May We Be Known by the Fruits of Mother Nurture”

The celebration of Mother has a long history. It dates back to the time of ancient Greece and Rome. It is not merely, as some would suggest, a creation of the greeting cards company to make money out of us. The celebrations of mother and motherhood has been with us for many centuries. It is said that Mothering Sunday was about returning home either to family and or the Mother Church. Returning to a place of total acceptance and love, a place where the love within us can grow, a place of nurture.

These days Mothering Sunday has become known as Mother’s Day, following the American tradition that is celebrated in May, and not the middle Sunday of Lent. During the twentieth century and due in no small part to the promotion of Constance Smith Mothering Sunday began to be marked on the fourth Sunday of Lent known as Laetare Sunday, which means “rejoice”. It grew in popularity after the first world war and no doubt was linked to this idea of folk returning home to place of safety, nurture and love.

Mothering Sunday, Mother’s Day, whatever its actual true origins is enshrined in this image of returning home, and this sense of belonging to something more than ourselves. Whether that is actually of children returning to the family home having been working away or of people returning to the mother church, or those returning home after conflict. At its heart it seems to be about returning home to a place of safety; it is about returning home to a place of renewal, of re-birth, not only for ourselves but for others too; it is about returning to a place of love and total acceptance of who we are, exactly as we are, no matter what we have done or where we have been, we are accepted with open loving arms. It’s about returning to that place where love is not only born but nurtured and grown and brought into true being.

Mother’s Day is the celebration of being held and nurtured in the spirit of love. Mother’s Day is about celebrating the spirit of mother. I have been thinking and remembering those folk who have accepted and cared for me; I have been remembering how they nurtured me in my life, how they offered unconditional love, regardless of gender or familial link. It is the care and nurturing love that matters most to me.

Someone dear to me has been unwell in hospital this week. They offered me nurture and care on one of the most heartbreaking days of my life. They gave me that simple and humble bowl of soup and sat me down and let me settle and be. They nurtured and cared for me. I know them by the fruit they gave to me, and it has fed and sustained me for the last 20 years come this November. It is the fruit I have attempted to live by during my own ministry; it is a fruit I will never forget.

Gospel Matthew 7 v 20 “Thus you will know them by their fruits.”

That bowl of soup to me is the ultimate example of the Divine love alive in human form, manifested. This to me is what days like today are about, they are about celebrating this nurturing love and finding ways to bring this love alive through our being. Not perfectly, in fact falteringly, but the heart of what we live by. Now even if those who have shared this love with us are no longer physically with us, we can still hold that love, nurture it with our hearts, our minds our spirits, our souls, held lovingly by the one eternal soul of life. This is the love that I try to live by and hope we can all live by. We need to live by love and accept one another in the way that the mother, or at least the ideal of maternal love does. May we reach toward that, even in fear, may we find the courage to offer one another such love.

Today we celebrate the spirit of mother; today we celebrate and give thanks to those who gave birth to our being, but we do more than that. Today we celebrate those who have nurtured and brought to life the love within us whether they are the ones who gave birth to our bodies or helped nurture and bring to life something within us. Today we celebrate the spirit of mother; today we celebrate those who have nurtured our lives whether in body, in mind, in heart or spirit. This is surely the fruit we would want to be known by.

Today as we celebrate the spirit of mother we acknowledge our responsibility to one another as individuals and a community, to nurture, to bring to life, the love within ourselves, one another and the wider human community. Can we be known by this loving nurturing and life sustaining fruit.

The truth is that we are always known by our fruit and as the old saying goes, it never falls far from the tree. To use a maternal metaphor we are constantly giving birth to something each and every day. We are all a part of the Divine Creation and re-creation it is really important to recognise this. As Annie Dillard wrote “ We are here to witness creation and to abet it…We are here to bring to consciousness the beauty and power that are all around us and to praise the people who are here with us.”

This is nurture, this bringing alive the spirit of mother, this is what we celebrate this day. This is the fruit at the heart of this day.

Mothering Sunday, whatever its actual true origins is enshrined in this image of returning home; it is 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, a bowl of soup or the bread of heaven. It is about love in whatever form it comes. May we be known by that fruit.

They say “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 set her free, 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.

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." Sadly this is not the case for everyone, for many people home and family is not a place of safety at all. In fact it is a place of struggle and suffering.

Home is a tiny word but a powerful one 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. “There’s no place like home”

“There’s No Place Like Home” comes from 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 sentience of nurture where one feels that they can recharge. A place that is known by those loving fruits.

These do not have to be physical places or 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 find yourself, in fact the truth is what we really need to do is find ourselves at home within our own being. We can enjoy these fruits and share them with others.

