Welcome to the House of Belonging

“Roots hold me close, wings set me free”. “Spirit of Life” by Carolyn McDade is a much loved hymn, I certainly love it. I wonder how many times I have sung it out and loud and proud in my life. I love that we sing of roots holding us close before wings that set us free. This makes sense because before you can fly free, express your full humanity, you must first feel that you belong, you need strong roots before you can be set free. This brings to my heart my understanding of our flaming chalice, the symbol of our free religious faith, rooted in belonging, in history, in tradition, but not held back by any of this. It is this sense of belonging though that enables us to fly free, to express our souls, to who knows where. Before we can know freedom, we must first feel secure where we are, that we belong. We can then begin to express who we truly are, without fear of rejection. Belonging must come before freedom. We need roots that will hold us close, love us unconditionally, before we can even attempt to fly free.

I remember when I was a young man I thought that freedom and the attainment of it were the things of the highest value in life; that liberation meant escaping the shackles that hold us back and stop us being all that we were meant to be. That I needed to escape where I had come from, the drudgery of my life. I sang songs about freedom as I left behind all that I saw as unimportant. When I look back now what I see is a man who was a slave to freedom.

Over the last few years I have learnt about belonging; and I have learnt that belonging is really about love; I have learnt something about what love actually is. I am not talking about romance here. No, I am talking about that unseen force that connects all life and that enables us to form deep and meaningful relationships with ourselves, with each other and with all life. I name this God, others may use different words. To me this is the essence of belonging, to live in and through love. To love who you are, the life that you have and the tasks that this life asks you to fulfil.

It is this love that allows me to belong, that enables me to connect with all that exists now, all that has been in the time before now and all that will be in the future. It is love that has become the roots that hold me close so that I can stretch out the wings that will set me free and allow me to glide in the wind. To know love is to know that you belong and it is this that is perhaps the ultimate freedom. Before you can be truly free, to express all that you were born to be, you must first believe that you belong; belong as you are, exactly as you are in this time and place. It is the roots of belonging that give us the freedom to stretch out our wings and fly in the wind, free. This is the highest form of love to me.

A sense of belonging is a deeply precious thing. It is belonging that helps us become who we are meant to be. It is a sense of being rooted and being held and loved by these roots that allows us to spread our wings and fly free; it is a sense of being rooted that enables us to not fear the wind, but to embrace it and to let ourselves go. When you feel that you do not belong you cannot thrive, you shrivel up and perhaps die.

Now of course we do not need to belong in exactly the same way; our roots need not, in fact should not, be identical in order for us to belong. Each root has to find its own way into the soil. To truly belong is to be welcomed exactly as you are warts and all and beauty spots too. Not every tree in the forest is rooted in an identical way, it is the same for folk in community. We do not have to try to be like those here, in order to truly belong, in fact we don’t want you to comply in order to belong here.

I am going to share with a favourite by a favourite. “The House of Belonging” by David Whyte

“The House of Belonging” by David Whyte

I awoke this morning in the gold light turning this way and that thinking for a moment it was one day like any other. But the veil had gone from my darkened heart and I thought it must have been the quiet candlelight that filled my room, it must have been the first easy rhythm with which I breathed myself to sleep, it must have been the prayer I said speaking to the otherness of the night. And I thought this is the good day you could meet your love, this is the black day someone close to you could die. This is the day you realize how easily the thread is broken between this world and the next and I found myself sitting up in the quiet pathway of light, the tawny close grained cedar burning round me like fire and all the angels of this housely heaven ascending through the first roof of light the sun has made. This is the bright home in which I live, this is where I ask my friends to come, this is where I want to love all the things it has taken me so long to learn to love. This is the temple of my adult aloneness and I belong to that aloneness as I belong to my life. There is no house like the house of belonging.

A new life has recently come into my house of belonging, Molly the Havanese puppy. She has had no trouble finding a sense of belonging here. She has easily settled in. Everyone who meets her says how at ease she is with strangers, both human and dog like. She has a comfortable sense of herself. She feels a part of the community around the chapel and in the town too. Now fortunately she has had no bad experiences as of yet, thank God. She has never been hurt or rejected. I suspect that this isn’t the case with anyone else either within the chapel community or the wider community. I suspect that she thinks that the buildings and gardens are all a part of her house of belonging and all the people here a part of her family. Whenever we leave the house she goes looking for her family, she is so excited about who she will meet, particularly the familiar. She knows that she belongs here and thus feels free to express herself, if only it was so easy for we folk. It is not so easy for we to be ourselves, unlike Molly who is totally at ease were herself. I have never known a dog so in love with their own reflection. She stops at shop windows to admire herself and when she approaches my bedroom mirror she happily touches her nose against her own reflection, as she would when meeting another dog in the street. Molly is happily herself.

To belong you need to be yourself, while paradoxically in order to be yourself you must first of all feel that you belong. When you feel that you belong you will no longer feel the need to fit into, because you will be at ease with yourself.

Brene Brown has said

“Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.”

I like Brene Brown, I particularly like what she has to say about the difference between “Belonging” and “Fitting in” that they are not the same thing although they are often mistaken for one another.

Brene Brown explains that “Fitting in” is really about assessing situations and becoming the person that you believe you need to be in order to be accepted and acceptable. Whereas “Belonging” does not require us to change who we are, but to be who we really are.

Belonging is an innate desire to be a part of something larger than ourselves. This is a primal yearning, deep within the soul of us and thus we often try to acquire it by fitting in and seeking approval from others. Now not only does this not satisfy this yearning it actually becomes a barrier to it. In so doing we lose our identity and feel even more lost and lonely. True belonging you see only happens when we present our true, authentic, imperfect selves to the world, “warts and all” and beauty spots too. Unless we are at home within ourselves we will never feel that we belong anywhere. This is why Molly is such a good teacher to me, she feels that she belongs as she is, exactly as she is.

John O’Donohue’s in his wonderful book “Anam Cara”, relates belonging to longing and yearning. He suggests that we need to find a balance in belonging and that often our problems stem from not being truly at home with ourselves; that we should be our own longing; that the key is to be-long within ourselves. If we belong within ourselves then we will feel at ease and belong wherever we are. Therefore the sense of who we are, our identity will not be ruled by the need to fit in, to belong, externally.

The problem of trying to fit in and not belonging stems from a sense of being different, something I know I’ve experienced at times. This can be a real barrier. Now of course sometimes these barriers are put up by those who would exclude certain types of people for being different. We have seen horrific examples of this throughout human history. People exclude for racial, political, religious, gender and sexual identity. There still are barriers that exist, although thankfully many have come down.

That said it can still be difficult to join a group where you feel that you are different from the others.

Most people find it difficult to join something, to belong to something when they feel different to those already present. It’s the same with any group or community, including church and chapel communities. It is hard to walk into anything you have never been to before. I know it took me some time to pluck up the courage and explore religions community all those years ago

We say here that all are welcome, to come as you are regardless of who you are, where ever you have been and where ever you are going. You are welcome as you are exactly as you are in this moment. That said people are still reluctant to walk through the door and when they do they often find it hard to belong here, even amongst us. The reasons for this are many and varied and how we resolve it is not easy either. I think that the key is to be as open and welcoming as we can be. They key is to cultivate a true sense of belonging, which begins within ourselves. For if we belong we will not need to try to fit in and hopefully the stranger will more easily feel like the neighbour. As Philip L Bermoan wrote in “The Journey Home”

“Truly spiritual people are in the habit of cultivating the nearly forgotten art of basic hospitality, perhaps because they realize that when we are able to make others feel comfortable, the pleasures of belonging are close at hand.”

They key is to cultivate the pleasure of belonging.

The key is to bless one another with our presence and they will feel that they belong amongst we people who belong here as they are exactly as they are in this moment. For as Rachel Naomi Remen wrote in "My Grandfather's Blessings"

"A blessing is not something that one person gives another. A blessing is a moment of meeting, a certain kind of relationship in which both people involved remember and acknowledge their true nature and worth, and strengthen what is whole in one another. By making a place for wholeness within our relationships, we offer others the opportunity to be whole without shame and become a place of refuge from everything in them that are not genuine. We enable people to remember who they are."

