To weave the web, to tear and repair

I will begin this "blogspot" with a refelction by Parker J Palmer...

Here’s a William Stafford poem about the “thread” that runs through our lives — a thread that can guide us if we hold onto it:

"The Way it is" by William Stafford

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

Holding on doesn’t make life any easier, but it can keep us from getting lost in the dark woods that swallow us up every now and then. Knowing we can find our way home with that thread in hand, we’re more likely to explore the darkness and learn what it has to teach us.

From time to time, I lose track of the thread of my life. I lose it when I succumb to my own fears, or to other people’s expectations, or to the non-stop circus of distractions we call the modern world. So I need to take time to ponder a few questions, which is what I’ve been doing this week:

As I look back on my life, what’s the thread that has given me a sense of meaning and purpose? How can I name or picture it in a way that will keep me more aware of it?

Once I’ve reclaimed my lost thread and have it firmly in hand, what darkness do I need to enter and explore? For example, what fears do I need to face into and walk through to keep them from shutting me down?

In what kinds of situations do I most often let go of the thread? How can I avoid those situations, or go into them better prepared to deal with their risks?

If you find these questions helpful, I’ll be glad. If you have thoughts or questions to share about holding onto the thread that guides your life, I’ll be glad for that, too.

…Thank you Parker…I do like Parker J Palmer

Today is 1st August. I began my ministry with the good folk of Altrincham and Urmston and many others , these beautiful people on 1st August 2010. 11 sweet years, we have been through so much together.

Now of course 1st August is a special day for many reason. It is of course “Yorkshire Day”, as I am sure you all know. You will be celebrating won’t you? I don’t remember it being marked when I was a child, I suspect like a lot of things it is something that has developed over the years. It began in 1975, a creation of the “Yorkshire Ridings Society” as a response to the local government reoganisation in 1974 when the three Ridings no longer existed. August 1st was picked as it marked the passing of Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, a campaign led by the Yorkshire M.P. William Wilberforce. The day was already marked as “Minden Day” commemorating “The Battle of Minden” , when a White Rose is permitted to be worn in the headdress. The white rose is of course the symbol of Yorkshire.

To be honest I suspect that “Yorkshire Day” is a bit of nonsense, although not as much as “Lancashire Day” which is marked on 27th November and began in 1996, no doubt in response to “Yorkshire Day”.

1st of August is also “Sister’s Day”, “Girl Friends day”, “Planner Day”, “Respect for Parents Day”, “Doll Day”, “World Lung Cancer Day”, “Psychic Day” (I’m sure they already knew that), “Rounds Resounding Day”, “International Child Free Day”, “Raspberry Creampie Day”, “World Scout Scarf Day”. I am sure there are other days marked on 1st August too.

1st August is also “World Wide Web Day”, a day of celebration dedicated to web browsing on the internet. Seems like an odd thing to celebrate I know, but if you think about it, the World Wide Web (www) is something that has helped keep so many of us going these last 18months. The World Wide Web has made it possible to do so, something that would not have achievable just a few years ago. It has helped us keep in contact with folk all over the world, as well as finding out information about virtually any topic! It really is quite remarkable to think about the power that the Internet has today, for good and for bad.

The first image to be posted on the World Wide Web, was uploaded in 1992 by Tim Berners-Lee. It was a photo of “Les Horribles Cernettes”, a parody pop band founded by employees at the CERN centre in Geneva. The term “surfing the net” was coined a librarian called Jean Armour Polly? It was first used in an article she published called “Surfing the Internet” in March of 1992. Since then the World Wide Web and grown beyond anyone’s imaginings.

Tim Berners-Lee created the www, you know he gave it away for nothing. If he had wanted to, I’m sure he could have been the richest man on earth, but money was not his motivation. Profit is not the only thing that stimulates creativity, although some would have us believe it is. Tim Berners- Lee is a Unitarian Universalist and it is suggested that the principles of the faith tradition influenced the creation of the World Wide Web. In 1999 he said:

“One of the things I like about Unitarianism is its lack of religious trappings, miracles, and pomp and circumstance. It is minimalist, in a way. Unitarians accepted the useful parts of philosophy from all religions, including Christianity and Judaism, but also Hinduism, Buddhism, and any good philosophies, and wrapped them not into one consistent religion, but into an environment in which people think and discuss, argue, and always try to be accepting of differences of opinion and ideas.”

This at least is the ideal. Nothing lives up to an ideal.

