Faces of Fear

Today the 1st of November is All Saints Day or All Hallows Day. It is sandwiched between All Hallows Eve or Halloween on the 31st October and on 2nd November All Souls Day, a time in the Christian Calendar to remember all souls who have departed this life.

Like other Christian festivals, including Christmas, Easter and Whitsuntide, these three autumn days are a fascinating mixture of pre-Christian, Christian and even post-Christian tradition and mythos. I am fairly certain that the children going door to door at Halloween are probably not aware that they have created a modern day variant on the pre-Christian festival of Samhain; a festival that not only celebrated harvest, but was also a time to commune with spirits of ancestors. There are similar traditions throughout most culture's, autumnal and winter festivals. Autumn is a time of reflection, a time to take stock before the harsh realities of winter come.

Halloween in the north of England is something that is marked, at least in a secular way, far more

these days than I remember in my earlier childhood. When I was a child it was Guy Fawkes or Bonfire Night that took on greater significance. I don’t really remember going “Trick or Treating”, until a significant film came out in 1982 and then everything seemed to change. The film was E.T. the Extra Terrestrial. One of the most commercially successful films of all time and one that changed something significantly, certainly in my life and perhaps the culture of the North of England. I recall, as many others did, that after this going door to door, trick or treating replaced the tradition of going “Door to Door” asking for “a penny for the guy” and of course “Mischievous Night”. It seems that these traditions all got swallowed up with “Trick or Treating”. “Mischievous Night”, at least in Yorkshire came on the 4th November and was linked to the “Gunpowder Plot” or “Fireworks Night” that is marked on the 5th of November. Things could get pretty wild on “Mischievous Night” and some, I’m sure, are glad to see that it has pretty much been lost to history. You do hear of little pockets of it in Liverpool and Leeds, but mainly it has gone the way of the Dodo and been replaced by “Trick or Treating”. There’s a part of me that wishes this wasn’t true. I remember the thrill of getting "up to no good" with friends and of hearing similar tales of other friends who were far more daring than I. I also remember my granddad telling me of things he and his mate Percy used to get up to. I remember the delight in this night of freedom that the children used to be granted. A freedom that I fear children of today do not enjoy.

Now when we think of Halloween today it is horror movies and the fear that accompany them that immediately springs to my mind. Such horrors can stay with us for many years and make us afraid to step out in the dark or to sit in the house alone. I recently went to see a horror film with some friends. I have to say I didn’t enjoy it and for a few days, as I went on my early morning walks, there was a sense of fear in my mind, my heart and my soul.

As a child I could easily be affected by such films. I remember being haunted for years by a Saturday night episode of “Hammer House of Horror”. It was a werewolf tale that vividly remains within my psyche. The image that had the greatest impact was of the beast at the window in the black of night and the person turning round and it being in the room with them. This was etched on my memory for years and to such an extent that I never dared look out through the glass of my room after dark. Even to this day there is a part of me that feels nervous if I look through “glass darkly”

Fear is a powerful emotion. It has the power to inhibit but it also has the power of allure. Fear comes in many forms. In "Freedom From Fear: Finding the Courage to Act, Love and Be" Forrest Church identified five different types, which he associated with the body, intellect, conscience, emotions and soul. These being:

“Fright” (Centred in the body), which is a kind of instinctive fear, designed to protect us from physical danger. It’s that feeling that makes us jump while watching a horror film or the thing that gets our blood pumping and awakens our senses and allows us to respond to physical danger.

The second being “Worry” (Centred in the intellect), this is a fear that is produced by our worst imaginings. Often they are not real and can be blown out of all reasonable proportions. Shortly before he died Mark Twain mused, “I am an old man and I have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened”

The third being “Guilt” (Centred in the conscience). This is a fear of being caught out or found out due to something that we have done in our past. It’s a fear we often carry with us and can be projected into so much of our lives. It’s the feeling that can come over us as we pass through security at airports, even though there is no reason to feel it, or when walking out of stores and passing through the security senses, even though we know we haven’t stolen anything.

The fourth being “Insecurity” (centred in the emotions), this is fear prompted by feelings of inadequacy. It is a fear that breeds a need to seek approval from others. It’s form of Narcissism and forms deep self-consciousness which makes us unconscious to life itself.

