Real Care is Not Ambiguous: The Loaves and Fishes are Not Dead

“Real care is not ambiguous” thus said Henri Nouwen and yet the word itself can suggest a certain amount of ambiguity. When someone says they will take care of something or someone it can sound almost threatening, there is certainly a sense of power over another in play, in phrase “I will take care of it, or I will take care of them.” This is not real care. Real care is about relationship; real care is about empathy; real care is about love. In this sense “real care is not ambiguous.”

I think one of the saddest and loneliest phrases, you will ever hear in the English language is, “I don’t care”. Who amongst us can say that they have never uttered them? If not out loud, so that others could hear them, at least inwardly to themselves. I’ve said it. I said it many years ago and later denied doing so. I said it though and regretted it immediately. It was at a moment in my life when I had sunk so far into the pain of my lost little self that I did not care anymore. I was in hell and the uttering of those words proved it at that moment in time.

Thankfully, although at times I do feel weariness towards aspects of life, it has been many years since I did not care; it has been many years since I experienced the pain and loneliness of indifference.

There’s another phrase along this theme, which I often hear spoken, “I don’t care what people think of me.” Now while I think I understand what people mean by this, that they are no longer ruled by the views of others, what matters is how they see themselves, there is something in this phrase that still bothers me. I never want to reach the point where I do not care at all what people think of me. I never want to, once again, experience indifference. While I am not ruled by the views of others, it matters to me what they believe. I care a lot.

As a child I was considered overly sensitive, that I felt too much and that I took things personally. While it was thought of as a likeable quality, I know it was seen as a serious handicap too. I remember my stepfather telling me I needed to toughen up and he certainly tried to in ways that were not healthy. All this really led to was me closing part of my humanity down. This did lead to a sense of indifference at some later stages of my life which led to some horrific feelings of loneliness, isolation and disconnection. Thankfully I eventually saw the truth of this and through love I began to connect and care again. This seeming blight became an asset as I was able to care once more. It wasn’t so much that I lost the sensitivity, that I felt less, it was more that I recognised that these feelings were not about me. I took things less personally and it was this that allowed me to begin to serve, to minister.

To minister is to serve and to serve is to care. It is about connection it is about relationship it’s about bringing that loving space alive. I learnt this through the example given to me by John Midgley when he came and tried to be with both me and others during an horrific time in our lives. John couldn’t heal or change anything. He was as powerless as we were, but he was able to be with us in our shared powerlessness and somehow in this space the healing power held us together. An example I will never forget. It is something I have been thinking of again these last couple of years I have become more involved in helping to develop ministers.

To truly care is to connect, to relate, to be a part of something, it is not a power relationship, it is intimate and it is mutual. It is empathy. This is heaven, this is love, this is what it means to care. This is what it means to turn to as opposed to turn away despite the pain, fear and confusion. This is courage. To care takes courage, it comes from the heart, it is the heart alive and on fire. To not care is the way of the coward; to not care is a frozen state, indifference requires a frozen heart.

I have heard hell described in many ways, what it means to be living in a state of hell. I think the most accurate explanation of hell, is that it is indifference. It is a sense of disconnection from the feelings and concerns of others. Hell is indifference. To live in hell is to be indifferent to sufferings of others. Dante’s Inferno described it thus.

Extract from Dante Alighieri’s “The Divine Comedy” Inferno (Hell), Canto III

ARGUMENT.—Dante, following Virgil, comes to the gate of Hell; where, after having read the dreadful words that are written thereon, they both enter. Here, as he understands from Virgil, those were punished who had passed their time (for living it could not be called) in a state of apathy and indifference both to good and evil. Then, pursuing their way, they arrive at the river Acheron; and there find the old ferryman Charon, who takes the spirits over to the opposite shore; which, as soon as Dante reaches, he is seized with terror, and falls into a trance.

Hell is indifference. Hell is not fire but in actual fact a frozen state, a state where a person no longer cares and has grown cold towards, others, towards life itself.

Here’s a story depicting the difference between Heaven and Hell, from the Zen Buddhist Tradition. I have shared it before. It’s one of those stories you hear different versions of in many traditions.

Once upon a time, in a temple nestled in the misty end of south hill, lived a pair of monks. One old and one young.
“What are the differences between Heaven and Hell?” the young monk asked the learned master one day.
“There are no material differences,” replied the old monk peacefully.
“None at all?” asked the confused young monk.
“Yes. Both Heaven and Hell look the same. They all have a dining hall with a big hot pot in the centre in which some delicious noodles are boiled, giving off an appetising scent,” said our old priest. “The size of the pan and the number of people sitting around the pot are the same in these two places.”
“But oddly, each diner is given a pair of meter-long chopsticks and must use them to eat the noodles. And to eat the noodles, one must hold the chopsticks properly at their ends, no cheating is allowed,” the Zen master went on to describe to our young monk.
“In the case of Hell, people are always starved because no matter how hard they try, they fail to get the noodles into their mouths,” said the old priest.
“But isn't it the same happens to the people in Heaven?” the junior questioned.
“No. They can eat because they each feed the person sitting opposite them at the table. You see, that is the difference between Heaven and Hell,” explained the old monk.


In the story “Heaven and Hell” appear exactly the same and yet they are experienced oh so differently. In Hell all go hungry because everyone tries to feed themselves only, they are purely self-focused and fail to recognise the hunger in their neighbour sat opposite them. And yet in heaven they attempt to feed one another and are therefore fed in abundance. To me this is as much about the relationships as the food going into one another’s mouths. I believe that we all possess an innate need to serve one another that if we do not do this part of our natural humanity withers away and dies off. By not serving one another we starve our souls. Seems pretty clear, there is nothing ambiguous here. This is real care.

Henri Nouwen said “real care is NOT ambiguous”, he highlighted that the word “care” has its origin from the old English word “caru” meaning “sorrow, anxiety, grief” as well as "burdens of mind; serious mental attention," from the Proto-Germanic word “karo” meaning "lament; grief, care". To really care is to truly feel another’s sorrow to cry out with them and to truly be with them. To care is to truly empathies and not merely sympathies. To truly care is to be with another, it is about meeting another in common human relationship. This is why indifference, to not care, it is hell. This is because it is about breaking that sense of relationship, it is emptiness it is loneliness. It hurts to care, which is why so often we turn away. No one likes to feel powerless and to care is about recognizing our singular powerlessness at times. It’s also about recognising the healing power that can begin to grow from this powerless state, as the common grief is recognised and shared and the healing comes in that very space. This is the power of love. This is the miracle of healing that is recounted again and again in the Gospel accounts; it is the same love that comes alive once again when we recognise one another and truly care. We make heaven. We create the kin-dom, the one-ness of love, right here, right now. For heaven is a place where everything connects.

