Empathy, guilt, shame, they are not exactly the same

You may recall that last week I discussed a conversation I had with colleagues at “Ministry in the Making”. I’m not going to repeat it now. I just want to talk about one aspect of the conversation, something that has been a primary motivation of my ministry. I talk with lots of people, well actually I listen in conversation with lots of people. It is my life. One thing I notice often, is that so many people struggle or have struggled in their lives with feelings of guilt or shame. The feelings of shame are often without cause. It seems to come from some place deep within them. I know that these feelings are often preyed upon with so many places offering easy alternatives. That whatever people feel is wrong with them could be easily cured. There is lots of money to be made. The truth is we are not in need of fixing. Yes there is healing for just about all of us. Most of us wander around with some wounds that need healing, but I do not believe that we are fundamentally flawed. Yes, we do wrong, but we are not wrong at the core of our being. We should feel appropriate guilt for the things we do wrong, but never feel shame, because we feel that we are wrong.

I would like to make a space where people can come without shame and explore these feelings in an open and safe environment and perhaps find a way to heal these feelings. A space where we can come to terms with themselves and put right whatever it is they need to put right in themselves and this world. To come to right relationship if you like. “To forgive ourselves, to forgive one another, to begin again in love.”

I am sure all of us have done things we wish we hadn’t or said things we wish we hadn’t or not acted when perhaps we should have acted. I was talking with a friend this week, out walking our dogs. We both shared about times when we have remained silent when we should have spoken up. We discussed how this made us feel. There was a sense of appropriate guilt, a vital feeling. It comes from this sense of conscience. That seed of the Divine, that believe is there in all of us. A healthy feeling, something we should try to develop, to live from. I feel that empathy grows from this, another vital aspect of our humanity. Empathy and guilt are vital emotions, when they are alive within us. We have them for important and vital reasons. We have them for good reason and they need to be developed if we are to live the good life. They are a response to life. Shame though is something very different. It a purely negative feeling and instead of being a response to life, seems to come from a rejection of life itself. Where it comes from, I am not wholly sure. What I am sure if is how destructive it is.

Guilt is a common feeling for most ministers. We rarely feel that we are doing a good enough job, we wish we could do more. I feel guilt around the suffering of others. Now in its healthy form this manifests as empathy, in its unhealthy form it can manifest as shame. I do wish I could do more when around those suffering, I feel guilt for those suffering and their loved ones. I feel it around family and friends too, particularly old friends. I wish I had more time for them. I feel it too sometimes when in a joyful state, when I feel so much joy at simply being alive. When I see others suffering and struggling, there is a part of me that feels bad. I also experience some survivor’s guilt too, with my fellows in recovery and when I think of friends and loved ones that have died far too soon. I then feel a little bad for feeling guilty about feeling joyful.

It is crazy isn’t it, but oh so very human. I don’t think I’m alone in these feelings. It does suggest I’m not some kind of psychopath, which I am pleased about. No, I’m a human being who experiences the same emotions and feelings as everyone else. Thank God. The feelings come from empathy, which is vital aspect of healthy humanity. The problems can come when such feelings can overwhelm folk. Or they tap into feelings of shame. Shame will lead a person to shrink away from pain, empathy and healthy guilt will often allow a person to be with others in their suffering.

Feelings of guilt come in many forms, helpful and unhelpful. To feel remorseful after saying or doing the wrong thing, is healthy. It compels us to do what we can to put things right. That said if this feeling lingers even after putting right what was wrong, if we dwell and beat ourselves up for unskilful action or word then the feeling is probably coming from another place, from this sense that fundamentally there is something wrong with us. This is shame.

I suspect that the key is where the feeling comes from. Does it come as a result of our actions, thoughts and or words, or lack of them, or is it a feeling that comes from some other place and almost dictates our thoughts, feelings, words and actions and regardless of these things we just feel bad.

Where does this feeling of being wrong come from? Why does it control so many of our lives?

