It is important for awake people to be awake

I was away last weekend in the beautiful city of Edinburgh. Edinburgh is one of those places that is a delight to simply walk around in. I spent several hours on Saturday morning doing so. It was wonderful. I went to few places of importances and paid homage to the great and good of the city, marked by the statues and the monuments. To me they help to sanctify the city, give it a sense of the sacred. Edinburgh has a timeless quality to it, with a skyline dominated by the castle built on that ancient rock.

As I wandered round there was nowhere that you could not see the castle on the rock, for whatever reason it kept on bringing the first verse of Psalm 121 to my heart and mind “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help”. I felt a gentle strengthening as I walked around the city with one or two concerns on my mind.

As I said I love the monuments of the city. My favourites though are the more quirky ones. Some tell ordinary tales, of local inhabitants that graced the city and others told great tales. I of course went to find Greyfriars Bobby, to pay homage and of course to touch his nose. I received his blessing. As I am sure you know a dog blesses with their nose. I also discovered another statue of another dog, one that became the mascot of San Diego, This dog was named “Bum”, he arrived as a kind of refugee, a stow-away. The locals fell in love with him and they cared for him. The people of San Diego donated a statue of “Bum” to Edinburgh, thus creating a bond between the two very different cities and their beloved dogs. Both dogs’ noses are worn from all the blessing. I thought of Molly and how she blesses so many folk in the communities we live in. I wonder if they might build a monument to her one day.

There are many monuments to those lost in war and conflict, you see throughout Edinburgh, in particularly in Princess Street gardens. As I wandered through gardens I paused and reflected many times. I thought of many folk we have lost in our communities and folk I have lost personally. I thought of Derek and his family as his life is coming to an end. Sadly Derek died this week, surrounded by his loving family. He is a huge loss to the community and to me personally. He has been a good friend and rock actually.

I saw a statue I hadn’t seen before of a giant toy elephant. It is named “Never Forget”. It has been placed in the gardens in memory of the “Morton Hill Baby scandal”. It marks a something terrible, not only the loss of babies lives, but also that their ashes were never given to their parents. It si said that the elephant never forgets and this statue symbolises the fact that these parents will never forget the loss of their babies.

All these statues and many others, especially in Princess Street gardens, sanctify the city of Edinburgh and the people who both live and visit there. They speak of the city and those who inhabited it through the centuries, marking the past, touching the present and pointing towards the future. I felt blessed as I walked around the city that Saturday morning, connecting with its heart and soul. I then made my way towards St Mark’s Unitarian Church and Janine’s induction service.

It was a beautiful and moving service, as folk gathered together, to mark this important day in Janine’s life and the life Edinburgh Unitarians. So many people from Janine’s life were gathered and the story of her journey into ministry shared and all those that had been involved in her journey were present. It was a true blessing and a blessing to be a part of. It was all accompanied by the most beautiful music played by Ailsa Aitkenhead. There were several moving moments of ritual that we engaged in throughout the service or was it a ceremony. I felt deeply blessed by it all. I then enjoyed a wonderful evening of folk catching up with things. The next day I returned to St Mark’s to enjoy Sunday morning worship. It was wonderful to be led in worship by Kyle Mc Donald, inspired by the journey of Robert Falcon Scott and his party to the Antarctica, an ill fated journey, but one of honour, inspired by the same spirit I felt blessed by all through the weekend in Edinburgh. A spirt that can come alive in each of us and bless us all. We don’t need to touch one another’s noses to receive the blessing, but it is there all the same. By the way Kyle has just been accepted for ministry training. It felt like a blessing to see him lead worship having this just been announced.

My weekend in Edinburgh was one of blessing, worship and ritual of so many kinds. I felt the spirt alive and present throughout it all.

The previous Sunday I had been invited to attend a dear friends Baptism at “The Audacious” Church in central Manchester. This was a very different occasion to the one I had experienced in Edinburgh. I was deeply moved witnessing my friend pass through a threshhold of her own. She has been on quite a journey herself. A journey that had some of its beginnings during a Christmas Eve service at Dunham Road. Now while the worship in the service at the “Audacious Church” did not touch me so much, it did touch many of the hundreds present. What did touch me though was witnessing my friend pass through a threshold of her own and continue on her journey to who knows where. As I looked at her face during this ceremony I saw that same spirit I experienced at St Mark’s and as I wandered around Edinburgh, as I was blessed by the beautiful city. It was a blessing to gaze upon her face and to think of the journey she has been on.