You see this clearly in the example of Jesus in the Gospel accounts. As Nouwen points out. As Jesus came out of his solitude, he reached out his caring hand to those in need. From his lonely place his care grew strong and from here he entered a healing closeness with his fellow humans. The key is the relationship. It wasn’t merely that he fed folk, or healed them. He did not do so alone, the power is in the relationship. Yes, he fed the people with the loaves and fishes, but only after first been given them by a stranger in the crowd. The Disciples then fed the people face to face. This is care, this is a deep loving relationship. Before returning the boy of Nain to his widowed mother, he first felt her sorrow. Lazarus was raised from the dead through the experience of distress, sorrow and tears. There is a deep connective relationship here, that brings life from death. It is not so much that folk are cured, by some kind of magic. This is not the key to these stories; no, the key is in the relationship. This is real care. It is solidarity in the suffering, participation in the pain. It is the shared experience of suffering; it is deep human connection. This is what it means to truly care. There is nothing ambiguous here. To really care is to truly feel another’s sorrow, to cry out with them and to truly be with them. To care is to truly empathies and not merely sympathies; to truly care is to be with another; to truly care is about meeting another in common human relationship; to truly care is to inhabit Heaven on earth. Where as to be indifferent is to live in a state of Hell. Heaven is connection and Hell is disconnection. It is heaven that is the warm place and hell that is frozen over.

Many people say they feel lonely, that they experience a sense of disconnection. This can become even stronger at this time of the year, early January. The weeks in the deepest part of winter following the Christmas festivities. These are cold, frozen days. Sometimes these frozen feelings are not caused by the temperature of the air, but by indifference and a sense of disconnection. We yearn to be warmed, we yearn to be fed.

Here is a wonderful  poem by David Whyte inspired by "Loaves and Fishes"

“Loaves and Fishes” by David Whyte

This is not
the age of information.

This is NOT
the age of information.

Forget the news,
and the radio,
and the blurred screen.

This is the time of loaves
and fishes.

People are hungry,
and one good word is bread
for a thousand.

“The loaves and fishes are not dead” it comes alive when we care, when we connect, when we empathise and sit with one another. It warms our hearts and souls.

Real care is not ambiguous. Hell is the frozen place; it is Heaven that is warm. We will begin to warm our own hearts and those we share this world with, in and through true care. It begins by recognising what we have in common. It comes in recognising our shared sense of powerlessness at times, for here is where the power comes alive, in this deep relationship of care.

It begins by reconnecting in and through care. Let’s not become frozen people, indifferent people, let us live in and through care. For in so doing we will bring warmth to our lives and those we share our lives we.

Let’s care a lot…

Here is a video devotion based on the material in this "blogspot"

Super Ordinary Heroes: The Lives of Christopher Reeve and Victor Frankl

“When the first Superman movie came out I was frequently asked, "What is a hero?" My answer was that a hero is someone who commits a courageous action without considering the consequences...

...Now my definition is completely different. I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.”

Christopher Reeve

I recently watched “Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story”. It was a powerful and moving documentary film about not only his life, but his family’s life also. Like a lot of young people, of my generation, Superman was the ultimate hero, and Christopher the archetype. I went to see all of the first three films at the pictures. Just like young people do today as they marvel at such features. Christopher Reeve seemed to be the perfect image of the “Superman”. He was the all American hero and a great success. He seemed to be well loved too by his contemporaries. He had a life long friendship with Robin Williams. He had lived something of a hedonistic lifestyle, living the good life and achieving much. Then tragedy struck and he became paralysed from his neck down after being thrown from his horse.

His chances of survival were slim. In fact he only survived due to a new surgery. He fell into despair and said to his wife Dana “Maybe we should just let me go”. Dana persuaded him to give himself two years and told him “But you are still you. And I love you.” He was still him, but he could no longer physically touch life. Despite all he had lost he still had had the love of his family, he also had fame and saw that he could create something powerful and useful from this. So, he decided use all he had to create something good. He and Dana set up the “Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation”.to help both other paraplegic people but also develop research to help people perhaps one day walk again, to heal spinal injuries.

Christopher Reeve realised that even though he could no longer use his body, he had a power that so many other people do not. He could use his fame. He could create something from this tragedy. He succeeded he created something incredible, as did his family. Sadly, he died suddenly in 2004 but his legacy lived on. A year later his wife Dana was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer, sadly she died only a year or so after Christopher. This left their son Will without either parent. He and his older siblings Matthew and Alexandra, from a previous relationship, carried on the work of the foundation.

There is a moment towards the end of the film where Will speaks of the death of both of his parents and the potential to slip into despair. He, spoke of a decision, of a choice that he and perhaps all of us have to make. That you can look at the universe and look at life and say it is simply meaningless; or you can search out a meaning and create something from this. It struck me powerfully, in fact it filled me with tears.

I know that Christopher Reeve became a Unitarian towards the end of his life. He went on an inner journey following his accident and the open and free community helped him to do so. He was interviewed by “Readers Digest” not long before he died and he was asked why. He said "It gives me a moral compass. I often refer to Abe Lincoln, who said, 'When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. And that is my religion.' I think we all have a little voice inside us that will guide us. It may be God, I don't know. But I think that if we shut out all the noise and clutter from our lives and listen to that voice, it will tell us the right thing to do."

As I watched this deeply moving film it obviously brought to my mind the “Hero’s Journey” that Joseph Campbell Identified. Chrsitopher Reeve and his family are a classic example of this. That said it spoke more powerfully to me of the work of Viktor Frankl. I thought this throughout and I felt it deeply as his son Will spoke of the decision he took after both of his parents had died. The choice was his to turn to meaningless despair or find meaning, to create something from this suffering and thus transform it into something meaningful. This the whole family has done. So many have benefited from this decision.

I also thought of Christopher Reeve’s inner journey. He was an athlete and a physical being. He enjoyed fame and fortune and all the trappings that go with it. He enjoyed all the pleasures that life has to offer. In the end he lost all of this, it was a chasing in the wind, to quote Ecclesiastes. He lost all that and had to go on an inner journey, into the spiritual realm. Again it brought to my mind the work of Viktor Frankl and what he described as “Religio” or the search for the “Unconscious God” and to bring this alive through our lives and thus create a life rich in meaning. I think it is clear that in so doing that Christopher Reeve truly found the hero inside himself. To repeat that quote of his:

“When the first Superman movie came out I was frequently asked, "What is a hero?" My answer was that a hero is someone who commits a courageous action without considering the consequences...

...Now my definition is completely different. I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.”

Christopher Reeve reminded me of a quadriplegic man, from Texas, named Jerry Long, who Viktor Frankl often spoke of in his later interviews. Jerry Long had read “Man’s Search for Meaning”, whilst recuperating from an accident that had left him paralysed. It did not kill his spirit though. He wrote to Frankl and they formed a lifelong friendship. Frankl described Jerry as "a living testimony to logotherapy lived and the defiant power of the human spirit".

Jerry gained his doctorate in psychotherapy and became a renowned public speaker throughout the world. In 1998 he wrote a contribution to a journal issue commemorating the recently deceased Viktor Frankl. Here is a passage from it.:

"Once, after speaking to a large audience, I was asked if I ever felt sad because I could no longer walk. I replied, "Professor Frankl can hardly see, I cannot walk at all, and many of you can hardly cope with life. What is crucial to remember is this - We don't need just our eyes, just our legs, or just our minds. All we need are the wings of our souls and together we can fly." - Jerry L. Long

This is what Viktor Frankl was trying to show the world, through Logotherapy. He was trying to help us see this.