Now in our culture some put it down to our Judea Christian heritage, the core of our culture, even in these secular times. Often folks who grew up in deeply religious homes will argue about who feels the most guilt. Now although the Judeo-Christian tradition seems to be seeped in guilt, the bible both the Hebrew scriptures and the Gospels make no reference to guilt as it is commonly understood. As Mark Belletini points out in “Nothing Gold Can Stay: The Colours of Grief”

“…I confess to being surprised that the word guilt itself, as in the feeling of guilt, is not found any place in either the Jewish or the Christian testaments. Not once. The few times the English word can be found in more antique translations, it refers only to the kind of “guilty” that courts speak about, which is not a feeling so much as a legal category.

I am convinced that families of origin, cultural and ethnic patterns, and categorical realities play a far greater role in how much guilt we feel than does religion. I certainly have known folks raised without religion of any kind – including the “shopping mall spirituality” created by cultus consumerism – who have struggled with guilt as much as anyone raised in a particular denomination of religion, Western or Eastern.”

The feelings of guilt coms from a place within us. When it is in appropriate proportion it is a good thing. It connects us to one another and to life, it keeps us humble and therefore human and saves us from the dangers of destructive hubris. Such guilt is a function of conscience. This is key to my understanding of my faith as a Unitarian, this concept of living revelation that is an aspect of my humanity, if I can tap into it and allow it to lead me. When I do I see this same spark in others too. You see in opening myself to the divine spark within I open myself to that same spark in everyone and everything. This is key to my understanding of religion, my attempts to live my life in the company of others and through which I attempt to shape an ideal that I strive for, but suspect I will never attain. I always fall short of this ideal, in this sense I sin (from sinare which meant to fall short of the mark). This though is not original sin, it is actually more original blessing. I feel guilt, appropriate guilt, because I fall short of the mark, although I do at times feel shame too, in doing so I deny my true nature. I also occasionally fall short in shaming others too, something I strive not to do. I sometimes fail to recognise the divinity in my brothers and sisters, but hey these short comings save me from becoming too pious and separating myself from brothers and sisters.

What is key is to develop this feeling so it can used in good purpose in this world. The key is empathy and bring empathy to life, to act upon this empathy. Active empathy is about opening our whole being to others. We do this not by forcing ourselves upon them, but by allow them to be themselves around us. This is true openness. This is invitation. When I say come as you are m exactly as you are, this is what I mean. When I also say, “but do not expect to leave in exactly the same condition.” This is the purpose of religious experience, that of transformation. This is not to suggest that we are fundamentally wrong, no it is more that we can become who we are wholly and at the same time invite others to do the same. Empathy and particularly active empathy is the key.

Now Shame is something else. Shame is destructive and it keeps us separate from ourselves and one another. Shame is not formed from our actions or inactions, but from some other place in our being. It’s that place that people have tapped into throughout human history. Yes religion has used this, the classic example being the concept of Original Sin, but then so has the secular world. Advertising is the classic example it’s how they sell lifestyles to us and it’s how they get so many of us to feel we have to change who we just to be acceptable. How many people suffer from a sense that there is something fundamentally wrong with them? I know it’s crippled me over the years. Thankfully it does so less and less as I grow faithfully.

When I look at myself in the eye these days what I see is a man who gets things wrong from time to time and I feel appropriate guilt for this. This enables me to act in the world positively. Yes I wish I could do more, but hey I am only human. I feel less shame about my being, but I must confess that I am not completely free of this. There is a part of me that is ok with this. Why? Well because it keeps me grounded, for I know that every single one of us is still living with these feelings. Maybe this too helps with the empathy too.

When you look at yourself in the eye, what do you see? Do you a decent person who makes mistakes? Or do you see someone who is fundamentally wrong to the core.

It matters you know, it really does. For it will affect how you interact with the world and how the world interacts with you.

Let us recognise these feelings within ourselves and begin to understand them in others. Let’s develop active empathy and invite others to do the same. In so doing we will live lives of love and purpose and encourage others to do the same.

I’m going to end this morning with a bit of Mary Oliver, her classic poem “Wild Geese”

“Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

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

It started with a dream: Dreams can come true

Dream, dream, dream, dream
Dream, dream, dream, dream

Dream dream, dream, dream
Dream, dream, dream, dream

And so I came to this dream like place, but I couldn’t remember why.

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on”

“Dream a little dream of me.”

