Called to care

This "blogspot" explores "care" it begins with a story, versions of which can be found in many cultures and traditions. Following this is a reflection by Henri Nouwen...And finally a reflection, inspired by so many and so much, but written by myself...

Once upon a time...long long ago...in Japan, a woman prayed that God would show her the difference between heaven and hell. She wanted to know whether there were fires in hell, and whether the people in heaven sat around on clouds all day playing harps. She didn’t fancy going to either place if that was all they had to offer.

She prayed so hard that God decided to answer her prayer, and he sent an angel to give her a guided tour of both places...angels are good like that...first she went to hell. It wasn’t hot at all; in fact it looked quite pleasant. There were long tables laden with food of all kinds – cooked meats, vegetables, fruit, delicious pies, and exotic desserts. “This can’t be hell,” she thought. Then she looked at the people. They were sitting some distance from the tables, and they were all miserable – emaciated, pale, angry. Each of them had chopsticks fastened to their hands, but the chopsticks were about three feet long and no matter how hard they tried, the people just couldn’t get the food into their own mouths. They were groaning with hunger, and frustration, and anger. “I’ve seen enough of this,” said the woman. “May I see heaven now?”

The angel took the woman to heaven. They didn’t have far to go. It was just next door. It was almost the same as hell. There were the same kind of tables, the same kind of food, and here too, the people were sitting a little distance away from the tables with three-foot long chopsticks fastened to their hands. But these people seemed happy. They were rosy cheeked, and looked well fed. They were smiling and chatting merrily to each other. They couldn’t put the food into their mouths either, but they had discovered how to be fed and happy: they were feeding each other.

The animation below is another telling of the story...from another tradition...

Henri Nouwn on "Care"

"...Real care is not ambiguous. Real care excludes indifference and is the opposite of apathy. The word “care” finds its roots in the Gothic “Kara” which means lament. The basic meaning of care is: to grieve, to experience sorrow, to cry out with. I am very much struck by this background of the word care because we tend to look at caring as an attitude of the strong toward the weak, of the powerful toward the powerless, of the ‘haves’ toward the ‘have-nots. And, in fact, we feel quite uncomfortable with an invitation to enter into someone’s pain before doing something about it.

Still, when we honestly ask ourselves which persons in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not-knowing, not-curing, not-healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is the friend who cares.

You might remember moments in which you were called to be with a friend who had lost a wife or husband, child or parent. What can you say, do, or propose at such a moment? There is a strong inclination to say: “Don’t cry; the one you loved is in the hands of God.” “Don’t be sad because there are so many good things left worth living for.” But are we ready to really experience our powerlessness in the face of death and say: “I do not understand. I do not know what to do but I am here with you.” Are we willing to not run away from the pain, to not get busy when there is nothing to do and instead stand rather in the face of death together with those who grieve? . . ."

...We are all called to care...

I think one of the saddest words you will ever hear in the English language is “I don’t care” Who amongst us can say that they have never uttered them? If not out loud, so that others could hear them, at least inwardly to themselves. I’ve said it. I said it many years ago and later denied doing so. I said it though and have regretted it ever since. It was at a moment in my life when I had sunk so far into the pain of my lost little self that I did not care anymore. I was in hell and the uttering of those words proved it at that moment in time.

Thankfully, although at times I do feel weariness towards life it has been many years since I did not care; it has been many years since I experienced the pain and loneliness of indifference.

There’s another phrase along this theme, which I often hear spoken “I don’t care what people think of me.” Now while I think I understand what people mean by this, that they are no longer ruled by the views of others, what matters is how they see themselves, there is something in this phrase that still bothers me. I never want to reach the point where I do not care at all what people think of me. I never want to, once again, experience indifference. While I am not ruled by the views of others, it matters to me what they believe about me, about life, about one another and about themselves. I care a lot.

As a child I was considered overly sensitive, that I felt too much and that I took things personally. While it was thought of as a likable quality I know it was seen as a serious handicap too. I remember my step father telling me I needed to toughen up and he certainly tried to in ways that were not healthy. All this really led to was me closing part of my humanity down. This did lead to a sense of indifference at some later stages of my life which led to some horrific feelings of loneliness, isolation and disconnection. Thankfully I eventually saw the truth of this and through love I began to connect and care again. This seeming blight became an asset as I was able to care once more. It wasn’t so much that I lost the sensitivity, that I felt less, it was more that I recognised that these feelings were not about me. I basically took things less personally and it was this that allowed me to begin to serve, to minister.

