeling of missing someone, we’ve never met, that feeling of loneliness in a crowd, that need for something more? This feeling of being cut off from life and the rest of humanity. This feeling that you don’t quite belong. I have struggled with all of these emotions at times in my life and am occasionally visited by these ghosts today. When they come they are as terrifying as they always were. Thank God they no longer linger.

This hunger, this longing, this deep rooted loneliness that dwells in so many of us cannot be filled by relationships or friends. It seems to be woven into our humanity; it is part of our human nature. But why Oh why do we carry this longing in our souls? Perhaps it is there to stir us to reach beyond the confines of ourselves for that something in the corner of our lives that we cannot quite see; that something that speaks in a voice less than a whisper and yet somehow more than silence. Perhaps it is there to compel us to delve deeper to the core of our very being. Who knows?

Social loneliness is not difficult to explain. We all need social contact and community to survive and flourish. No man is an island. We often only truly know ourselves through our relationships with others. The reasons for intimate loneliness seem very clear. In creating close bonds with people, we create families and communities. This gives our life meaning. It is this common humanity that binds people together. When it goes, or is absent, we mourn its loss. We crave for it once again. But what about the deeper longing of the spirit? Maybe this is a manifestation of our longing for wholeness. Maybe it’s a need to return home and perhaps it can only be filled by a relationship with the larger presence of life. But how can this be achieved?

Well perhaps the first thing we need to do is face the void and not try to flee from it and or fill it with other things. Perhaps one answer is to embrace solitude. Solitude and loneliness are not the same. One can experience solitude without being lonely and yet we can be miserably lonely and yet be surrounded by people. Solitude is a physical state; where as loneliness is an emotional, psychological and spiritual state. The difference between loneliness and solitude can be monumental and yet subtle. They may look alike, but aren’t experienced alike. It’s like seeing a body as naked, rather than a person being a nude. Naked is stripped and vulnerable, naked is lacking clothes; where as a nude is a beautiful bare body, it is art. Loneliness describes all that is lost, when we are alone; solitude describes all that is gained in all is beauty.

Loneliness can be caused by past hurts that can lead us to try to protect ourselves from life. We have all experienced the pain of betrayal and loss. No one likes being hurt, so we become wary. Because of these hurts we build walls, until finally intimacy loses its attraction. Loneliness is the price of feeling safe from emotional hurt. Of course it fails to even do that. We cannot escape the pain that accompanies the joy of life. All we achieve by trying to protect ourselves from pain is to create the suffering within the suffering. This is a worst kind of pain. I know this pain only too well as I experienced it for much of my life. This is a living hell. I thank God each day that it rarely visits me these days and when it does it no longer lingers.

This Advent, this season of hope and joy I will be thinking of those people in my life who suffer each day with that empty aching loneliness, whatever the cause may be. I will think especially of those suffering from the loss of those most dear to their hearts. I will do so though with the full knowledge that I alone cannot take away their pain. I can though be with them, I can walk side by side with them and even occasionally hold them in their pain.

Hold close to you the one’s that you love...because none of us ever really knows what they’ve got until it’s gone.

The Light of Hope: Which Wolf Wins?

2011-11-28T02:19:00.001-08:00

The Light of Hope: Which Wolf Wins?

I can only imagine what it must be like to experience utter darkness. I was only a baby during the power cuts of the early 1970’s and therefore have no memory of them. And like most folk of my generation I have seen the images and been told the stories of the war time blackouts, but still I cannot really imagine what it must have been like walking those dark streets. The lights did go out in my home for a short time last year and I have to say I found it very difficult negotiating my way around the house, without anything to guide my way.

It’s pretty scary trying to find your way in the dark. No one likes to feel helpless, hopeless sightless. When we stumble around “in a land of darkness” we cannot protect ourselves and just end up stumbling around our own homes stubbing our toes or falling over furniture. That said it is not only material darkness that can cause us problems, we can also get lost in those metaphorical dark forests of life. This can be terrifying. The book of life is full of stories describing children getting lost in the woods. Those fairy tales explore universal themes that everyone can relate to. After all don't we all feel lost and or confused at times.

