Original Blessing: A Return to Love

“Blessing” by Barbara Pescan from “Morning Watch”

We spend so much time running from ourselves
Fleeing from what we know
about the goodness in our hearts
we think we can escape
the intelligence of our loving.

Imagine you are standing before a bodhisattva—
Jesus, Buddha, the first mother
it does not matter what you call the holy one—
he has dust on his shoes
chaff clings to her
the smells of being alive—
Shining from their faces is the beam of
all their questions
the compassion of their living

Can you see yourself through those eyes?
Can we know each other like this?
(We, who no longer believe in messiahs
can hardly believe in each other.)

Can we
know ourselves seen
and know each other this same way
until our restless hearts
learn to abide
in this knowing and this love?
Can we live in this gaze of blessing?

During the recent “Ministry in the Making” Rev Ant Howe, the principal tutor of Unitarian College, led an excellent workshop. His opening remarks chimed with concerns I often feel not just about colleagues, but an awful lot of people I meet and have met along the way of life. He observed how if he could have one super power it would be to help folk to see themselves as they truly are, the potential they have, what they are capable of being and becoming. I know myself how much it matters how we see ourselves, for how we see ourselves is how we will see all life. I am not merely talking about our physically being here, but in our hearts and souls.

What do you see when you look into the mirror, when you look into your own eyes? It matters you know, it really does.

It is said that if we could only live by The “Golden Rule of Compassion”, found at the heart and soul of all the great spiritual traditions states, in various forms, “do into others as you would have them do unto yourself”, then we might learn to live in love and peace with each other. It is certainly vital that when we look at each other we see a fellow human being and that we act with compassion towards one another. This would certainly be a good start, but there are some problems that stem from even the Golden Rule. I wonder sometimes if this is actually part of the problem; that we do live this way and for many of us this is where the trouble begins. I suspect that many folk see the world as they see themselves. The problem is how they see themselves and they see the world. That they see at the heart of themselves something or someone that is wrong at the core of their being. Therefore, they see this in the world around them.

The problem is that we see something wrong at the core of human nature.

During the introduction to his workshop Ant made reference to two pieces of Old Testament literature. The first from the first book of the Bible Genesis I v 27

27 So God created humans[e] in his image,
in the image of God he created them;[f]
male and female he created them.

He complimented this with the 8th Psalm V5

5 Yet you have made them a little lower than God[b]
and crowned them with glory and honor.

So not God’s, but formed in the image, a reflection, of the Divine. Born from love and with responsibility for the world and the people they share with the world, folk born from the same flesh and with the same spirit.

These verses suggest to me an “Original Blessing”, that humanity is formed in this, at least according to these foundational verses of scripture. If we saw this as foundational and then applied the Golden Rule, then certainly life would improve for all. The problem is that too often we do not. For too long the emphasis has been on what is seen as humanity’s fallen nature. This of course comes from the traditional understanding of second book of Genesis and the fall of humanity in the story of “Adam and Eve”. Of them eating from the forbidden tree of knowledge of Good and Evil and thus being cast out of paradise. From Augustine it has been understood, at least in orthodox Trinitarian Christinaity, that humanity is permanently stained and corrupted and can only be saved by the blood of the sacrifice of Jesus, through substitutional atonement. That the troubles of humanity and the troubles of life are due to our “Original Sin”.

Now of course this is an explanation for our troubles, but not one I share. We have the capacity for good, just as we have the capacity to cause great suffering. Depending on the eyes I look at life with, determines which one I believe.

I have felt sadness this week. I was shocked on Tuesday morning when I received a phone call from Liz Parkinson’s husband Neil to tell me that Liz had died suddenly on Monday. Now I know that Liz had lived with a variety of complex health issues for many years, but the news was still shocking. I have known Liz for over a dozen years and it has been wonderful having her become a member of the Altrincham congregation. She has given so much, especially keeping other physically isolated people connected from the Covid days until the last few days of her life. Liz found a home amongst our free religious tradition. She was always quite surprised by the freedom she was afforded, to explore her own faith, to find what she believed and didn’t believe. I remember a conversation I had with her a little while ago about suffering and faith and the rejection of the concept that anyone is born with the taint of sin and or wrongness. Something I know that she struggled with from an early age. Her daughter Lynne told that she found great healing and acceptance in our community and I know how much that meant to her and her family.