To minister is to serve and to serve is to care. It is about connection it is about relationship it’s about bringing that loving space alive. I learnt this through the example given to me by John Midgley when he came and tried to be with both myself and others during an horrific time in our lives. John couldn’t heal or change anything. He was as powerless as we were, but he was able to be with us in our shared powerlessness and somehow in this space the healing power held us together.

This is heaven, this is love, this is what it means to care. This is what it means to turn to as opposed to turn away despite the pain, fear and confusion. This is courage. To care takes courage, it comes from the heart, it is the heart alive and on fire. To not care is the way of the coward; to not care is a frozen state, indifference requires a frozen heart.

I have heard hell described in many ways, what it means to be living in a state of hell. I think the most accurate experience of hell is that it is indifference. It is a sense of disconnection from the feelings and concerns of others. Hell is indifference. To live in hell is to be indifferent to sufferings of others. Dante’s Inferno described it thus.

Extract from Dante Alighieri’s “The Divine Comedy” Inferno (Hell), Canto III

"ARGUMENT.—Dante, following Virgil, comes to the gate of Hell; where, after having read the dreadful words that are written thereon, they both enter. Here, as he understands from Virgil, those were punished who had passed their time (for living it could not be called) in a state of apathy and indifference both to good and evil. Then, pursuing their way, they arrive at the river Acheron; and there find the old ferryman Charon, who takes the spirits over to the opposite shore; which, as soon as Dante reaches, he is seized with terror, and falls into a trance."

Hell is indifference. Hell is not fire but in actual fact a frozen state, a state where a person no longer cares and has grown cold towards, others, towards life itself.

In the story that began this "blogspot" “Heaven and Hell” appear exactly the same and yet they are experienced oh so differently. In Hell all go hungry because everyone tries to feed themselves only, they are purely self focused and fail to recognise the hunger in their neighbour sat opposite them. And yet in heaven they attempt to feed one another and are therefore fed in abundance. To me this is as much about the relationships as the food going into one another’s mouths. I believe that we all possess an innate need to serve one another that if we do not do this part of our natural humanity withers away and dies off. By not serving one another we starve our souls.

By living with indifference towards others we live frozen, unfeeling lives…Yes hell is not a firey place, but a frozen state of being…One where nothing touches. Where one is cut off from others, from life itself…Yes hell is indifference, but it is also dis-connection…Hell is a place where nothing connects.

You see something similar to the "chopsticks" story happening in the feeding stories told in the Gospels. Accounts that are more about the relationships between Jesus, his disciples and the people in the crowds, not whether a few loaves and fish could feed so many. There is a deep truth being revealed in the universal mythos found in these stories. They are talking about abundant love being poured out in these deeply connective and connecting relationships. The key phrase in the account found in Mark (Ch 8 vv 1-9) are the words “They ate and were filled”. In this account the crowds hunger is acknowledged, compassion is recognised and care shown. The crowd are invited to stay and sit and the disciples are asked to feed them face to face. Thus they are truly cared for, their common humanity is cared for, they eat and they are filled. They mattered, every single one of them.

This is what it means to truly care…To recognise one another face to face, this is just like heaven in the story that began this "blogspot"…Heaven is to care and Hell is to be indifferent. Heaven is connection and Hell is disconnection. It is heaven that is the warm place and hell that is frozen over.

Following the "Heaven and Hell story" is a reflection by Henri Nouwen on the word “care”. He highlights it’s origin from the old English word “caru” meaning “sorrow, anxiety, grief” as well as "burdens of mind; serious mental attention," from the Proto-Germanic word “karo” meaning "lament; grief, care". To really care is to truly feel another’s sorrow to cry out with them and to truly be with them. To care is to truly empathies and not merely sympathies. To truly care is to be with another, it is about meeting another in common human relationship. This is why indifference, to not care, is hell as it is about breaking that sense of relationship, it is emptiness it is loneliness. It hurts to care, which is why so often we turn away. No one likes to feel powerless and to care is about recognizing our singular powerlessness at times. It’s also about recognising the healing power that can begin to grow from this powerless state, as the common grief is recognised and shared and the healing comes in that very space. This is the power of love. This is the miracle of healing that is recounted again and again in the gospel accounts and it is the same love that comes alive once again when we recognise one another and truly care. We make heaven. We create the kin-dom, the one-ness of love right here, right now. For heaven is a place where everything connects

Many people say they feel lonely, that they experience a sense of disconnection. This can become even stronger at this time of the year, early January. The weeks, in the deepest part of winter, following the Christmas festivities. These are cold, frozen days. Sometimes these frozen feelings are not caused by the temperature of the air.