The fifth and perhaps worst of all is “Dread” (centred in the soul), a fear that is generated by life’s general uncertainty. In “Freedom from Fear” Church wrote “ ‘Man himself produces dread, wrote the Christian philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. We manufacture it whenever we attempt to control things over which we hold no final authority. We reduce life to a battleground, where we struggle against insurmountable odds. Fearing every transition from certainty to uncertainty, we devote our full energy to protecting ourselves against loss. Dread is the opposite of trust. The more we dread death and dying, the more alarming life and living turn out to be.”

Yes fear has many faces and all of them powerful in their own ways. We each of us experience every type at different times in our lives.

The other morning I was out walking before sunset. As I headed towards John Leigh Park I noticed a woman was standing on the edge of the park, with her large German Shepherd dog. She looked at me, with fear in her eyes, and said “I’m not going in their while it is still dark.” I smiled and said “I think you’ll be ok with the dog”, she looked back at me nervously and said, “yes everyone says that”. I just carried on walking on into the park and then onto the neighbourhood circuit. About twenty minutes later I passed through the park again, by now the sun had come up and the woman and her dog were happily playing right in the middle of the park. Nothing had really changed and yet she felt safer now that the sun had come up.

So many of us fear the dark, the unknown, the unseen, the uncertain. The truth is though that so much of life is uncertain. I have learnt that it is vital to accept this, to surrender to this and through this you find the courage to simply live and truly be yourself and to discover real faith in life once again.

The encounter in the park reminded me of a story I once heard of a young boy who lived with his parents on a farm. His job each afternoon was to fetch the afternoon paper so that his dad could read, after a long days work, while eating his tea. Now one November day he forgot to fetch the paper and by now it was turning dark. It turned four o’clock, nearly tea time, and his mum noticed that he hadn’t fetched the paper, she asked her son if he would get it. Twenty minutes later she asked again and then ten minutes later, still no paper, so she asked once again. This went on until the mum completely lost her temper and shouted at the boy, will you get your dad’s paper. At which point the boy burst into tears. His mother realising something was wrong went to boy, who was inconsolable by now. After a while she calmed him down and asked him what on earth was wrong. He began to explain that all his life he had been afraid of the dark, but was too afraid to let his parent know. His mother soothed him and then asked. Now then you are a boy of faith and you believe in God, you believe that God is in you and with you. That God is in everything, even the dark. The boy nodded and then his mother said “There is no reason then to fear the dark, for God is in the dark, and God can do anything. Now be a good lad and go and get your dad’s paper.” At this the boy looked up at his mum smilingly and went to the door. He opened the door and confidently and shouted “God will you get me my dad’s paper please.”

This brought to mind a passage from Mark's Gospel Ch 4 vv 35 – 41. The passage depicts Jesus and the disciples being caught in a storm. It follows many verses depicting Jesus speaking in parables, at the river bank, about faith and the Kingdom of God. After Jesus has finished preaching he and the disciples cross the waters and are caught in the storm. The disciples become afraid for their lives and waken Jesus who calms the seas and then rebukes them with the following words ‘Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?’ Just like the lady on the edge of the park, or the boy they were afraid, they lacked courage, and they lacked faith in life. It seems to me that living in this kind of fear is the very thing that so often reduces life. The key to overcome this fear, it seems to me is courage.

Courage in many ways is the essence of life, maybe it is our daily bread. Anais Nin once said “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” I’m sure we can all think of moments when our own lives have either expanded or shrunk in proportion to our courage. Courage itself comes from the French root “Cuer” meaning heart. To have courage is to have strength of heart. Courage is a consistent and sustaining love, it is a spiritual energy that sustains us in sickness and in health in loss or disappointment.

It is said that there are only really two emotions fear and love. Which I think can be translated as fear or courage. Now I do not believe that to feel the emotion of fear is to lack love, or courage or faith. That said to be ruled by fear and to be paralysed by it, may well mean a lack of faith. How often in life, do we say no to life because we have become paralysed by fear? How often do we expect someone else to do what we can do ourselves, because of fear? For me faith is all about having the courage to be all that we can be do and to do all that we can do in love and service.