As I was thinking of Liz and her journey I was reminded of a conversation I had with another friend, who is herself on her own spiritual journey. It took place out walking and talking with Molly. We found ourselves walking in circles, side by side and sharing about our own journeys through life and our own understandings of faith and doubt.

We were talking about where this sense of wrongness we humans can feel at times comes from. Something we have both shared, something sadly so many do. Where does this rejection of life come from? We talked about the foundational stories in Genesis. Of course it is Mythos. It is not history to be argued over factual accuracy. Mythos is Universal Truth, the question to ask is does this speak to a deeper truth that we can find in ourselves, does it speak throughout time?

Now of course some reject the Bible as outdated and not only inaccurate but downright destructive. I do not, I think there is so much to engage with still. That said only in a symbolic sense. I explained to my friend how it actually begins with “Original Blessing”, in Genesis chapter one. This was the point that Ant was trying to make too. That God looked at his creation and saw that it was good. That life is a good thing, that we are formed from good, not wrong. There is no original sin, only original blessing, that blessing is formational, that life is formed from goodness. The concept of “Original Sin” was actually a creation of the later church, mainly Augustine and his self-loathing, Which I believe is a rejection of his own original blessing, something I can personally relate to at times, as sadly so many folk do. That the fall came after the blessing and that the spiritual journey is about returning to the blessing.

So it isn’t that there isn’t wrong, or suffering, sin in the world, it’s just that this is not the foundation, that we are born in and through “Original Sin”

The trouble begins in the understand of second creation story, in the Garden of Eden. That said if we look at this symbolically rather than literally there is so much beautiful mythos to be unearthed in this story too. The original human Adam meant born from the earth. Human, humus, humility all share same linguistic root, born from the earth, not God, but finite, limited, but beautiful. Yes we are born, but we also die. This is life.

Originally, we enjoy paradise, the fruits of life. There is no shame, no sense of wrongness no rejection of our lives, no destruction of ourselves and or others. We simply enjoy paradise. We have something else though. We want more, we seek more. This is where all creativity is born, but can also causes trouble. We are the only aspect of created life that experiences dissatisfaction. We want more.

So, we eat the forbidden fruit, we want the knowledge, we suffer Hubris. We lose that beautiful gift of innocence, we are cast out by a sense of shame, especially with our humanity. We leave paradise. We separate ourselves.

We can though return to love, to blessing, but the journey is long and arduous, not that we go anywhere. To quote Meister Eckhart, it could be of one inch, but a depth beyond any depth, layer upon layer. We return home, we go full circle, we don't go back on ourselves. We come home with treasure to share. This is the classic heroic journey. The truth of every great story, the Universal Mythos. The key is to return home to love. That though comes in later stories. I often think of the prodigal son here. With the boy returning home to the open arms of his father who greets him halfway, celebrates his return and embraces his son, with a kiss. An act of pure love. Can there be anything more intimate. It seems to me there is nothing considered wrong in this child born of love. Yet so often we do not feel we are formed from this, it is just so sad.

Now of course this is only my view of the mythos and it is certainly not orthodox in any way shape or form. My interpretation is life affirming, it celebrates life, the traditional view does not. As Joseph Campbell, that great mythologist, has said the orthodox interpretation is “a refusal to affirm life.” Life is seen as corrupt. It sees the serpent as the symbol that brought sin into the world and woman as the figure who handed the apple to man. As Campbell says “This identification of the woman with sin, of the serpent with sin, and thus of life with sin, is the twist the has been given to the whole story in the biblical myth and doctrine of the Fall.... I don't know of it [the idea of woman as sinner...in other mythologies] elsewhere.”

The traditional understanding sees life as the problem, especially human life and sees the female, the bringer of life, as the root of the trouble. How long have we all suffered as a result of this rejection of life and woman as central to it. We see it clearly today, it has not gone away, in fact if anything the trouble seems to be intensifying. For me the problem stems from this fear of life itself. Surely though life is good.