So how do we overcome this? How do we warm our own hearts and those who we share this world of ours with. Well it begins in and through care. It begins by recognising what we have in common. It comes in recognising our shared sense of powerlessness at times, for here is where the power comes alive, in this deep relationship of care.

It begins by reconnecting in and through care…Let’s not become frozen people, indifferent people, let us live in and through care…For in so doing we will bring warmth to our lives and those we share our lives we…

Let’s care a lot…

What would you have me "Be"?

During a recent conversation with colleagues there was much talk about what it means to be a minister. Not so much the specific aspects of our role, more the way that we should “Be” in the world. It got me thinking about how I am in the world. How I should be in the world? During the conversation there was also talk about what it meant to be a “Holy Presence”. We were asked to ponder the following quote:

“Whenever I meet a Buddhist I meet a holy man. Whenever I meet a Christian leader – I meet a manager.”

We were then asked to substitute the word “Unitarian” into the quotation and asked which one rings truest?

It really got me thinking about my role as a minister and how I am in the world. What presence do I project into the world? What do people experience in my company. While I may not be a holy man I hope to goodness I do not come across as a manager.

I am a minister and I know that to minister is to serve. This is not only a physical duty, the things I do. It is as much the way that these very things are done. It is about bringing the holy into the things I do.

It is not just about what I do singularly though. It is about what the communities I serve do together. For I do not minister alone. In my eyes a Unitarian community serves together as a whole. Ministry is something that the community does together.

The key I suspect is how we are in the world, actually it’s probably more about how we “Be”. I suspect it begins by being an authentic presence in the world in which we live. By being “Who” we really are. By doing so we become a source of light in our world.

Now being “Who” we really are is about authenticity. It’s about avoiding pretence, dropping the masks and being sincere. It’s not just about doing the right thing, but being the right thing. It’s not just about what we do, but how we “Be”.

Parker Palmer captures what I am trying to say near perfectly in the following quotation.

“Our deepest calling is to grow into our authentic selfhood, whether or not it conforms to some image of who we ought to be. As we do, we will not only find the joy that every human being seeks; we will also find our path of authentic service in the world.”

This got me thinking about a prayer that I use constantly throughout my daily life. It is a prayer associated with Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12 step fellowships. It is known as “The Fear Prayer” and goes as follows.

“We ask Him to remove our fear and direct our attention to what He would have us be.”

Now I adapt the wording to fit with my own theology and the situation I find myself in during the day. The key to it for me is that it is not so much seeking what I ought to be doing in a given situation, but how I should “Be”. The person I ought to “Be” in life. I do not personally believe that God maps out every intricate detail of life and will direct me to what I should do in every tiny situation of life. That said I have found that if and when I open myself up in any given situation I know exactly how I should “Be”. I believe that this applies to all of us. We can all be the open, loving, authentic, holy presence in life. In so doing we will serve life and the people around us. I believe that this is our gift to the world. which we can give and share in the way that we “Be”. In so doing we do indeed become holy men and women.

Now of course some of you who are reading this are doubt feeling uncomfortable with the thought of being holy, or being a holy person. You may well be asking what it means to be holy. You may feel deeply uncomfortable. Well please do not be. We can indeed all “Be” holy if we live authentic and open lives. We sanctify life and the people we share life with when we do so.

The word “Holy”, rather like the word “Salvation” and many others are often misunderstood. They are both linked to health and wholeness, they are really about how we live in the world, in the real world in which we find ourselves and not some distant realm or a way of being that is beyond humanity. At least it is if we explore the etymology of these words.

The Latin root “Salve” from which Salvation is formed means health. The Teutonic cognates (shared roots) for health, hale, whole and holy are the same. All these words share the same roots.

For me holiness is about salvation in the here and now, it is about being truly whole in the way that we live and breathe and share our being. It is about the way that we “Be”. It is about living with integrity and in so doing we will serve the world simply in the way that we “Be” It is the way that leads to authentic service in the world. It is the way to minister to ourselves, one another and the world around us. In so doing we become holy and we sanctify life.