When we fall into one of life’s black holes we can lose all hope. In this pit we can begin to compromise the very values that we are trying to live by. In this darkness we can lose our dreams and our goals we can forget the path we are on and why we have chosen it. We can also lose sight of our security and supportive community as we search in the dark unaware of the many pitfalls. Sometimes we drive people away with our fear or perhaps they just walk away because they cannot stand our pain.

Perhaps there is another way, a way out. Even in the deepest darkness light can be found; the light of hope, which can show us a new way. This light cannot be resisted it is constantly revealing itself as life continues its re-birth. Isn't this what the season of Advent is all about, the preparation for the coming of the light.

Children bring that light into so many people’s lives. And of course it is the image of a child on which Advent and Christmas rest. The coming of Immanuel the child sent to rescue the people of Israel from their darkness.

I don’t accept this stories uniqueness; I do not believe that this is once in humanity’s life span thing. Sophia Lyon Fahs is so right when she says “Every Night a Child is Born is a Holy Night.” The potential of every child brings hope; no one can remain completely lost if they can just glimpse this hope. There is that of God in each and every one of us. We all have the potential for great things, if we just nurture that loving compassion within us; we just need a little bit of hope and a sprinkling of faith to show us the way; we just need appropriate nurture. We know this from our own lives and we know it from the lives of those that have walked in the light before us. Even in our darkest hours there is a hidden strength that can be found, often from an unexpected source. All that we have to do is to let that light shine in and through us. Advent is a time of anticipation and as long as we hope, someone will light a candle against the prevailing darkness "and neither the winds of hate nor the gales of evil will extinguish it.” This light is universal and it is eternal.

The light of Universalism continues to speak powerfully to me. The concept of one light and many windows that my great hero Forrest Church spoke so beautifully about, keeps me humble and therefore open. I accept that I will never know the absolute truth about everything or even anything and that this enables me to experience life in a way I could never have imagined. The one light of God or truth is reflected through a variety of windows, which none of us can see directly or perfectly.

Universalism’s message of hope, of the everlasting love of God, also speaks to me. It brings Psalm 139 powerfully to the fore of my thinking, nothing and no one is beyond the reach of this eternal love. The dark and the light are both the same to this eternal love. We cannot escape it completely; we cannot flee from the range and reach of this eternal and universal love.

It is so easy to look at our world and just despair and give in and say we are doomed and lost in our own darkness. It is so easy to see life this way. Is this true though are we lost in despair? Is there no hope?

Tom Owen-Towle’s “The Gospel of Universalism: Hope, Courage and the Love of God” has helped me to understand that hope and despair share the same root, that they are joined together like Siamese twins. In the French language they share the same linguistic root; hope (espair) and despair (desespair).

To live in hope, to live in faith that we all have that light etched into our DNA, is not to deny life’s difficulties and pain. Instead it is to see the realities of who and what we are and what our true potential can be, if we just nurture it correctly. All we have to do is let that light shine that is there within us all. This sounds simple, but it is far from easy. It requires consistent effort to allow that natural compassion to grow, develop and nurture. We have to do it though because otherwise the other parts of ourselves take over and we turn with indifference from life. The opposite of hope is not despair, it is indifference.

I have written many times about the work of Karen Armstrong, the Charter for Compassion and her book “12 Steps to a Compassionate Life”. Her central theme is this concept of nurturing our compassionate natures; that this nurture of compassion is a universal theme central to all the great religious traditions throughout human history. This is a message of hope and it is an eternal and universal theme.

Hope springs eternal all we have to do is to begin to let our little lights shine. Isn't this what Advent is all about, the illumination of hope.

I will end this little chip of a blog with a story I have shared here before. I do love the tale and I believe it is worth repeating.

One winter’s evening whilst gathered round a blazing camp fire, an old Sioux Indian chief told his grandson about the inner struggle that goes on inside people.

“You see” said the old man, “this inner struggle is like two wolves fighting each other. One is evil, full of anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, deceit, false pride, superiority, and ego”.

“The other one,” he continued, poking the fire with a stick so that the fire crackled, sending the flames clawing at the night sky, “is good, full of joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith”.

For a few minutes his grandson pondered his grandfather’s words and then asked, “So which wolf wins, grandfather?”

“Well”, said the wise old chief, his lined face breaking into a wry smile, “The one you feed!”

Who is your Immanuel? Who is your “God is with us"?

2011-11-22T04:43:00.000-08:00

Who is your Immanuel? Who is your “God is with us"?