Sadly, it seems that so many folk are as afraid of life as we are of death. It seems to me that these ancient stories, in their essence at least, are trying to teach that death is in life as life is in death. This is the story of existence of which we are all a part of. Yet for me some reason we reject life in so many ways, we are frightened of being cast out of it, we crucify it, we torture it we persecute and distrust. We fear our own humanity, our mortality. We say there is no good in us and no good in the other. In so doing we do in fact treat others as we would wish to be treated. This is of course is not what the Golden Rule of Compassion was meant to be like. It was meant to help us see ourselves in the other, and other in ourselves and to act with love and compassion to all.

Ant made a vitally important point, one I agree with. It matters how we see ourselves and I firmly believe how we see ourselves will reflect on how we see others and the world. It certainly has in my life. I have at times in my life lived with feelings of self loathing, that there was something wrong with me. This a conversation I shared with my friend in Accrington recently as we shared childhood memories. I know I was told many times that people like me would not last long in this world. That I needed to be different kind of person a tougher one than I was. On dark days, when my mood is low I can feel like that again. I can believe that there is something wrong with me, at the core of me. I know I am not alone. Maybe this is not such a terrible thing as it does breed empathy in the heart of me, as I know many others can feel this way too.

I am not alone in these feelings. So many folk feel this way. Not everyone though. It can be hard for folk who have never felt this way to relate to those amongst us who have. It can make it difficult to understand if you have never felt this way.

It is only humanity that seems to be cursed with a sense of shame, maybe this is where the mythos of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge is about. I certainly don’t see it in animals. As I watch Molly playing and loving and enjoying her existence, it’s the same with the other dogs too. They enjoy the fact that they live at all, it is a pure blessing.

I was chatting with someone the other day who was singing the joy the of living. They were telling me how they were going to the gym after work, enjoying the privilege of being alive. This is a person who has never suffered this sense of being wrong, at least this is what they tell me. They are a delight to be around, although they do tell me that they struggle to empathise with others and that it can make them both impatient and intolerant. This brings its own troubles. I know a sense of joy in my being mostly these days. I love to sing the joy of living in all its mystery. I also know the other feelings too and I do not forget, for it helps to breed empathy. If I never felt them I wonder if I would truly be able to do this work. It allows me serve and has enabled me to find my place in this world.

As I journey on, as I have done this week, despite sad feelings of grief and concern for others, I have remembered to keep on singing that joy of living. I have noticed that despite the very real suffering that is part of existence, both natural and that caused by our inhumanity, that there is music too. I have been thinking of Ant’s words to the new ministers. I have been remembering that life itself is a blessing, it is a privilege to be alive. Grief has remined me just how precious life is and how I get to share my life with some remarkable people. That we are born from “Original Blessing”. That this is our natural state, that too often we lose sight of this. We are all formed from the tree of life, the tree of renewal, the tree of re-birth. We need to recognise this. Sometimes this comes when we lose something or someone precious to us, somehow in this suffering we turn back home again, we return to paradise. We find wholeness once again, we recognise our own sacredness and that of others. We return to love and care compassion. We care for one another and we let others care for us too.

This I believe is how we are meant to live. It is certainly how I am meant to live. It is the only way that someone like me can live in this world.

I’m going to end with a bit of Mary Oliver, perhaps her best known poem “Wild Geese”

“Wild Geese” Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

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

Love is the Only Response: Deliver Us To and Not From the Suffering in the World

Working alongside Janine (a student minister working with the congregations I serve), discussing her time studying at Luther King House, has got me reflecting on my time as a student minister there. Particularly the challenges of being a Unitarian studying alongside fellow students from traditional Christian denominations. I know myself it took time to adjust and to find myself and my own understanding of my faith within this context. This is not easy, and it is not the only environment that you have find yourself during this challenging time; it is not easy, but it is vital to ministry formation dare I say. I think one the most challenging aspect of time in college is the assumed starting points in theological discussion and understanding.

I have been thinking a lot about ministry these last few weeks.

I recently attended Rev Penny Johnson’s funeral. It was a beautiful service, prepared by Penny herself. Her husband Ken and minister Rev Jeff Gould of course adapted and added to it, especially in some elements of the personal tribute to Penny’s life and ministry. Penny exemplified ministry, Unitarian ministry through her love and service. I have some wonderful personal memories of Penny. She was especially helpful to me in my formative years in the job.