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to the size of our heart; life shrinks or expands in service to life itself. It’s about heart, it’s about courage, and it’s about being all that we can.

To have courage is to have strength of heart and to live from our hearts in our ordinary everyday activities. Courage is a way of living and breathing it’s about living openly and vulnerably in the world. Courage comes in those ordinary acts of love as we walk slowly through life. It is courage that allows us to learn that even when life has betrayed us, love is still present.

It is courage that allows us to stay open to life even when the storms are really blowing. It is courage that is formed in the heart; it is courage that is the ultimate act of faith; it is courage that keeps us open to life so that we can live in love and service.

I'm going to end this chip of a blogspot with this beautiful poem...

"Triumph of being" by Edith Södergran

What have I to fear? I am a part of infinity,
I am a part of the all’s great power,
a lonely world inside millions of worlds,
like a star of the first degree that fades last.
Triumph of living, triumph of breathing, triumph of being!
Triumph of feeling time run ice-cold through one’s veins
and of hearing the silent river of the night
and of standing on the mountain under the sun.
I walk on sun, I stand on sun,
I know of nothing else than sun.
Time – convertress, time – destructress, time – enchantress,
do you come with new schemes, a thousand tricks to offer me existence
as a little seed, as a coiled snake, as a coiled snake, as a rock amidst the sea?
Time – you murdress – leave me!
The sun fills my breast with sweet honey up to the brim
and she says: all stars fade at last, but they always shine without fear.

All Souls

Carl Seaburg wrote that  "All Souls Day is set apart for the commemoration of those `holy souls' who have graced our lives and passed from our living circle. Their radiance, their works, their memories, are still with us and on this day we meet to celebrate them fondly. And thoughtfully too, remembering that we also some day shall follow where they went.

Today the 2nd of November is the feast of All Souls. A time in the Christian Calendar to remember all souls who have departed this life. It follows All Hallows Eve or Halloween on the 31st of October and All Hallows or All Saints Day on 1st of November.

Like other Christian festivals, including Christmas, Easter and Whitsuntide, these three autumn days are a fascinating mixture of pre-Christian, Christian and even post-Christian tradition and mythos. I am fairly certain that the children going door at Halloween are probably not aware that they have created a modern day variant on the pre-Christian festival of Samhain; a festival that not only celebrated harvest, but was also a time to commune with spirits of ancestors. There are similar traditions throughout most culture's, autumnal and winter festivals. Autumn is a time of reflection, a time to take stock before the harsh realities of winter come.

All Souls has grown in meaning for me as the years have passed. This year I have lost my last grandparent and I also lost my first sibling, our Allen, I have also lost several dear friends too. I know I am not alone in my grief, although sometime it can feel this way. Perhaps the most painful loss of my life, thus far, occurred on All Souls Day 2006, when Ethan was killed. He was the soul that first reignited my life when the lights had gone out. He was the spark that rekindled the light in me…whenever I think of the following words by Albert Schweitzer it is his face I see and his soul I feel “ At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lit the flame within us”

Ethan’s beautiful soul helped me discover my own soul and to once again connect to the eternal and universal soul that holds all life.

May Sarton beautifully and I would say perfectly captured the meaning of "All Souls" in the following poem.

All Souls' by May Sarton

Did someone say that there would be an end,
An end, Oh, an end, to love and mourning?
Such voices speak when sleep and waking blend,

The cold bleak voices of the early morning 

When all the birds are dumb in dark November - 

Remember and forget, forget, remember.

After the false night, warm true voices, wake!
Voice of the dead that touches the cold living,
Through the pale, sunlight once more gravely speak,
Tell me again, while the last leaves are falling:
"Dear child, what has been once so interwoven
Cannot be unravelled, nor the gift ungiven"

Now the dead move through all of us still glowing,

Mother and child, lover and lover mated,

Are wound and bound together and enflowing.

What has been plaited cannot be unplaited -

Only the strands grow richer with each loss

And memory makes kings and queens of us.