Immanuel means "God is with us"

Who is your Immanuel? Who is your “God is with us”, the one you were promised, the one you have been waiting for?

For the ancient prophet Isaiah, he was a boy soon to be born who would guide the people of Judah back to peace and harmony with God. He would bring hope for victory and greatness in the tribe. He would be a gift from God to his chosen people.

Who is your Immanuel, your “God is with us”?

For Christians, he is Jesus of Nazareth. The baby in the Christmas story who grew to be a remarkable teacher among the Jewish people; whose ideas about love, forgiveness, and justice changed the world forever.

Who is your Immanuel, your “God is with us”?

Perhaps your Immanuel is a political leader, standing for the rights of the oppressed—a Martin Luther King or a Gandhi. Perhaps in their work with people you feel God is with us.

Who is your Immanuel, your “God is with us”?

Perhaps your Immanuel is an artist, bringing transcendence to the human spirit and lifting our hopes and dreams into the light—a J.S. Bach, a Picasso, a William Shakespeare. Perhaps in the presence of great beauty and creativity you feel God is with us.

Who is your Immanuel, your “God is with us”?

Perhaps it is a child. Created from our bodies, the child who is filled with the potential to do every great thing. Your promise from God that the world has hope for justice and beauty. For in the presence of a child we too can feel that God is with us all.

Who is your Immanuel, your “God is with us”?

Slightly adapted from words by Sarah Movius Schurr

We are about to enter the season of Advent, beginning this Sunday 27th November. It got me thinking about the following words spoken in the 19th century by James Martineau

The incarnation is true not of Christ exclusively but of Man universally and God everlastingly. He bends into the human to dwell there and humanity is the susceptible organ of the divine.

This distinctly Unitarian view of the Incarnation speaks powerfully to me. Unitarians have tended to see Jesus as a man worthy of following, rather than as the unique manifestation of the Divine. Cliff Reed hits the mark perfectly when he states.

While Jesus was, like all people, a unique individual, he was not other than human. He was our brother in every sense, sharing the same human lineage as us. And thus when we speak of him as a child of god, as incarnate divinity, as vessel of god's promise to humankind, we speak of him as embodiment, as symbol of what is true of every human baby.

The ministry of Jesus, and those who have walked the same path, was indeed an enfleshment of creative power, supremely that of love, which can re-make human beings by revealing to them their roots in a divine creation, their reclaimable goodness and wholeness, their oneness with the glorious universe.

Cliff Reed

The classic Unitarian position has always been that Jesus was and still is a man worthy of following but not of worshipping as the one and only incarnation of the Divine.

The theologian John Hick argues that Jesus did not know that he was himself God incarnate; that the idea of the incarnation ought to be seen as a powerful metaphorical image; that Jesus ought to only be viewed as the embodiment of God because God's love was manifested through his life. He was not literally God's son though in the sense that he was not the creation of a miraculous birth fathered by God in the Holy Spirit. He highlights that the phrase "son of God" was a common Hebrew metaphor and was given to those who exhibited Godly attributes on earth. Therefore it is not surprising that someone who was considered as righteous as Jesus would have been given this title, although it was not meant in a literal sense.

According to Hick, metaphorically speaking, Jesus incarnated God in three ways. The first being that he was living out God's will, therefore God was living through him in this world; the second being that by living out God's will he was displaying the perfect example of how a human being ought to live and was therefore incarnating God; thirdly in the way that his life was perfect agape, it was purely self giving love. In other words Jesus' finite life reflected perfectly God's infinite love, but he was not literally God in the flesh.

Experience has revealed to me that all life can be an extension of this Divine Love. More and more I see the incarnation manifested in all existence.

Process theology and the concept of the ‘lure’ of divine love has suggested this idea for quite some time. Jesus is the word made flesh in that within his life the divine action manifested itself completely. Christ is the expression of the word, within him is the genuine union of divine activity and human activity. He did not literally come down from heaven, this is pure metaphor. To quote Norman Pittenger Jesus, “...was never a god; he was always regarded as the manifestation in act of the one and only God.” This would suggest that what occurred in Jesus could occur in all human life.