We spend a third of our lives in a parallel universe, the nocturnal universe of sleep and dreams. We experience so much in this state, but we remember little. If you are anything like me, you remember virtually none of it. I am one of those people who rarely remembers dreaming at all. Most normal folks have these half remembered experiences, interacting with their waking selves. I am sure I do, but for me it is happening subconsciously. Our nocturnal dreams are fragmented reflections of our conscious lives. Patterns are weaved between our conscious and unconscious selves, often outside of our rational awareness. Strange to say though our lives can be transformed in these dreamlike states. People have been known to wake from such states transformed or ready for change. This is recorded throughout literature and history as well as religious mythos.

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on”. From Act IV of “The Tempest” by William Shakespear. This line spoken by Prospero describes what he sees as the illusory nature of life. He is comparing his magical illusions “melted into air, into thin air,” to the transient nature of life. He is saying that, life is but a dream. He creates spirits to entertain Miranda and Ferdinand before the wedding and makes them vanish just as quickly.

Here is the verse:

You do look, my son, in a moved sort,
As if you were dismay'd: be cheerful, sir.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep. Sir, I am vex'd;
Bear with my weakness; my, brain is troubled:
Be not disturb'd with my infirmity:
If you be pleased, retire into my cell
And there repose: a turn or two I'll walk,
To still my beating mind.

This was the theme for “Ministry in the Making” that I recently participated in. In one of the workshops the students and new ministers were encouraged to explore their dreams of ministry; to dream of what their ministry could be, their wildest dreams. They were then asked to explore what my limit those dreams and encouraged to be careful that their dreams do not tread on the dreams of others. The truth is we always live in community with others and we all dream different dreams for our realities.

We live in an awakened state, but still we dream and everything wonderful and beautiful and worth while begins as a dream. The key of course is to bring that dream alive in reality. To return home transformed perhaps by the dream with treasure to share in reality. I felt like I had myself after a few days away with these wonderful and inspiring people. I also had some ideas of my own, which I hope to one day bring to reality.

As I was driving home I thought of Dorothy in the “Wizard of Oz” and her dream of that somewhere over the rainbow. That place she visited that changed her, but brought her back home to reality with treasure to share.

Someday I'll wish upon a star
Wake up where the clouds are far behind me
Where trouble melts like lemon drops
High above the chimney top
That's where you'll find me

Oh, somewhere over the rainbow bluebirds fly
And the dream that you dare to,
Oh why, oh why can't I?

Dorothy of course dreamed of that place somewhere over the rainbow, a place away from dull, grey, flat Kansas. She was caught up in a tornado and carried there, went on an adventure and returned to Kansas, to reality. She was transformed by the journey and discovered all she needed was already there, it was already there within her. She realised she had the brains, the heart and the courage she needed she just needed to bring alive what was within her to life, to create her heaven on earth. I have come to believe that heaven on earth begins within us, perhaps in our dreams and it is up to us to realise those dreams and bring them to life. For as Jesus taught on “The Sermon on the Mount” “You are the light of the world”. All you need is already within you. All you have to do is bring it to life and let it shine for all to see and make your dreams come true, not only for yourself but for all. By shinning your light, you encourage others to do the same.

We bring heaven alive through our loving living or we create Hell by fearing one another, fearing life, turning away from life. We can dream our lives and live that dream and we can turn our nightmares into reality.

This brings to mind an extract from the wonderful book “The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. A story that at its essence encourages the reader to follow their dreams, trust in the journey and embrace the challenges and opportunities that come their way.

Here is the extract:

From “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho

"The boy continued to listen to his heart as they crossed the desert. He came to understand its dodges and tricks, and to accept it as it was. He lost his fear, and forgot about his need to go back to the oasis, because, one afternoon, his heart told him that it was happy. 'Even though I complain sometimes,' it said, 'it's because I'm the heart of a person and people's hearts are that way. People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don't deserve them, or that they'll be unable to achieve them. When, their hearts, become fearful just thinking of loved ones who go away forever, or of the moments that could have been good but weren't, or of treasures that might have been found but were forever hidden in the sands. Because, when these things happen, we suffer terribly.'

" 'My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer,' the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky.

" 'Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity.'