A sense of belonging is a deeply precious thing. It is belonging that helps us become who we are meant to be; it is sense of belonging that give us deep roots that will enable us to fly free; It is a sense of belonging that enables us to be ourselves, in whatever company we find ourselves without feeling the need to fit in; it is a sense of belonging that allows us to become good neighbours and to bless the whole world with our welcome.

Here I hope you find a place where you belong. Here I hope you find a house of belonging.

I’m going to end with a blessing by John O’Donohue “For Belonging”

“For Belonging” by John O'Donohue

May you listen to your longing to be free.

May the frames of your belonging be generous enough
for your dreams.

May you arise each day with a voice of blessing
whispering in your heart.

May you find a harmony between your soul and

your life.

May the sanctuary of your soul never become haunted.

May you know the eternal longing that lives at the heart of time.

May there be kindness in your gaze when you look within.

May you never place walls between the light and yourself.

May you allow the wild beauty of the invisible world

to gather you, mind you, and embrace you in

belonging.

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

If We Could Meet Soul To Soul

 

“Soul Lifts” by Tess Baumberger

Wouldn't it be great if you could take a picture of your soul?
Then when your mother wanted to brag about you
she could show people the picture and say,
"That's my daughter, doesn't she have a beautiful soul,
all sparkly and many-colored and flowing all around her?"

Wouldn't it be great if we walked around
surrounded by our souls,
so that they were the first things people saw
instead of the last things?
Then people would judge us by who we really are
instead of how we look.
Imagine no more racism, ageism, sexism, fatism, shortism, homophobia.
Imagine falling in love with who a person is,
just by looking at them.

It would be a kind of cloaking device,
hiding physical faults defects or even perfections.
I'd want it to be mandatory.
Then people would work at making their souls more attractive
instead of their bodies and faces.

Imagine people knowing by your soul that you really need a hug.
Imagine people helping each other and their souls changing colors
or growing.

Imagine soul gyms
with exercises to get your sagging soul in shape.
Imagine the long lines forming for soul-lifts
at churches, temples, mosques, synagogues
or nature's grand cathedrals.

Well would it be great if we walked around surrounded by our souls, if they were the first things we saw?

Last Tuesday evening. During “Living the Questions” we explored three of Delphic Maxim’s inscribed on the Temple of Apollo, these were “Know Thyself”, “Nothing in Excess” and “Surety Brings Ruin”. As always it was great conversation, it ran deep. During the conversation around “Know Thyself” it delved into how we may know the essence of ourselves and others, not so much our surface selves but our souls. Is this ever really possible? Can we truly see each others souls?

Well, I believe that we can; I have discovered that you truly know some people and that they can know you. It is not common, but it does happen. What fascinates me is that you can know some people in a short space of time. Whilst you can know some people all of your life, or at least for many decades and not really know them at all, the soul of them at least. There are some people that you resonate with almost immediately, kindred spirts, and others far less so. I can count on one hand the people who I can say I truly connected with on a deep soul level, true kindred spirits, soul friends, what the ancient celts named Anam Cara. A couple I only knew for a few years, a couple for many years and recently someone I have known just a few months. That said they do feel like a soul friend. Such people awaken you deeply as you do them.

All of these people come into my life at times of deep soulfull change and lit up my life up in weirdly wonderful ways.

Brings to mind the following quote by Albert Schweitzer:

"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 lighted the flame within us."

We can meet many people throughout our lives who see our souls and who’s souls we see, who understand us fully and who we understand, people who know us and who we know. They help bring about transformation and transfiguration as we do to them. I do give thanks, and with deep gratitude, for those who have lit the flame within me, as I have in them, kindred spirits, soul friends.

As I have already said the ancient Celts named such friends “Anam Cara”, which means “Soul Friend”. An Anam Cara is a teacher, companion or spiritual guide. They are someone who you can share your inner most self with and thus unearth some of those hidden gems that we rarely let out in life and let shine. As you break through the usual human barriers to a deeper soul level, there is a deep sense of belonging and recognition involved in the relationship, both in the present moment but also the eternal. Such relationships have the capacity to transform and take us to deeper experiences of who we are and what life can be.

An Anam Cara is a loved one who awakens your life in order to free you to the undreamed of possibilities deep within you. I am blessed to have known some of these souls in my journey through life. Some have been with me a long time, one for just a short time, some lived for many seasons, one for but a few. Some were old and wise and some were oh so young, their light shone for only a short time. Most are no longer physically with me, they are “as the other side of the air”, but their soul is still alive in my soul, I know this to be true. A couple are still physically here. Such soul friends are a really blessing.

I call these people “Soul Friends”, but what do I mean when I speak of soul, you may well ask? A good question indeed. Like when people speak of the Divine or God often they not mean exactly the same thing. I suspect that the same can be said of soul. I supect that folk understand soul in many and varied ways.

I would call the soul the essence of a person, that which animates our being, that which enables us to be touched and to touch the world in deep and profound ways. Parker J Palmer in “Hidden Wholeness” describes it this way.

"The soul is generous: it takes in the needs of the world. The soul is wise: it suffers without shutting down. The soul is hopeful: it engages the world in ways that keep opening our hearts. The soul is creative: it finds a path between realities that might defeat us and fantasies that are mere escapes. All we need to do is to bring down the wall that separates us from our own souls and deprives the world of the soul's regenerative powers."

Without soul I would say that really we aren’t anything but material that moves. Soul is an important word to me, it is how I know the world and the world knows me, but I find it impossible to fully define. We try of course we do, but we never quite reach what we truly mean. It is a mystery. Again as Palmer has pointed out “ Secular humanists call it "identity and integrity." Hasidic Jews call it "the spark of the divine in every being." Thomas Merton called it "true self." Quakers call it "the inner light." Buddhists call it "Big Self" and "No-Self." If there’s a universal word for it, perhaps it’s the “being” in “human being.”

What we name this essence does not matter, at least not to me, but it is vital that we recognise it in one another. That we recognise that we all have this essence within us, for if we do not then we will fail to recognise our sacredness and that of one another. If this be the case then anything goes. We treat others as commodities to be used and abused, for thus nothing matters. It is vital that we recognise ours and others sacred beings.

Soul is vital to me. That I recognise it in myself and in others. I have come to believe that more than anything else it is soul that animates my whole human being. This though is just my view, what about the great traditions.

Classic Christian theology sees the soul not only as eternal and immortal; it also sees it, following the teachings of the Greek Philosopher Plato, as unchanging and separate from the body.

This is distinct from the Jewish understanding, if there really is one. What they would refer to as soul is really spirit or life breath of God bestowed on creation. There certainly in no concept of a separate soul in Judaism.

These words from Genesis 2 vv 7 certainly suggest this.

“The LORD God formed the man [e] from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”

It is spirit that is really being talked about here, ruah, which literally means wind. It is this that creates all life, including human beings. It is important to realise here that this is not unique to humans; it is stating that all creation is formed from spirit.

In Hinduism the soul, Atman, is understood to live many lives. The purpose of these lives is to unite the soul with the one God, the Brahman, this is known as the Brahman Atman synthesis.

It is generally thought that Buddhism rejects the concept of the eternal soul.

During his long night of meditation under the Bo Tree, the Buddha found no evidence for the basic Hindu doctrines that he was taught. Through his ESP vision the Buddha looked high and low for the Hindu Godhead Brahman and the eternal and unchanging soul that was our share of the Brahman. What the Buddha discovered has been confirmed by contemporary physics: no thing, not even an atom, endures; all things come into being and then go out of being; all things flow like a river.

Many later Buddhists assumed that because Buddha did not find the Hindu immortal soul that he did not believe in a soul or even a self. But this is correct only if you define the soul as eternal, immortal, and unchanging. While the Buddha rejected this idea, he still believed that every human and animal still were "living beings", much like the Jewish concept found in Genesis.

For myself I see no distinction between soul and spirit. I am yet to find an adequate explanation for this essence, which comes into being, and yet is so much more than mere material existence, whatever name we give it. Nor do I agree with the pure materialist who reject any concept of soul or spirit.