I found myself chatting with Geoff Levermore, before the service. He always asks very probing questions, too probing at times I would say. One question he asked was where I would place myself on the Unitarian spectrum. I asked him what he meant by that? He explained asking if I found myself tending towards Liberal Christianity, something more human centred or a more earth centred, more naturalist spirituality. I said I don’t really think about ministry that way. I could see he didn’t feel satisfied with my answer and so I said that I identify as a Universalist really. He said a Deist and I said no I identify more as a Panentheist, or at least if I have to put a label on my beliefs. It seems he had not heard of Panentheism. The truth is though that I am not too precious about such things, as I know my primary role is to serve. Rev Penny Johnson being a wonderful example of this. She saw her role and certainly the worship she created as being related to the world in which she lived and helping others to live in this world. She never wore a clerical collar and did not see herself as separate from those she served. She saw her role as being with people in their struggle, a perspective I share with her.

That said if I have to put a label on it I say I am a Universalist. As a Universalist I believe there is truth in so many traditions. I am yet to find the whole truth in any.My place is not in the spectrum, it kind of is the spectrum. I also believe in a God of love that is present in all life and yet is greater than all life. This is panentheistic, or at least how I see it. This brings with it a great responsibility, for my faith to be real it has to be lived out in this world. This can be challenging at times. As a friend once said in response to my Universalism, “The thing I worry about is how much input a God of love is having, in that so many are hurt, killed.” This point seems particularly pertinent at this time, especially as we witness the horrors taking place in Israel and Palestine. So many innocent lives brutally killed. It is heartbreaking to witness such horror and barbarity and how this is spreading to other parts of world. The sorry spectacle of our inhumanity to one another. Not that this is a new story it has been going on throughout human history. Now some say this is evidence of the evils of religion. Some of us may have sympathy with this view. That said if I look at most of the evils of the second half of the 20th century and many today they were and are inflicted by secular states too. Think of China and North Korea today, or Cambodia and the Soviet Union in the past. To me most of such violence and dare I say evil is due to failing to recognise the sacredness of one another. Of failing to see the other as neighbour, the secular and the religious as just as culpable of this. When will we see the other in ourselves and ourselves in the other?

So, it is a pertinent question to ask about a God of love. If we look at the world, at the suffering within the world, it is reasonable to ask in what sense a God of love could be involved in all of this? Of course the response of many is that none at all, for there is no God. Or others will say that God is not all loving. Others may say well it’s all a mystery and we cannot understand how God’s love operates. Then still others will suggest that we look at the helpers and that this love manifests in their actions. Do any of this answers seem adequate to you? It is certainly something to ponder.

Now suffering and a God of Love is a question that has troubled theologians, philosophers and plain ordinary people for centuries. The question has been asked and continues to be asked as to what causes suffering and can it be overcome? Now in some quarters it has been suggested that the root cause of suffering is “evil”. Which has led to the question that if evil exists then how can God be all powerful, ever present and all loving? In theological circles this has become known as “The Theodicy Dilemma”

“The Theodicy Dilemma” may be summed up by the following question about God asked by the eighteenth century philosopher David Hume:

“Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil.”

This question encapsulates the whole Theodicy debate.

In the twentieth century Czeslaw Milosz wrote the following poem “Theodicy”

“Theodicy” by Czeslaw Milosz

No, it won’t do, my sweet theologians.
Desire will not save the morality of God.
If he created beings able to choose between good and evil,
And they chose, and the world lies in iniquity,
Nevertheless, there is pain, and the undeserved torture of creatures,
Which would find its explanation only by assuming
The existence of an archetypal Paradise
And a pre-human downfall so grave
That the world of matter received its shape from diabolic power.

Even more hard hitting, I would suggest, than Hume’s questions. This from Milosz a Nobel Prize winning Poet who was a Polish Catholic, who spent much of his life wrestling with his own faith.