We are always at the threshold of something, the end of one moment moving into another. People say live in the moment, well I have discovered that the moment is not some static thing that you can live within, the moment is liminal in nature, it is the space between the past and the future. You cannot really live in the moment. Maybe it is more accurate to say that the moment lives in and through you. Each moment can be a blessing in itself, can be deeply sacred in and of itself. The key is how we live within each and every one. You may be sanctified by it, if you live by and through blessing.

This bring to mind a rather wonderful poem, “A Ritual to Read to Each Other” by William Stafford. I will share it with you.

“A Ritual to Read to Each Other” by William Stafford

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dike.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider—
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

It is the line “For it is important that awake people be awake, or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep” that speaks powerfully and intensely to me. It is not merely that we need to keep ourselves awake, but that we need to remind one another who and what we truly are in order that we remain awake and do not go back to sleep. We have to bring to life what has awakened within each and everyone of us and share that with each other so as to remind one another of the importance of staying awake, or we will go back to sleep. Again something I experienced in Edinburgh last weekend. I felt once again awakened by the spirit and was reminded how vital it is that we remain awake.

The key is to remember and to bring the memory alive in this moment we find ourselves in right here and now. To communicate what we have learnt and to listen to what has awoken within each other. I felt this powerfully as I shared in Janine’s induction service and as I looked upon the face of my friend during her Baptism. I thought of all that had brought them to these moments of transition and wondered where they might lead. They may not build monuments to them, but they will touch many lives and bless folk with their presence, of this I am certain.

As I witnessed Janine’s induction, as I saw her step over the threshold into her life as a minister, I felt those words by William Stafford deep in my heart. As I did I felt a recommitment to ministry deep within me and thought to myself, I will attempt to live that ritual and keep on reading it to others and listen to it as they read the ritual to me. I will remember the line.

“For it is important that awake people be awake, or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep”

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been thinking once again about worship. Its purpose and how to create sacred space. Of course, having Peter as a student has brought this to my consciousness. Also being part of the interview panel for ministry as well as “Ministry in the Making” has brought it to my head and heart too. I have also attended several different forms of worship, some has affected my soul, touched me deeply. Other has not in the least, although it did many others who were present. It has all got me thinking deeply about worship and its purpose. I have also been thinking about ritual, how it holds life together and sanctifies it, but also the dangers of becoming a slave to it. There is a place and need for structure as it allows the freedom to explore. There is also the need to cater for different types of people. There is a balance needed between structure and total lassez faire. I know myself I need a mixture of the two, although I know the balance will never be perfect. I also know that you cannot please all of the people all of the time.

This brings to mind a favourite story “The Guru’s Cat”

In India there was a great religious guru who was always surrounded in his Ashram by loyal devotees. For hours a day, the guru and his followers would meditate on God. The only problem was that the guru had a young cat, an annoying creature, who used to walk through the temple meowing and purring and bothering everyone during meditation. So the guru, in all his practical wisdom, commanded that the cat be tied to a pole outside for a few hours a day, only during meditation, so as to not disturb anyone. This became a habit – tying the cat to the pole and then meditating on God – but as years passed, the habit hardened into religious ritual. Nobody could meditate unless the cat was tied to the pole first. After the guru died, the cat continued to be tied during evening worship.

Then one day the cat died. The guru’s followers were panic-stricken. It was a major religious crisis – how could they meditate now, without a cat to tie to a pole? How would they reach God? In their minds, the cat had become the means.

Centuries later, learned treatises were written by the guru’s scholarly disciples on the liturgical significance of tying up a cat while worship is performed.

Ritual in worship helps to touch the spirit. That said there is a real danger in becoming too enslaved to ritual. Sometimes it becomes all about the ritual and the spirit dies. Surely the purpose of such activities is to feed the spirit and not just follow some pattern, just like the story of “Guru’s Cat”. We are here to touch and awaken the spirit, to keep feeding it and thus to keep the spirit awake.