I do not believe soul is restricted to humans either. I say this because I have known and know deep connects with both animals and nature at times. I know that little Charlie knows me, deep in my soul. There is soul, there is spirit in everything. Everything matters.

Mary Oliver beautifully extends the soul beyond human confines in the question she asks in the following poem.

“Some Questions You Might Ask” by Mary Oliver

Is the soul solid, like iron?
Or is it tender and breakable, like the wings of a moth in the beak of an owl?
Who has it, and who doesn't?
I keep looking around me.
The face of the moose is as sad as the face of Jesus.
The swan opens her white wings slowly.
In the fall, the black bear carries leaves into the darkness.
One question leads to another.
Does it have a shape? Like an iceberg?
Like the eye of a hummingbird?
Does it have one lung, like the snake and the scallop?
Why should I have it, and not the anteater who loves her children?
Why should I have it, and not the camel?
Come to think of it, what about maple trees?
What about the blue iris?
What about all the little stones, sitting alone in the moonlight?
What about roses, and lemons, and their shining leaves?
What about the grass?

Here's a little more Mary Oliver, soul was clearly important to her, it is from “Red Bird” and is titled “What is the Greatest Gift”

“What is the greatest Gift” by Mary Oliver

What is the greatest gift?
Could it be the world itself — the oceans, the meadowlark,
the patience of the trees in the wind?
Could it be love, with its sweet clamor of passion?

Something else — something else entirely
holds me in thrall.
That you have a life that I wonder about
more than I wonder about my own.
That you have a life — courteous, intelligent —
that I wonder about more than I wonder about my own.
That you have a soul — your own, no one else's —
that I wonder about more than I wonder about my own.
So that I find my soul clapping its hands for yours
more than my own.

This is what fascinates me, this is what animates my soul, to truly know the soul of another and that they know mine, what animates, what brings a person to life, what allows you to connect with their true being, in their human being. This is what I live for. I’m with Mary I wonder about your soul, your essence more than I do my own. My soul claps its hand for yours, or in my case it probably sings for yours.

I am very blessed to have known a hand full of people in my life, that I can call soul friends. I am also blessed to have known others in deep and wonderful ways. I am blessed by the people I have known and who have known me. They have touched me so deeply. They have become good friends, sometimes soul friends.

I’ve been thinking about this these last few weeks, as I have connected once again in a soulful sense, someone who on the surface I am not that alike and yet soulfully it is like looking in a mirror; looking in mirror in the sense that Baumberg described earlier, if you could see a person’s soul on the surface. No doubt it will happen again and again and again, perhaps more frequently, I hope so. I commend you to do the same, to meet one another, to truly know one another, soul to soul.

Something I’d like you to do, a little homework. Think about those people who you have connected with in a deep way, even if it was just for a very short time. Think about the people that have awakened something deep within you, or who you have awakened deep within them. Think of those who have helped you know that love that is Divine, God’s love. If it wasn’t a person, perhaps a place, or an animal, or nature itself, something or someone that awakened your soul, that helped you to know yourself. When you have done so, sing a song of praise.

There are encounters that can shape us and change us forever. Some are for a reason, some for a season and some for a lifetime. We cannot know this when first begin communicating with someone, although sometimes instinctively we do. Such encounters can lead to unknown transformations, for they reveal the love that is Divine. Let us stay open to them. You never know the next person you meet may become the “Good Friend”, “A Soul Friend”, an “Anam Cara” someone who transforms your life and you theirs. An encounter soul to soul that brings about transfiguration.

Below is a video devotion based 

on the material in this "blogspot"

Authentic Belonging

At the recent minister’s conference, that I attended, we were asked to take part in an exercise that invited us to explore belonging; to ask ourselves where in the world we belong? We were asked to consider where we would like to be buried or our ashes to be scattered after we died. It seems that some of my colleagues had no trouble with this question at all, while others really struggled. I was one of the ones who struggled. I initially objected internally as I thought to myself I am too young to think about such things. I soon got over myself and then began to struggle with what I would want to happen to my remains, as I felt belonged to more than one place and or one group of people. It was interesting to listen to what others shared, where and with whom they belonged. I felt relieved when I heard one or two others wanted to separate their ashes. This was because I knew that I would have to do the same. I decided that I would initially split mine in half and that one of those halves would be split in half again. I decided that one quarter would be with my dad and grandparents, in the cemetery at Bruntcliffe, Morley and the other quarter with my mum’s family grave in Batley, where both of my maternal grandparents are. I then left the second half open as I hope I have another half of life yet to live and who knows to where and with who I will belong by then. That second half of my “dash” of loving and belonging is yet to be lived.

It was a really good exercise to participate in as it made me think about who exactly I belong to; what it is that makes me who I am. No one lives completely by themselves we all belong to other people in so many ways. Yes we belong to ourselves, but we also belong to one another.

The other morning, in my meditation group, I was listening to a Jewish friend whose daughter is about to get married. It is going to be a huge wedding and the whole family are travelling to Israel for four days of celebration. My friend had recently travelled back to Leeds, where he grew up, with his other daughter. They visited the cemetery where his parents and sister are buried. They were keeping with the traditions of their religion and inviting the spirit of their dead relatives to accompany them to the wedding. It was a deeply emotional thing for my friend to do as I know that the death of his sister, at such a young age, had affective him deeply. He told me that he left a stone at the grave, which again is part of the tradition and noticed that other relatives must have been there in recent times as there were many stones at the grave. I can see clearly how important this ritual was for him as he moves forward and his family move forward. Ritual is so important in life, something that is diminishing in recent times. I see more and more how vital it is to my life and the lives of others as we move through the many transitions of our lives.

I’ve been thinking a lot about belonging in recent times. The people who have made me who I am, that have influenced my life and the people whose lives I have touched too. I have entered into someone else’s life and family in recent months as my relationship with Sue has blossomed and flowered. I recently spent a day with her siblings and members of her family. I didn’t find this too much of a challenge actually. They have been very welcoming. I suspect that the reason I have been at ease is because I do belong in my own being. I can be myself in the company of others; I don’t need to try to fit into the lives of others and fall for the trap of false belonging.

Now belonging is not always easy for some of us, perhaps all of us at times. During another conversation I had with a friend I was recently reminded of the loneliest time of my life, when I felt I did not belong anywhere. In those days I tried hard to fit it, but this was not authentic and just left me with this sense of utter loneliness. Thankfully these days I feel a sense of authentic belonging to myself, to life, to the spirit of all life and thus feel I can belong pretty much anywhere. I can be myself in the company of most people.

Sadly many people, for a variety reason do not feel like they belong. Now of course some of this can be an inner sense of rejection, but not wholly, some people do feel that they cannot be themselves fully and thus do not always belong. Sadly some people and places do not always welcome all, do not always invite all to come as they are...

How do we help a person to belong? Well it begins with welcome, to say come as you are, exactly as you are. This though is not always easy. Identity and how people identify themselves can be complicated. This has become particularly apparent around gender in recent times. I know I have got it wrong on occassion myself , I have hopefully not hurt or offended anyone in my clumsiness. I am trying, but there is room for improvement in this area.

I do not want to exclude anyone from my circle of love and want everyone to feel that are accepted in my company, that they belong. Certainly as a minister I want people to feel that they can truly be who they are in the communities I serve. I truly want all to feel that they can come as they are and that no aspect of their humanity will be rejected. I do not want anyone to feel that need to fit into some ideal, and that in order to belong they have to do so falsely. Whether that be age, gender identity, sexuality, politics and belief or lack of.

To belong means that you are accepted for who you are wholly, not partially; whereas fitting in means that you have to change who you are in some way in order to be accepted. Belonging is really about being loved without condition. This is the love that Jesus speaks of in the Gospels. This is the perfect love that is spoken of in Matthew’s Gospel, from “The Sermon on the Mount”. “Therefore be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect.” I actually think that this is the only thing that we can do perfectly. I am striving for this every day. Perfect love is about welcoming one another exactly as we are, warts and all and beauty spots too.

