One Good Word Is Bread For A Thousand

“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.

A man approached Nasrudin and asked him, “how does one become wise?”. To which Nasrudin replied: “listen attentively to wise people when they speak. And when someone is listening to you, listening attentively to what you are saying!”

I was amused by a thread I saw on twitter the other day. It began with the following “

People who can't differentiate between entomology and etymology bug me in ways I cannot put into words.” By “tattooedselkie. Carwyn Tywyn the wonderful harpist and former Unitarian Welsh secretary replied “ Think I’ll let this one fly! Dad was a FRES (Fellow of the Royal Society of Entymologists) Top which Kenny Burns replied “I always liked ‘To the person who stole my thesaurus – I have no words to describe how angry I am,” and added “I wonder what’s the origin of this irritation that’s put such a bee in your bonnet.”

I won’t the rest of the thread as it moved 18+ levels.

I loved the thread of puns, minister level and I love the word play.

I made reference to the word “apricate”, meaning to revel in the warmth of the sun on your back, last week. After the service I got into a conversation with Barbara and Pauline, they told me that the weather presenter Owain Wyn Evans had made reference to the word or a similar word, pronounced differently, but sharing the same root. The word is “apricity” which meant to revel in the warmth of the sun in winter time.

Both are lovely words, warming words, words that bring comfort, something that we all need at this time. As David Whyte wrote “People are hungry / and one good word is bread / for a thousand.” Such words can feed our souls and inspire us to loving action, no matter how they are pronounced. Such words have been desperately needed this last year, more than usual as we have not been able to be together as we would like. Words spoken and written through whatever medium have fed us, warmed us, comforted us, made us laugh, sustained us in oh so many ways.

I recently took a weeks leave. It was so needed. It had been planned for over a year. I had been invited to Prague to speak at the Unitarian Academy. They had been asking for a couple of years and this was the first time I was free to come. Obviously, I could not go. That said I still had to deliver the lectures. Obviously, my talks had to be translated. Zoom is a wonderful function and my words were translated as I spoke through the facility. While those asking questions of me were translated by the same person. I am told that they understood me clearly, although I was asked to speak a little slower for the second talk. It seems that they were well fed by the words that I shared. We weren’t able to meet face to face and yet we truly encountered one another, we all ate and we were fed. It fed our spirits and filled our souls. It was wonderful to listen and share together, if on a two dimensional level.

The modern technology, like Zoom, has been a Godsend this last year and has helped feed and sustain so many people. The words and work shared has fed hungry souls and kept people together. That said it is not quite community, it is not the same as being together face to face. I long for the day when we can all be together as we once were, joining in and building community, a living, breathing fellowship of love. Where all bring what they have to offer to share together. We are going to need this in the coming weeks, months and years as we begin to build back from the ravages of the last year.

Words shared seem even more important at this time, more than ever. We cannot connect physically as we would like to. Therefore, the words that we share, that we speak and that we hear seem even more important, as they can sustain us and or connect us. It is not only about speaking words, but hearing them too, truly listening when others speak. I know as a minister one of the most important aspects of my role is to listen. I spend most of my life listening. Listening to people, listen to life and listening to what I believe is at the core of all of life. We feed one another as we share, as we speak and as we listen. One of the greatest gifts we can give another is to truly listen to them. If I have learnt anything over the years it is that you can’t fix people, you can’t bring healing; you can’t take their troubles away, but you can listen to them, to the words of their heart. We might not be as close as we would like, but we can still listen in so many other ways. We can bless each other with our time and presence. Community, fellowship is built in these kind of relationships when we speak and listen to one another. People are hungry for words that sustain, not only spoken but also heard.

As Parker Palmer suggests this is what is really at the heart of the “Feeding miracles” in the Gospel accounts. That these are tales about fellowship, about community, about how we ought to be with one another. An example of what Jesus called the “Kingdom of Heaven”, what I call the “Kin-dom of Love”, that this is how we ought to be with another. They are about the relationships between Jesus, his disciples and the people in the crowds. This is abundant love being poured out in these deeply connective and connecting relationships. The key phrase is ( Mark Ch 8 vv 1-9) “They ate and were filled”. The crowds hunger is acknowledged and they are cared for face to face, relationally. Thus, their common humanity is cared for, they eat and they are filled.

The word “care” has an interesting etymology. Its origin is 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. 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.

No doubt many of us have felt a sense of disconnection over the last year, have felt lonely and cut off. Have felt that life is not feeding them as it once did and that they have felt unable to feed as they once did. There is a real need to find ways to feed and to be fed, again as David Whyte wrote “People are hungry / and one good word is bread / for a thousand.” We need to feed and we need to be fed. We need to speak these words for others to hear and we need to listen to them when they are spoken. We don’t need to necessarily answer, sometimes there is no answer, but we do need to listen.

Being listened to and especially being accepted and understood is so vital to all people. I have noticed this particularly in the grief group I host. Whenever a new person attends the one common feature for everyone is this sense of loneliness that they express after the loved one has gone, how they feel unheard by others, like their words are not being accepted or that others have tired of hearing them. The beauty of the group is that each can come and speak freely and are truly accepted. I have witnessed some moments of deep connection with the group. I have truly seen love incarnated in the sharing. I noticed it once again on the Zoom meeting this Monday evening. I notice it in all the different groups we host and in the interaction that are slowly beginning to happen again.

“People are hungry / and one good word is bread / for a thousand.” We all hunger for purpose and meaning. As Viktor Frankl pointed out we are driven by a will to find meaning and purpose. I would go further and suggest that we are also driven to find companionship. We need to share our words or our souls will starve. I have discovered and I keep on discovering that our deepest pangs are not satisfied by the food that is laid on the table but in the relationship that occurs as we feed one another. This is fellowship; a living breathing fellowship of love. To me this is the principle purpose of a free religious community, of a Unitarian congregation.

 

This is something that the world will need even more as we return to normality following the horrors of the pandemic, let us be prepared and be there. Again, to repeat David Whyte’s words “People are hungry / and one good word is bread / for a thousand.” We need to speak these words in love and we need to listen to one another as we share what is in our hearts, as we truly care.

From you I receive, to you I give, together we share and from this we live. 

Please find below a video recording of based on this "blogspot"