Well Pablo Casals was born in Vendrell, Spain to a Puerto Rican mother. He was thought to be the greatest cellist who ever lived. His recordings of the Bach Cello Suites, made between 1936 and 1939, are considered unsurpassed even to this day.
Casals’ prodigious musical talent became evident early. By the age of four he could play the violin, piano, and flute, having being taught in church. At the age of eleven he heard the cello for the first time and decided to dedicate himself to that instrument, By the age of fourteen he gave a solo recital in Barcelona. By the age of nineteen he was on the faculty of the renowned Municipal School of Music in Barcelona and was principal cellist of the Barcelona Opera House. He gained international acclaim in a career of such length that he performed throughout the world and to all the great heads of state and other dignitaries.
Yet even having attained such unquestionable mastery of his instrument, throughout his entire life Casals maintained a disciplined regimen of practicing for five or six hours every day. On the day he died, at the age of 96, he had already put in several hours practicing his scales. A few years earlier, when he was 93, a friend asked him why, after all he had achieved, he was still practicing as hard as ever. To which Casals replied “Because, I think I’m making progress.”
It takes dedication, it takes love, to keep on progressing.
Such labours of love.
Molly is a very patient little dog. She doesn’t ask for too much. Yes, attention and a few treats and a few run arounds in a day. She didn’t get too much of an opportunity to do so last Sunday. She spent the day travelling with me back and forth to Urmston and back to Altrincham. This will be pretty similar whilst trying to avoid the marathon. Last week included the two usual Sunday services, then an AGM back at Urmston, before returning home and then the Mayor’s quiz and entertainment evening. Molly had a couple of hours in the afternoon to rest. She loyally sat through it all. Knowing when she could play and seek attention and when she has to sit quietly in her bed. She is most certainly dedicated to her role and fulfils it without complaint. Well not too much. She does have a way to tell me when enough is enough and it is time to move on. She is usually correct.
You may recall that in the last devotion I spoke about both Philia love and Agape Love, how both are vital to friendship and spiritual community, all community actually. These loves empower folk to give of themselves for something more than themselves. It empowers them in love and service. It inspires dedication.
Last Sunday after the Altrincham service two long term members of the congregation Aled and Carolyn Jones were honoured with the Presidents Award. This is a new award given by the outgoing president of our General Assembly. It is given to people who have given years of dedicated service to their congregation, community and District. Awarded to unsung folk who are not really recognised on a national level. Well after the service Professor Geoff Levermore came to present the award to them both. An award they were initially unwilling to accept, as they felt they hadn’t earned it. Awards given for years of dedication. Work inspired by love. Truly labours of love.
Following the service I returned to Urmston for our Annual General Meeting. An important meeting as we explored ways to move forward as a congregation. Attended by people with a spirit of loving dedication for the community. At the end of the meeting we discussed what we would do to dedicate something in the memory of Derek Brown who had served the congregation with love, loyalty and humour for decades. He was the heart and soul of the community in many ways and now he has gone there is a big hole left behind. He had taken on the role after his father in law Robert became ill. He could not have been more dedicated. He also loved Molly and would sit with her every Sunday. We decided that we would dedicate our school hall to Derek and name it “The Derek Brown Memorial Hall”. It seems a fitting tribute to a man who had lovingly laboured for the community for several decades. An example of loving dedication for us all to follow.
I love serving both communities, the wider community actually. I have fallen in love with it once again in recent months, after a difficult year. It is a labour of love. What I love the most is that they don’t expect perfection from either me their minister or from one another. As I so often say we are the church, we are the chapel, we are the community where everything goes wrong. Now despite this and maybe because of this they are a places of dedication, of welcome, of acceptance and most of all love. I think sometimes people are a little surprised by the informality. I hope that they sense the care and concern, I believe that they do. I hope that they feel the warmth and the friendliness. I will always remember something that Margaret Darbyshire, a member from Urmston who died a few years ago, once said to me when she had been coming for a couple of years, “this is a church like no other I have ever been to, but I like it, it is how a church should be.” She came to Queens Road almost by mistake by accident, she is not the first and hope she won’t be the last to do so. She stayed because as she said it was what she had been looking for all of her life.