Sometimes we become so tied to things that we forget the purpose of why we are doing what we are doing. So yes, I have been thinking once again about the purpose of worship, particularly in the context of a free religious tradition, one that should never be a slave to anything. I have also been thinking about the purpose of spirituality and the spiritual life. I have been thinking how we enliven and awaken the spirit in each of us, about balance, and how worship may feed the soul; thinking of ways to live the spiritual life, to live spiritually alive.

How do we define spirituality and the spiritual life? What is its purpose? I have heard many explanations over the years. The best one came from Rev Bill Darlison, he said “that the purpose of the spiritual life, is to increase our sensitivity to life.” I believe that the purpose of spirituality is to aid us to become more affected by life and thus become more effective in life. It is not to rise beyond life, to escape from life, but to enable us to engage fully with reality. I know that the more engaged I am in such practices the more engaged I am in life. That said I also need such practices to recharge my spiritual batteries and thus return back to life and increase the affect and become more effective. The spiritual life is not so much about transcendence but transformation. It is not about escaping life, but to be changed by it and thus be a force for good within it.

The realm of the spirit and the realm of the material are not separate, they both feed and are fed by each other.

There is something very powerful about coming together in love; there is something very powerful in opening ourselves up to one another and recognise what connects us what makes us wholly human. Worshipping together is one way to do so, but it can happen in all aspects of life. It can occur in deep encounters with others, when love and attention is paid. It can happen by simply walking around wherever you may find yourself if your spirit is open to it.

The communities I serve gather together seeking something, as we engage in the ritual of worship. We come for a reason, even if where not wholly sure what that reason is. In the worship we share I attempt to create through words, music, silence, imagery and more, a sacred time and space that will enable us to open our hearts and help us connect to the Greater mysteries of life, to the Web of being, to know the spirit of life and love, to experience God and for this to impact on how we live our day to day lives.

In this sacred space at the sacred time where generations have worshipped we open our hearts to the greater mysteries of life. In so doing we begin to connect to the greater realities and mysteries of existence. It is this time that can help us to open up the lives we find ourselves in and to pay attention to the life around us and to touch the people we meet in our daily living. In so doing we make all life sacred, by blessing it with our presence.

My hope is that when we leave the space that we are touched in those deeper aspects of our humanity and that when we leave the space that we begin to bless the world with our sacred humanity by recognising the sacredness of each person that we meet and that we bless life with our loving presence.

Or as William Stafford put it, “For it is important that awake people be awake, or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep”

May our souls, our spirits, our simple human being be awake.

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

Winter & Wellbeing: Finding Comfort in the Spirit of Hygge

Monday 12th of January has become one of those days that have been marked out on the yearly calendar. Not an official public holiday, there isn’t one until Easter. That said it is still a day we mark. It is known as “Blue Monday”, no I don’t mean the song by New Order. “Blue Monday” has become regarded as the hardest day of the year, after all the Christmas spirit has all gone and we are right in depths of winter. It is dark, it is cold and there is little light around, Spring seems so far away. 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.

Last Monday morning I felt somewhat exhausted and little blue myself. It seems Blue Monday came a week early for me. Now there are good reasons for this I was not fully over the virus that struck me down over Christmas. Despite this feeling I went out into the snowy day with Molly and bumped into people and connected and chatted away. Folk wishing each other Happy New Year and talking about their Christmases. Molly enjoyed the snow, she loved it, that said she didn’t like the cold and wet. She was happy to get home and curl up in the comfort of her bed and warmth of the house. She slept much of the day.

I got on with some work and then took down my tree and decorations. As I did I felt some sadness, especially as I packed away all the gifts I had bought and wrapped for family, but was unable to give, as I was too unwell to travel at the time. So, my mood was low. I was feeling fatigued, my throat was sore too, which was troubling. I also had my share of concerns for folk in my life, particularly two friends who are struggling, the two communities I serve that have their challenges and the wider world in which we all live. Nothing new here. The choir I have joined and loved joining was getting back together that night. I considered not going and then thought to myself no you will enjoy it, have a little faith.