During our recent denomination annual meetings at Birmingham many people spoke to me about my column in the “Inquirer”, which goes by the title “From Nothing to Everything”. I was deeply moved by what everyone said to me about how it touched them deeply. I do not seek approval in my writing but it is encouraging to be told by so many people that you have a positive impact on their lives. Several people mentioned their admiration for my openness. This led to several conversations about openness and wholeness actually. I suspect that the key to being whole and therefore holy is openness.

Openness is no easy thing. It truly is a process. I am far more open than I ever was and I am becoming more open as time goes by. That said there is always room for improvement. After all isn’t the “room for improvement” the largest room in our lives. Another subject of conversation were the physical changes in me. Now one rather astute person commented on the changes in the way I am, in my being. I have to say that this comment touched me the most deeply. They noticed that my persona was more open than it had been in the past.

This is so true and is something I am becoming increasingly aware of. It is something I’ve been working on these last few months. How we are, how we “Be” is not just about the words we speak or the spirit in which we live, it shows in our deportment too, in how we carry ourselves. Yes there has been many physical changes in my life this last year, but it is not just about the weight loss. I am working on becoming more physically open. I am learning to become freer in my physical being. It is helping me to become all that I can “Be”.

Oscar Wilde said, “Be who you are (because) everyone else is already taken”. If only it was as easy as it appears to simply be, in this quotation. How many of us waste so much of our lives trying to be something we are not, instead of trying to “Be” who we truly are. Now all this brought to mind a poem that recently came to my attention by May Sarton "Now I Become Myself”.

“Now I Become Myself” by May Sarton

Now I become myself. It's taken
Time, many years and places;
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people's faces,
Run madly, as if Time were there,
Terribly old, crying a warning,
"Hurry, you will be dead before—"
(What? Before you reach the morning?
Or the end of the poem is clear?
Or love safe in the walled city?)
Now to stand still, to be here,
Feel my own weight and density!
The black shadow on the paper
Is my hand; the shadow of a word
As thought shapes the shaper
Falls heavy on the page, is heard.
All fuses now, falls into place
From wish to action, word to silence,
My work, my love, my time, my face
Gathered into one intense
Gesture of growing like a plant.
As slowly as the ripening fruit
Fertile, detached, and always spent,
Falls but does not exhaust the root,
So all the poem is, can give,
Grows in me to become the song,
Made so and rooted by love.
Now there is time and Time is young.
O, in this single hour I live
All of myself and do not move.
I, the pursued, who madly ran,
Stand still, stand still, and stop the sun!

To “Be” who we truly are, who we were born to be, is no easy task. Sarton wrote this poem when she was 83 years old. It would seem that it took her a long time to truly “Be” who she really was, something she wrote of in her memoirs and journals. I commend them to you, they are worthy of exploration.

It is no easy task to “Be” who we truly are, to live openly, to live whole and holy lives. To “find our path of authentic service in the world.” You see we learn by following others from the day we are born. We learn to “Be Like” rather than to simply “Be”. It takes a long time to let go of the stabilisers of others and become wholly ourselves. For May Sarton it only really began after the death of her parents during middle age, actually about the age I am now.

Forrest Church had similar experiences it was only when he stopped living in his father’s shadow that he found the courage to truly “Be”. As he said:

"I found my calling. I answered a call that was mine, and not someone else’s." And went on to say "To envy another’s skills, looks, or gifts rather than embracing your own nature and call is to fail in two respects. In trying unsuccessfully to be who we aren’t, we fail to become who we are."

The key he said of course was to always “be who you are.”

This is the key of course. This is what it means to live holy lives. This is how we become a holy, an authentic presence in the world. This is how we serve the world by our presence and you know what it is never too later. It can begin right here right now. May Sarton was 83 years old when she wrote “Now I become myself”. Maybe, we only truly become our true selves at the end of our physical being. That said we need to begin some where and the only place to begin is right here right now. Right here, right now is the only place we can “Be”

Somebody To Lean On

"Lean on me" Bill Withers

Where do you turn in times of trouble, who or what do you lean on? I turn to people of course I do but for me the most important place I turn in times of trouble is God. These last twelve months I have turned, turned and turned again in difficult times. By turning to that infinite source that is never not there I am then better able to be of service to others. Something I have been able to do so in some pretty dark days these last 12 months, something I have been able to do these last few years.