If you remember at the beginning of Lent I spoke of not giving things up, but seeing what we can give, nurturing what we have, so as to be in a better place to share our fruits. That we make a place within us that is a welcome to others, to find ways to be better prepared to truly use these gifts, to be of service to the world in which we find ourselves. We just need to nurture that which we already possess and share that fruit. It also teaches me 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”. We all need a place of shelter at times when it all goes wrong or seems too much. This is spiritual community to me. That bowl of soup reminds me of it always. If feeds and sustains me every day.

This “Mothering Sunday”, this “Mother’s Day”, may we remember those who have loved and cared for us, those who nurtured us, those who shared their fruit. Those who helped us feel at home. Let us remember this love. May we also find ways to live by that same love, to bring it alive through our human being. May we be known by these fruits, may we become places of welcome, of nurture and love. For our world surely needs that as we need it too.

May we be known by such fruit…

On this day set aside to honour Mother’s let’s remember those who have offered us the unconditional and wholly accepting love of the mother ideal. Those who have offered their unquestioning love to us, those who have offered their nurturing heart and encouraged us to begin again in love. Let us also commit to living this way ourselves to offer this love to all that we meet. To not just tolerate the people we meet as they are, but to love them and accept them, Let’s offer to them the nurturing hand of love. May we be known by these fruits.

I invite you to join with me in prayer

"Prayer for All Who Mother"

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

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

The Gift of the Ordinary

I will begin with an extract from “How the Light Gets In: Writing as a Spiritual Practice” by Pat Schneider

"What I want back is the common everyday walk in awareness of the presence of mystery. Mystery isn't always strange. What is strange is how seldom we see it, how seldom we hear it. Mystery is as common as the gravel road and the blackberry hanging ripe on a vine in August heat in my childhood; it does not have to be paid for by any particular belief. It doesn't go away. I'm the one who goes away. Walks away. Runs away. Crashes away. The mystery is as common as the beam of light, spruce-filtered, falling on the fifth step of the stair this morning in my house in Amherst, Massachusetts. It is the common, seen uncommonly. When we see, when we hear, when we intuit how much we are loved, it is the common that is uncommon. It is the ordinary that is the body of spirit, the physical presence of mystery. I think I was reaching for this understanding when I wrote this poem:

"The Patience of Ordinary Things"

It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How sales of feet know
Where they're supposed to be.
I've been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?

Lovely isn’t it.

I was chatting with a friend on a beautiful early summer evening when I noticed a flower tree in the gardens. I hadn’t noticed it before. It had white petals and yellow centre, with a gentle pink around the edges. It had thorns like a rose tree. I said to my friend I hadn’t noticed it before that day, I don’t know why. We didn’t know what type of flower it was, so my friend got out her phone and through her camera looked at “Google Lens”. It said it was a “Dog Rose”. It certainly looked like one, although apparently they are not meant to be climbing bushes and this was standing alone. Whatever it is it is beautiful and it doesn’t really matter that much what name we give it. It reminded me of a conversation I had a few weeks ago with friends who had obsessed with an app that told them what bird was singing around them. I remember thinking and saying at the time how that didn’t really interest me, I was much more interested in the song and perhaps joining in myself. By the way I am not decrying knowledge here, I am interested in many things, I just don’t want to get too interested in the intricacies of things that I lose sight of feasting on their natural beauty. This some thing that is so easy do.

I went for a walk around Altrincham on Monday evening with Molly. As I walked around I had the words of e.e. cummings singing in my heart “I thank you God for most this amazing day”. I had been carrying this feeling with me for a couple of days. I was not ignoring the troubles of life, I was just experiencing the giftedness of simply being alive. We had been out a couple of times already that day drinking in the gifts of the ordinary. We bumped into a couple of half drunk people who I know from the gym who were sitting in the sun outside the ”Con Club”. They told me how lovely Molly is and how lovely dogs are. They both had perfectly white teeth and perfect skin, it made me smile and wonder at my love for imperfect beauty of nature. We walked on and passed the town hall. There was a choir performing, I think it was part of “Pride in the Town Hall”. It was beautiful to listen from the open windows taking in these angel voices. When they had finished, I called out a bravo and applauded their efforts. We walked home chatting with a neighbour about the delights we had listened to before bumping into more friends who delighted in Molly.

It brought to my mind the following from “Small Graces” by Kent Nerburn. “We seldom pause to shine a light upon the ordinary moments, to hallow them with our own attentiveness, to honour them with gentle caring. They pass unnoticed, lost in the ongoing rush of time. Yet it is just such a hallowing that our lives require… For though we may not live a holy life, we live in a world alive with holy moments. We need only take the time to bring these moments into the light.”