" 'Every second of the search is an encounter with God,' the boy told his heart. 'When I have been truly searching for my treasure, every day has been luminous, because I've known that every hour was part of the dream that I would find it. When I have been truly searching for my treasure, I've discovered things along the way that I never would have seen had I not had the courage to try things that seemed impossible for a shepherd to achieve.' "

Lovely isn’t it…

We all dream even if we aren’t aware of doing so. Some of us have very rich dream filled lives, others not so much. I am one of the not so much types. Dogs dream. I was watching Molly as she dreamed the other day, after the joy and excitement of her birthday.

…“We are such stuff as dreams are made on”…

During my week away I had many conversations, one of which may lead to a dream of mine coming to fruition, as I and others might work on bringing something to life. During the conversation we talked about some foundational Unitarian theology. We talked about the rejection of substitutional atonement and the rejection of the concept of “Original Sin”. If I have a dream it is that we all one day are finally able to accept that at the core of our being we are not fundamentally wrong, fundamentally flawed in our being,that there is something wrong with us in our heart and soul. I dream one day that we accept we are ok in nature. This is not to deny that we do wrong, of course we all do, just the idea that we are wrong at the core of our being and can only be saved from our wrongness by an act of Grace. So many forces have preyed and continue to prey on this sense of wrongness whether that be many of the religions or the modern day advertising and beauty industry, that tell us we can buy perfection. That we need to fix what is essentially wrong with us.

…There is nothing wrong with us at the core of our being…

We all suffer, we all hurt, we have all been hurt. No doubt we have all felt wrong at some point in our lives. It is important to recognise this. It is vital to know that we can grow beyond this, if we first recognise and acknowledge this. That we can rise from this and that we can play a part in this, that it is not just about some unearned Grace.

This brings me back to Dreams and how they can lead to change; change that can bring about transformation. This brings me back to literature and the wonderful example of Mr Scrooge who in his dream like state is visited by the ghosts of the past, present and yet to be and through these dreams is transformed and turns his life around. He is liberated from his chains of guilt and brings his dreams to fruition. He becomes the light of the world. It is so vital we see this, as Jesus did during his foundational sermon, where he lays out the vision of his ministry, “The Sermon on the Mount”. That we are the light of the world and if we follow this example we can shine bright. We have to dream the dream that this is possible, for it is up to us. We create our world. We create heaven and hell here on earth.

It all begins in a dream, but it doesn’t end there. We must turn those dreams into reality. We must make something of our dreams. We must encourage others to do the same. We must become a light to them and be careful not to tread on each others dreams.

Be gentle with your dreams and one another’s dreams

Dream, dream, dream, dream
Dream, dream, dream, dream

Dream, dream, dream, dream
Dream, dream, dream, dream

Maybe, just maybe, one day, our dreams might come true.

The devotion below is based on the material in this "Blogspot"

The Language of Love Embodies Love: The Language of War Embodies War

“What’s Up?!” I was asked this the other day. I was a bit taken back by it. I replied. Well nothing much, I feel quite good actually. A bit tired as it was Sunday evening. I had had a heavy week and had just gone through the emotion of the England game. So I was feeling a bit tired, but generally ok. That said there was nothing the matter and I told her so. Now she was a bit taken aback by this, because she wasn’t asking me a question about my well being. She was asking “What’s up!” as in what I had been up to. A bit like the old “Coca Cola” advert, “What’s Up”. It was an hilarious moment and revealed something rather interesting and amusing to me. It isn’t always the words that we use, but the meaning behind the words we use. As we all know words change in meaning over time. In fact some words can almost mean the exact opposite of what they originally meant.

Like the word awful. Which originally meant to be filled with awe, in a powerful and overwhelming sense. Like awesome means now, but 100 fold. These days awful means a terrible thing, like the worst thing that could happen to a person. So nowadays having a little awe, awesome, is a good thing; but to be overwhelmed with awe, awful, is the worst thing imaginable.

Language, words, connect us, but they can also separate us; words are incredibly powerful things, spoken or written. Words can begin to bring deep healing or can be deeply destructive. What matters is the intention behind them. What seems to matter is the condition of our heart and soul as we speak what we must speak. It is the meaning behind the words that seems to matter the most.