I remember exploring “Theodicy”, in depth, while training for the ministry. Something I have been thinking of again as I have been sharing with Janine. I probably spent more time on the piece I wrote on the subject than any other, which showed in my final marks. I struggled and I wrestled, as so many have no doubt done. Looking back I can see how important it was for me to do so. By the way I have been struggling with it again these last few weeks. The struggle has been so important as I have learnt, in my time as a minister, that a large part of the work is to be with others in their suffering, often senseless suffering by the way. It is of course suffering that brought me into ministry in the first place.

Whilst training I remember wrestling for hours, in the library and walking in the park, with the theodicy question, I continue to do so by the way. I found my own unsettled faith in it and as a result a greater purpose has emerged. If I have learned anything from suffering, it is that I cannot take away the suffering of anyone else, but I can be with them in it. I have learned that in so doing the God of my limited understanding comes into being once more.

My understanding did not fit neatly within any of the traditional orthodox Christian views I explored during my training. I did not see it as a consequence or our fallen nature, an absence of good which causes us to choose evil, following Augustine or Calvin, or that suffering was a part of some kind of Divine plan. I had some sympathy with the views of Aquinas that somehow we lose our way. I find the idea that suffering has to take place in order for life to discover what is good very troubling. I cannot see how someone finding good at the expense of the suffering of others a good thing. I am with Dorothy Soelle and her view that “No Heaven can Rectify an Auschwitz”. The ends can never justify the means, if the means bring such suffering to so many. If God is present, then God is there in the suffering and our response to the suffering, something Eli Weisel explored in his seminal work “The Night”. The God of my understanding comes alive in my response to suffering.

So yes, I believe in a God of love, but not one who controls life. God in life but not controlling life. The God I believe has to come alive through our being. It may not be an adequate answer, but it is one I experience through my fragile human being. I respond to the idea of a God of Love, as my experiences and observations of life suggest this. I also experience this love coming to life as I am with those who suffer and do all I can to be with them in their pain, but I cannot prove that beyond doubt.

My growing sense of Universalism and Panentheism helps me to live faithfully, in love, in a world in which there is so much beauty but also heartbreaking suffering, some natural but an awful lot caused by our inhumanity. I accept that no matter how lovingly I and others live, that horrific, dare I say evil, things will happen both personally and universally. So where is the God of love? Well it comes alive in the response to this suffering. It is the God of love, that allows one to come through even the most horrific situations, with a response grown from a sacred reverence for life itself. This is the God of Love that I worship, that is beyond my understanding.

I have come to believe that it is our holy duty to respond to the suffering of others, to stand in solidarity with them and act in holy compassion and never to declare the other as somehow less than human.

In my prayers I ask this Universal Love to help me feel a deep connection to all life and to bring some healing to the world in which I live and the world beyond my being.

It is, I believe, our holy duty to begin to bring healing to our world, to wipe the tears that flow from our humanity and to repair the tears in the fabric of the world, to bring compassion and love to those in fear, to bind up the broken and bring wholeness to those who feel separated from the love in life. This is the call of love from the God of my limited understanding.

It is a call that asks my senses to be opened to the world and instead of being delivered from evil, it is call from an ever-loving God to be delivered to the suffering in this world.

I’m sorry if it does not answer why a God of love would allow suffering. I am sorry if that is not good enough. I am sorry. I cannot sincerely offer any more. I cannot give an opiate that relieves us of pain. I can only offer a loving response to that pain.

All I can offer is a loving purpose that comes to life in this beautiful and at times suffering world.

Before offering a closing blessing I am going to share with a wonderful poem the recently deceased great poets Louise Gluck “Celestial Music”, it seems pertinent to me at this time. I first came across in Mark Bellitini’s wonderful book on grief “Nothing Gold Can Stay: The Colours of Grief”

"Celestial Music" Louise Gluck

I have a friend who still believes in heaven.
Not a stupid person, yet with all she knows, she literally talks to god,
she thinks someone listens in heaven.
On earth, she's unusually competent.
Brave, too, able to face unpleasantness.

 
We found a caterpillar dying in the dirt, greedy ants crawling over it.
I'm always moved by weakness, by disaster, always eager to oppose vitality.
But timid, also, quick to shut my eyes.
Whereas my friend was able to watch, to let events play out
according to nature. For my sake, she intervened,
brushing a few ants off the torn thing, and set it down across the road.