The former Dominican priest Matthew Fox appears to develop this idea further in what he describes as the "Cosmic Christ". He claims that through the Cosmic Christ is the “I am” in every creature, therefore that all life can become the incarnation. He believes that the purpose of the incarnation in Jesus is to reveal the immanence of the Cosmic Christ and that as we grow into who we really are and as our compassion is developed the divine “I am” takes flesh once more. As Fox states “We grow into compassion and in doing so the divine “I am” takes on flesh once again. Since god alone is the compassionate One, as we grow into compassion we also grow into our own divinity.”

So we humans and all life are potentially expressions of the divine and if we express that divine quality within ourselves we can then hopefully inspire others to do likewise

In recent years I believe that I have witnessed and dare I say experienced what I call Divine love. I experienced it the first day I walked into Cross Street Chapel Manchester and was greeted by Peter Sampson. I know it sounds like nothing, but it felt very special. I experienced as I connected to that short lunchtime service led by John Midgley. This feeling, dare I say experience, developed over the next few months as I became part of the community there. This grew as I listened and worship and shared and most of all sung. I fell in love with singing once again there. Every time I sing I experience life in a way I don't during anything else that I do. I always liked to sing, but I experience it differently today.

I first knew this magical mystical feeling when I experienced pure human love manifested in a unique life. I experienced it through knowing Claire and Ethan. Ethan, especially Ethan, showed me that loves is real and exists in every human heart. By just being a part of his short life I began to see that I had once been like him. I saw in him what exists in every human child and all life. I began to experience what Matthew Fox has described as the Cosmic Christ. “That that connects all life.”

Reverend David Doel captures what I mean perfectly when he states that, “The Christ Child stands for the Hope of the World and represents the great miracle of human birth. In every child God comes down to earth. In every child the 'promise' of God is repeated. Every mother is Mary the mother of God and every child is nurtured by the Holy Spirit - that mysterious, creative and healing essence we call Life. The Christ Child is the symbol of our human potentiality; like the oak in the acorn."

The tragedy of my life was that I lost sight of this. Somehow, over the years, I became disconnected from life and became addicted to alcohol and fear and virtually lost my humanity. What I was able to finally, see, accept and connect to in my own life was "That Great reality deep down within every man woman and child." That the book Alcoholics Anonymous describes.

I again experienced that incredible manifestation of divine love on the day, the weeks and months that followed November the 2nd 2006, All Souls Day, the day that Ethan was killed. I will never forget the way that people came together within the community to hold the family and I will always remember how the people in my own community held and supported me. Not that what all these wonderful people did for me would have been enough if that Great reality, that I had rediscovered, had not already begun to flower. The old me would not, could not have survived that tragedy.

I am a great believer in miracles I see them all the time in my everyday interactions with everyday people. I have learnt to appreciate and value every interaction and every moment of existence. Every breath is a Divine gift, if I am only able to see it that way. Every single human being has the capacity for great things, if they would only get in touch with that great reality deep down within themselves. That said we are all also capable of great destruction and evil, every single one of us. It is as important that we remember that too.

None of this is cast in stone though; I simply cannot believe that. I am NOT convinced that anything is pre-destined and pre-determined. I believe that life and existence is truly open and that all human beings are responsible for their own lives and this spinning planet that we all share. The very characteristic of the universe is one of process and change and the agent of this has to be free will. The Divine mystery does not control everything instead what it offers us is the persuasive lure of love, if we could only see that.

All we need to do is to tap into that great reality deep down within us as so many wonderful human examples have done over the years. If we can't see this within ourselves then hopefully we can see it within other human lives or nature itself and be inspired by the beauty of creation, always remembering that we are all made of the same stuff.

If life has taught me anything it is that in order to live to our full potential we humans need to be connected to that that is buried deep within us and that that is circling all around us. To live successfully and happily in this world all we have to do is to first of all find and then maintain that connection and to simply live our lives.

We don’t need to build boundaries to survive, I say pull them all down. We don’t need to work and develop our self esteem, because we already have it in bucket loads. We just have to live honestly and truthfully and that natural self esteem that we are made of will just shine out of us. Hopefully by doing so we will shine some light onto the lives of others and they will be inspired to do likewise. If we do human life is bound to improve for all.

Every night a child is born is a holy night

2011-11-21T11:53:00.000-08:00

Every night a child is born is a holy night

Christmas is coming and the year will soon be turning. I cannot believe it will soon be 2012 and yet as I write this it is only mid November. I just doesn’t feel quite right to be thinking of these things just yet, but life compels me to. Well actually the job does. I have to constantly think ahead, while still living day by day, nay breath by breath.