A sense of belonging is a deeply precious thing. It is belonging that helps us become who we are meant to be. It is a sense of belonging that helps us to truly be who we are. By being who we are we encourage others to truly be who they are and thus belong authentically. It is so easy to fall for the trap of false belonging and to try and fit it.

The late John O’Donohue in his wonderful book “Anam Cara”, hits the nail squarely on the head with regard to our struggles to be who we are and to find a real sense of belonging. I love the way that he relates belonging to longing and yearning. He suggests that we need to find a balance in belonging and that often our problems stem from not being truly at home with ourselves. That we should be our own longing. That the key is to be-long within ourselves. If we belong within ourselves then we will feel at ease and belong wherever we are. Therefore the sense of who we are, our identity, will not be ruled by the need to fit in, to belong, externally.

A little while ago a friend of mine posted the following quote by Brene Brown, it was during an on-line conversation on identity and belonging:

“Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.”

I’ve listened to quite a bit of Brene Brown over the last few years and I have to say she speaks to the soul of me. I love what she has to say about the difference between “Belonging” and “Fitting in”, that they are not the same thing, although they are often mistaken for one another.

Brene Brown explains that “Fitting in” is really about assessing situations and becoming the person that you believe you need to be in order to be accepted and acceptable. Whereas “Belonging” does not require us to change who we are, but to be who we really are.

Belonging is an innate desire to be a part of something larger than ourselves. This is a primal yearning, deep within the soul of us and thus we often try to acquire it by fitting in and seeking approval from others. Now not only does this not satisfy this yearning it actually becomes a barrier to it. In so doing we lose our identity and feel even more lost and lonely. True belonging you see only happens when we present our true, authentic, imperfect selves to the world, “warts and all” and beauty spots too. Unless we are at home within ourselves we will never feel that we belong anywhere.

I believe that the primary purpose of my free religious tradition, of the communities I serve, is to create an environment where people can find their true belonging. My role as a minister is to create an environment where individuals can truly become who they are and to share that with each other. Yes it is true that each individual is unique but each can only truly become who they are in community with others. No one belongs wholly to themselves. No one is an island. From the day we are born we are part of families and communities. Now of course these can be oppressive and inhibiting or they can be liberating and life enhancing and can give us the environment to truly become who we are, all that we were born to be, without apology. Where we can practice perfect love for ourselves, one another, for God and all life. This is "Beloved Community", a space where you can become all that you are, in community with others.

By coming as we are and being all that we are, without apology we belong authentically, not falsely. Therefore, I have come to believe, our task is to find the courage to come as we are, exactly as we are, warts and all and beauty spots too and to let our light shine on one another and thus invite them to do the same.

Inspiration: Breath it in breath it out

In a recent “Living the Questions” we explored the subject of “Legacy: What will we leave behind”. As is always the case it was a deeply rich and moving conversation. One area that we looked at was the people who have touched our lives, have inspired us and left their legacy upon us as individuals. Not so much famous and celebrated people but ordinary and seemingly nameless ones who have touched are lives and continue to touch our lives long after they have gone. People who were living breathing sources of inspiration who were incarnations of love, the word made flesh through the way that they lived. The people who have inspired us. The people who awakened something within us. Who planted seeds in our hearts and souls or who nurtured those seeds and helped them grow.

Who are the people who have inspired you? Who planted the seeds of love or who nurtured those seeds and enabled them to grow and flower. Who have been the inspirations in your lives?

Maybe your inspiration hasn’t come from living breathing flesh or perhaps not exclusively so. Maybe your inspiration has come from the arts, or from literature or perhaps even nature. Perhaps it has been through seeing life in certain ways you have been inspired to do something you previously could not. The photographer William Guion describes such an inspirational experience in the extract that follows from “Leaning Oak and Reflection New Orleans”

"On a hazy, chilly December morning, I walked, camera and tripod balanced on my shoulder, through a stand of oaks toward he edge of a pond. The water was silver-gray and still like a mirror hung in an empty, unlit hall. A thin mist fell, or more accurately, hung in the air. Rain had soaked the landscape during the night, and mud at the water’s edge sucked at my shoes. In the yawning light, I saw an oak leaning at a precarious angle over the water. The soil had eroded over time, dissolving much of the tree’s foundation, yet the oak’s roots were locked tenaciously into the receding land. Against the threat of drowning, this tree survived through an elegant dance of balance, perseverance, and heroism. Almost in praise, the pond mirrored the oak’s profile creating a beautiful mandala-like wheel with spokes of water, leaves, earth and light.

As I set up and focused the tree on my camera’s ground glass, I thought how often in my own life I have lived just on the edge of heroic acts. How I’ve operated within safe, comfortable boundaries that defined the limits of what I could accomplish. At this time in my life, I was considering leaving a comfortable, secure job to follow my heart’s urging to photograph and write. I stood on the edge of an uncertain future, mud sucking at my shoes, and stared out through the mists across silver-gray water at this leaning oak. Through its example, I saw clearly through the mists of doubt separating me from a decision. I stood for a long moment and imagined the worst that could happen if I stretched too far over the edge of my fears. Then, in that second when I snapped the shutter recording this moment on film, I stepped across an imaginary line in my mind. In the pond’s dark mirrored water I saw a face. It smiled back at me."

Public figures are of course inspirations to many. A couple of been in the news recently. One being Jessica Ennis the recently retired Heptathlete and Olympian and another Bob Dylan who was this year awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, who has inspired many through his music, particularly his lyrics. The likes of Sir  David Attenborough or Professor Brian Cox are other examples in the way that they bring a sense of awe and wonder about the natural world and universe. People like Nelson Mandella or Mala Yousafsi, the Afgani girl who was shot by the Taliban for wanting an education are other inspirational figures to many too. 

For still others inspiration comes from the great stories and parables, that reveal truths that are often hidden away deep in our hearts. Jesus and the Buddha are great examples of this. In Luke ch 13 vv 18-19 Jesus was asked:

What is the Kingdom of God like?
And to what shall I compare it?
It is like a mustard seed that someone
took and sowed in the garden;
it grew and became a tree,
and the birds of the air made nests
in its branches.

Parables like these reveal Jesus’ ability to dispel wisdom through his teaching. This parable in particular, I believe, is about connecting to that divine aspect within all of us and bringing it to life, thus creating the "Kingdom" within our own lives and within our own communities, for others to share in and enjoy. In so doing we become an inspiration to others to do the same.

Thomas Keating in "Meditations on the Parables of Jesus"expands on this.

"When rightly understood, the parables help us to see how extraordinary a wisdom teacher Jesus really was, and how revolutionary, in the best sense of the word, was the content of what he taught and to which he bore witness by his life and death.

"These insights cohere particularly well with the actual experience of people on the spiritual journey. When contemplative prayer is seriously embraced, we come upon [a] lived reality … the reversal of expectations, the gradual and often painful liberation from emotional programs for happiness, and the increasing discovery of the kingdom of God in the ordinary and everyday."

But how do we bring this seed of inspiration to life in our lives and how can it be nurtured so as to flower and be shared with others? Well I think one way is to recognise it first and foremost, not only in the lives of others but in our own lives too.

Chade-Meng Tan writes on the subject of “Deeds” in “Joy on Demand”

“Whenever you make a donation of time or labor, or do something out of altruistic intention, take a moment to think, "I am doing this out of altruistic intention. Having this intention makes me so happy."

Whenever you meet or bring to mind an admirable, inspiring person, take a moment to think, "There exists this wonderful person in this world. I'm so happy."

Whenever you see somebody performing an altruistic or heroic act, take a moment to think, "More good is being done in this world. I'm so happy."

It is so vital to recognise these moments of inspiration in others and within ourselves if we are to create the Kingdom of God, the Kin-dom of love in our lives. It matters because I believe everything matters, every thought, every word, every deed and every feeling. Everything matters because everything impacts and effects everything else. We impact on the lives of everyone and everything all the time. We are inspirations to one another, even if we are not aware of it. We need to recognise this, we need to be aware of how important we are and how we impact on life.

We are all inspirations to one another.