Now you may well ask Who is this Viktor Frankl and what is Logotherapy.

Viktor 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 activities, 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. Now is the example of Christopher Reeve and his family, the embodiment of this.

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.”

There are those that say that life has no meaning, that nothing matters in life. I was once one of these people. These days I see no truth in such statements. These days I see meaning in everything, even in the most painful moments in life. In fact, it has usually been through coming through these most painful moments that the greatest meaning has emerged. Not immediately always but eventually as I have been able to give back to others from the experience of the suffering I have experienced and or witnessed. These last few months have proven this once again. By the way Frankl is in no way suggesting that this justifies suffering, please do not misunderstand. Frankl is not suggesting any such thing. To quote Dorothee Soelle, “no heaven can rectify an Auswitz”. Frankl was very clear that is suffering can be stopped then it must, and that can be done to stop the suffering must be applied. What I have discovered and Frankl taught was that despite the suffering that by living openly meaning can emerge. Meaning can emerge from living by the way of the Lure of Divine Love. Such love draws us out of ourselves and meaning emerges as we live from love and our most painful experiences are transfigured into meaning and purpose. The suffering is still as real, but meaning begins to emerge as we are saved from the hell of despair.

We can find our meaning, by uncovering whatever it is that makes us feel alive. I have witnessed it again in the lives of ordinary people recent weeks. I have experienced it too. Spiritually speaking, my heart has felt close to bursting at times recently. Not without pain, of course not, but even in that suffering meaning has emerged and I have experienced utter joy and bliss.

The key is to find our meaning, whatever makes our soul sing and bring it life through your very human being, bring to life that which is within you and all life. I am not here to tell you what the meaning of life is. I would be cautious of anyone who suggests that they have all the answers to such questions. What I can tell you though is that meaning can and will emerge from you, all you have to do is bring it to life. In so doing not only will your life be meaning filled but you will inspire others to do the same. Just as Viktor Frankl has been doing for generations and the story of Christopher Reeve and his family have too.

Below is a video devotion based on the material in this "blogspot"

Every day you have less reason not to give yourself away

I will begin with something from my favourite farmer poet, the wonderful Wendell Berry. The following is often seen as a poem about death and dying but really it is about generosity the most living giving of all virtues.

Sabbaths – 1993, I

No, no, there is no going back.
Less and less you are
that possibility you were.
More and more you have become
those lives and deaths
that have belonged to you.
You have become a sort of grave
containing much that was
and is no more in time, beloved
then, now, and always.
And you have become a sort of tree
standing over a grave.
Now more than ever you can be
generous toward each day
that comes, young, to disappear
forever, and yet remain
unaging in the mind.
Every day you have less reason
not to give yourself away.

“Every day you have less reason not to give yourself away.”

How was your Christmas and New Year. I had a lovely, quiet and restful couple of days on Christmas and Boxing Day. It was just what I needed as I was very tired, exhausted actually. I had given so much of late and had to face some difficult challenges over the last few months. I had though come through it with faith and integrity. I feel strengthen by this. I have felt so deeply loved and supported too, this has meant so much. I have been truly comforted, held with assurance, from both visible and invisible hands. I have seen myself and I have seen the world through fresher eyes, this is never easy. I have given a lot too. I felt deeply, I see more clearly how I am a deeply sensitive soul. This is not always easy. I have though lived with integrity, and I feel a deeper sense of connection and aliveness as a result of this.

I caught up with family after some time alone and saw most of the people I wanted to see. I would have liked to have seen one or two friends, but that just wasn’t possible. There will be other times. I did hear from a dear old friend on New Year’s Eve. He has been close to death and I plan to see him in the New Year.

It was lovely being with people who have known me all my life, there was a deeper love. They have their own troubles and we shared a little about that. One or two made comments about my life in recent months. It was said to me, in a variety of ways, be careful not to give yourself away too much. I smiled at this. It was said from a place of love, but not one of true understanding One of things I have a greater understanding of these last few months is that I am who I am and it is vital for me to live life my way and not try to be something I am not. I smiled to myself at this loving concern, but I suspect I will be giving myself away quite a bit these next twelve months. I am what I am.

“Don’t give yourself away too much” I was smiling about this as I drove through the fog on the M62. I am not sure exactly how to do that. I am who I am. One thing I have noticed about myself these last few months has been a deeper acceptance of who I am and the world in which I live and breath. Doesn’t mean I give the way things are my approval, more that I have a deeper acceptance that his is how it is. Delusion about reality is of no use to anyone. It is vital to live with an awakened eye.

I’ve been thinking of Wendell Berry’s poem “Sabbath’s”, once again these last few days. It is a New Year poem I reckon. It is the end of the poem that really gets into the heart of me. “Every day you have less reason not to give yourself away.”

I have learnt that if you truly want to know yourself, this is how you do it. This is how you will find yourself, how to know love, how your very being gets transformed and you become who you truly are, by giving yourself away. By pouring your heart out, you fill it with love and your mind and spirit know peace. This is the purpose of the religious of life of living in true intimate spiritual community. You cannot experience this if you practise your spirituality in isolation, something I have felt more deeply of late.

Religion gets a very bad name these days and rightly so, as for too long it has been about control and dogma, but that is not really its purpose, not in it truest sense. It is about giving yourself away and in so doing you actually not only find yourself, but become who you truly are.

This brings to mind a favourite quotation on the purpose of true religion, by Karen Armstrong:

“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.” When we dare to move beyond the known patterns and perceptions of our lives, letting the alchemy of love, listening and justice do its work, then we will be more than changed. The base metals of our lives will be transformed into something precious and flourishing. This is the purpose of religion, and the meaning of a religious life: to be transformed.”

These thoughts were passing through my being as I reflected on the recent weeks of my life and the people I have shared this time with. I see so many gorgeous examples of this transformation in them. Just beautiful!

Again as Wendell Berry wrote “Every day you have less reason not to give yourself away.”

This is about living generously. My word I have witnessed a lot this in the ordinary people I share my life with. I’m not talking about on the big global scale, I’m talking about the communities that intersect my life. When I look at the big picture, on the news screens, what I see is selfishness and greed and yet when I look at the people around me, what I witness is people being generous, people giving themselves away. It fills my heart.

As Parker J Palmer has pointed out generosity does not require material abundance. When I look at the people I have been around in recent weeks, what I have witnessed is generosity of spirit, generosity of time and generosity of heart. I’ve witnessed it every time I’ve been to visit in hospital as I have looked at the people all around me. I have witnessed people giving their time, their support, their open hearted presence, their hope even in the suffering of their loved ones. These are our gifts of the self. This is how we bring that divine love alive. This is the alchemy that transforms life. This is the heart of true religion. This is gratitude in action, this is living with gratitude, this is abundance, extravagance, this is God incarnating in out ordinary human lives. Sadly too often we are afraid to do this. In fact we are told over and over again “Don’t give yourself away.”