The theme for the congregations I serve, Dunham Road Unitarian Chapel Altrincham and Queens Road Unitarian Free Church Urmston, has been nurture. How we nurture ourselves, our families, our communities, our world. We are all born with potential, the ability to do many things but to achieve them we need to both nurture and to be nurtured. It's a theme we've been exploring together throughout the year.

I have recently been given the honour of conducting several blessings of both children and one adult. I have incorporated water into these ceremonies and blessed each child’s thoughts, words and deeds by touching them with water on their foreheads, their lips and their hands. At the ceremony with give out a certificate with the words “Every Night a Child is Born is a Holy Night” by Sophia Lyon Fahs.

And so the children come.

We are each of us precious and unique and we each have so much to offer our world, if we could just unearth and nurture that greater reality deep within the core of our very being. There truly is that of God in each and every one of us; the potential to do great things. That said there is also the potential to destroy, to corrupt to abuse.

Karen Armstrong Author of “12 Steps to a Compassionate Life” once said “Religion is not about accepting twenty impossible propositions before breakfast, but about doing things that change you. It is a moral aesthetic, an ethical alchemy. If you behave in a certain way you will be transformed.”

The purpose of the religious, the spiritual, life is to nurture and develop the potential within each of us. I see this as the purpose of any religious community. It is more than that though; the purpose of a religious community is to share this in their communities and the wider world; it is their purpose to spread those concentric circles of compassion, that Confucius described two and a half millennia ago, out to the whole world. This compassion begins within the individual, and spreads to our families, to our communities, to our regions, to our countries before it encompasses the whole world. It begins though by healing and nurturing the individual's soul.

Let the light of love heal our souls and let us make each and every moment holy; let’s make every night a holy night.

The Occupy movement

2011-11-14T07:27:00.001-08:00

I have now visited two Occupy camps, one in Norwich and one in Bath, and the thing that really struck me about them was their openness and inclusivity.

The Norwich camp has a board where you can write what you think are the problems the world is facing, and another one where you can write a solution to a problem (such as the Robin Hood Tax, or more co-operatives, and so on). We were welcomed by a really articulate woman explaining what the Occupy movement is about.

The Bath camp was initially set up by students but lots more people have got involved. They also have a world map with all the other Occupy sites marked on it. I chatted with one of them, who said that they sometimes get flak from people shouting "Get a job" which they either ignore or point out that they do have jobs. He also said that the other night someone had a go at the camp, but then they got chatting and he explained what it was all about, and they ended up shaking hands before leaving. While I was there, they gave a man who seemed to be homeless a cup of tea and a blanket because he was cold.

Occupy Bristol recently held an interfaith picnic - unfortunately I couldn't attend, but I heard it went well.

You can see a map of all the Occupy camps on The Guardian data blog. The Guardian also has an entire section of news, analysis and comment on the Occupy movement.

The Occupy movement is not centrally organised - each camp is independent, and has sprung up in response to other camps. The movement is intended to be as inclusive as possible, and to raise awareness of the issues facing our world - climate change, financial meltdown, globalisation, poverty, greedy capitalists, war, environmental degradation, and so on - and to start a conversation about finding solutions to these problems.

Ethical Christmas gifts

2011-11-12T18:17:00.000-08:00

Are you stuck for ideas for what to buy for your loved ones?

Why not make them a gift? A hand-made gift shows that you have taken time and trouble, and is uniquely personal. You can also meditate on the well-being of the intended recipient while you are making the gift.

You can knit, crochet, carve, sew, or quilt your handmade gift. There are many websites with hints and tips on how to make things; they even have videos demonstrating how to do it - which is how I learned to crochet.

If making gifts is not your thing, there are some lovely things available for helping with meditation and other spiritual activities. If you buy crystals, however, please make sure that they are ethically sourced and not strip-mined. If you buy items from developing countries, please make sure that they are fairly traded.

Suppliers of fair trade goods include Traidcraft, Amnesty, Oxfam, Shared Earth (fair trade and sustainable), Windhorse (ethical and sustainable), Natural Collection (fair trade and sustainable), and many more. Always look for the Fair Trade logo.