Thank goodness I did. It was lovely to catch up with folk who I hadn’t seen for a while; it was wonderful to connect and share our tales and of course to sing. I found comfort, connection, community and joy. I got right into what I was doing. I really got into it. In fact, the choir leader said at one point. “I don’t want to single anyone out, but what I am looking for from you all is the energy that Danny is putting into this.” Apparently, I was giving it the appropriate amount of “sass”. This led to much laughter. It was just what I needed. I needed the joy of singing and the comfort of community. My soul needed it and gave me a wonderful sense of well-being.

This got me thinking of the importance of well-being, especially at this time of year. I know my physical, mental and spiritual well-being are interconnected. If one is out of sync, then they can all be. I have noticed this again over the last few weeks.

Often at the beginning of the year we resolve to live more healthily, gym membership sores at this time of the year in an attempt to improve our physical lives. I know I would certainly benefit from getting physically healthier. Physical well-being is of course on many of our minds this winter too, there does seem to have been more than the average number of nasty viruses about that have ruined one or two of our Christmases.

So yes physical well-being is definitely on our minds at this time of the year.

Now while there is a great deal of talk of improving our physical well-being, which is of course vital, there seems to be less talk of taking care of our spiritual well-being, which actually may well be more vital. If I have learnt anything in life I know that my emotional, mental and physical well-being rests on my spiritual health.

I remember a wise man saying to me twenty or more years ago, “If you are spiritually well, the rest will be taken care of.” How true this is. I learnt many years ago not to put the horse before the cart, a lesson I have never forgotten.

Spiritual well-being is vital. How do I know this? Well for many years it was something I lacked and as a result my life was devoid of all meaning and connection. I was just an empty vessel blown about in the storms of life. I was lonely, I was lost and I was ruled by fear of pretty much everything. This is no longer the case and the reason for this is that I found both and anchor and rudder as well as the ability to set my sails accordingly when the winds really blow. The key to this is spiritual well-being.

Medical practioners are increasingly recognising the potential benefits that spiritual well-being can bring. A spiritually healthy person tends to be at ease with themselves and comfortable in their own skin and surroundings, they have a developing awareness of themselves and those around them, they tend to act with patience, honesty, kindness, hope, wisdom, joy and creativity. They have a healthy relationships with the people they share their lives with as well as a hope filled view of life and a sense of inner peace and acceptance of problems we face in life. While their recovery from both illness and bereavement tend to be less problematic.

Spiritual well-being is vital to a life of meaning and purpose and yet so many people in our increasing secularised age neglect this. Yes, many folks may have a near perfect buffed body and a sharp mind and yet they can still feel empty, lonely and utterly disconnected.

Why is this? Well I suspect it is because increasingly we neglect our souls.

Now one sign of healthy well-being in my own being is the quality of my humour. I noticed last Monday morning I was in a deeply serious mood. This though was not the case by the end of the day. I was feeling well again, I was in good humour. Being out in life and community and set me free from myself and restored my well-being.

"Life is far too serious a business to be taken too seriously. I remember at school an old biology teacher telling me that a man who cannot laugh at himself will always struggle. It is something else I have never forgotten. I hated him for it at the time, because I knew I took myself far too seriously and just couldn’t free myself from this blight. I just took everything so personally. Thankfully I learnt a long time ago that if ever I want a good laugh I just have to listen to myself.

More and more I see clearly that one of the key barometers of my spiritual well-being is the health of my humour. When I am in good humour I find that I am in good health.

As you know I am not alone in this, it’s an ancient idea. As I have shared many times before, to be in good humour is to enjoy good health. The word “Humour” is derived from a medieval medical term for fluids of the human body. It has its roots in the ‘old’ French word ‘humor’, derived from the Latin ‘umere’. Physicians of the day believed that we had four different types of internal fluids that they called ‘humors’ and it was these that determined our physical and mental health. Therefore, if a person became ill it was believed that their humors were out of balance. So, to be in good humour is to literally be in good health, or at least that’s what it used to mean.

Now of course this isn’t why I and others have suffered some horrible winter viruses. That said I suspect that good humour might just help us through the winter blues.