Nothing works perfectly, something always seems to go wrong, I don’t think we have ever had a Sunday where everything has gone smoothly, or there has not been a seeming disaster at some point in the week. We are perfectly imperfect communities. The things we get wrong, our mistakes aren’t the most important parts of us. What matters more is what is at the heart of us; what matters the most is kindness and compassion. This is what I have witnessed and continue to witness more and more over the years. I have felt it oh so powerfully in recent months as both congregations have struggled with challenges and yet we have found ways through, found solutions, solutions born from love and dedication. It has touched me deeply, in those places that really count.
There is such love and deep dedication in these two communities. People show their love by blessing them with their presence. They are made holy by becoming sanctified by loving dedication. What I see is love in action, love alive in common humanity, love in tangible form. Here’s a little verse on that by Susan Karlson
“Love In Tangible Form” by Susan Karlson
Looking at the overflowing cup,
Seeing from another perspective,
Witnessing life in all its fullness,
We share from a place of hope and dedication
And put our love into tangible form.
As I mentioned earlier Derek took on the responsibility of becoming chairman at Queens Road after his father in law Robert became too ill to continue. He was a man who had served with similar dedication. He also played the old organ there for many years. Above the organ is a plaque dedicated to Robert Haslem. The plaque reads “A labour of love”. This seems appropriate, as such dedication is most certainly done from love.
“Labour of Love” is an interesting phrase. I think I first became aware of it in the late 1980’s. It was a song by the Scottish group “Hue and Cry”. The phrase comes from translations of the King James version of the Bible, that was no doubt influenced by Shakespeare’s “Loves Labour Lost”, although he never actually used the phrase. It is to be found though in two verses in Thessalonians and Hebrews. It is the verse in Hebrews 6:10, that speaks to me: “For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister.”
Ministry for me is a labour of love. That said I am not the only person who ministers, we minister as a community of people. To minister literally means to serve, something I often want to remind those of a political persuasion about at times. They are here to serve we the people.
I see examples of these labours of love all around, people serving from love, people ministering in their own ways, adding what they can to make the flavour and substance of the community, the ministrone of ministry. Ministrone and minister both mean to serve. So many dedicate themselves to this love. It touches my heart. How they dedicate themselves, engage in labours of love, not only for themselves but to ensure that we are here to offer a free religious community, to those who seek.
People give their heart in love in many ways. There are so many labours of love. People dedicate themselves in so many ways and bless life in so many ways.
Dedication is how we show our love through blessing the lives we touch and the places we visit with our loving presence. Places are made holy when we sanctify them with loving dedication.
“Dedications” is one of those words that has changed in meaning over time. It comes from an old French word “dedicacion which meant “concecration of a church or chapel”, coming from the Latin word “dedicare” meaning to concecrate, proclaim, affirm or set aside. It later came to mean to give yourself to a purpose. I witness such dedication in the communities I serve. We carry that love into our world, that is the purpose of my blessing each and every Sunday at the end of worship. For if we live in dedication to love and life we begin to bless all life, we make the ground at our feet holy ground as we consecrate it with our loving presence.
To me this is the true meaning of church, a place of transformation, a place where we recognise the sacred uniqueness of ourselves and one another, that we recognise the blessings that we are and the blessings in life and where we learn to out into the world and bless it with our sacred uniqueness. The world awaits our blessing, for it surely needs it.
If we live in dedication to love and life we begin to bless all life, we make the ground at our feet holy ground as we consecrate it with our loving presence. Like Moses in Exodus who is told to “shake of his shoes” for he is standing on holy ground, in the presence of “I am”.
We can all hear the call of the Holy from deep within us and from all around us, we can all bless life with our holy presence. All we have to do is live with dedication, to consecrate the ground at our feet and the people who we meet, all we have to do is live with dedication and become the blessing that we have all been searching for. In so doing we will find ourselves instantly in the “Promised Land”
To live in dedication all we have to do is shake off our shoes and live our lives recognising that this truly is a holy place. Sacred living, holiness, dedication is about being fully alive. Holiness is a life fully lived, a life where we truly pay attention.
All we have to do to awaken the holy is to truly pay attention to the world and the people around us and truly inhabit the space in which we live and breathe and share our being. All we have to do is come to believe that we all walk on holy ground. All we have to do is wholly live our lives. All we have to do is live our lives in dedication to the holiest of holy purposes, to live in love. To love one another and to serve life in whatever way we can.
Please find below a video devotion based on the material in this "blogspot"
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