Dark into light, light into darkness, spin.
When all the birds have flown to some real haven, 

We who find shelter in the warmth within,

Listen, and feel new-cherished, new-forgiven,
As the lost human voices speak through us and blend

Our complex love, our mourning without end

I first came across the poem just a few weeks before the first anniversary of Ethan’s death. A tree was being planted in memory of him at his school and I had been asked to offer some words of prayer. I decided to offer May's poem. It is the lines below that really strike me deep in the core of my being, in the marrow of my soul.

Tell me again, while the last leaves are falling:
"Dear child, what has been once so interwoven
Cannot be raveled, nor the gift ungiven."

Now the dead move through all of us still glowing,
Mother and child, lover and lover mated,
Are wound and bound together and enflowing.
What has been plaited cannot be unplaited -
Only the strands grow richer with each loss
And memory makes kings and queens of us.
Dark into light, light into darkness, spin.
When all the birds have flown to some real haven,
We who find shelter in the warmth within,
Listen, and feel now new-cherished, new-forgiven,
As the lost human voices speak through us and blend
Our complex love, our mourning without end.

Some things cannot be unravelled they are with us forever and nor should they be. The gift of love is priceless and once given is a part of our soul forever. It survives death. It can never be destroyed.

Now what happens to us after our physical lives have ended is impossible to say with certainty. I suppose that has to be a matter of faith. A conclusion for all of us to draw ourselves. One thing I feel safe in claiming though is that it cannot be any stranger than this life. While they say that death is the great mystery in many ways I think that life itself is an even greater one…this is why each day I sing the joy of living in all its mystery.

I have a deep affection for the writing of John O'Donohue. a soul no longer physically with us but who to this day touches so many lives. He caught the spirit of "All Souls" near perfectly in what follows...

"When the soul leaves the body, it is no longer under the burden and control of space and time. The soul is free; distance and separation hinder it no more. The dead are our nearest neighbors; they are all around us. Meister Eckhart was once asked, Where does the soul of a person go when the person dies? He said, no place. Where else would the soul be going? Where else is the eternal world? It can be nowhere other than here. We have falsely spatialized the eternal world. We have driven the eternal out into some kind of distant galaxy. Yet the eternal world does not seem to be a place but rather a different state of being. The soul of the person goes no place because there is no place else to go. This suggests that the dead are here with us, in the air that we are moving through all the time. The only difference between us and the dead is that they are now in an invisible form. You cannot see them with the human eye. But you can sense the presence of those you love who have died. With the refinement of your soul, you can sense them. You feel that they are near."

This speaks deeply to me and brings to mind the following poem “To Music” by Rainer Maria Rilke,

Music: breathing of statues. Perhaps: silence of paintings.
You language where all language ends.
You time standing vertically on the motion of mortal hearts.

Feelings for whom? O you the transformation
of feelings into what? –: into audible landscape.
You stranger: music. You heart-space
grown out of us. The deepest space in us,
which, rising above us, forces its way out,–
holy departure: when the innermost point in us stands
outside, as the most practiced distance, as the other
side of the air: pure, boundless, no longer habitable.

“…as the other side of the air…” Really hits that place deep in the marrow of my soul.

When I think of those we have loved but who are no longer physically with us it seems to me that they have not gone elsewhere but are still bound up with us, their love is tied up in our hearts and souls in a different way and they inhabit that other place at “other side of the air”…but we can know and feel their presence when we remember them, especially when we gather together with others who remember them too. In moments such as these their souls touch our souls once again. “What has been plaited, cannot be unplaited”. We can sometimes feel their presence…The more sensitive souls amongst perhaps more so.

Those we have loved and lost live on in our dreams and memories. Such memories do indeed makes kings and queens of us. Their souls are woven into our souls, they impact on our daily actions and our waking thoughts and feelings. The love that we shared never dies. Yes their death changes our relationship with them, but the love we shared lives on. The love has created a bond that cannot be broken “what has been plaited cannot be un-plaited”. This love is an eternal force that cannot be taken from us. Its influence will continue to impact upon us until our dying day and even beyond as it impacts on the lives that we touch, lives which our loved ones will never have physically known. We are all bound together in a rich tapestry of love. Those who came before us, those whose lives touch us and whose lives we touch and those who live beyond our time and space live on. This love is eternal it never dies.

Today we remember all the souls who have touched our souls and who have shown us the way, who have revealed the love that is God. Let us also think of the lives that have been touched by these souls who they never physically knew.