Words are powerful they can be either destructive or creative. Perhaps an example of their creative power comes at the beginning of John’s Gospel and the following lines:

'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made.'

According to John the spoken word can literally create life, in fact all life. Now of course in the original Greek, which these opening words were written in the word for “Word” was originally “Logos” which roughly translated actually does not mean merely “word,” but also “speech,” “principle,” “meaning” or “thought.” In Greek philosophy, it is also referred to as Divine Reason or the Mind of God. So, it could mean God speaking life into being, linking it to the first verses from Genesis when God is said to have breathed life into being, remembering always that he saw this creation as “Good”. So “word” here means, in my view, that life is the meaning coming into being and Jesus is the example of this in human form. An example we can all aspire to. For we can all incarnate Love, we can all be a part of the Divine creation. It begins in our words and how we say these words for they are an expression of our meaning. It also begins in how we listen to others. Our ability for each to share, an open loving invitation. This Divine activity. This space between us is the Kin-dom of Love.

When we speak we are not merely flapping our lips, vibrating air we are engaged in Divine activity we are creating or destroying life. It is the same with listening. If we listen with ears of heart we are creating sacred space, this Kin-dom of Love.

So, it is not just about what we say, the words we us, but the meaning behind them. This brings a whole deeper meaning to the phrase “The word (Logos, meaning the Meaning”, became flesh and dwelt amongst us. We embody our meaning through the words we use and how we use words.

Last Sunday afternoon I read a wonderful article in the “i” online newspaper. It was written by Susie Dent of Countdown fame. Susie is my favourite social commentator on social media, she has a gift of commentating on things by the use of language, old and new. She expresses her meaning through words. The article was reflecting on negative language towards the General Election and the England football team, particularly towards Gareth Southgate and the candidates for Prime Minister. Susie suggests this is nothing new and that the English language generally skews towards negativity. A favourite subject for Susie, as I have highlighted before.

As she writes:

“Take the word “happy”, which didn’t appear in English until the 14th century. Until then, you would simply be “glad”. When it did come, happiness leant heavily upon chance. “Hap” meant “fortune” or “fate”, so that “perhaps” means “if fate allows”, a “happening” was a chance occurrence, and “hapless” became a description for someone who never has much luck at all.

The message seems to be that happiness has always been precarious, if not entirely random. In fact, a riffle through a historical thesaurus offers just 12 synonyms for “happy”, and over 50 for the opposite. Just like us, our words seem wired for pessimism.”

She then goes on a journey re words and language for those seeking approval. Stating: “Of course, approval, or the lack of it, is the theme of the moment, whether it involves the England football team or the party leaders seeking our votes. It is also a word with expectation built in: “proof” and “approve” are close relations, meaning that, linguistically at least, approval won’t be given without proof that it is deserved. Without it, many of us stick to the pessimism corner.”

Finally she turns to language and particularly testimony, with reference to the political class, ending with a little humour. She stated:

“Given the chance, our language veers instinctively to the dark side. Perhaps we need more proof and fewer promises to guarantee our approval. Truthful testimony can be hard to find amongst the fakery – on which note, it’s worth saying that “testimony”, from the Latin “testis”, “witness”, and “testicles” are all etymologically one and the same. A man’s testicles were believed to be “witnesses” to his virility. Perhaps talking bollocks has always been part of the deal.”

What we say and the meaning behind our language really matters. Our words are our meaning. It is not just about the words we use, but the meaning behind them. It can be deeply creative or destructive.

Ursula K Le Guin the great 20th century novelist wrote:

“Words are events, they do things, change things. They transform both speaker and hearer; they feed energy back and forth and amplify it. They feed understanding or emotion back and forth and amplify it,”

Words express our meaning and they amplify the meaning of our society and culture. This is why the meaning of words change over time. Remember Logos meant both word and meaning and yet in English translation of the Bible it is always translated as word and not meaning. We need to understand the meaning behind the words we use.

I was admonished the other day for saying something that was considered unkind. It was not meant that way. I was asked a direct question and I gave an honest and thoughtful response, I was actually agreeing with the questioner. That said someone overhearing what I said, replied with the thought that what I said was unkind. On reflection it probably was, although it was not the meaning behind what I said, it was not my intention.