I have been physically very ill these last two weeks and I have to say that prayer has helped immensely as I have had to just lay down and come to terms with the being completely incapacitated by illness. I have been deeply moved by the offers of help from so many people. It is good to know that you are loved. I have let people help me too. Perhaps this is the greatest gift you can give a person. For if I have learnt anything in life I have learnt that in that space when we give and receive, when we help one another, the Love that is God once again incarnates in life.

I am also grateful for those souls who have helped me in so many ways at different stages in my life. I have been guided during the darker times in my life. I have also been helped by people I have never even met by people who died even before I was born as everyone has. Those who passed on what they knew and helped those in their time and place that have impacted on we who live today. I noticed last week that 24th January was the 44th anniversary of Bill Wilson’s death. He died nine months before I was even born. He was one of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous and the legacy that he has left behind have brought new life to millions of the lost and hopeless. That simple message of love and service that transformed his life and millions of others including me.

I have been carried in so many ways by so many people, often without noticing it. I offer eternal thanks and praise for this.

This brings to mind one of my favourite stories. Ir goes by the name "Heaven and Hell" or sometimes "Chopsticks"...

What are the differences between Heaven and Hell?, a young Zen monk asked an aged Buddhist priest who was renowned for his wisdom.

“There are no material difference,” replied the old monk.

“None at all?” asked the puzzled young monk.

“That’s right. Both Heaven and Hell have a spacious hall with a big pot in the centre in which noodles are boiled, giving off a delicious scent,” said the old priest. “The size of the huge pan, the number of people sitting around the pot and the bowl of sauce placed in front of each diner are the same in both places.”

“The odd thing is that each diner is given a pair of meter-long chopsticks and must use them to eat the noodles.”

“To eat the noodles, you must hold the chopsticks properly at their ends,” the old monk told the young Zen monk.

“In the case of Hell’s kitchen, people are always hungry because no matter how hard they try, they can’t get the noodles into their mouths,” said the old priest.

“But isn’t it the same for the people in Heaven? The junior monk inquired.

“No. They can eat because they each feed the person sitting opposite them at the table. That’s the difference between Heaven and Hell,” explained the old monk.


I love this story, one of my all-time favourites. I have come across several other versions of it from other traditions too. There is an almost identical version that is told from a Jewish perspective. In this tale the chopsticks are replaced with spoons.

In the story Heaven and Hell appear exactly the same and yet they are experienced oh so differently. In Hell all go hungry because everyone tries to feed themselves only, they are purely self reliant. And yet in heaven they attempt to feed one another and are therefore fed in abundance. To me this is as much about the relationships as the food going into one another’s mouths. I believe that we all possess an innate need to serve one another that if we do not do this part of our natural humanity withers away and dies off. By not serving one another we starve our souls.

I think that one of the greatest delusions of the modern era is the myth of self reliance, this idea that as individuals we have all that we need and that we do not need one another. Jeffrey Lockwood in his meditation “to ask is to give” claims that:

“...One of the great blessings of travel is to be put in a position of asking help from others, to be genuinely needful of strangers. Our illusion of self-reliance evaporates as the unexpected and unfamiliar merge into vulnerability. We offer the gift of authentic need, the opportunity for deep trust. We express to another person the most humanizing cross-cultural phrase: “Please help me.”...In our society, self-sufficiency is heralded as a virtue, and chronic dependence on others can be degrading. But never being asked to help another person is isolating, even dehumanizing. In a culture that exalts autonomy, asking for help may be one of the greatest gifts we offer. So much of life has become a calculation of costs and benefits; to ask assistance is to create the opportunity for unconditional giving in raw, spiritual defiance of economic rationality. We become mutually indebted without expectation of repayment. Each person in the relationship becomes a giver and receiver. Each one becomes more human. Each one has something to be thankful for.”

There are several slightly different accounts in the Gospels of Jesus feeding crowds of people. Now there is a real danger of losing the meaning behind these tales by engaging in winding arguments about their factual accuracy; to get hung up on a debate as to whether or not Jesus could feed the thousands of people present with just a few fish and loaves. Is this really what these stories are about? I do not think so. To get hung up on the factual accuracy is to miss the whole point of the teaching behind the story. Mythological tales are not about fact they are about revealing deeper universal truths.