Why?

What are we so afraid of?

No! Times is passing by, it is short “Everyday day you have less reason not to give yourself away.”

It’s that simply really and yet at times it seems so complicated. This is the transformative nature of the religious life, the free religious life at least. It comes alive, as we come alive when we give ourselves away.

It brings to my mind another favourite poem that came back into my heart in those days between Christmas and New year, “Accepting this “ by Mark Nepo

“Accepting this “ by Mark Nepo

Yes, it is true. I confess,
I have thought great thoughts,
and sung great songs—all of it
rehearsal for the majesty
of being held.

The dream is awakened
when thinking I love you
and life begins
when saying I love you
and joy moves like blood
when embracing others with love.

My efforts now turn
from trying to outrun suffering
to accepting love wherever
I can find it.

Stripped of causes and plans
and things to strive for,
I have discovered everything
I could need or ask for
is right here—
in flawed abundance.

We cannot eliminate hunger,
but we can feed each other.

We cannot eliminate loneliness,
but we can hold each other.

We cannot eliminate pain,
but we can live a life
of compassion.

Ultimately,
we are small living things

awakened in the stream,
not gods who carve out rivers.

Like human fish,
we’re asked to experience
meaning in the life that moves
through the gill of our heart.

There is nothing to do
and nowhere to go.
Accepting this,
we can do everything
and go anywhere.

There are so many beautiful paradoxes in this poem; paradoxes that speak to me of what it means to live spiritually alive; spiritually alive and in the company of others. I have witnessed and experienced so much of what it speaks of these last few weeks, this has filled my heart and humbled me. I have borne witness to how the spirit only comes alive in relation. That’s what the spiritual life is actually about you know, relationships. You cannot be a spiritual being, a living one at least in isolation. It only occurs truly in community, as messy as that can be. The more we give ourselves away, the more all will receive, that strange arithmetic of giving, that multiplies by subtraction.

I’m going to end today with a confession. I hope you can forgive me. Life is an utter mystery to me. It just doesn’t make sense. I know my own life doesn’t, well not completely. I don’t understand it, I just can’t make sense of it. I am at ease with this. The other day I felt so free as I was out in the park walking with Molly, just chatting with the folk I meet. My head as completely empty and my heart was full and I felt this incredible sense of belonging and well-being and pure love. I felt powerfully the presence of God and every person I looked at that day seemed to me to be made in that image.

All I do know is that every day I have less reason not to give myself away.

Maybe that is all I really need to know, maybe all I have to do is keep on remembering this and keep on giving myself away. The next time I forget, please remind me.

“Every day I have less reason not to give myself away.

Please find below a video devotion based on the material in this "blogspot"

Liminal Space: We Are Always Passing Through Thresholds

I’m going to begin with this marvelous reflection

“In Between” by Victoria Safford

One afternoon some time ago I brought my little baby out to visit a very, very old neighbour who was dying that year, quietly and gracefully, in her gracious home. We were having a little birthday party for her, with sherry and cake and a few old friends gathered round her bed. To free a hand to cut the cake, I put my baby down right on the bed, right up on the pillow - and there was a sudden hush in the room, for we were caught off guard, beholding.

It was a startling sight. There is the late afternoon light were two people side by side, two human merely beings. Neither one could walk, neither one could speak, not in language you could understand, both utterly dependent on the rest of us bustling around, masquerading as immortals. There they were: a plump one, apple-cheeked, a cherry tomato of a babe, smiling; and a silver-thin one, hallow-eyes, translucent, shining, smiling. We revellers were hushed because we clearly saw that these were dancers on the very edge of things. These two were closer to the threshold, the edge of the great mystery, than any of us had been for a long time or would be for a while. Living, breathing, smiling they were, but each with one foot and who knows how much consciousness firmly planted on the other side, whatever that is, the starry darkness from whence we come and whither will we go, in time. Fresh from birth, nigh unto death, bright – eyed, they were bookends there, mirrors of each other. Radiant.

Cake in hand, and napkins, knife, glasses, a crystal carafe a century old, we paused there on the thresholds of our own momentary lives. Then, “What shall we sing?” said someone, to the silence, to the sunlight on the covers, to the stars. It was the only question, then, as now, years later. What on earth shall we sing?

...Well what should be sing? Maybe this 😊

So here we stand on the hinge of another year. The winter solstice has passed, Christmas has been and gone and we find ourselves in those in-between days standing at the threshold of a new year. Yes the day light hours will increase over the coming weeks but still we must face winter. January and February can be difficult as we feel stuck in the cold on these dark winter evenings.

Winter is not an easy time, so many of us want it over as soon as possible. We want spring and the new birth and life that it brings, but that is not the way to live and we know it. To live, always holding on to the spring yet to come, is to fail to fully experience what is present now. There is such richness in the dark cold of winter and we need to feel it and allow our eyes to adjust to the darkness. There is a beautiful wonder about winter that we would do well to embrace. For it is in this cold stillness that change can begin to form and grow.

There is a beauty in those in between days as we stand on the threshold of something new, in that space. As we stand here together between the worlds in the changing of the light.

The truth is though that we are always standing at thresholds at times of change. Each beginning is actually the end of something and each ending is the beginning of something new and what stands in between is threshold.

I was talking with a friend who has just become a father the other day. His life has changed forever, it will never be the same again. He has passed through one state of being into another. His life has changed and changed forever. I have found myself standing at thresholds at the other side of people’s lives these last few months. We have lost people in both congregations these last few months. I am sure that most of us have lost people we love and care for deeply. They have passed from that last stage of physical life, into who knows what. Perhaps this is why we often say when a person has died, that “they have passed”. Our lives have changed also when we lose someone we love dearly, our relationships have changed, we have passed through a threshold ourselves. Often sitting with someone and grieving them, even before they die is a threshold space, a waiting time, a deep time, a thick time. So much can change in this time and space. Then as we lose them, we pass into this other stage, something changes for ever, life will never be the same again as we pass into the time of grief, another threshold that can change us for ever. Life is never quite the same again. We pass through into what seems like another world, another dimension of life.

Now a phrase that is used to describe these inbetween thresholds is “Liminal Space”. “Liminal Space” is a threshold, a space between things.

The word “Liminal” comes from the Latin “limens”, meaning “a threshold.” A threshold is a doorway or the entrance, it is a place or point of entering or beginning. In psychology the term “Limen” means the point at which a stimulus is of sufficient intensity to begin to produce an effect.

So “Liminal Space” is that moment when something changes from one state to another. Such as the dawn of each day, when the morning sun rises high in the sky to bring in daylight. Or at dusk, when the evening sun sinks into the horizon bringing nightfall.

“Liminal Space” is that moment when we move either into or out of a deep fog, whether physical or one made from our own minds. Sometimes in that fog we find a complete stillness and in that stillness a new truth can be revealed. As we do we come out of the fog once again and step into a new clear light. This is similar to those moments when we awaken from a deep sleep, when we are not yet fully awake but no longer asleep. And at the other end of the day is that state when we move from being fully awake and conscious into deep sleep. Then there are those moments of life’s transitions, between life and death itself. Those moments described in the reading we heard earlier by Victoria Safford.