There is a song on the latest New Model Army album “Unbroken” it is called “Language”. The chorus goes something like this.

The language of love will bring us love
The language of war will bring us war
The way that all the words become true
The way that all the words become true
The language of love will bring us love
The language of war will surely bring us war
We choose it, we own it, we choose it, we own it
We choose it, and we own it.

We have to be responsible for the words we use and the meaning behind them. Are they words of love, that play a role in the creation of life. Or are they words of war that play a part in the destruction. Words express our meaning. This something that has disturbed me these last few weeks of the general election and public life in general. We need to be careful with the language we use and what we mean by what we say. No one wins in war, its just that one side loses a little more. I hope that the public discourse will improve now that the electioneering is over.

Now of course language is subtle and complex and often not direct. Metaphor is important, this is particularly true when speaking of the great religious stories. To me they are trying to teach deep truth, but should not be taken as historical fact. Remember mythos originally meant universal truth, not fact.

We all of us, whether we are aware of it or not, use metaphor to name our own experience of life. Such metaphors express our “meaning”. Our personal metaphors, the language we use express our meaning, who we are. I was thinking of this as I thought about the language of war. Such as “Life is like a game of chance — some win, some lose.” Or “Life is like a battlefield — you get the enemy, or the enemy gets you. ”Such metaphors see life as conflict. They are very much Hobbesian world views. Very much the language of the last few weeks.

The metaphor that speaks to me personally, that expresses my logos, my meaning is the weather, or perhaps more accurately the changing seasons of life. I see life as neither strictly one thing or another, this allows a richness of language too. Life is an eternal cycle, ever changing and transforming. You can experience four seasons in one single day. There is joy, there is pain, there is loss and there is gain. There is darkness and there is light. It is important to me to become light in the dark, so that the dark does not overcome the light.

I wonder what are the metaphors of your live?. What is the language you use to speak of yourselves and of life? What is your meaning and how do you bring the meaning to life? Do you speak the language of love or the language of war?

It matters the words we use and the meaning behind them. Are they part of the creation or the destruction of life. Do we speak the language of love, or the language of war?

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

Radical Amazement: Walking Your Path in Service and Joy

I am often amused by people’s responses to what I do as a vocation. I’m even more amused by what they call me. A couple whose wedding I recently conducted called me Father and others assume I am a vicar. Alex the flower man in Altrincham often refers to me as father and a friends sister introduced me to her boyfriend as a priest the other. I made it very clear I am not. I have heard of someone else calling me Pastor Dan. I’m sure I’m called many other things too, which I won’t repeat. Now while my title is reverend, I am a minister and this is an entirely appropriate title for what I do. To minister literally means to serve and I believe this is what I do, I serve people, I serve life and I serve God. I am a minister and to minister is to serve. I often wonder when I listen to our political leaders if they are truly aware of this, that they are there purely to serve “we the people” and not the other way round. The Prime Minister ought to see them self as the number one servant in the land. Sadly power can go to anyone’s head. If I was to appear on Question time or to question the current candidates at the general election this is what I would put to them. As Prime Minister how do plan to serve we the people? Can you explain to me what it means to be the number servant in the land, the Prime Minister. That said enough of that. I am a minister of religion.

To minister is to serve. Now some say I am an unorthodox minister. I remember a congregant once saying that “I was like no minister she had ever met before.” I remember Rev Bill Darlison’s response to this comment. He quipped “Danny you are unlike any minister that anyone has ever met before.”

So it appears true that I am an unorthodox minister and yet to me I simply do my best to fulfil my role, to simply serve life through love. To show others the way of love and service and hope in the midst of suffering. I cannot take away anybody’s suffering, but I can walk with them and by doing so meaning emerges and despair is dispelled.

To quote Micah (Ch8 v 6), the inspiration to the second hymn we sang earlier.

“He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

Will you come and walk with me?