There is a beautiful gift in the ordinary. It brought to mind a wonderful book, “The Gift of the Ordinary” by Katrina Kenison. At its heart is an encouragement to appreciate the simple, everyday moments and aspects of life that can so easily be overlooked and taken for granted. It's about finding beauty, wonder, and value in the unremarkable, and recognizing that the ordinary act of living itself is a gift. In essence, "the gift of the ordinary" is about shifting perspective and finding joy and meaning in the everyday, rather than always seeking out extraordinary experiences. It's about recognizing that true richness can be found in the simple things. Something I noticed while simply walking with Molly the other evening. Something I offer to us all as we step into the summer.

“The Gift of the Ordinary” is at the heart of “Ignation Spirituality”. Which is a form of Christian Spirituality developed from the teachings of St Ignatius of Layola. He was the founder of “The Society of Jesus” (The Jesuits) in the 16th century. At its heart is spirituality centred around seeking “God’s Will” through every day, life and prayer; to seek through the ordinariness of life, through love and service. Its emphasis is on finding God in all things and forming a personal relationship with God through this. It is so easy to miss the beauty and the divine nature of a flower because we are like Dorothy always looking for whatever is beyond the rainbow. It is about being fully present to everything right here and now and recognising the sacredness of everything.

I see parallels to the Buddhist concept of mindfulness. Not exactly the same of course, but there are similarities. A key component is to be present to everything, to most ordinary aspects of life. The following contemporary tale illustrates the point. A Buddhist student was trying to stay present to life but was struggling with why he had to do so. He was aware that the lessons he needed to learn could from any place, if only stayed open to everything. So, he was going about his day practising doing so, while not understanding exactly what that meant. Now while he was walking round town, in this open and aware mood, he heard a loud noise from what seemed like hundreds of people in a large hall he was passing by. It took his attention and so he walked into what turned out to be a Bingo Hall. There was a big game going on. He looked up at the wall of the hall and there in front of him was the lesson he was seeking. There was a huge sign that said, in large block capitol letters “YOU MUST BE PRESENT TO WIN”.

It is said that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Well, the teacher is always present, if we are awake and paying attention to everything. There is another lesson too. It is up to us to choose to be present, or you won’t notice these simple gifts of the ordinary. In fact if you search for the wisdom on some mountain top you might just miss it, because you are too focused on the peak. The lessons are everywhere in life. As Rob says it is in Tesco’s in Baguley just as much as some spiritual site in the back of beyond. It’s about where we are at within ourselves as opposed to where we are at geographically.

It is about being present, being open, paying attention to everything. As Mary Oliver has pointed out “Attention is the beginning of devotion”. There is something beautiful, simple and humble in her poetry. Her work was so real, something I identify with deeply; the spiritual has to be real for me, or not at all. Her beautiful and often life affirming poetry grew from her empathically observing her own life and experiences. Having observed the life in front of her she asks about life and how to live it. To her this is religious, devotional living, “attention is the beginning of devotion”. To love this world is to pay attention to the simple gifts of the ordinary.

Here follows one of Mary’s great poems. This one is essentially about Spring, and what a beautiful Spring we have lived through. It is also a poem about how we ought to live our mortal lives. The poems simply describes a black bear awakening from hibernation, coming down the mountain, and showing her perfect love by simply being a bear and doing what a bear does. For Mary there is only one question, “how to love this world”. How do we love the world, by paying attention, by recognising the gift of the ordinary.

"Spring" by Mary Oliver

Somewhere
a black bear
has just risen from sleep
and is staring

down the mountain.
All night
in the brisk and shallow restlessness
of early spring

I think of her,
her four black fists
flicking the gravel,
her tongue

like a red fire
touching the grass,
the cold water.
There is only one question:

how to love this world.
I think of her
rising
like a black and leafy ledge

to sharpen her claws against
the silence
of the trees.
Whatever else

my life is
with its poems
and its music
and its glass cities,

it is also this dazzling darkness
coming
down the mountain,
breathing and tasting;

all day I think of her—
her white teeth,
her wordlessness,
her perfect love.

This loving the world, seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary is a concept explored by the great Rabbi of the later 20th century Abraham Joshua Heschel who said “Let us love the ordinary. Let us love the closeness of God and the sacred, here and now. Let us cherish the everyday, the every breath, the where we are.” He also said “It takes three things to attain a sense of significant being: God, A Soul, and a Moment. And the three are always here.”

You see we live by breath, by moment and if we do so attentively we can know and experience the Divine in this life, in the extraordinariness of each and every ordinary moment.

How Heschel viewed the extraordinariness is exemplified in the following story from his life. It is something he would say when he gave an evening lecture. As he began he would say the following words.

"Ladies and gentlemen, a great miracle has just occurred!"