But what does it mean to be an inspiration? You may well ask. Well the word inspiration is an interesting one, as so many are. We have reduced its meaning in power. It’s another one of those words that we have attempted to tame. Today it means someone or something that gives you an idea for doing something, but originally it meant “immediate influence of God or a gods”. It comes from the old French word “inspiriacion” meaning “inhaling in or breathing in from the Latin “inspirare” meaning to blow into or breath upon so as to excite or inflame. This is the meaning in the following verse from Genesis Chapter 2 “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” It really meant to infuse or animate to affect to rouse to guide to put life into the human soul. As you can see it meant something much more profoundly powerful in the past that it does today.

That said I believe that we can and indeed do inspire in this way and in so doing we can bring the kin-dom to life in our own hearts and lives. We can ignite that divine spark, we do.

I believe that this is what Albert Schweitzer meant when he said:

“Sometimes our light goes out but is blown again into flame by an encounter with another human being. Each of us owes the deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this inner light.”

Those who rekindle the light are the inspirers here amongst us.

How do we do this though? How do we bring this spirit alive within ourselves and how do we recognise it in others?

It is ok saying we need to recognise it, but it isn’t always easy to awaken to this. This is where spiritual discipline plays such a vital role. I remember that ordinary man from Oldham, who was one of my inspirations, who helped rekindle the flame in me. One thing he always taught me was “first things first” that if I was spiritually well the rest will follow and the key to that is spiritual discipline. My life is testimony to this. The problem of course though is that seeing evidence of its importance isn’t always obvious. 

Prayer and meditation do not bring obvious results and yet experience has taught me that they are as vital as breathing air and eating food and drinking water. This brings to mind a tale from Margaret Silf’s “One hundred more wisdom stories” from the famous author “unknown”

A disciple once asked his master, “What can I do to attain God?”

The master answered by asking the disciple another question: “What can you do to make the sun rise?”

The disciple retorted indignantly, “Nothing at all. So why are you giving us all these methods of prayer?”

And the master replied, “To make sure you’re awake when the sun rises.”

The key, I have come to believe, is to be awake to the inspiration within me and all around me. To let that spirit come alive. To let it breath onto all life and to breath in all the inspiration present in all animated life.

The key is to breath in the inspiration and to be the inspiration to bring that seed to life and then breath it out on the world all around me. To shine as you are meant to shine and to not be afraid to be all that you are meant to be.

And how do we do this? Well by simply living the life we love, By simply doing so we inspire those we meet to do the same and all life benefits and in so doing we might just bring the kin-dom alive, right here right now. Actually there is no might about it we do bring the kin-dom of love alive within us and in so doing we shine a little bit of light on all those we share our lives with.

I’m going to end this chip of a "blogspot" with a little bit of wisdom from one of my inspirations John O’Donohue. Taken from “Anam Cara”

“Live the life you love”

"If you allow yourself to be the person that you are, then everything will come into rhythm. If you live the life you love, you will receive shelter and blessings. Sometimes the great famine of blessing in and around us derives from the fact that we are not living the life we love, rather we are living the life that is expected of us. We have fallen out of rhythm with the secret signature and light of our own nature."

Face to Face

Extract from “Your Many Faces” by Virginia Satir

Life for me is like an ocean, with waves sometimes high, sometimes low, sometimes smooth, sometimes rough; so sometimes I’m high, sometimes I’m smooth, sometimes I’m low and sometimes I’m troubled. To carry the ocean analogy a little further, the current is life and the waves are essential for the movement of the ocean and for all the life that it holds inside. Waves are a natural response to all of the forces in the universe.

I am the same way, my faces are natural consequences of my being a human being, living and growing, and I need to know that storms as well as the beautiful sunshine are part of life. So I take pride in my stormy face, my sunshiney face, and I accept them as natural for the context. I don’t have to put on a happy face when I feel stormy. I can put on a face that belongs with that. And I don’t have to put on a face of doubt when I feel sunshiney inside.

...The face truly is a fascinating place...

As I mentioned in a previous blog I'm on a bit of a health kick at them moment. Going for long daily walks has become one of the many lifestyle changes I have put into place. I got a little ambitious the other day and decided to walk from my home in Altrincham to Lymm and back, following the Trans-Pennine way. It was quite an epic walk to be fair, I believe it took about three and a half hours in total. On the journey I took great delight in watching people as they approached and the many different facial expressions they pulled. I empathised with some, especially the joggers who looked somewhat pained as they ran towards me. No doubt towards the end of my walk I was pulling a similar face. In fact just as I was reaching the end of my journey a friend passed me going in the opposite direction on her bicycle - I hadn’t noticed her coming towards me as I was now focused on getting home, face forward – as she passed she commented “all this walking isn’t good for your health” I then recognised her and blurted out a “hello”, followed by a nod and chuckle of recognition.

There was also another moment a little earlier in the walk when what looked like a wolf’s head suddenly appeared by the side of me. It was one of those dogs that look just like a wolf, it was a moment of fright that took me by surprise and brought images of “An American Werewolf in London” to my mind and the two American tourists David and Jack being savaged as they walked the moors. A little over dramatic I know, but it’s what flashed through me as my fright instinct kicked in. The owner who was running with the dog just called “Don’t worry he’s ok, you just remind him of someone”. It appeared as if the dog just wanted to get a good look at me, face to face. As they ran on I thought to myself I wonder who I remind him of; I wonder what he recognised in me, that he has seen in someone else. 

As I was walking the following story played over in my mind;

There is a story told of a rabbi in ancient times who gathered his students together very early one morning, while it was still dark. He put this question to them: "How can you tell when night has ended and the day has begun?"

One student made a suggestion: "Could it be when you can see an animal and you can tell whether it is a sheep or a goat?"

"No, that's not it," answered the rabbi.

Another student said: "Could it be when you look at a tree in the distance and you can tell whether it is a fig tree or a peach tree?"

Again the rabbi answered: "No."

After a few more guesses the students said: "Well, how do you tell when night has ended?"

The rabbi answered: "It is when you look on the face of any man or woman and you see them as your brother or sister. If you cannot do this, then, no matter what time it is, it is still night."

as I continued walking I thought to myself do I always recognise every face I see as my brother and sister? Well not always it seems, I do view people with suspicion and distrust at times. Don’t we all? My fright mechanism can be sparked off, just as easily as everyone else’s. 

Facial recognition is hard wired into us. Apparently we can recognise a friend or foe, from their facial expression, from quite a distance. I for one am glad I still have a good vision and can pick up many things from distance, so long as I am facing forward and looking. It would seem I’m also good at picking up, almost intuitively, how a person is feeling from their expression. I have often taken one of those on-line quizzes that test your ability to identify emotion from facial expression. Whenever I take them I always seem to score 100%. I think that this dates backs to childhood and learning how to pick this up in the people around me, it was an early developed defence mechanism. There are advantages and disadvantages to this...

Now all this got me thinking about the word “face”. It seems to have many meanings. Etymologically it comes from the Latin “Facia” and “Facies” meaning appearance, form, figure, countenance. It seems that “Face” literally means “form imposed upon something”. Now from this the many understandings of the word “face” have developed. Think about how many expressions are involved in the word face. Such as:

Face up, face into, facing something, face off, face forward, saving face, the face of, faceache, face to face, the face that launched a thousand ships and many more…

Now each and every face is unique, no too are alike, each speaks of each individual life. Each changes with mood and circumstances too. We have one face and yet each face changes with our every mood. Abraham Joshua Heschel captured this perfectly when he said:

“A human being has not only a body but also a face. A face cannot be grafted or interchanged. A face is a message, a face speaks, often unbeknown to the person. Is not the human face a living mixture of mystery and meaning? We are all able to see it, and are all unable to describe it. Is it not a strange marvel that among so many hundreds of millions of faces, no two faces are alike? And that no face remains quite the same for more than one instant? The most exposed part of the body, it is the least describable, a synonym for an incarnation of uniqueness. Can we look at a face as if it were a commonplace?”