“Liminal Spaces” are “Thin Places” occurring on boundaries between things.

“Liminal Space” is a boundary. Think of fences, walls and trees between property. It is the edge between things. Such as water and land, a valley or a hill. When I think of where I come from in West Yorkshire, such boundaries are everywhere in those hills and valleys of green and grey. Another example is in the change of the shape of the land. Another example is the East Coats of Yorkshire , around Filey and Flamborough Head where the cliffs are eroding and falling away into the North Sea. It is amazing to stand there sometimes and stare out into the sea watching the waves hitting and then retreating from the coast . It is that moment of contact, just before the sea withdraws once again that is a kind of “Liminal Space”.

“Liminal Space” is not only physical in nature though. It is that moment, which may last a lifetime, that lies between the known and the unknown. It is a moment of transition a space of heightened intensity when we cross the threshold of what we think we know. That moment of abandon when things change and are never quite the same again. Moments that can change us forever. Moments that change everything. We all have them, it’s just that too often we are not fully awake to them. We all of us stand in that space, between the changing of the light. Between every sunrise and every sunset a whole new world of possibility is born.

Now sometimes we enter such times, “Liminal Space”, willingly, as a result of a decision to try something new. But there are also others times when we just drift into them a bit like driving into a fog on our journeys somewhere, not knowing when the fog will clear. Such moments are filled with uncertainty, they are times of transition we did not ask for at all. These can be confusing times and such confusion can cause fear and anxiety. We humans do not like uncertainty, we like to know the ground that we stand on is solid and secure. We want the path to be clear, we want our goals to be certain, we want to rush through the fog and enter once more into the light as soon as possible. This is why so many of us don’t like the cold and darkness of winter, spring is so much more appealing, but we cannot have the joy of spring without life’s winter. We want certainty, we want firmness now!!!

The French Jesuit priest Teilhard de Chardin captured this perfectly when he wrote: “We are quite naturally impatient in everything. To reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability – And that it may take a very long time.” He urged us to be patient, to embrace this time of uncertainty, to allow it to unfold naturally as we evolve into what we are meant to become. The key it would seem is to be open and to experience everything, because everything matters you know, even the experiences we don’t want to feel. We need to experience the thresholds, so as to learn all that they offer. To stand between the worlds in the changing of light. To pass through the “Liminal Space” and become all that we were born to be. Born again and again and again in each moment of life

We are always changing, we are always on the threshold of something, moving through liminal space. Some of those changes are physical, others psychological and still others spiritual.

Last year as I stood on threshold of the year I did not know what was to come. None of us did, did we? This year we all stand at a new threshold uncertain of what is to come. As we stand in the coldest darkest days. Let’s not rush through these in between days and wish them away. Let’s instead appreciate this “Liminal Space” for what it is and when we are ready, let’s step into the days of the new beginnings and truly give birth to the love that is within us all.

Please find below a video devotion based on the material in this "Blogspot"

Glad Tidings of Comfort and Joy

Now to the Lord sing praises,
All you within this place,
And with true love and brotherhood
Each other now embrace;
This holy tide of Christmas
All other doth efface.
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy.

These are the final words of classic Christmas Carol “God rest ye merry gentlemen”. To me this is the heart, the spirt of Christmas, to offer “Glad tidings of comfort and joy. This is something we all need in life and not just at Christmas. Yes, let us celebrate the joy of this season and let us give comfort to those who are in need, and of course seek it when we need it ourselves. Remember of course that comfort doesn’t necessarily mean what we think it means today. Comfort comes from the Latin word comfortare, which means “strengthen greatly.” To give comfort is to shore up the mood or physical state of someone else. To stand by them and support them. Not take away their human agency, not a there there, but to be with them in their struggle, to support and accompany them.

I was reminded on Tuesday morning of a gift that was left on my doorstep two years ago, something that gave me comfort at a difficult time in my life. It began a practice I have continued every day, ever since. Every morning when I awake, as part of my daily spiritual practice, I reflect on the day before and take note of the little things that have occurred in my life. I then share this with others on social media. It is a way of sharing “glad tidings of comfort and joy”. The other morning, the second anniversary of “The little things”, I was reflecting on an experience of being offered comfort the day before, as I sat and listened to the findings of my friend’s inquest. I was alone, except for a court volunteer, who is there to support friends and family of the deceased. I talked with the woman who shared why she had become such a volunteer, following a tragedy in her own life. She herself had attended the inquest of a relative. She was wonderful and a beautiful example of the good that can grow from tragedy, if we transform it into loving service for others. Surely this is the point of the religious life. She truly was a comforter, although that was not her official title. She strengthened me greatly as did my God and two or three friends who I was in contact with. I had to experience what I did, but I was comforted through it. I felt held and strengthened as I walked through what I felt I must. A little later I spent some time in the joyful company of a friend, this also brought glad tidings too.

“Oh glad tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy. Oh glad tidings of comfort and joy.”

This truly is the spirit of Christmas, past, present and future, alive and well in this our world.

How do we bring glad tidings of comfort and joy to the world, especially if we ourselves are feeing a little weary. How do we Unitarians, those of a free religious tradition offer “Glad tidings of comfort and joy”?

Well, it is there in our past, our present and our believe our future. Our is a hope filled faith, one that believes in possibility and potential of all life, all people that on earth do dwell. Our approach to religion is real, grounded in this life. That we sanctify in and through this life. That the likes of Priestley and our forebears, in rejecting “Original Sin”, and thus the need to be saved from ourselves, embraced the humanness of Jesus and this life, the sacredness of this life, and as I would see it, that we are here to sanctify in and through life. Jesus was thus seen as the example of what we could be. That redemption can come not by saving us from life, but to life. Yes, redemption is available, but not by pure unearned Grace, rather through a combination of faith and works, thus maintaining human agency.

Now this brings to my heart one of the Christmas classic tales, Charles Dickens “A Christmas Carol”

In the story Scrooge beautifully portrays the power at the heart of Christmas, how love can redeem even the most lost. It emerges through the journey of integration that he is taken on, of the past, present and future; of both the light and the dark of life; of hope and despair. During the telling of “A Christmas Carol” he was visited by three spirits, the ghosts of the past, present and yet to be.

“The Ghost of Christmas Past” forced him to not only look back at his past but to relive it, to truly feel it. He was made to remember what Christmas had once meant, before cynicism had taken hold. It showed him both the happiness and the sadness present in his past, there was no sugar coating. It is of course a true humbug to pretend that all the sadness in life is washed away at Christmas time. And yet while there is sadness present in all life there is also love and joy, there is much to be grateful for. It is the “The Ghost of Christmas Past” that revealed this to Scrooge.