As the audience began to stir in puzzlement, the great theologian would elaborate…

"Ladies and gentlemen, a great miracle has just taken place...the sun has gone down."

Of all the things we take for granted in life, perhaps the fact that the day begins and day ends might be the greatest. Life is the greatest gift of all.

We can cultivate the miraculous out the ordinary out of what may seem mundane, the everyday. The sunrise and the sunset. Just simply being here with one another. This is the gift of the ordinary. We can help create and find the miracle and magic in the ordinariness of life, by simply truly being here and being present in life. We can help one another to do so too. We can find ways to plant little bits of magic in life for one another and for ourselves. We can leave little clues for one another too, things that can point the way. I am going to end this morning’s service by sharing a little story from “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” that Annie Dillard published in 1974, over 50 years ago. There is a beautiful peace of wisdom in this that for me brings to life “The Gift of the Ordinary”, a simple act with the humblest of objects, that can transform lives. I will leave it with you, with no further explanation.

She wrote:

“When I was six or seven years old, growing up in Pittsburgh, I used to take a precious penny of my own and hide it for someone else to find. It was a curious compulsion; sadly, I’ve never been seized by it since. For some reason I always “hid” the penny along the same stretch of sidewalk up the street. I would cradle it at the roots of a sycamore, say, or in a hole left by a chipped-off piece of sidewalk. Then I would take a piece of chalk, and, starting at either end of the block, draw huge arrows leading up to the penny from both directions. After I learned to write I labeled the arrows: SURPRISE AHEAD or MONEY THIS WAY. I was greatly excited, during all this arrow-drawing, at the thought of the first lucky passer-by who would receive in this way, regardless of merit, a free gift from the universe. But I never lurked about. I would go straight home and not give the matter another thought, until, some months later, I would be gripped again by the impulse to hide another penny.”

May we all find ways to discover the gifts of life in the most ordinary places. May we know the “Gift of the Ordinary”

Let us learn to bless this world with our extraordinary ordinariness.

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

It comes in the little things

I love the farmer poet Wendell Berry. The following “Sabbaths” is a favourite. It is sometimes thought to be about death, a bleak piece. It isn’t really, what it is about is generosity; generosity is about living and doing so by giving.

Sabbaths – 1993, I

No, no, there is no going back.

Less and less you are

that possibility you were.

More and more you have become

those lives and deaths

that have belonged to you.

You have become a sort of grave

containing much that was

and is no more in time, beloved

then, now, and always.

And you have become a sort of tree

standing over a grave.

Now more than ever you can be

generous toward each day

that comes, young, to disappear

forever, and yet remain

unaging in the mind.

Every day you have less reason

not to give yourself away.

Generosity is about the heart; it does not require material abundance to live by generosity When I think of the gifts that have been given to me in my life, I do not think of material things, what comes to mind is the loving gift of their presence that folk shared, their love and their support, and their inspiration. They gave of themselves, truly from their own often breaking and vulnerable hearts. To me this is the true spirit of Christmas.

This year, the last two years, have been a difficult struggle for most of us. It has been hard to keep going at times. I have struggled myself in so many ways. Yes, I have given all that I have, perhaps more, as have so many others. I am not alone. I have also gratefully received from so many too, haven’t we all. I was approached in the street the other day. The person just wanted to ask how I was and to thank me, to simply say “ thank you for all that you do.” Gosh I cannot tell how grateful I felt in that moment. I have known and witnessed so much love, born in the human heart. On Christmas Eve as I shared our Christmas Eve service I do not believe I have known and experienced a love anything like it. It was so beautiful I could have wept. I did as I refelt it all a little later. As I awoke on Christmas morning I did so with the broadest most beaming smile.

This Advent season has not been easy, a struggle at times. I know it has been for most of us. What has lifted my heart and kept me going has been a simple phrase “it comes in the little things”. It all began the week beginning 13th December. I had gone to bed in a bit of state. I was stressed, I was exhausted, my gland had swelled up below my chin. I was dehydrated and utterly exhausted. My mood was very low, the next day I decided to take things a little easier. I felt I had hit another rock bottom. I found myself going deeper into prayer. I went for a walk that afternoon, in an attempt to connect with life. When I retuned, there was a lovely gift left on the step of the chapel house. There were two tubes of milky bar buttons, left by a friend who knows I am a bit of a “Milky Bar Kid”. As the day continued I found the following phrase singing in my heart “it comes in the little things”. So, I posted online about the gift and the things I noticed that day. I have been doing so ever since.