Let us remember let us offer thanks and praise for those souls who are no longer physically with us but whose love will never leave us. "Love I swear it, is immortal."

"...the ghosts are part of us..."

I'm going to end this little blogspot with another piece from a writer who has inspired me and countless others greatly. A beautiful soul who is no longer Physically with us. It is titled "Meditation on All Souls" by Elizabeth Tarbox

"Who are my people, where are you who birthed me to play in summer's circle? I think I see you out of the corner of my eye, gone before I can look again, working, talking, engaged, and alive.

My ancestors are all about me in the ragged edges of memory, like partially developed film; the details are sketchy now. No princes and ladies among them, but scullery maids and journeymen. I know their faces, but not their voices, not the way their clothes smell, not the soft hands warm and red from a day of washing sheets. did they smile at me? Did they notice the little gifts I bought? I don't remember.

Bits and pieces of my people remain in memory's attic, hardly enough to make a tribe. forebears in small brick cottages with sooty chimneys and outdoor toilets. Women with wrap-around aprons and men with cloth caps. Brown teapots and doilies and unheated bedrooms. My grandmother's slippers, my mother's bone-handled hairbrush. Just memories, without the power to haunt.

So I seek a new tribe, other meanings. the little girl at the shelter shows me a toy, her creased fingers cannot yet turn a key, but there is still strength in her hand as it touches mine. Though she doesn't know my name, she would come with me if I would make her toy work and protect her from a world that has roughed her skin, bruised her heart, and given her only broken toys. She is a needy child; therefore is she not my child?

The old man who hardly knows me says he loves me because I bring him a bowl of food and sit there while he eats it. He is a hungry old man; therefore is he not my father?

At home I listen to a tape of sacred music and I weep in my chair and I cannot say if I weep for the child in the shelter or for the child I used to be. The spirits have no power to haunt , I claim, so why do I weep in nostalgia and regret my forgetfulness?

I look at the faces around a meeting table, across the sanctuary, in the candlelight of a meditation group, and I think, these are my people now, we belong to each other, I pour out my soul in trust to a new tribe. These are my people, who touch my hands, who invite me to come along, who make room for me to sit in the shadow of the candlelight and listen to their songs."

All Souls: Love I swear it, is immortal

      All Souls by May Sarton

Did someone say that there would be an end,

An end, Oh, an end, to love and mourning?

Such voices speak when sleep and waking blend,

The cold bleak voices of the early morning

When all the birds are dumb in dark November -

Remember and forget, forget, remember.

After the false night, warm true voices, wake!

Voice of the dead that touches the cold living,

Through the pale sunlight once more gravely speak,

Tell me again, while the last leaves are falling:

"Dear child, what has been once so interwoven

Cannot be raveled, nor the gift ungiven."

Now the dead move through all of us still glowing,

Mother and child, lover and lover mated,

Are wound and bound together and enflowing.

What has been plaited cannot be unplaited -

Only the strands grow richer with each loss

And memory makes kings and queens of us.

Dark into light, light into darkness, spin.

When all the birds have flown to some real haven,

We who find shelter in the warmth within,

Listen, and feel now new-cherished, new-forgiven,

As the lost human voices speak through us and blend

Our complex love, our mourning without end. 

Tomorrow the 2^nd of November is the feast of All Souls. A time in the Christian Calendar to remember all souls who have departed this life. It follows All Hallows Eve or Halloween  on the 31^st of October and All Hallows or All Saints Day on 1^st of November. This time of year is a time of reflection; a time to remember.

Like other Christian festivals, including Christmas, Easter and Whitsuntide, these three autumn days are a fascinating mixture of pre-Christian, Christian and even post-Christian tradition and mythos.  I am fairly certain that the children going door at Halloween are probably not aware that they have created a modern day variant on the pre-Christian festival of Samhain; a festival that not only celebrated harvest, but was also a time to commune with spirits of ancestors. There are similar traditions throughout most culture's, autumnal and winter festivals. Autumn is a time of reflection, a time to take stock before the harsh realities of winter come.