“The Ghost of Christmas Present” showed Scrooge the full picture of the world in which he lived, especially at Christmas time. He saw the warts and the beauty spots too. It revealed the affluence as well as the want. It showed Christmas being enjoyed in far off places, on the high seas in lighthouses, it showed every heart being warmed by the season. This surely touched Scrooge, as his heart was warmed by the universal love, present in all life, regardless of material circumstances, expressed by the spirit of Christmas.

“The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Be” brought the reality of Scrooge’s own lonely and un-mourned death to him. People either did not care or actually cheered his passing. All that he owned was quickly stripped from him; it meant nothing in the end. They even took the curtains from his bed. When the spirit showed him his grave, he did not recognise it as his own, he tried to deny it, but the spirits finger pointed from the grave back to him. This terrified Scrooge who cried out that he was a changed man, as he begged for mercy clutching the spirits robe. And then from his lips came those immortal words, “I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The spirits of all three will strive within me. I will not shut out the lesson that they teach.”

Scrooge became the Christmas hero because he brought the reality of what Christmas is all about to life; through him the spirit of Christmas came to life. It is the same for everyone, regardless of time and place. For surely Christmas is about honouring life in its wholeness; surely it is about reconciliation in its completeness. It is about giving birth to the love within each of by reconciling our past in our present and therefore creating a future inspired by love.

Scrooge is transformed not be unearned Grace, but by integrating his whole life. He is shown his story of what is was and what he will become. He awakens transformed, he undergoes a conversion experience but does not lose his agency. The ghosts are his comforter as they accompany him through this journey and becomes the man he could be, dedicating his life to something new.

There are parallels here to another Christmas classic “It’s a Wonderful Life”. The main character here George Bailey is not in any way Scrooge like. He has lived a life of service in so many ways. Yet it all goes wrong, despite the good he does, through no fault of his own. He loses his mind and in his desperation decides that the best thing for all is to take his life. In the film an angel “Clarence Oddbody” is sent to save him, in order to gain his wings. George believes all would be better if he had never been born. Clarence takes him on journey showing him how life would be if had never been born. Having being shown this vision of his life he begs for his life back and returns home to accept his fate. On his return he finds all the towns folk had chipped in to help him and redemption occurs. Can you see how clearly everyone here becomes the comforter, those who offer glad tidings of comfort and joy as George had been doing for years. They exemplify the message at the heart of Christmas, I believe.

These stories remind me of another classic piece of literature, not a Christmas story, but one that has similarities at its heart and soul. This is “Silas Marner” by George Eliot (real name Mary Ann Evans) who like Dickens was heavily influenced by Unitarian thought. The novel explored themes of faith, redemption and the healing power of love. Silas Marner loses his faith in both God, humanity and society through a series of unfortunate events, but is transformed through his relationship with the orphan girl Eppie who is left with him and who he adopts. Like Scrooge’s heart, his is transformed and thawed, through love. The novel beautifully portrays the power of love and human connection. Isn’t this another example of the heart of the Christmas story. Interestingly in this story it is Eppie who is the comforter, who brings to life “Glad tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy, oh glad tidings of comfort and joy.”

Christmas is about possibility, it is about hope of what might be. It is about love being born, being incarnated in our hearts and minds. It is about possibility. It’s about bringing glad tidings of comfort and joy. The Christ child is the example to us all of what we can be if we live from that spirit of love. We all have the same hope, the possibility in us. We are all Scrooge, we are all Silas Marner, we are all George Bailey. Just as we are all the Ghosts of the past, present and what is yet to be, just as we are all Clarence Oddbody and little Eppie and all the other characters in this and countless other tales. These are real tales, tales of life. That love can come again, can be born again. We must incarnate it though our own lives. We must be the comforter and when we need it to accept what is offered, as I did again this week. We are here to accompany one another in our joy and suffering as we integrate the whole of our lives past present and future.

The it might just be Christmas every day. Or as good old Mr Scrooge said, towards the end of a “Christmas Carol”

“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!”

Let us honour that spirit too. Let us offer “Glad Tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy, glad tidings of comfort and joy.”

The video devotion below is based on the material in this "blogspot"

Christmas a Time For-Giving and For-Getting

We are now fully into the Advent Season, the days that lead to Christmas Day. These are the days of waiting of preparation. The music is playing, we can hear all the familiar songs in every shop as we no doubt begin the process of selecting presents for our loved ones.

Have you done all your shopping yet? I’ve not even begun. I will get round to it, but not just yet. I’ve got too much to do. The cards are coming. Actually, I received my first Christmas card in July. It was left with another card for a friend and a gift for him. It was a mutual friend who was in the country for a short while and wanted to say a thank to me and more importantly a mutual friend. A lovely, if little unconventional, gesture.

I also received an unusual request too. I was rung up by someone who occasional attends things at Dunham Road. She asked me if the Christmas Eve service was going to be on Christmas Eve. I wasn’t entirely sure how to answer the question. She told me she was going away that evening and would like to come, but not if the Christmas Eve service was on on Christmas Eve. I told her of other services, but explained that the Christmas Eve service was to held on Christmas Eve.

People can be some wonderfully interesting.

Have you experienced any “Bah Humbug” moments yet? I have had one or two, mostly whilst struck in traffic and wondering if I can get all the things done, I need to do. I seem ever more busy this year. I have already had to cancel a few things. There have been lovely gifts too, mainly gifts of presence and conversation. The most touching and beautiful was during last Sunday’s candlelight service at Dunham Road. Margaret and her son and his partner Sil sitting there in the hospice watching the candles in the dark and silence. It was the beautiful image of her face, the smile as took in the beautiful spirit in the air, alive there and then. It was Margaret’s final service as sadly she died this week. I missed her by half an hour as I was driving in the pouring rain, stuck in traffic, trying to get to the hospice to see her one last times. She died half an hour before I arrived. People tried to call my, but my phone was on do not disturb. I arrived to be told the sad news. I left and wept and then got myself together before going to see her son Peter.

There have been so many tender moments already this Advent seasons, so many beautiful giving of the heart. “What shall I give him, give my heart.” There have been other moments of loving generosity, moments of tears and joy and laughter too. I have recently discovered that “All I Want for Christmas is You” by Maraih Carey shares the same meter as “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”. I decided to record it as a voice message and send it to friends as a way of sharing some joy, mirth and merriment, a gift for folk I know. I will no doubt be singing it again.

Just my way of giving something I have from my heart. By the way if you want to hear a version please click on the video devotion at the bottom of this "Blogspot"

The following were the last few words from the opening prayer last Sunday, by Victoria Safford?

Now is the moment of magic,

and here's a blessing:
we already possess all the gifts we need;
we've already received our presents:
ears to hear music,
eyes to behold lights,
hands to build true peace on earth
and to hold each other tight in love.

I have felt these gifts alive and well these last few days, I have felt the spirit at the heart of them moving too. I have made some use of them as I have gone about my work these last few days and I have felt the love of others too, mixed in with the odd “Bah Humbug”

How do we make good use of the gifts we have been given from the beginning and throughout our lives? How do we bring these gifts to life in this beautiful present that is right here, right now? How do we make best use of the gift of life?