I do not think that there is any doubt that we have lived through some difficult days, some challenging years. Most of us have had some difficult personal challenges in our lives and the lives of those we love. This has always been thus, there is always challenges in life. That said this does not mean we cannot find joy. Something that was so beautifully explored in the wonderful conversation John Poskitt led at Urmston last week. We all experienced Joy as we remembered and shared about past pleasures. It is vital to remember and to share our joy, just as much as it is to share our suffering

I was out with some friends on Monday. We were supposed to be walking Molly and Ronnie. Not that they needed us, they just enjoyed one another. One of my friends was suffering as his grandmother had just died. Two others talked of the struggles with siblings in their family and how they can help them. In sharing together some of the struggle was lifted. In fact, the conversations soon turned to joy. The dogs wrestling in utter bliss also helped. This is not to make light of the real suffering, we walked and we talked and we shared together. There is real faith and healing in this. In so many ways this is what gives birth to joy.

It is easy to feel powerless against this tide of suffering. How do we keep our heads up and our eyes and hearts open to one another and life, how do we find Hope in the midst of all of this? How do we transcend despair?

Well I believe it begins in being together; I believe it begins in ministering together; I believe it begins in and through service. Rabindranath Tagore said “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.” It begins by bearing witness to the love and service and the coming together, holding and inspiring one another. People walking together in their suffering, in love. I see it in the little things as well as the bigger things. It doesn’t take away the suffering but it brings to life the love present in each of us, a power that will always overcome the powers that divide us. To quote those words that Jo Cox left us with “There is more that unites us than divides us.” or in the words of Harry Stack Sullivan “ We are all much more simply human than otherwise, be we happy and successful, contented and detached, miserable and mentally disordered, or whatever.” We all live with the same struggles, we are all born from the same earth, live under the same sun and I believe have the same spirit running through us all.

As we serve one another meaning emerges and we discover our own true hearts. It does not end the suffering but it creates Hope and meaning from the suffering and in so doing we build a legacy of the heart for those who follow. As we serve one another we develop our own hearts and souls, in serving one another we are working on ourselves, on our own souls; every act, every word, every gesture of genuine compassion naturally nourishes our own hearts and minds and souls. Service is soul work, it is the heart in action and it brings us fully to life. In so doing we transcend the very real suffering that is an aspect of all life; in so doing we transcend despair.

Through faith in life itself, by giving ourselves fully to life, we know joy. Joy is an attribute of a full, rich and deeply meaningful life. It is radically different to fun, pleasure and happiness, these are merely emotional qualities. Joy is a spiritual quality that is present within us, despite life’s circumstances. Joy is about connection, intimate connection. When I know joy I am at one with life and with myself. Through love and service we can begin to once again awaken to the amazement of life and know joy.

Joy for life itself can be known even during life’s troubles and difficulties. The people Jesus spoke to 2,000 years ago were not living easy and comfortable lives. Those people knew about conflict, oppression, tragedy and almost constant grief. He told them that all that was wonderful, life-giving, life affirming, all that is meaningful was theirs. He said to them “Enter into my kingdom with joy.” And “This is my commandment, that you love one another.”

The kingdom he spoke of can be with us right here right now, we can know and experience the commonwealth of love right here, right now. And how can we know it? Well by fulfilling the commandment to love one another. Love though is not some mushy sentiment, it is an act, it is a way of being. The commonwealth of love comes into being by giving ourselves fully to life, to one another; through giving ourselves fully to life and to one another we truly realise the joy of living. In so doing we will be awakened to the true amazement of what it means to actually be alive.

I witnessed a beautiful example of this the other day as I walked with my grieving friend. He told me he had spent two hours the previous evening listing to his auntie. His auntie had spent the final few hours with her mother, his grandma and she simply shared about the experience as he listened. He said little, all he did was bare witness, he helped bare her pain and suffering. It seems she hadn’t really spoken of this with anyone else. It brought him close to his aunt and of course to his beloved grandmother. He also allowed his auntie to share her suffering too. She had since the death been too caught up in practicalities, to speak of her own grief. As I listened to my friend I thought to myself. This is what Jesus was speaking of on the “Sermon on the Mount” This the Kingdom of Love” right here right now. Not some mysterious state in another dimension, but this walking side in this spirit, in the kin-dom of love, this commonwealth of love, coming alive through our humble human being.