On awakening each morning, I have considered the day before and expressed my thanks by talking of the little things I have noticed in my life that have lifted my heart, that have given me hope, that have helped me stay connected and thus overcome any sense of despair. It has helped and I know it has helped others. It has been my attempt to offer thanks and to live in and through gratitude. I have decided to continue it into the New Year. Each morning I am going to share those little things, that are truly everything. Maybe it is something we could all try. Think each day what are the little things, that lift your heart, that connect you to life and others and inspire you to live in love and gratitude throughout that day. Please feel free to share them. In so doing we can keep these gifts alive; in so doing we become givers ourselves, as we pass these gifts along. To paraphrase good old Wendell Berry, every day we have less reason not to give ourselves away.

The phrase is inspired by the following poem “Immanence” by Evelyn Underhill

“Immanence” by Evelyn Underhill

I come in the little things,
Saith the Lord;
Not borne on morning wings
Of majesty; but I have set my feet
Amidst the delicate and bladed wheat
That springs triumphant in the furrowed sod—
There do I dwell, in weakness and in power;
Not broken or divided, said our God!
In your straight garden plot I come to flower;
About your porch my vine,
Meek, fruitful, doth entwine,
Waits, at the threshold, Love's appointed hour.

I come in the little things,
Saith the Lord;
Yea, on the glancing wings
Of eager birds, the soft and pattering feet
Of furred and gentle beasts, I come to meet
Your hard and wayward heart. In brown bright eyes
That peep from out the brake, I stand confest.
On every nest
Where feathery Patience is content to brood
And leaves her pleasure for the high emprise
Of motherhood—
There does my Godhead rest.

I come in the little things,
Saith the Lord;
My starry wings I do forsake,
Love's highway of humility to take;
Meekly I fit my stature to your need.
In beggar's part
About your gates I shall not cease to plead
As man, to speak with man
Till by such art
I shall achieve my immemorial plan;
Pass the low lintel of the human heart.

Obviously it is the line “I come in the little things, thus saeth the Lord”, that has inspired my musings and awakened my heart. That the Divine love is present in everything, although sometimes it is easy not to notice. The last few weeks have reminded me I need to keep paying attention to those little things. It is not in the glitz and the glammer and the loudness, I don’t notice it there. I witness it in the little things, those that we don’t always notice. Annette, the editor of our magazine reminded me to “Keep on enjoying the blackbird singing, the scruffy (scratty actually) magpie and the wild geese flying over. There's also the cherry blossom which will appear surprisingly soon in the scheme of things.” These are the beautiful and natural things that lift my heart, when sometimes it feels like it has fallen. It comes in the little things, the ordinary things, these are the true blessings of life.

“I am done with great things” wrote the philosopher and psychologist William James in a letter to a friend. Sharing his conviction that his focus was no longer on big or grand things, but with the small almost invisible decisions. He wrote:

“I am done with great things and big things, great institutions and big success, and I am for those tiny, invisible molecular moral forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, yet which if you give them time, will rend the hardest monuments of man's pride.”

The Letters of William James, ed. by his son Henry James (Boston: Atlantic Monthy Press, 1920), 2:90; letter to Mrs. Henry Whitman, June 7, 1899.

It comes in the little things, the miraculous is to be found in the mundane. Annie Dillard wrote: “The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand.” She had a way of unmasking the extraordinary dimensions of the ordinary life. In “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” (1974) she describes how a simple act of adventurous generosity can bring joy to the ordinary.

“When I was six or seven years old, growing up in Pittsburgh, I used to take a precious penny of my own and hide it for someone else to find. It was a curious compulsion; sadly, I’ve never been seized by it since. For some reason I always “hid” the penny along the same stretch of sidewalk up the street. I would cradle it at the roots of a sycamore, say, or in a hole left by a chipped-off piece of sidewalk. Then I would take a piece of chalk, and, starting at either end of the block, draw huge arrows leading up to the penny from both directions. After I learned to write I labeled the arrows: SURPRISE AHEAD or MONEY THIS WAY. I was greatly excited, during all this arrow-drawing, at the thought of the first lucky passer-by who would receive in this way, regardless of merit, a free gift from the universe. But I never lurked about. I would go straight home and not give the matter another thought, until, some months later, I would be gripped again by the impulse to hide another penny.”

There are ways to bring simple joys to one another’s lives, often through our playfulness and generosity, just like that friend who left those “Milky Bar” buttons on my doorstep.

It is the little things that keep us going through the dark and difficult. Sometimes we can lose sight of them, or we can forget about them. Thankfully there are others who can help remind us of these things, that lift our hearts, when they have fallen, when we feel we cannot go on.