There is power in the face, perhaps even danger too. Many religions recognise this, hence the wearing of the veil, who’s original meaning was to protect those that gaze into the face. This is why veils can be found in holy places too. This brings to mind Exodus chapter 33 and an interchange between Moses and God. It recounts how God lovingly protects Moses from looking into his face, after granting him favour and recognising him. Moses so longed to see God’s face and therefore asked to see it directly “Pray thee, show me thy glory.” Of course he could not, for that would have destroyed him.

There is a real power even in a human face, for after all do we not also bare the image of the divine? To truly look into another’s face can be overpowering, frightening and make us feel a little vulnerable. To look at another face to face is a powerful experience, but also a little scary. You could say that it is truly awful, in the original meaning of the word. As to truly look at another’s face will fill us we awe. As no doubt it would if we looked truly at our own face. Look what happened to Narcissus as he became transfixed by his own reflection.

Remember that etymologically face originally meant “Form imposed upon something”. Interestingly John O’Donohue said that the “Face is an icon of creation”. In Anam Cara he stated that “The human face is an artistic achievement. On such a small surface an incredible variety and intensity of presence can be expressed. This breath of presence overflows the limitation of the physical form. No two faces are exactly the same. There is always a special variation of presence in each one. Each face is a particular intensity of human presence.”

It is the face that reveals the person. It shapes who we are perhaps even shapes our very future. David Whyte in “The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self and Relationship” states that:

“We do not often admit how much the shape of our face can be an invitation to others or a warning to keep away. Our face influences our future by what it invites or disinvites. The way we face the future actually creates our future as much as individual actions along the way.”

He illustrates what he means by telling the story of two guests at a party that he hosted at his home. He stood at his door with his eight year old daughter welcoming guests. He described his daughter as being very shy with strangers and of hiding behind his legs and just waving a hand at the guests as they arrived. This apparently all changed as one guest Satish Kumar, a former Jain monk arrived, a man who had achieved great things through his presence and openness and welcome. Whyte writes that:

“At sixty, his face was so full of life and happiness and welcome and happiness that my daughter ran out spontaneously from behind my legs and held her hands out toward him. I was taken aback by the sudden courage of my hitherto reluctant daughter, but I could see what she was running toward. Satish’s face was an invitation to happiness itself. Seeing him always makes me want to practice the set of my own face as a kind of daily discipline. I only have to see him and I want to be as naturally happy and appreciative as he is, and more importantly he makes me want to show it.”

Whyte then describes another face that was the polar opposite of Satish’s that sent his daughter scurrying once again behind his legs. Whyte writes:

“A man whose face seemed to carry not only past disappointments, but also a sense that it was only a matter of time before it was disappointed again. This man’s face seemed almost hungry for circumstances to betray him.”

Whyte writes that as he observed these two faces together, all night long he could see with absolute clarity that these two faces had radically different futures in store for them. It mattered not what they did or would do, or what would happen to them. He could see it in what they invited or disinvited into their lives. One was open and welcome, while the other was closed off and disappointed. He could see it, because it was written all over their faces.

It really matters how we face life…

The human face is not a common place. Each one is unique and each one reveals how we face life.

And it really matters how we face life. The very shape of our features can be a warning to others to keep away or an invitation, a warm welcome. There is immense power in each of our faces. This power will influence our futures and that of those who we come into contact with. Our face influences the future by what it invites or disinvites into our lives. The way that we face the future actually creates our futures, just as much as our individual actions along the way. In not just about what we do, or do not do, but the spirit in which we face the things that we do.

How are you facing life today?

Touch

“Touch” by David Whyte

Touch is what we desire in one form or another, even if we find it through being alone, through the agency of silence or through the felt need to walk at a distance: the meeting with something or someone other than ourselves, the light brush of grass on the skin, the ruffling breeze, the actual touch of another’s hand; even the gentle first touch of an understanding which until now, we were formally afraid to hold.

Whether we touch only what we see or the mystery of what lies beneath the veil of what we see, we are made for unending meeting and exchange, while having to hold a coherent mind and body, physically or imaginatively, which in turn can be found and touched itself. We are something for the world to run up against and rub up against: through the trials of love, through pain, through happiness, through our simple everyday movement through the world.

And the world touches us in many ways, some of which are violations of the body or our hopes for safety: through natural disaster, through heartbreak, through illness, through death itself. In the ancient world the touch of a God was seen as both a blessing and a violation - at one and the same time. Being alive in the world means being found by the world and sometimes touched to the core in ways we would rather not experience. Growing with our bodies, all of us find ourselves at one time violated or wounded by this world in difficult ways, and still we live and breathe in this touchable, sensual world, and through trauma, through grief, through recovery, we heal in order to be touched again in the right way, as the physical consecration of a mutual, trusted invitation.

Nothing stops the body’s arrival in each new present, except death itself, which is intuited in all cultures as another, ultimate, intimate form of meeting. Nothing stops our ageing nor our witness to time, asking us again and again to be present to each different present, to be touchable and findable, to be one who is living up to the very fierce consequences of being bodily present in the world.

To forge an untouchable, invulnerable identity is actually a sign of retreat from this world; of weakness, a sign of fear rather than strength, and betrays a strange misunderstanding of an abiding, foundational and necessary reality: that untouched, we disappear.

Excerpted from ‘TOUCH’ From "CONSOLATIONS: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words" by David Whyte

On Monday morning I conducted the funeral of a man, of a similar age to myself, who had taken his own life after many years of struggle. I arrived at Manchester crematorium very early, an hour before the service was due to begin. I always like to be early for funerals that I lead, so I can prepare myself in the setting. I sat in the car park reading over the service so as to get it into the soul of me and to come to terms with the emotion that such things bring up in me. As I was sat there absorbing the words and feeling the sorrow I noticed all the individual rose trees all around me. Each marking a loved one whose life had ended. Each flower unique in colour and complexity of shape. Each had its own identity. Yes everyone was a rose, much like any other rose and yet each one had its own personality. I got out of my car and examined each one. I touched a few, with just my finger tip and took in their uniqueness. Just as I had invited the congregations I serve to do, the day before, during the “Flower Communion” Service. As I did so I felt a sense of connection to all those lives that had been and gone before me. I understood at an even deeper level that sense that everything matters, that each life is unique and sacred and deep and rich in meaning. That every feeling, every thought, every breath, every action really does matter. That life is not indifferent that there is a love present in life and that it is our task to bring that love alive, for however long we flower. That however brutal life maybe at times it is our task to bring the love alive.

As I keep on saying. “Either everything matters, or nothing matters. Either everything is sacred, or nothing is sacred. Either everything has meaning, or everything is meaningless.” Whatever anyone else says I know that everything matters. No matter how it makes me feel, it matters. We have to let life touch us, just as we have to truly touch life. You see if nothing touches and we touch nothing then we truly are living in hell, in a state of non-being.

To touch nothing and to never be touched is to live in hell. Of all the human needs I suspect the one that we cannot live without is touch. We need to touch one another. We need real flesh and bone contact, we are interdependent creatures. We cannot live wholly from ourselves, self-reliance is a myth. When we look at our lives, the moments that really matter, that really count, are those when we have touched and been deeply touched by another person, or by life itself, when love has come alive deep in our souls and is incarnated in lives. The world, our lives, are not changed by big ideas or even big events, not really, but by the moments of deep intimacy when we touch or are touched by one another, or something more...

In “Anam Cara” John O’Donohue writes that “Our sense of touch connects us to the world in an intimate way.” It is with our hands that we reach out and touch the world. Of course it matters how we touch and the intention behind why we touch. We are so frightened to touch these days because people of power have touched and hurt others in their care or who are vulnerable. This has helped to create a distance between people and it is a distance that I believe is causing spiritual harm. We live in an age that is terrified of intimacy. I see it in my own life and in my profession too. People are terrified to touch because of the damage it can do, well what about the deep emotional and spiritual damage we are doing to ourselves and others by keeping our distance from each other?

I remember speaking to a mother recently whose daughter attends a local school. The daughter had only been attending for a couple of weeks when she told me that she had received a letter from school about her daughter’s behaviour. The girl had been deeply upset one day and had reached out her arms to the teacher looking for consolation. The teacher had told her "no" and had then reported the incident. The mother received a letter saying how inappropriate this was and that the child needed to understand that this was not allowed. The mother was upset by this and obviously worried about her daughter’s capacity to cope, as she was a “very sensitive girl”.