Everyone knows I love language; I love the roots and meaning of words, humour being a classic example. I especially love how words, like humour, have either changed in meaning, or somehow got lost or disappeared. New words, or at least new words to our culture are also of interest to me. One word that has come into prominence in recent years is Hygge (pronounced hew-geh). It is a word of Scandinavian origin, primarily Danish but also Norwegian. According to Louisa Thomson Brits in “The Book of Hygge” Hygge is defined as “a quality of presence and an experience of belonging and togetherness. It is a feeling of being warm, safe, comforted and sheltered. Hygge is an experience of selfhood and communion with people and places that anchors and affirms us, gives us courage and consolation”. This is a feeling I felt powerfully when back with the choir last Monday. It is something I find in spiritual community too. It gives me a sense of well-being. Interestingly last Autumn the choir recorded a version of “Park-Life”, originally by Blur. We also created a video, it’s aim being to help promote the Oyez art collective now based at the town hall where the choir practices. The cry throughout being “Get some community”. It got me thinking about a line in the original “Parklife” “It gives me a sense of enormous well-being”. This is something we all strive for. This is at the heart of Hygge. I feel that there is much that we can learn from Hygge, that can help us to improve our well-being as individuals and community.

Hygge (hew-geh) helps Danes imagine who they are and how they should be together, there is something of collective and not merely individual about it. Hygge began to come to prominence globally due to an increase in fascination with the Scandinavian countries ever since the launch of the UN World Happiness Report in 2012, in which both Denmark and Norway have never been out of the top three with regards to levels of happiness amongst their population. Could it be down to this concept of Hygge? Maybe!

So where does Hygge come from? There are various theories as to the origin of Hygge. It appears to be rooted in the nineteenth century. Some trace it back to the Biedermeier movement, which developed as a reaction to the early nineteenth century revolutionary passion, throughout Europe. During this period artists and designers returned to the home and developed their private lives as a reaction against the public pretentions of the upper class. Another theory suggests that it was influenced by what was considered to be a more liberal guilt free Protestantism that developed in Denmark in comparison to their Scandinavian neighbours, which was established by the theologian N.F.S Grudtvig. It also developed under the social democratic and egalitarian values of the Danish people.

The central concept of the “Hygge Life”, according to Louisa Thomsen Britts in “The Book of Hygge”, is “a quality of presence and a feeling of belongness and togetherness. It is a feeling of being warm, safe, comforted and sheltered.” It is a state of being, a way of being and living in the world and not something that you can possess. It is a quality of hominess, of being, of welcome and hospitable, of being warm, safe and sheltered and enables the other to feel that way in your company. It is not a uniquely Danish quality and the Danes themselves do not consider it to be so, it is a quality that you will find at the core of the great religious and spiritual traditions, it is hospitality in its most basic form. Something that has perhaps become lost in our individualistic and fast paced lives.

Hygge has been described as the art of creating intimacy, cosy togetherness and taking pleasure in the presence of soothing things. Although it is often developed through cosy material things it is more about creating a particular atmosphere or to shape an experience. Hyyge is about creating a communal atmosphere of simplicity and presence, it is about living by soulful presence. It is about how to be with each other and nurturing those relationship so as to build respect, goodwill to all and hope, with all your heart, with all your mind and with all your soul. It is about being good neighbours to all; it is about creating a quiet space, in the rush and push of life to enable our soulfulness to come out of hiding and express itself fully in life, thus inviting the other to do so too. In so doing we will truly be enabled to love our neighbours as ourselves. We need such places as we live in and through the storms of life. There are many storms in life, both literally and figuratively.

Hygge is about a love and appreciation of the simple, close to hand things in life. It encourages gratitude for the everyday moments in life. It is about equality and egality, about working together. It has deeply spiritual qualities, but earthy real ones. It recognises the worth of each person, it desires peace and harmony, equality for all, a heartfelt appreciation of the natural world. It builds trust and connection between people; it is about harmonious living. It celebrates the simple pleasure of being alive wherever you find yourself, encouraging soulful presence. To me this is the essence of spiritual living. By living this way, you encourage others to come and join with you, to come as you are, exactly as you are. Hygge is about creating intentional intimacy, intimacy with ourselves, with God, with each other and with all life. It is about living by the Divine commandment, to love God and to love our neighbours as ourselves.