There is a wonderful example of this in the final pages of JRR Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings”

Frodo and Sam are nearing the end of their quest, they are desperate and struggling as they try to reach the cursed Mount Doom to cast the ring of power, a device that held much of the dark lord Sauron’s power, into the fires and destroy it. The closer they get to the mountain the more desperate their situation grows. They are weakened physically and spiritually, all hope seems to have gone. Frodo the hero is dispirited and so Sam, his loyal and constant companion, does his best to lift up his hopes. He asks him if he remembers the taste of strawberries and cream, the sound of water, the beauties of spring in their far-off home, the Shire. Sam lifts up Frodo’s spirit, by reminding him of the little things and thus he finds the courage to carry on, to go and complete his task. The power was found in the love of such little things. Afterall it is the little things that really matter, that make our lives what they are. “I come in the little things, thus saeth the Lord”

It matters what we do and what we do not do, they impact on one another’s lives. Some say what does it matter what we as individuals do, it will make no difference. It isn’t true though is it. I just have to think of those “milky bar” buttons, they made a world of difference to me. Or at least they helped to turn me around. I responded in love and I know by simply sharing the little things, I have been able to impact positively on the lives of others. Who knows what positive impacts that might be having on many others too. Just because we cannot do everything, we seem insignificant, yet what we do can make the world of difference. As Edward Everett Hale said:

“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.” – Edward Everett Hale

Like everyone I feel deep sadness at times. I have felt it recently, as I have struggled with my personal life and the suffering of so many others. That said I do not descend into total despair, I get lifted up once again by some simple ordinary gifts of life. There are blessings everywhere, we just need to pay attention.

I have never known a love deeper, than I have these last few days, “no greater love has there ever been, than what felt for you, what you gave to me, you saved my life from this…So many tears, so many tears…”

It comes in the little things, the almost unnoticed things. All we have to do is pay attention and share what we have with one another.

“I come in the little things, saeth the Lord”

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

The Golden Thread: We Come Together in Love

 O come together in truth;

O come together in peace;
O come together in joy and sharing,
Come together in knowing and caring;
Come together,
O come together,
O come together in love.

Beautiful words by Dorothy Grover, from a much loved hymn. 

They describe why I became a part of spiritual community. They are not the reason why I went from a secular singular person to one who sought out spiritual community, but they are why I stayed. I came to try and understand, to make sense of the sudden and profound changes that had occurred in my life many years ago now, changes that have continued on and on and on. I have not found the answers I was seeking by the way, in fact if anything there are many more questions today than there was then. What community has given me, amongst so many others is a space to explore those and many other questions with like hearted people. In such an environment I have learnt to not only ask and listen to the questions, but to truly live them. I came seeking answers, but it is not why I stayed. I stayed because I found something far more than I was consciously looking for. I stayed because I found community, I found true belonging. I found love. I found my heart's desire.

We come together, oh come together, we come together in love…

Now sadly of course we can’t come together as we would like, we can’t all be together to share in worship, well not physically at least. We are of course together in heart and mind, spirit and soul, some physically at Dunham and hopefully soon at Queens Road, some on Zoom from all sorts of places, and those who are reading the service at home too. We are being creative in ways of coming together, always in love. We are of course coming a little closer, step by step, with love always as our guide.

This not being able to be physically together can be particularly difficult at those times in life when we come together for rites of passage. Like the family funeral I conducted this Friday, or the Gott wedding this afternoon. Despite not being able to be together, physically, as we would like the love that runs through life can and does bind us together if we would but let it. It is the same with birthdays and other celebrations too or at times when those we care for are ill or suffering, as so many are in these challenging days, we find ways though. I saw a lovely example last Saturday as I saw Thelma and her daughter Lisa enjoying fish and chips and each others company sat in the sun in the gardens at the chapel, from a safe social distance of course.

We can still “come together in loving and caring

Oh come together, oh come together, oh come together in love.”

It brought to mind this wonderful bit of wisdom from “When all you’ve ever wanted isn’t enough” by Harold Kushner

“A life without people, without the same people day after day, people who belong to us, people who will be there for us, people who need us and whom we need in return, may be very rich in other things, but in human terms is no life at all.

I was sitting on the beach one summer day, watching two children, a boy and a girl, playing in the sand. They were hard at work building an elaborate sandcastle by the waters edge, with gates and towers and moats and internal passages. Just when they had nearly finished their project, a big wave came along and knocked it down, reducing it to a heap of wet sand. I expected the children to burst into tears, devastated by what had happened to all of their hard work. But they surprised me. Instead they ran up the shore away from the water, laughing and holding hands, and they sat down to build another castle. I realized that they had taught me a valuable lesson. All of the things in our lives, all of the complicated structures we spend so much time and energy creating, are built on sand. Only our relationships with other people endure. Sooner or later, the wave will come along and knock down what we have worked so hard to build up. When that happens, only the person who has somebody's hand to hold will be able to laugh."