I will leave that one with you to ponder…

For most of us Christmas is about the giving and receiving of presents, but not necessarily about the gifts we both give and receive. It is not just wanton materialism of “Black Friday” or some of the excesses of the coming days. There is a greater gift at the heart of this, in this time for giving and for getting, or forgiving and forgetting, however you understand it.

The giving and receiving of gifts is at the heart of Christmas. I suspect that the tradition of giving and receiving gifts at Christmas time is linked to the three gifts of the Magi “Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh”. Gifts of great value 2,000 years ago, although only gold has retained its worth today. Now in early Christianity the journey of the Magi was celebrated on the Feast of the Epiphany on the 6th of January, the 12th day of Christmas, hence the Carol “On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me, a partridge in a pear tree”…etc...). Interesting this is when Christmas is celebrated in the Eastern, the Orthodox Church, on the 12th night.


The early Christian church did not celebrate Christmas as we do today. The tradition of giving Christmas presents is really a modern one. By Victorian times the culture of gift giving and the mythos of Father Christmas, St Nicholas or Santa Claus was beginning to take hold, immortalised in the fiction of Dickens and the like. As the twentieth century moved on into the twenty first this culture developed into mass consumerism. Today it would seem that buying, wrapping and giving gifts has become nothing more than a mechanical chore and one of the worst examples of mass consumerism going. Is this really what Christmas is about? Is this really giving by heart? Is this really the spirit of Christmas? Well it can be if we select, give and receive these gifts in the spirit of love. In so doing we bring the spirit of season alive, by incarnating the words from my favourite Carol “In the Bleak mid-winter”…

This takes me back to that gift selected and wrapped and delivered back in July, a little offering of thanks for a friend.

“What shall I give him? Give my heart”

I believe that the true spirit of Christmas is the heart, that this is the gift of the season. Christmas above everything else truly is the season of the heart. When we truly give our gifts to others we are giving them our hearts and when we truly give from our heart to another we are somehow bringing that heart of God alive and that spirit is once again incarnating in life.

This is the religion, the spirit that can still be discovered beneath the ribbons and the wrapping paper. This is the spirit that can once again come alive if we engage in the giving and receiving of gifts and not merely presents. This is one way in which we can truly begin to become a gift to the world. Something to think about this season, what can you give of your heart, from your heart, where it is needed.

It is amazing what can emerge from folk if we would but encourage and nurture it.

I remember being told a story of how the Onondaga people would teach their children about generosity. The Onondaga were one of five original Iroquois found in present day New York state south of Lake Ontorio. It seems that when it was time to teach a child the tribe would gather together in a circle and the child would be brought to the centre of that circle and given wonderful things to drink. After the child had drunk to their hearts content. A voice would cry out from outside the circle saying, 'I'm thirsty, I'm thirsty.' The child would then be encouraged to take the drink to the thirsty person. The child would then be brought back into the circle and fed the most wonderful feast of food. They would then hear a voice from outside the circle, crying out, 'I'm hungry, I'm hungry.' Again, the child would leave the circle to feed the hungry person. The child would then be brought back to the circle and be given the most exotic and beautiful, warm clothes to wear. Then a voice would again cry out, crying, 'I'm cold, I'm cold.” The child would then gather up clothes and help dress the freezing person.

Reminds of the words of Jesus “What you do to the least them, you do to me.”

What a beautiful way to teach empathy and interconnection and community. It speaks powerfully to me to what is at the heart of Christmas; it speaks powerfully to me of what are the gifts at the heart of Christmas.

I have been thinking a lot of ministry and my journey into ministry of late. I was asked again recently what drew me, what called me into ministry. It was of course heartache and grief. That said it was more than that it was also gifts of generosity and love, which began as I have said many times before, with a gift of soup and loving kindness. Folk giving from their heart in a time of broken despair. I carry that loving spirit and generosity with me. I have been given many free gifts and meals throughout my life. There are many graces in life.

As I was driving home from the hospice the other evening, in tears of grief I was listening to the radio, ”The Lamb” by John Tavener began to played. This was a piece of music I was learning to sing in a choir at the time that Ethan was killed in the autumn of 2006. That Advent we sang it for the first time and dedicated it to his precious little life. Ethan was my Immanuel, the one who showed me that God is still with us. Recovering from that grief and the gift of that soup was central to my journey into ministry. Therefore it seemed fitting that this was the piece that was playing that brought me glad tidings of comfort and joy once more at a time of grief. It showed that God was indeed still with us. There have been some beautiful gifts of care and love offered again these last few days.

When I really think of the gifts I have been given, the greatest is of course life itself. This is of course the ultimate free gift. The ultimate unearned grace. It is easy to say we are grateful, for the gifts we have been given, whether at Christmas or throughout the year; whether they are material or spiritual in nature. But I am not so sure that this is what gratitude actually is. Gratitude is active thing, it is more than giving thanks, it is doing something with the gifts we have been given.

This is really what I would like us to think about over the coming days as we approach Christmas. To consider the gifts that we have been granted and to perhaps think of the gifts we would like. To remember, but not passively, let’s instead make of them acts of remembrance, of all that has been freely given to us, gifted to us. Let’s also make from these gifts a true act of gratitude for all that is our lives. Let’s become a part of the gift that is life itself and express this in our being. Let’s become the gift to the world. And pour out this gift on one another and to all life, in all that we feel, all that we think, all that we say and all that we do…

Please find below a video devotion based on the material in this "Blogspot"

Advent: Hope keeps me alive and creatively engaged with the world

Something has happened to me that I don’t like. I am now considered a senior minister. This is not something I warm too, which is pure vanity by the way. Senior sounds old and my ego wants to protest against this. The truth is though that I am. I have in the last year become more engaged in helping to develop our future ministers. I spent a few days away recently with the “Ministry in the Making” team. It was a very productive time as we began to shape next years program. There were many wonderful conversation including a rather beautiful one when the Helen Mason, the director of Unitarian College, shared something from a sermon of her paternal grandfather the great Rev Leonard Mason. I am told he once conducted one of the weddings of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Helen is from a long lineage of Unitarian luminaries including John Relly Beard one of the co-founders of Unitarian College Manchester and who is buried in Brooklands cemetery in Sale. Relly Beard is distant relative of her later mother Joy Winder who helped shape my own journey into ministry.

Sorry I digress. The sermon described God as being like a white tailed deer. Now I didn’t know this, but have since learnt that the white tailed deer raises its tail when it detects danger and it as it does the white underside of the tail becomes visible. It is this that is a metaphor for God and the suggestion being that you get a glimpse of this from time to time and it is this that draws us on. It spoke powerfully to me and my understanding of God, as not that which controls everything, but more that which is present, always luring me on, drawing me out of myself. The light of hope which at times may go quite dim and yet burns bright in the darkest of times the night. It reminded me of the humble words of the classic “Waterboys” song “The Whole of the Moon”. “I saw the crescent, you saw the whole of the moon”. I was thinking of this as I a friend discussed the beautiful crescent moon on cold and wet Tuesday morning. It is this sometimes dim light that brings me hope when hope is hard to find, my rose in the winter time. It also brought to mind the following “A Theology Adequate for the Night” by Nancy Shaffer

“A Theology Adequate for the Night” by Nancy Shaffer

Not God as unmoved mover:

One who set the earth in motion and withdrew. Not the One to thank when those cherished do not die – for providence includes equally power to harm. Not a God of exacting, as if love could be earned or subtracted.