There is a line in one account from Mark’s gospel (Ch 8 vv 1-9) where we hear the words “They ate and were filled”. During a conversation I had with Rev Brian Jackson a sadly recently deceased Methodist minister, this account really came to life. He explained that the story is really about the encounter that goes on between the disciples and the crowd that by feeding them face to face they are serving them, they are ministering to them. Yes the crowd’s physical hunger is met, while at the same time everyone’s spiritual hunger is met. Seemingly everyone ate and everyone was filled, abundantly, to overflowing.

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

It is not always easy asking for help and not always because of pride. In order to sincerely ask for help we have to trust who or what's hands we are putting our lives in.

I recently came across the following extract taken from “Telling Secrets” by Frederick Buechner

“Trust”

I remember sitting parked by the roadside once, terribly depressed and afraid about my daughter's illness and what was going on in our family, when out of nowhere a car came along down the highway with a license plate that bore on it the one word out of all the words in the dictionary that I needed most to see exactly then. The word was TRUST. What do you call a moment like that? Something to laugh off as the kind of joke life plays on us every once in a while? The word of God? I am willing to believe that maybe it was something of both, but for me it was an epiphany. The owner of the car turned out to be, as I'd suspected, a trust officer in a bank, and not long ago, having read an account I wrote of the incident somewhere, he found out where I lived and one afternoon brought me the license plate itself, which sits propped up on a bookshelf in my house to this day. It is rusty around the edges and a little battered, and it is also as holy a relic as I have ever seen.

...what a beautiful story...

I passed it on to a friend of mine and in reply she sent me the following message...

"Wow!! My mum & sister often see licence plates in the states too, in the traffic or on cars just cruising along in front of them & only yday my sister sent me this......! & this is the license plate they see often."



The name that they see is "Alf", the name of her brother who sadly died...it is no surprise to me that this is the sign they see most often...

“Trust” an interesting word. In whom or what do we trust? What does it mean to trust? I believe that trust is about the heart, more than the head. In many ways it is a matter of faith. James Fowler taught that faith is really about what we trust, pointing out that the word “credo” which one normally translates as “I believe” really means “I trust”. He claims that belief is of the mind but faith and trust is of the heart. Claiming that "Trust" is about passion it’s about embracing life whole heartedly. It’s about awe and humility. It’s an active thing too. It is a way of being and living and breathing and doing. In some ways it resembles hope in that it is something that with give birth to through our own hearts. We gain trust, because we trust wholeheartedly.

Ernest Hemingway said, “The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.” We become more trusting by living in a trusting way. It’s about having faith in life and ourselves. That said it does not mean that everything will work out as we want it to just because we trust. Sometimes it won’t.

Trust grows like faith if we live with it in our hearts. It grows through trial and error, by reaching out; like love and hope and anything else that really matters. We develop trust by simply trusting. It takes real courage to trust. And of course to have courage is to live whole heartedly.

Trust is not the expectation that everything will work out as we want it too. Trust is more about how we are in any given situation, how we behave in any given situation. Trust is not just about expecting things to work out immediately but that things will come good someday.

Steve Jobs the creature of Apple, who died a couple of years ago said, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” Trust is a risk; it is a reaching out without knowing what will come next.

Trust is about something more than ourselves of course. Trust is about relying on more than just our own resources; trust is about learning to rely on the whole of life. It is about leaning on others at times and allowing them to lean on you. It is about more than self. It’s about opening ourselves to one another and to that greater reality that permeates all life. To put it another way. It’s about letting go and letting God.

So in who or what do you trust? In times of trouble who or what do you lean on? Do you trust? Can others trust in you? Something to ponder perhaps...

I’m going to end with a few thoughts by Gunilla Norris titled “Flying with equals” taken from "Journeying in Place: Reflections from a country Garden"

I get a rush of hopeful feeling when I hear geese honking. I have never completely understood why. At first I thought it was because they had the freedom of the skyways . . . something high and romantic . . . something in contrast to my earthbound existence. But lately I have learned more about geese through an article a friend brought to share. This new information has fleshed out that spontaneous inner feeling of mine.

What I learned is that of all the creatures that I can see in this landscape, the geese best represent the communion of saints. They depend on one another. The lead goose does the most work, but when it is tired, it falls back and another takes its place. To be able to rely on others is a deep trust that does not come easy.

The geese fly in the wake of one another’s wings. They literally get a lift from one another. I want to be with others this way. Geese tell me that it is, indeed, possible to fly with equals.