It also brought to mind the following verse from Matthew’s Gospel Ch 18 v 20 “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them” When we come together in love, that spirit comes to life.

“O come together, o come together, o come together in love.

This is why people come together in spiritual community, why the commune. As the writer Annie Dillard put it “We are here to abet creation and to witness it. To notice each other’s beautiful face and complex nature so that creation need not play to an empty house.”

In coming together in love we create community, it is the love that we create together that binds such community together. This love is the thread that binds us together. We are all responsible for weaving this thread and repairing it when it gets damaged. It is this that binds us to one another and it this that hold us together in love.

Now as Parker J Palmer put it while reflecting on the wonderful poem “A Thread to Guide Us” by William Stafford.

“Holding on doesn’t make life any easier, but it can keep us from getting lost in the dark woods that swallow us up every now and then. Knowing we can find our way home with that thread in hand, we’re more likely to explore the darkness and learn what it has to teach us.”

Here's the poem:

“The Way It Is” by William Stafford

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

Now an old rarely heard word for this thread of love that binds us together in love is “yoke”. Now a yoke is a wooden bar that is fastened around the necks of two animals, connecting them together and to the vehicle or load they are pulling. In the context of community though yoke is a nurturing word. It is a humble and tender word, particularly for the most vulnerable in family, community and society, it is that loving thread that binds us together in love. In such connections we find rest, comfort, care, protection and light-heartedness. Yes light-heartedness for there is a sense of fun in this idea of yoke. Gosh how much do we miss this ability to come together in joy and laughter too. In Middle Eastern languages yoke has connotations of laying arms on the shoulders of another and dancing in cirlces and long lines. It is a familiar and comfortable feeling and fills one with delight as you get lost in the music and sing and dance and just let go without fear. To be yoked means to come together in love.

We come together in search
Of new beginnings for all,
Where understanding and trust surround us – 
Gone the hate and fear that bound us;
Come together,
O come together,
O come together in love.

The Sanskrit word for yoke is yuj. Like Yoke in the west it is a physical device used to join cattle. From this interestingly the word yoga came. Now Yoga means union, just think about this idea of something binding us together in love. Yoga though is not really a noun, a thing, it is more a verb, something that you do, like people coming together in love, to create loving community. Sue and myself have been practising yoga these last few months, since lockdown began. It is one of the many loving threads that has held us through these difficult days. It has been comical too as we have had to negotiate two dogs, particularly the disobedient little dog, not a lot of space and bodies that will not do the things that the woman on the video can do. There has been much laughter as we have yoked and joked our way through, being held in love these last weeks and months.

These principles of coming together in love will help us as we try to rebuild and rebind our communities, to create space for people to come together not only in love, but also search in the days ahead.

We come together in search
Of new beginnings for all,
Where understanding and trust surround us – 
Gone the hate and fear that bound us;
Come together,
O come together,
O come together in love.

Loving community is something that I believe everyone needs, in order to truly thrive and grow and become all that they can be.

Starhawk catches this need near perfectly when she writes:

“Community. Somewhere, there are people to whom we can speak with passion without having the words catch in our throats. Somewhere a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power. Community means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold us when we falter. A circle of healing. A circle of friends. Someplace where we can be free.”

So let us continue to build this community of love, where people can come together in love. As we slowly open and begin to be together again we will need a loving community even more, a place where love hold us and sustain us together. It is something that we will all be responsible for creating, but not just here, but also in our families, our communities, our world. Let us begin to repair and weave that thread of love. Let us come together, lets us go out together in love.

O come together in truth;
O come together in peace;
O come together in joy and sharing,
Come together in knowing and caring;
Come together,
O come together,
O come together in love

Amen

The Spirit of Mother

The celebration of Mother has a long history. It dates back to the time of ancient Greece and Rome. It is not merely, as some would suggest, a creation of the greeting cards company to make money out of us. The celebrations of mother and motherhood has been with us for many centuries. In Britain Mothering Sunday was about returning home either to family and or the Mother Church. Returning to a place of total acceptance and love, a place where the love within us can grow, a place of nurture.

 These days Mothering Sunday in the UK has become known as Mother’s Day, following the American tradition that is celebrated in May, and not the middle Sunday of Lent.

Mothering Sunday, Mother’s Day, whatever its actual true origins is enshrined in this image of returning home, and this sense of belonging to something more than ourselves. Whether that is actually 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; it is about returning home to a place of renewal, of re-birth, not only for ourselves but for others too; it is about returning to a place of love and total acceptance of who we are, exactly as we, no matter what we have done or where we have been, we are accepted with open loving arms. It’s about returning to that place where love is not only born but nurtured and grown and brought into true being.