It was something about the decentralised power aspect, that spoke to Berners-Lee and his ideas as to what the www would become. Perhaps what influenced him was the idea that the Divine is a part of the interconnectedness of everything and that all feed into the creative process. This is how Berners-Lee conceived that the World Wide Web would operate.

When considering the future of the internet in 1999 he suggested that:

“We certainly need a structure that will avoid those two catastrophes: the global uniform McDonald’s monoculture, and the isolated Heaven’s Gate cults that understand only themselves. By each of us spreading our attention evenly between groups of different size, from personal to global, we help avoid these extremes. “

Sadly, and seemingly more clearly day by day, Berners-Lee’s dreams have not been realised. The darker forces that are at work in life do seem to have overwhelmed the internet with aggression and disinformation, while corporate power has taken control. A bit like so many of the great faith traditions the spirit at the heart of the World Wide Web and the internet have been overtaken.

That said the spirit and thread at the heart of is all is still there. There is still hope. Afterall it is we who feed the web, we are not only fed by it, we are a part of it too. It is the same with the nature of all life. We all live in a vast web of mutuality. We all feed this and we are fed by it too. There are many threads that are constantly weaved. Many of the great religious traditions speak of them. It seems to me that the www is a mirror of life.

I have come to believe that we have this thread running through all of us, this aspect of the Divine; I have come to believe that God is not separate from creation, but weaved and weaving through it. We each of us have this very same thread in us, in fact maybe we as individuals are one thread on the universal web of all life, that without our thread and every other thread the web would not exist. The web is what creates, holds and sustains us, but at the same time we create the very same web of existence. Many of the great stories of the ancient traditions speak of this. In the Christian tradition I always think of the Kingdom of God, as being an example of it. You see the Kingdom is not some place we wish to arrive at some day, but something we build or maybe weave right here, right now. We are the builders, we are weavers or we are the destroyers of the web, the kingdom or as I prefer to call it these days, the “kin-dom” of love and life is its temple.

This is why it is vital that we take care of this thread that is our life, body, mind, heart and soul and that we continue to weave into the web of all existence. That we fully play our part in creating and recreating the web. For if we do not we will not be playing our part in the whole and we will feel disconnected, no longer a part of the whole.

At times our thread may become a little threadbare, an aspect may become weakened. When this happens we need to take stock and perhaps do what is required to fix our thread or perhaps do more work to repair the damaged whole.

The web does not only exist in the present moment. It began to be weaved at the beginning of time and will continue on into eternity, when we all here are long gone. That said we have played our role in co-creating the whole. As our ancestors did, those who came before us. As I look back at my own life I can see a kind of personal tapestry being weaved and not by myself alone. I did not create this wholly alone, so many other lives have weaved their way into my life and helped create who I am, just as I have weaved my way into the lives of others. There is no neutrality in life, everything is connected. Everything that we do and do not do matters. Every thought, every word, every feeling. It matters for we are all part of the great interconnected whole.

I have come to believe that the primary purpose of spiritual community is to aid and encourage both the repair and enhancing of our individual threads while also creating, repairing and beautifying the whole. This was Berners-Lee’s vision of the World Wide Web. I suspect it is akin to what Rev Dr Martin Luther King called “Beloved Community”, the Kingdom of God right here right now. A faith community that is based around responsibility in humility. Not one that expects God to do the weaving alone but for each individual to bring their uniquely beautiful thread and weave it into community, turning up, entering into relationship willingly, learning how to weave their individual gifts to make the most of the whole, which is greater than the sum of its parts. To me this is true religion. Religion comes from the word religiere which meant to bind together and create more than could be done alone with the individual parts. Our single threads, no matter how well developed, no matter how powerful and beautiful can achieve very little alone, in fact they are pretty useless and certainly lonely on their own. This is the greatest problem of spirituality without community, in truth it doesn’t really work. Yet each individual thread weaved into the whole, playing its part, can create something way more beautiful than any of us could ever have imagined.

We are here for a purpose, there is a mighty meaning to our lives. Our lives and the lives of all depend on us taking care of the threads that make up our individual lives and the weaving of our threads as deeply as we can into the web of all existence. As we look at ourselves, our families, our communites, our world, no doubt we can see may tears in the web of existence, tears that won’t heal themselves. It is our task to repair the damage by weaving our threads together. In so doing we not only repair the whole, but we also beautify and strengthen our own threads. In so doing we will begin to create the “Kin-dom of Love” right here right now, we become the “Beloved Community”, we become the ones we have all been waiting for.

Something to think about this day, August 1st, “World Wide Web” day and in all the days to come.

Please find below a video devotion based

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