 
My friend says I shut my eyes to god, that nothing else explains
my aversion to reality. She says I'm like the child who buries her head in the pillow
so as not to see, the child who tells herself
that light causes sadness–
My friend is like the mother. Patient, urging me
to wake up an adult like herself, a courageous person–

 
In my dreams, my friend reproaches me. We're walking
on the same road, except it's winter now;
she's telling me that when you love the world you hear celestial music:
look up, she says. When I look up, nothing.
Only clouds, snow, a white business in the trees
like brides leaping to a great height–
Then I'm afraid for her; I see her
caught in a net deliberately cast over the earth–

 
In reality, we sit by the side of the road, watching the sun set;
from time to time, the silence pierced by a birdcall.
It's this moment we're both trying to explain, the fact
that we're at ease with death, with solitude.
My friend draws a circle in the dirt; inside, the caterpillar doesn't move.
She's always trying to make something whole, something beautiful, an image
capable of life apart from her.
We're very quiet. It's peaceful sitting here, not speaking, the composition
fixed, the road turning suddenly dark, the air
going cool, here and there the rocks shining and glittering–
it's this stillness that we both love.
The love of form is a love of endings.

Louise Gluck, Poems 1962-2012, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013.

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

Tending and being tended by the Tree of Life

I found myself in Dunham Massey once again the other morning. It was siling it down with rain. I took shelter for a little while under a great tree, as I did I reflected on the week that had gone by. It had begun by attending the funeral of my friend’s young wife, they had married just a few days before she succumbed to cancer. It was a beautiful service, a wonderful celebration of “Hannah’s life”.

As I sheltered I was filled with a deep grief and sadness for my cousin Cheryl who is still with us at the time of writing, it was her birthday on Friday, she turned 42. There are other deep sadness around too, my heart feels broken, certainly tender. As I stood there sheltering, protected by the tree, Barbara a lovely member at Dunham Road, one of the congregations I serve came running past. She stopped for a while and we chatted. I then left the shelter of the tree to return to life. I have bumped into Barbara several times over the last couple of weeks, what a deep hearted caring woman she is.

As I carried on walking in the pouring rain the wonderful poem “I go among trees” by Wendell Berry was singing in my heart.

“I Go Among Trees” by Wendell Berry

I go among trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle.

Then what is afraid of me comes
and lives a while in my sight.
What it fears in me leaves me,
and the fear of me leaves it.
It sings, and I hear its song.

Then what I am afraid of comes.
I live for a while in its sight.
What I fear in it leaves it,
and the fear of it leaves me.
It sings, and I hear its song.

After days of labor,
mute in my consternations,
I hear my song at last,
and I sing it. As we sing,
the day turns, the trees move.

As I walked on I felt some of the fears in me leave me and I found myself singing some familiar songs. I’ve been singing a lot recently, so many songs. I found myself singing songs to life itself. I felt I was being held by the tree of life, a celebration of life in midst of love and loss and grief. I thought of the Jewish toast “l’chaim”, to life. Don’t we all tend the tree of life and don’t we all shelter under it too.

I love the symbolism of the tree of life, it is beautifully universal. It represents such a nurturing love. I think in our secular age we have lost some of the power and deep meaning of symbols. I have a growing appreciation for the old symbols, they reveal deep truths that are sometimes hidden, that words alone do not reveal. The mythologist Joseph Campbell taught that certain images and pictures invite the eye not to merely rush along but to rest a while and dwell within the revelation that can be found by looking deeply into them. I was thinking of this as I passed all those beautiful trees, so strong and sturdy, offering shelter from the rain. They are a toast to life itself. The tree is the symbol of life. This is why the “Tree of Life” is a universal symbol.

“l’chaim”, to life.

The trees have much to teach us. My name sake and American colleague Rev Greta W. Crosby recognises this. In “Tree and Jubilee” she describes a silent none judgemental presence that the trees offer her, something we humans cannot give no matter how well we may think we are at listening. The trees simply stand there erect and open, never shrinking away or rejecting, offering unconditional love and acceptance. She wrote:

“I have long had a sense of fellowship with trees. Since I was a child, I have sought their company from time to time because I like the way I feel in their presence. I enjoy their beauty, but it is more than that. I used the word “presence” in a very strong sense. I felt their presence as living things. And in that presence, I often feel relaxed and centered, peaceful, restored to inner equilibrium.”