The high honking I hear when I stand on the ground and look up is the sound of encouragement the geese make to keep on flying. It is a loud and happy sound in my ears. I want to honk with others on the journey.

Heaven & Hell: To care or to careless?

I came across this story in Rev Bill Darlison wonderful book “The Shortest Distance: 101 Stories from the World’s Spiritual Traditions”. You can find many version of it. I also found a very similar version written from a Jewish perspective.


Once upon a time...long long ago...in Japan, a woman prayed that God would show her the difference between heaven and hell. She wanted to know whether there were fires in hell, and whether the people in heaven sat around on clouds all day playing harps. She didn’t fancy going to either place if that was all they had to offer.

She prayed so hard that God decided to answer her prayer, and he sent an angel to give her a guided tour of both places...angels are good like that...first she went to hell. It wasn’t hot at all; in fact it looked quite pleasant. There were long tables laden with food of all kinds – cooked meats, vegetables, fruit, delicious pies, and exotic desserts. “This can’t be hell,” she thought. Then she looked at the people. They were sitting some distance from the tables, and they were all miserable – emaciated, pale, angry. Each of them had chopsticks fastened to their hands, but the chopsticks were about three feet long and no matter how hard they tried, the people just couldn’t get the food into their own mouths. They were groaning with hunger, and frustration, and anger. “I’ve seen enough of this,” said the woman. “May I see heaven now?”

The angel took the woman to heaven. They didn’t have far to go. It was just next door. It was almost the same as hell. There were the same kind of tables, the same kind of food, and here too, the people were sitting a little distance away from the tables with three-foot long chopsticks fastened to their hands. But these people seemed happy. They were rosy cheeked, and looked well fed. They were smiling and chatting merrily to each other. They couldn’t put the food into their mouths either, but they had discovered how to be fed and happy: they were feeding each other.

Last Friday was one of those days when I experienced just about every emotion imaginable. It was also a day when I believe that I witnessed humanity at its very best. I attended the funeral of the partner of a member of one of the congregations I serve.  It was a beautifully moving service and I was particularly touched by the way his friends and family shared their personal experiences of his life. It is tragic that such a joy filled life ended so soon.

That same evening I attended a dinner celebrating Rev Dr Ann Peart’s presidency of our General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches. This was a wonderful and joy filled occasion. It was also an opportunity to spend time with colleagues and friends I rarely see these days, some of whom have been central to my journey into Unitarian ministry. We shared fellowship that night as we talked and ate and offered toasts of thanks.

There was a common theme that was threaded through both of these contrasting gatherings, that of human love. I witnessed humanity at its very best at the young man’s funeral as friends and family held one another through the hardest thing that any of us have to face, the death of a loved one. This same love was also present at Ann’s celebratory meal as we came together to offer thanks to Ann for her loyal service to our free religious faith.

I came back from the meal in high spirits and then I received another bombshell. I was informed that a dear friend had been found dead that very evening. We had been close for many years and of course his death has caused me and many people I care deeply about inexplicable pain. Again these last few days I have witnessed humanity at its very best as many of us have come together in support to hold one another in our shared grief. I have witnessed true fellowships; fellows holding one another in their shared ship of grief.

In the story “Heaven and Hell” appear exactly the same and yet they are experienced oh so differently. In Hell all go hungry because everyone tries to feed themselves only, they are purely self reliant. And yet in heaven they attempt to feed one another and are therefore fed in abundance. To me this is as much about the relationships as the food going into one another’s mouths. I believe that we all possess an innate need to serve one another that if we do not do this part of our natural humanity withers away and dies off. By not serving one another we starve our souls.

I think that one of the greatest delusions of the modern era is the myth of self reliance, this idea that as individuals we have all that we need and that we do not need one another. Jeffrey Lockwood in his meditation “to ask is to give” claims that:

“...One of the great blessings of travel is to be put in a position of asking help from others, to be genuinely needful of strangers. Our illusion of self-reliance evaporates as the unexpected and unfamiliar merge into vulnerability. We offer the gift of authentic need, the opportunity for deep trust. We express to another person the most humanizing cross-cultural phrase: “Please help me.”...In our society, self-sufficiency is heralded as a virtue, and chronic dependence on others can be degrading. But never being asked to help another person is isolating, even dehumanizing. In a culture that exalts autonomy, asking for help may be one of the greatest gifts we offer. So much of life has become a calculation of costs and benefits; to ask assistance is to create the opportunity for unconditional giving in raw, spiritual defiance of economic rationality. We become mutually indebted without expectation of repayment. Each person in the relationship becomes a giver and receiver. Each one becomes more human. Each one has something to be thankful for.”