But-this may work in the night:

Something that breathes with us, as others sleep; something that breathes also on those sleeping, so no one is alone. Something that is the beginning of love, and also each part of how love is completed. Something so large, wherever we are, we are not separate; which teaches again the way to start over.

Night is the test: when grief lies uncovered, and longing shows clear; when nothing we do can hasten earth’s turning or delay it.

This may be adequate for the night:

This holding: something that steadfastly breathes us, which we also learn to breathe.

God for me is always present, as close as my breath and yet this is not always clear. Yet is does seem to draw me, even though I only sometimes get a glimpse, see the crescent, whilst others see the whole of the moon.

At the end of sessions at “Ministry in the Making” we shared some devotional worship. Ant Howe played a wonderful version of the Hymn “Nearer Thy God to Me” by a Mormon male voice choir, it was incredibly powerful and moving. It is beautiful hymn, an absolute classic, written by the Unitarian writer Sarah Flower Adams in 1841. No doubt she will have known John Relly Beard. It depicts the story of Jacob’s dream, sometimes called Jacob’s ladder and was reputedly played by the band on the Titanic as it sank.

All this got my homiletic consciousness going and got me thinking of Advent and the light of hope that draws us as we head towards that moment of magic that is Christmas, when the light of hope is born once more. A light that always draws me on despite life’s very real struggles and the temptation of despair that comes in the night of life. I may only get a glimpse of the crescent, but it is enough. It seems I do not need to see the whole of the moon.

Today marks the beginning of Advent. A time for waiting, a time of preparation. A time set aside to wait for the “coming” of Love in human form symbolised in the birth of the Christ child. A promise of what love can become if we let it grow and nurture in our hearts and lives. For every new life is the gift of promise and possibility. A gift of possibility that can be reborn in each of our lives if we allow it to be.

The season of Advent invites us to embrace the spiritual discipline of waiting. We cannot rush through this season, we must experience it all, before the moment of magic. We must first sing the carols, light the candles and open the doors of the calendars. We must select our gifts for our loved ones and we must prepare ourselves for the year to come. We must experience the whole of this season if we are to give birth to the love that is at the core of it all; if we are to grow this love in the mangers of our own hearts and to give birth to and both experience and share it in our world. A world that needs love and hope as much as at any time in our history.

Advent is a season of preparation and it cannot be rushed. It requires patience. We cannot wish the days away, we cannot wish the winter away. We have to wait patiently, but not passively.

There are times when the light seems dim, like a white tailed deer, but it draws us on in hope and surely this the message of this season, the light of hope is always shinning drawing us on. We must though live in faith and hope, awaiting the birth of pure love, in the mangers of all our hearts.

It is hope that draws us on, it is hope that keeps us going especially in the cold and darkening days. As Seamus Heaney wrote:

“The days are getting shorter and colder, but I ask you to remember: even as the Winter comes in, there is Hope and there is Light." - Seamus Heaney

Advent is about believing in hope, in the possibility of hope, even of at times its light shines dim. Hope is an intimation of the heart to quote Vaclav Havel. If we choose hopelessness over hope it says more about the state of our own hearts and souls, than the state of the world in which we all live.

Advent is about being lured toward that light of hope, it is about turning toward love and life and not turning away. It is about not being seduced by lazy cynicism. This is put beautifully by the wonderful Victoria Safford in an interview with Krista Tippet for “On Being” I have one of her wonderful book of meditations “With or Without Candlelight”. Rev Victoria Safford serves the White Bear Unitarian Universalist Church in Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA. She said:

“Our mission is to plant ourselves at the gates of hope — not the prudent gates of Optimism, which are somewhat narrower; nor the stalwart, boring gates of Common Sense; nor the strident gates of self-righteousness, which creak on shrill and angry hinges; nor the cheerful, flimsy garden gate of “Everything is gonna be all right,” but a very different, sometimes very lonely place, the place of truth-telling, about your own soul first of all and its condition, the place of resistance and defiance, the piece of ground from which you see the world both as it is and as it could be, as it might be, as it will be; the place from which you glimpse not only struggle, but joy in the struggle — and we stand there, beckoning and calling, telling people what we are seeing, asking people what they see.

Of all the virtues, “hope” is one of the most-needed in our time. When people ask me how I stay hopeful in an era of widespread darkness, I answer simply: “Hope keeps me alive and creatively engaged with the world.”

It keeps me alive and fully engaged too. It draws me on and beyond myself to live alive in this world.

Hope is an orientation of the spirit, it is something that holds us and sustains us right here right now. It does more than that though, it draws us on, even if at times its light seems dim, a bit like those white tailed deer.

Advent is a time for waiting, for preparation, in the Christian tradition it is for the coming of the Christ child, the birth of hope. For me I see this in the birth of all life and by this I don’t just me physical life. Any hope that is born in manger of all our hearts. That love can incarnate in all our hearts, if we live in and by hope.

Advent invites us to cradle our hopes like a new born child, to truly wonder what love might look like if we were truly give birth to it and what it might truly mean to live life faithfully despite our very real troubles.

Advent is about waiting, but not doing so passively. The spiritual life is not a passive one, but it does require patience. It is about preparing for hope that may not yet be born, but it must be prepared for. Advent encourages us to be present and fully alive to this time of waiting. The time is now and the moment of magic is coming. So, we wait by being fully present to all that is alive around us, drawn on in and through hope, an orientation of the heart and the spirit.

For soon comes the moment of magic, the birth of hope, in the mangers of all our hearts.

Earlier I made reference to Vaclav Havel and his view that “Hope is an orientation of the spirit.” Havel was a writer and stateman and the first president of the Czech Republic following the end of Communism. He knew a lot about living by and through hope.

Here’s the wonderful poem of his on “Hope”. It seems appropriate to end with as we head toward that moment of magic, drawn on by hope.

“Hope” by Vaclav Havel

Hope is a state of mind, not a state of the world
Either we have hope within us or we don’t.
Hope is not a prognostication—it’s an orientation of the spirit.
You can’t delegate that to anyone else.

Hope in this deep and powerful sense is not the same as joy
when things are going well,
or the willingness to invest in enterprises
that are obviously headed for early success,
but rather an ability to work for something to succeed.

Hope is definitely NOT the same as optimism.
It’s not the conviction that something will turn out well,
but the certainty that something makes sense,
regardless of how it turns out.

It is hope, above all, that gives us strength to live
and to continually try new things,
even in conditions that seem as hopeless as ours do, here and now.
In the face of this absurdity, life is too precious a thing
to permit its devaluation by living pointlessly, emptily,
without meaning, without love, and, finally, without hope.

Below is a video devotion based on the material in this "blogspot"