Now while I fully understand all of the safeguards that are in place to protect children and teachers these days I do wonder what we are creating. Children are often equipped academically for life, but I wonder if they are equipped to live full human lives. What about our souls, our spirits, our hearts?

Again in Anam Cara John O’Donohue writes:

“It is recognised now that every child needs to be touched. Touch communicates belonging, tenderness, and warmth, which fosters self-confidence, self-worth, and poise in the child. Touch has such power because we live inside the wonderful world of skin. Our skin is alive and breathing, always active and present. Human beings share such tenderness and fragility because we live not within shells but within skin, which is always sensitive to the force, touch, and presence of the world.”

I suspect that it is this vulnerability that we fear the most and this is why we are afraid to touch.

In recent history we have seen, on a mass scale, what happens when this basic human need to touch and be touched is denied. You may remember images that appeared on our television screens some twenty years ago, following the overthrow of Nicolae Ceausescu in Romania. When he came to power in the mid 1960’s, in an attempt to force population growth, a policy named “leagane” which translates as “cradles” was introduced. These were basically institutional homes for the infants and the very young. Policies were introduced that coerced people to marry and for families to keep on producing children. When Ceausescu was deposed in 1989 the results of this was revealed to the world as images of infants and children growing up with seriously underdeveloped basic human skills. Research has shown that this was due directly to sensory deprivation and the fact that the babies rarely experienced human contact, they were deprived of touch.

These children were nothing more than a commodity to creating the state that Ceausescu dreamed up. It was just one example of many that occurred in Eastern Europe in the second half of the twentieth century where basic human emotional and spiritual needs were rejected for what some believed was a greater good.

When we reduce everything in life to a purely materialistic level and humanity to a mere commodity anything is justified. When we fail to recognises one another’s sacredness we begin to brutalise one another and life itself.

Now of course this is an extreme example but I do wonder if in our increasingly secular age we are doing this very same thing to ourselves. Yes we have the technology to contact one another, anywhere, in an instant, these days and yet so many people feel utterly alone and untouched by life.  How do I know this? You may well ask. Well because people tell me so. They tell me how alone they feel and how utterly cut off from real intimacy they are. On the surface these people appear to live full lives and yet inside they feel completely empty. There are people in society who walk around being untouched, there are seeming untouchables found all around us. How many of us are cut off from deep, intimate and meaningful contact?

This sense is described beautifully in the following poem “The Hug” by Tess Gallagher

“THE HUG” by Tess Gallagher

A woman is reading a poem on the street and another woman stops to listen.
We stop too, with our arms around each other.
The poem is being read and listened to out here in the open.

Behind us no one is entering or leaving the houses.

Suddenly a hug comes over me and I am giving it to you,
like a variable star shooting light off to make itself comfortable, then subsiding.
I finish but keep on holding you.
A man walks up to us and we know he has not come out of nowhere, but if he could, he would have.

He looks homeless because of how he needs.
“Can I have one of those?’ he asks you, and I feel you nod.
I am surprised, surprised you don’t tell him how it is – that I am yours, only yours, etc., exclusive as a nose to its face.

Love - that’s what we’re talking about.
Love that nabs you with “for me only” and holds on.
So I walk over to him and put my arms around him and try to hug him like I mean it.
He’s got an overcoat on so thick I can’t feel him past it. I’m starting the hug and thinking.
“How big a hug is this supposed to be? How long shall I hold this hug?”
Already we could be eternal, His arms falling over my shoulders,
my hands not meeting behind his back, he is so big!

I put my head into his chest and snuggle in.
I lean into him. I lean my blood and my wishes into him.
He stands for it. This is his and he’s starting to give it back so well I know he’s getting it.
This Hug. So truly, so tenderly, we stop having arms and I don’t know if my lover has walked away
Or what, or if the woman is still reading the poem, or the houses - what about them? - the houses.

Clearly, a little permission is a dangerous thing.
But when you hug someone you want it to be a masterpiece of connection, the way the button on his coat will leave the imprint of a planet in my cheek when I walk away.
When I try to find some place to go back to.

This poem really struck me, deep in the soul of me. It describes a stranger, probably a homeless man, who asks the couple who he sees hugging, “Can I have one of those?” This is a truly audacious request. How often in life do any of us express our naked vulnerability to others, in such a way? It is one thing to ask for change but to ask such nice respectable middle-class people to touch and hold him, to give their love away is seemingly beyond the pale.

At first the narrator is shocked and angered by the request. Here she is enjoying a private moment of intimacy with her lover, only to have it interrupted by this stranger. Her response is No. Don’t you realize that my partner’s love is for  alone? That it’s exclusive, "like a nose to a face?” and yet she cannot resists the strangers raw need and eventually she puts her arms around this strange, large man. She tries to hug him, falteringly at first and then she melts into him and the hug becomes deep and rich in meaning. She snuggles right into his thick coat, pressing her face into his button which leaves an imprint on her face. It would seem that the loving embrace was not so exclusive after all.

The beauty of this poem is in its universality. I’m sure that most of us can identify with both characters. I’m sure that most us have experienced that sense of emptiness and that feeling of being utterly devoid of love that the homeless man feels, so desperate that you would ask a stranger to hold you. And also be too afraid to give your love away, as it is only for your beloved. And then the moment of magic as you give in and you become transformed by giving your love away.

The poem brings to my mind images of Jesus from the accounts in the Gospels. One example is of Jesus healing a man suffering from Leprosy. He touched someone considered untouchable, unclean. The touch itself is an act of compassion and of recognition of their shared humanity. In so doing he recognises him as a man and he recognises his sacredness. Now for me this is where the power lies in the account, this is the universal lesson, that speaks through every generation. Who are the untouchables in our society? Who are the ones who are rejected? Who are the ones who wander around, homeless, alone and untouched by love?

To touch nothing and to never be touched is to live in hell. No one should have to live like this. We are all part of the one human family we all need to love and to be loved, or we just merely wither away and die, not necessarily physically but emotionally and spiritually. When we do we live a life of deadness, no one should be left to live this way. We all need to touch and we all need to be touched. So what do we do? Well I suppose we begin where we stand. We begin in our own lives, our hearts, our own families and our own communities, we begin there. We begin with our next simple human encounter. We begin by reaching out to one another. We begin by being open to one another, by allowing our lives to truly touch one another.

I’m going to end this chip of a "blogspot" with some words of blessing by John O’Donohue “A Blessing for the Senses”…

"A Blessing for the Senses" by John O’Donohue, from “Anam Cara”

May your body be blessed.
May you realize that your body is a faithful
and beautiful friend of your soul.
And may you be peaceful and joyful
and recognize that your senses
are sacred thresholds.
May you realize that holiness is
mindful, gazing, feeling, hearing, and touching.
May your senses gather you and bring you home.
May your senses always enable you to
celebrate the universe and the mystery
and possibilities in your presence here.
May the Eros of the Earth bless you.

Mothering Sunday: There's No Place Like Home

Today is Mothering Sunday or as it is more commonly known these days Mother’s Day. For most of us it is a day of joy; a day set a-side to celebrate the gift of motherhood. That said this is not the case for everyone. For some it will be a day tinged with sadness as they remember the mum’s they have lost, who are no longer here. For some mothers it is a time to remember lost children, either through un-reconcilable differences or deaths dark shadow. This day I will be remembering those mothers too.

I will also be remembering those mothers’s whose children are far away from home and who worry about them every day. I will also think of those of us who have never born children who have never experienced that gift, due to a variety of circumstances. I will also remember those, who for whatever reason, find their relationships with their own mothers or their own children difficult, for who today may bring up painful and difficult emotions...I will pause this morning and hold those for whom today will be a difficult and painful day. I will then celebrate motherhood, perhaps life's greatest gift.

I recently came across the following:

“Where the Heart is” by Jo Ann Passariello Deck

“I used to laugh at my Italian relatives who always wanted to sit in the kitchen. They even built houses without dining rooms. Big kitchens were all they wanted. They lived their whole lives in those kitchen, around the stove, eating, talking, playing cards, reading newspapers, drinking coffee. When they weren’t around the stove, they were in church, in God’s home, but that’s another story.