There are several slightly different accounts in the Gospels of Jesus feeding crowds of people. Some people get hung up on the facts of whether Jesus could feed the thousands of people present with just a few fish and loaves, but is this what these stories are about? I do not think so. To get hung up on the factual accuracy is to miss the whole point of the teaching behind the story. Mythological tales are not about fact they are about revealing deeper universal truths. In one of the versions  found in Mark (Ch 8 vv 1-9) there is a key phrase that I believe is rich in meaning “They ate and were filled”.

In this account Jesus had spent three days with the people he feeds. He had not invited them to join him and therefore was certainly not obliged to feed them. I am sure that the crowd were not expecting to be fed by the meagre amount that the disciples brought. But what happens? Well Jesus recognises the crowds hunger and the fact that they have travelled a great distance to be with him, he expresses compassion for all of them. He asks the crowd to sit down and to share a meal with him. He then instructs the disciples to serve the people personally. The crowd eat and are filled. This is not because their bodies were filled, but because a deeper hunger was met. What occurs is a true human encounter between the disciples and the crowd, the people are served face to face and are therefore truly loved and cared for. They were not just physically fed they were personally served and therefore their humanity recognised. Each individuals hunger mattered.

I am someone who enjoys their food and most people know this. Wherever I go people feed me and I do find it hard to say no to them. I find it hard to say no to anybody actually, it is just the way I am I suppose. I am though trying to say no at the moment. I have to otherwise I am going to burst. That said I know that when you go into someone’s home the offering of hospitality is so important. To refuse hospitality is an insult, so yes it is difficult to say no. This is hard when visiting people as a minister. A colleague of mine told me that I have to do it though. She said that when she first entered ministry she couldn’t say no to anyone’s hospitality and as a result put on two stones in weight within the first 12 months. I just need to find a way to accept some ones hospitality without necessarily always eating the food.

The truth is of course that being fed by someone is not really about the food at all. It is about the relationship, it is about hospitality. I recently attended dinner at a friend’s house, the food was magnificent. That said this is not the reason that I was there. I was there to spend time with this friend, something I rarely find the time for these days. The friend made a real fuss; they wanted the evening to be perfect. They spent the whole night popping in and out of the kitchen, just to ensure that the food was perfect. I kept trying to engage them in conversation, but sadly they were more concerned about the food being perfect. I really appreciated the food, it was gorgeous and yet I was never able to engage my friend in conversation which was the whole point of me being there. They had invited me round to talk and yet this is the one thing that we failed to do. I left feeling very hungry that night, even though my belly was full. Yes I ate, but I was not filled.

If I have learnt anything in life I have learnt that I need healthy relationships with others in order to live a full life. While the spiritual life does indeed need times of aloneness to develop it cannot be expressed or embodied in solitude. Lent is very much about preparing in solitude, it is about deprivation on so many levels but that is not its final goal. Its purpose is to prepare the individual for service, for the expression of love one to another. The spiritual life cannot be truly experienced in isolation. Why? Because surely the spiritual life is about relationships; relationships with our true selves, others and whatever it is that we believe is at the core of all life.


Over the last few days I have witnessed true spirituality. I have seen people truly in relationship with one another. We do care. to not care, to careless, is to experience inhumanity actually. It is to become trapped inside oneself. These last few weeks I have witnessed people in excruciating personal agony express deep concern for one another. They have shared their love and have shared their pain. they have fed one another and they have drunk from one another's cup. They have truly served one another and in doing so have experienced something of heaven,                                                     

We all thirst and hunger even in our seemingly materially abundant lives. We cannot feed this hunger in isolation, in self reliance, it is only fed in that relationship that occurs as we feed one another. We all hunger for purpose and meaning. As Viktor Frankl pointed out we are driven by a will to find meaning and purpose. I would go further and suggest that we are also driven to find true companionship in our increasingly isolated and isolating culture. We need to serve one another, or our souls will starve. I have discovered and I keep on discovering  that our deepest pangs are not satisfied by the food that is laid on the table but in the relationship that occurs as we feed one another and as we drink from one another's cup.


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