.Tagore said: “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”

This is the purpose of the religious life to awaken joy through service to and for one another. Joy is about connection, intimate connection. When we give of ourselves to others and to life we know the joy that is truly living. That said when we live only for ourselves and live dis-connected from life, we quickly become joyless once again, we lose faith in God given life, our experience of life becomes dulled and meaningless.

Some people say “everything happens for a reason”, in so doing suggesting it is all part of God’s plan. I have never believed this and believe it simply opens the great theodicy question “How can an all-powerful and all loving God allow suffering? A question that comes into my consciousness constantly as a minister of religion.

My truth is that I do not believe that everything in life is pre-ordained or pre-determined, the future is unwritten. I do believe in the Lure of Divine Love, that all life is given free will and it is our task to bring love alive in life and to encourage others to do the same through our example, in this sense we are not powerless against the tide of despair. It is our responsibility to become beacons of hope to others in their suffering, to become the light of the world. Hope rises from the ashes of suffering and meaning emerges through our living and breathing. This is why everything matters, every thought, every breath, every feeling, every action, and every word. This is also one way in which joy can be found in life, through love and service for others, despite the very real turbulence all around us. I believe in life I am constantly in awe and amazement at it, despite the very real suffering present. I live with eyes, with all my senses including the sixth sense fully open. It is the only way I know how to live fully alive.

Some may ask how and why can I believe this? My simple answer to this is “This is what my 52 years of living breathing and waking up has taught me.” I believe in life, it constantly amazes me. It has done so again this week, as I have walked side by side with others.

Life amazes me, constantly. Despite all the darkness and destruction that is present, that can overwhelm it all, life and love always seems to find a way through. Like that little shoot that finds its way back to life every spring time, finding its way through all the obstacles in its way, insisting on reaching out beyond and finding life. That amazes me; I find that utterly amazing.

Abraham Joshua Heschel said that:

“Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement. ....get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.”

Through living in love and service I am awakened to the amazement of life. My senses are fully awake. But what is amazement you may well ask? What is radical amazement?

“Radical Amazement” captures those moments, those deeply human moments when we find ourselves intensely connected to the mystery and the majesty of existence. It is found not so much in the big moments, when we mark life’s achievements, it is more about what Heschell himself describes as “the common and the simple” those small things that reveal “the infinite significance” of existence. In many ways “radical amazement” is about paying attention and looking deeply at the routine moments of our lives and experiencing just how incredible they are. There are parallels to mindfulness here, but I think there is more to it than that, there is a sense of eye popping awe and wonder in looking through radically amazed eyes. It’s about seeing the miracle in existence. How many of us truly recognise and acknowledge just how amazing it is that we exist at all?

“Radical Amazement” is about looking into life with truly open eyes, it is an ethical act and an intentional decision, it is the ultimate spiritual practise and as such it is one that involves great risk. This is because it opens us up to all that is, as it truly is. This requires courage, because to see the beauty also requires us to see the horror too. This may seem too awful for some, but it is the awe that accompanies vulnerability that is required to be awakened to radical amazement.

To see the world with awakened eyes, fresh eyes, open eyes is look into life in “Radical Amazement”. It is life as it truly is in its awe filled beauty. It is to truly let life in and to fill us to the brim.

It seems to me that “Radical Amazement” is how to live and breathe our human spirituality. At its essence spirituality is about being amazed it is about cultivating greater openness and deeper awareness of the beauty, blessing and mystery of life.

Suffering is an aspect of living, it cannot be escaped. Everybody suffers. Life itself though is not suffering, love and joy are also an aspect of life too. How do we experience love and joy? Well it’s quite simple really. It comes through living with all our senses wide open. It begins by simply opening our eyes and our arms. It begins in love and service. It begins by simply walking humbly with one another and humbly giving thanks that we even exist at all. This is what it means to live in and through Hope and it is this that will lift us from despair despite the very real suffering in life. It begins by simply looking into the eyes of our neighbour and recognising the amazing thing that is their existence and continues as we walk out of this chapel, look at the world in which we live and by simply giving thanks for life, for it truly is amazing that life exists at all.

May love guides us in the weeks ahead, may it lead us to Hope and away from Despair in spite of the very real suffering present in life.

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