Home is where the stove is. When I think of all the places I’ve lived, I think of what I cooked in the kitchen: cheese tarts in Cambridge, beet soup in Berkeley, and shrimp curry in Singapore. Home is where I saute the garlic and chop the onion, where the frying pan makes music.

An old Russian proverb says, “The oven is the mother.” Food, warmth, acceptance, I can find it all at the stove.”

Home and food are two places that always conjure up images of motherhood. I don’t wish to get shot down for appearing un-politically correct but that sense of maternal love always brings to my heart images of being fed and of feeling at home in the company of people. People so often express their love through food, they make you feel welcome by feeding you. They offer hospitality by offering food and room at their table. Or at least that’s what they’ve always done with me.

Mothering Sunday, whatever its actual true origins is enshrined in this image of returning home. Whether that is of children returning to the family home having been working away or of people returning to the mother church. Either way it’s about returning home to a place of safety and I believe sustenance, whether that be actual physical food or spiritual food; whether that be Simnal Cake, or the bread of heaven.

They say that home is where the heart is and they also “There’s No Place Like Home”.

Now this instantly brings up two images into the heart of my mind. One is of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. In the film she begins by singing of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” a place away from the drudgery, of the mundainity, of life where she could be set free from the confines of home, but at the end she clicks those ruby slippers and says those immortal words. "There's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no place like like home.” Dorothy has been on a spiritual journey and encountered all manner of fascinating friends along the way. She has also fought off enemies who wanted to destroy her. She has experienced and learnt so much, but in the end she just wants to return home.

Home is where your heart is and it is also where your hearth is. I remember Yvonne Aburrow once telling me that the ancient Romans “viewed the hearth as the centre or focus of the home. It was where the family offerings to the family gods were made.”...she went on to say...”I think a room is incomplete without a hearth or an altar to focus it and in some rooms, the TV is the focus instead of the hearth-fire.”

For many home is the embodiment of safety and acceptance, the heart and the hearth of a loving family. Robert Frost wrote that “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in."

Home is a tiny word but a powerful word and one so rich in meaning. It is a word that can hold such dreams of possibilities or nightmares of hurt. It is more than a physical place it is an idea, a feeling, a vision. It is something that we carry with us as we journey through life; it is not just something that we seek. For some it is a place that they are fleeing from, a place of repression and not a place of loving possibility. That said whatever it is we are fleeing from in the end we all must return home, just as Dorothy did.

The other image that home brings into the heart of my mind is something that has adorned many homes over the years, something that is usually sown, it’s the following simple words “There’s No Place Like Home”. Now the source of these simple words is the song titled “Home, Sweet Home” from the words of John Howard Payne’s nineteenth century operatta “Clari, or the Maid of Milan”. The full verse reads as follows

Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home;
A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there,
Which seek thro' the world, is ne'er met elsewhere.
Home! Home!
Sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home
There's no place like home!

These are the words that Dorothy repeats as she clicks her Ruby slippers and wishes to return to that place of safety.

When I think of Motherhood and or the Mother Church this is what I think of, of returning to a place of sustenance of nurture where one feels that they can recharge and renew in safety. These do not have to be physical places or even people. Actually the truth is you need not go anywhere. This place of nurture of sustenance can only really be found in the ground where you stand, in fact the truth is what we really need to do is find ourselves at home within our own being.

This got me thinking of the following I recently came across...

“God Moving Through the Day With Me” by Macrina Wiederkehr


"As the stars again become visible tonight, I am reminded of a feast of leisure from my childhood days. I remember, on summer evenings, sitting outside on a quilt with Mama waiting for the stars to come out. Looking back at that moment with my adult eyes, I understand that God is Someone who has taken the time to sit on a quilt with me waiting for beauty. She is a Mother of Presence. I need only invite her into my moments of leisure. Her presence will empower my presence.

"As I tried to bring a deeper quality of presence to all my works this day, I found God moving through the day with me, like a Mother, opening my eyes to beauty, quietly, joyfully, gratefully, without complaining, I welcomes all the beauty that crossed my path."

“She is a Mother of Presence. I need only invite her into my moments of leisure. Her presence will empower my presence.” These words really struck me as I read them the other day. They sank deep into the soul of me as I thought about the last few weeks of my life. As any regular follower of my blog will know I’ve suffered a couple of bouts of ill health this year, something I’m not used to. In so many ways it has knocked me for six and certainly humbled me as I have not been able to do the things I normally would do. I have had to physically isolate myself for periods of time. I have spent hours, nay days completely physically alone. Do you know what it has done me the power of good as I have sought those deeper resources in the soul of me. I have had to sit, well actually lay with uncomfortable lonely feelings and in the discomfort of this I have connected to those aspects of myself at the heart, at the hearth of my being. It has brought me closer to the God of my own limited understanding as I have not tried to fill the hole in the soul of me with people, places and things. It has brought with it a deeper sense of belonging both within myself, this life and God. It has been a time of nurture and love.

When I think of motherhood and the mother church and mother God for that matter it is nurture that comes into the heart of my mind. For so long I sought in life to feed this hole within when all that I needed was already here I just needed to allow it to come alive, to feed it, to nurture it, to bring it to life. Eileen Caddy of the Findhorn community has said “All you need is deep within you waiting to unfold and reveal itself. All you have to do is to be still and to take time to seek for what is within, and you will surely find it.”

At the beginning of Lent I committed to spending time in the wilderness within; I committed to allow myself to spend time alone so as to come to terms more deeply with who I am and then to be better prepared to truly use the gifts I have and to be of better service to the world in which I find myself. 

Now what Mothering Sunday teaches me is that this needs to be done in a loving and nurturing way. It also reminds me that when I do so I am not really venturing into the wild alone, that eternal love is always present in my DNA, in the marrow of my soul, everything I need is already there. So that if things get too much I can always do a Dorothy and click my own ruby slippers and be transported to the loving arms of “Warm Mother God”.

In “Anam Cara” John O’Donohue wrote “The heart is the inner face of your life. The human journey strives to make this inner face beautiful. It is here that love gathers within you. Love is absolutely vital for a human life. For love alone can awaken what is divine within you. In love, you grow and come home to yourself. When you learn to love and let yourself be loved, you come home to the hearth of your own spirit. You are warm and sheltered.”

It seems to me this is what is at the heart of “Mothering Sunday”. This idea of coming home of truly finding shelter in your own home, which is your own heart. Of returning to that love that is Divine, that is truly a part of who we truly are, of recognising the truth spoken during “The Sermon on the Mount”, that we truly are the light of the world. That we are here to nurture that light from which we are formed and to bring that loving light to life as a loving mother would do.

My simple message this “Mothering Sunday” is let’s learn to truly be at home within our own hearts and our own hearths. Let us learn to truly welcome, love and nurture our own lives. Let us truly recognise that we are the light of the world and let us enable that light shine over all our world. When we let our little lights shine we truly can be of service to this our love starved world.

I will end this little chip of a blogspot with the following words of prayer...

"Prayer for All Who Mother" By Victoria Weistein

We reflect in thanksgiving this day for all those whose lives have nurtured ours.

The life-giving ones
Who heal with their presence
Who listen in sympathy
Who give wise advice ... but only when asked for it.
We are grateful for all those who have mothered us
Who have held us gently in times of sorrow
Who celebrated with us our triumphs -- no matter how small
Who noticed when we changed and grew,
who praised us for taking risks
who took genuine pride in our success,
and who expressed genuine compassion when we did not succeed.
On this day that honours Mothers
let us honour all mothers
men and women alike
who from somewhere in their being
have freely and wholeheartedly given life, and sustenance, and vision to us.
Dear God, Mother-Father of us all,
grant us life-giving ways
strength for birthing,
and a nurturing spirit
that we may take attentive care of our world,
our communities, and those precious beings
entrusted to us by biology, or by destiny, or by friendship, fellowship or fate.
Give us the heart of a mother today.

Amen