I will be conducting an All Soul’s service at Dunham Road tomorrow evening. I have invited anyone who wishes to come and join me to remember those souls who have touched their souls but who are no longer physically with them. It will be a time and space to light a candle and to offer a few words. Or if people prefer it will be a time to sit quietly, silently and reverently and to just remember.

All Souls Day speaks powerfully to my own soul. This is because of what happened on November 2^nd 2006. Before this day I am not sure that All Souls held any significance for me. This was the day when I lost a soul dear to me and to the lives of so many others. Ethan the little boy who had taught me about my own soul and who had enabled me to not only find my soul but to connect to the universal soul that I know as God today.

I first came across May Sarton’s poem “All Soul’s” a few weeks before the first anniversary of Ethan’s death. They were planting a tree in memory of him at his school and I had been asked to offer some words of prayer. This was a time before I had begun ministry training, although I was conducting worship. I decided to offer those words above by May Sarton as I felt that they spoke perfectly of the time and place. It is the lines that follow that sink so deep into my soul.

Tell me again, while the last leaves are falling:
"Dear child, what has been once so interwoven
Cannot be raveled, nor the gift ungiven."

Now the dead move through all of us still glowing,
Mother and child, lover and lover mated,
Are wound and bound together and enflowing.
What has been plaited cannot be unplaited -
Only the strands grow richer with each loss
And memory makes kings and queens of us.
Dark into light, light into darkness, spin.
When all the birds have flown to some real haven,
We who find shelter in the warmth within,
Listen, and feel now new-cherished, new-forgiven,
As the lost human voices speak through us and blend
Our complex love, our mourning without end.

Some things cannot be unravelled they are with you forever and nor should they be. The gift of love is priceless and once given is a part of our soul forever. It survives death.

Now please do not get me wrong I am not suggesting that I know what happens to us after we die. While I have a belief in God, born from experience, I remain fairly agnostic when it comes to what happens to us after we die. I have no knowledge, gained from experience, of this. Therefore I do not know. That said I do know that love survives death, as I experience the love of those who have been in my life many years after they have gone.

When I say I am agnostic about the afterlife I am not implying that I am agnostic about God in this present life. I personally feel God’s presence powerfully, most of the time. As I often say “God is just there” Please do not get me wrong when I say I am agnostic about the afterlife I am merely acknowledging  the fact that I know little or nothing of what happens to us after our bodies die. I suspect that we move onto to another state of being and I am fairly certain that it can be no stranger than our current one.

While I do not know where the souls of those who have departed our time and space exist I do know where we can experience them. They can be felt and known every time we talk of and or remember them, especially when we gather together with others who remember them too. In moments such as these their souls touch our souls once again. “What has been plaited, cannot be unplaited”. The more sensitive souls amongst us talk of actually feeling their presence.

Those we have loved and lost live on in our dreams and memories. Such memories do indeed makes kings and queens of us. Their souls are woven into our souls, they impact on our daily actions and our waking thoughts and feelings. The love that we shared never dies. Yes their death changes our relationship with them, but the love we shared lives on. The love has created a bond that cannot be broken “what has been plaited cannot be un-plaited”. This love is an eternal force that cannot be taken from us. Its influence will continue to impact upon us until our dying day and even beyond as it impacts on the lives that we touch, lives which our loved ones will never have physically known. We are all bound together in a rich tapestry of love. Those who came before us, those whose lives touch us and whose lives we touch and those who live beyond our time and space live on. This love is eternal it never dies.

Forrest Church said:

“Whatever happens to us after we die, life doesn’t end in oblivion. It continues in love, our own love, once given, everlasting. After death our bodies may be resurrected. Our Souls may transmigrate or become part of the heavenly pleroma. We may join our loved ones in Heaven. Or we may return the constituent parts of our being to the earth from which it came and rest in eternal peace. About life after death, no-one knows.

But about love after death, we surely know. The one thing that can never be taken from this world, even by death, is the love we have given before we die. Love I swear it, is immortal”

Tomorrow I will remember all the souls who have touched my soul and who have shown to me the way, who have revealed the love that is God to me. I will also think of the lives that have been touched by these souls who they never physically knew. I will not be doing so alone. I will be sharing this time and space with others who will be remembering and offering thanks and praise for those souls who are no longer physically with them but whose love will never leave them. "Love I swear it, is immortal."