Mother’s Day is the celebration of being held and nurtured in the spirit of love. Mother’s Day is about celebrating the spirit of mother.

Today we celebrate the spirit of mother; today we celebrate and give thanks to those who gave birth to our being, but we do more than that. Today we celebrate those who have nurtured and brought to life the love within us whether they are the ones who gave birth to our bodies or helped nurture and bring to life something within us. Today we celebrate the spirit of mother; today we celebrate those who have nurtured our lives whether in body, in mind, in heart or spirit.

Also today in celebrating the spirit of mother we acknowledge our responsibility to one another as individuals and a community to nurture, to bring to life, the love within ourselves, one another and the wider human community.

The truth is that all of us are constantly giving birth to something each and every day. We are all a part of the Divine Creation and re-creation it is really important to recognise this. As Annie Dillard wrote “ We are here to witness creation and to abet it…We are here to bring to consciousness the beauty and power that are all around us and to praise the people who are here with us.”

This is nurture, this bringing alive the spirit of mother, this is what we celebrate this day.

There are many ways to nurture and countless opportunities each and every day to do so. What have you given birth to and nurtured today? Perhaps a new sense of family or community? Perhaps you have held or encouraged another, given them hope? Perhaps something to improve your local community or wider society? What can you give birth to or nurture today? What gift have you been given that could be brought to life or what could you encourage to bring to life in others?

In what ways can you bring to life the spirit of Mother?

Over the last few weeks I feel I have awoken once again to the spirit of Mother, the spirit of nurture. I felt powerfully caught up in it only last week as I attended the parliamentary workshop and reception on combatting obesity. I participated in the roundtable discussion looking at ways to reach men. Many avenues were explored. At one point we discussed children and the role that not only mothers but fathers play in nurturing their children’s eating habits and how this would be one way to reach men to help them live healthier lives. It was reassuring to witness the recognition these days in men’s roles in nurturing children.

During the day I witnessed this nurturing love being expressed and participated in conversations about how we all have a role in bringing it to life. I saw a deep sense of collective responsibility and witnessed numerous examples of ways in which we can all show the way. None more so than in Baroness Benjamin, a wonderful example of mother. I’m not just talking about childhood memories here either. Although I did remember being a little boy and watching with my own mother as she touched so many children’s lives in the 1970’s. What I witnessed and was honoured to be in the presence of, was the embodiment of nurture, such a warm and deeply loving human being who just put you at ease by their presence. Someone who made you feel welcome as you are and someone who by simply being themselves invited you to be yourself. This is the spirit of mother for me and also the model for religious community too, the mother church a place of nurture, love and acceptance, a place where you can be yourself and your spirit can grow.

I felt powerfully the spirit of mother that day.

Subsequently I have felt a sickening sadness this week as only seven days later this very same place was a scene of bloodshed and murder as the Houses of Parliament came under attack from a man with murderous intent. That terror, that fear, will not overcome love though, of this I am certain. The spirit of love, that embodies the spirit of mother will overcome the spirit of destruction that occurred that day. We have seen this spirit come to life as people have come together ever since this appalling atrocity was committed...The spirit of love will always over come...

Today we honour the spirit of mother. Yes we honour the mothers who gave birth to us and raised us but also all the others who have nurtured and brought to life this love within us. We also honour that which lays within us, that spirit of mother that can help bring the very same love alive in others.

All of us have the potential to give birth and raise something in the world. Not all of us can give birth to children, but we can give birth to ideas, to art to music to all manner of creativity, we can all give birth to love through our very being. Some of us raise children, but children are not the only things that we can raise. Some of us can raise animals or flowers and vegetables; some of us can raise those in our community to be the best that they can be; some of us, later in life, find ourselves raising our own parents as they come to end of their lives; some of us can raise interest in a cause that we feel is worthy of working for, for me in recent times it is obesity and issues about our own bodily being. A love that has grown from my own pain and suffering and struggle. If we cannot raise interest we can raise money to support causes or just point out to others where love is needed. We can all raise and nurture love in this world, we can all give birth to love through our being. We can invoke the spirit of mother through our very own human being.

So on this day that honours mothers, let us do so in the true spirit of mother. Let us honour the mothers who gave birth to us and those who raised us. Let us give thanks for all they gave, whilst acknowledging their human limitations. Let us also give thanks for all those who have shown unconditional love and acceptance to us, those who have nurtured that loving spirit within us, who encouraged us to be the best that we could be. Let us also acknowledge that spirit of mother within each of us, that capacity to accept, love, encourage and nurture. Let us acknowledge our responsibility not only for ourselves but for one another and the whole of humanity.

Let’s all of us pay homage to the spirit of mother…