Hygge draws meaning from the fabric of ordinary living. It's a way of acknowledging the sacred in the secular, of giving something ordinary a special context, spirit, and warmth, and taking time to make it extraordinary. I invite us to adopt an attitude of Hygge, now and in the days yet to come. It can begin in the midst of winter, perhaps tomorrow on Blue Monday. It will enable us to touch those deeper aspects of our own humanity and help hold one another in a communal spiritual hug. It will give us all an enormous sense of well-being and don’t we all want to be well.

May we all be well, may we live by well-being.

Let us live in and by the spirit of Hygge.

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

So here we stand together at the beginning of a new year, none of us knowing what the future will hold, it truly is unwritten. The book of life is an open book waiting for us to mark it with our stories and when it is written to look back on it and give it whatever meaning we find.

Yes, the pages truly are blank and for some this can appear a scary proposition, but should we fear the unknown? Surely the excitement and the energy of life is in the unknown and the unknowing. We know what the past has been, or at least we have our perspective on it. Whatever we may have thought of the last year, we have all lived it. I wonder what will go into the book in 2026.

I have been thinking of books a lot recently. How they tell a story of something. We have our own tales to tell. I have enjoyed the mini public library outside the town hall in Altrincham, part of the OYEZ art collective that have taken over the place. I have placed books there myself, some of which have been taken. I wonder what these books say about those who lend and borrow them. I believe that sharing the books we read is a wonderful and beautiful way of sharing ourselves.

This year has been designated the “National Year of Reading”. People in the UK are invited to rediscover the joy of reading. I would say more than enjoy, but to share what they are reading. I read a lot, but I rarely read fiction, something I should do more oof. Maybe re-disover the joy of it.

Of course we all have our own libraries, our personal, our inner libraries. There is a very beautiful French term for this “blibliotheque interieure”, which means your “inner library”, this invisible shelf that we carry inside ourselves. A shelf filled with every story that has shaped our lives. What are the stories that have shaped our lives this last year?

This “inner library” contains every book that you have read that has touched your heart and soul. All the heartbreaks and struggles you have survived and grown through. Every quote remembered and everything you have heard said that has shaped your soul. All those memories that have made you who you are. All these experiences are there alive in our inner library. They sing the song that tells who we are and what we have lived through, what has shaped us. These stories remind us of who we are and where we have been on this journey of life. Remembering always that a journey is what we do in a day. We have lived through another 365 journeys this last year and have already begun to embark on another 365.

So, as the new year begins it is vital to look back and recognise what is on the shelf of our inner library. There have been tough times, I have had my share. There have been incredible things too. So now we get to begin a new book, one that is yet unwritten. We have been blessed with another year, we can now place last years on the shelf.

I know that my life grows richer by the year, even though I am not often aware of this, well not until I share my story. This is the key you know, we are not isolated beings, we do not journey alone. We are here to lend our personal libraries to one another, just like that little box outside the town hall in Altrincham, that little lending library. In sharing our stories we encourage one another to journey on together. Yes, we share our struggles, but also our joy and laughter of lives well lived. It is so vital to remind each other who we truly are. So, let’s begin by sharing our inner libraries with one another. For our stories truly are our life’s blessings.

We carry our stories with us through impermanence and ever changing nature of life. Impermanence is the beauty and the energy of life. Life is forever changing and transforming and turning into something new. Nothing ever stays exactly the same and nothing is ever repeated in exactly the same way again. This was wonderfully expressed by the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus some 2,500 years ago. Who said, among many other things, “Everything flows, nothing stands still.” “No one ever steps into the same river twice.” And “Nothing endures but change.” He was saying that the only constant in life was and is change, that life was constantly in flux and that everything is impermanent.

As I look back at the year that has passed so much seems so different and yet if truth be told much is still the same. I have a few more scars no doubt and experienced unexpected blessings. I have stories to share, often with a glint of humour.

As I look around at the world in which I live I witness much that disturbs me. Division and fear does seem to be on the increase as does instability. People do seem anxious, are living with fear of what might be. And yet as I walk around the town in which I live every day, life is much the same. People are much the same as they have always been. Yes, everything changes and yet somehow everything still seems much the same. People are the same as they have always, let us not become victims of our own bad dreams.

On Monday I was feeling a little better after being ill over Christmas. I took Molly out in the morning and later in the afternoon and bumped into many of the people I usually do in the two local parks. There was much conversation and sharing of concern, there was also an awful lot of laughter. It lifted my spirits and showed me I was once again that my health was returning. I in better health, certainly good humour. Thank goodness. All the people I met had passed through their own Christmasses and were now on the other side, about to step into a New Year. Some things had changed and yet everything was much as it always was. Sadly the last couple of days I’ve been feeling a little under the weather again.

Life is constantly changing, nothing ever stays exactly the same and no moment is exactly like any other. We all experience these moments differently too; we each bring our pasts with us into each moment and this always impacts on the present.

That said despite the changing nature of our material lives there are things that do seem permanent, that do not change. There are some things that hold us and sustain us despite the constant changing nature of life. The last twenty odd years of my life has proven this to me, there have been three unchanging things that have held and sustained me and kept me open to life despite its uncertainty. Things that have held me even during some deeply painful experiences. The three are faith, hope and love. Much of what I place on my inner library are tales about these three. Yes they are tales of faith, of hope and of love.

It was Paul of Tarsus, in the 13th Chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians who named these three that have held me and led these last 20 odd years. I have seen many others held by them too, through many storms in their lives. There is something eternal about, something universal and they were at work long before he wrote about them. We can rely upon these three, but only if we nurture and strengthen them. We can depend upon these three faith, hope and love. But what do these three mean?

Faith is about trusting in life itself; it is about living as openly and honestly as possible; it is about accepting that there is pain in life, but that there is also so much joy; it is realising that the mere fact that we exist at all is life’s greatest gift. This allows us to sing the joy of living, in all its mystery. It is also about seeing that we are all in this together, that we all live in the one lifeboat. We need to connect as much as possible to the boat of life in which we share. We need to ensure that our lifelines are secure and not worn or frayed at the edges. This is something we need to hold onto and not let go of. Why, you may well ask? Well because it sustains us through the vicissitudes of life. Life does not offer much certainty, but we need not despair at this, or at least not stay in despair. There are many stories off faith that have been placed on the shelf of my inner library this year.

Hope is the second of those eternal, universal truths. Hope is rooted in despair; it grows from the same place. To live in hope is to believe that if we live with conviction and compassion that we can effect positive change in our world, even if we ourselves do not get see to see its full fruition. Hope is about planting those seeds when and where ever we can.

To live with hope is to live with the attitude that the future is genuinely open. The God of my understanding works with us and guides us but leaves life open, it is not pre-ordained. “The Lure of Divine Love” draws us out of ourselves, but it also allows life to develop freely. I accept that the past does have power, I have a strong sense of history, this is very important. That said I do not believe that the past defines the future, not everything is inevitable. The future is unwritten. There are many more books of life waiting to be written by our living and being. Our inner shelves can hold so much more.

Life is definitely a journey worth taking, even during its toughest moments. Yes we all despair at times and we all live with uncertainty, but the beacon of hope is always there. The writer of the book of proverbs reminds us “Where there is no vision (no hope) the people perish.” Hope is a vital lifeline it both holds and sustains us. It is an eternal and universal principle and one that also requires nurture. There are many stories off hope that have been placed on the shelf of my inner library this year.

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

If we live by these three faith, hope and love we will know what it means to truly live and experience the joy of living, even in the dark days.

The beginning of a new year is a time for new beginnings, a time for hope of what might be and a time to reflect on what has been before us. It is a time to take stock of our inner libraries, the resources that carry us through life, our stories of faith, hope and love that will sustain us through struggle and inspire us to write and share stories both new and old.

So, let’s look forward with new eyes, with fresh eyes. Let’s look back and learn from our pasts and commit to live more faithfully, hopefully and lovingly from them. Let’s learn to live with increased sense of faith, hope and love.

Whatever this year brings us, let us resolve as individuals and as a community to build a home of faith, hope and love.

Let’s begin again this day and every day, lets begin again in love.

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