She continues…

“For many of us, life is the meaning of the tree. But for me, perhaps the greatest thing about the tree is its silence. Whatever the tree says to us, whatever it answers to our questing, the tree gives its message without words. And the tree bears with us well. It does not judge. It does not react to our anxieties. It does not run after us. It just stands there with open arms.”

The tree to me is the ultimate symbol of life. We all tend and nurture the tree of life. “l’chaim”, to life.

The “Tree of Life” is a beautiful and universal symbol it can be found in many of the worlds religious traditions. The ancient Chinese, Assyrians, Egyptians, Baylonians and Samarians all had a tree of life symbol. There is Ygdrassil, the Norse Tree of Life, The Etz Ha Hayim of the Kaballistic Jews. The Bahai's speak of it and Christians of all kinds speak of the tree of life, with healing leaves, found in the Book of Revelations. The book of Genesis tells of two trees: a Tree of Knowledge, which is the tree of good and evil, and the Tree of Life, the tree of immortality. Of course in Genesis 2 they ate the forbidden fruit, the “Tree of Knowledge”, as the result Adam and Eve are banished from paradise, from life I suspect.

As I continued to wander round Dunham I recalled a conversation I had a few days earlier, in the very same spot, with a friend. We were talking about where this sense of wrongness we humans can feel at times comes from. Something we have both shared, something sadly so many do. Where does this rejection of life come from? We talked about the foundational stories in Genesis. Of course it is all Mythos. It is not history to be argued over factual accuracy. Mythos is Universal Truth, the question to ask is does this speak to a deeper truth that we can find in ourselves, does it speak throughout time?

Now of course some reject the Bible as outdated and not only inaccurate but downright destructive. I do not, I think there is so much to engage with still. That said only in a symbolic sense. I explained to my friend how it actually begins with “Original Blessing”, in Genesis chapter one. God looked at his creation and saw that it was good. That life is a good thing, that we are formed from good, not wrong. There is no original sin, only original blessing, that blessing is formational, that life is formed from goodness. The concept of “Original Sin” was actually a creation of the later church, mainly Augustine and his self-loathing, Which I believe is a rejection of his own original blessing, something I can personally relate to at times, as sadly so many folk do.

The trouble begins in the second creation story, in the Garden of Eden. That said if we look at this symbolically rather than literally there is so much beautiful mythos to be unearthed. The original human Adam meant born from the earth. Human, humus, humility all share same linguistic root, born from the earth, not God, but finite, limited, but beautiful. Yes we are born, but we also die. This is life.

Originally we enjoy paradise, the fruits of life. There is no shame, no sense of wrongness no rejection of our lives, no destruction of ourselves and or others. We simply enjoy paradise. We have something else though. We want more, we seek more. This is where all creativity is born, but can also cause trouble. We are the only aspect of created life that experiences dissatisfaction. We want more.

So we eat the forbidden fruit, we want the knowledge, we suffer Hubris. We lose that beautiful gift of innocence, we are cast out by a sense of shame, especially with our humanity. We leave paradise.

We can though return to love to blessing, but the journey is long and arduous, not that we go anywhere. To quote Meister Eckhart, it could be of one inch, but a depth beyond any depth, layer upon layer. We return home, we go full circle, we don't go back on ourselves. We come home with treasure to share. This is the classic heroic journey. The truth of every great story, the Universal Mythos. The key is to return home to love. That though comes in later stories. I often think of the prodigal son here. With the boy returning home to the open arms of his father who greets him halfway, celebrates his return and embraces his son, with a kiss. An act of pure love. Can there be anything more intimate. It seems to me there is nothing considered wrong in this child born of love. Yet so often we do not feel we are formed from this, it is just so sad.

Now of course this is only my view of the mythos and it is certainly not orthodox in any way shape or form. My interpretation is life affirming, it celebrates life, the traditional view does not. As Joseph Campbell, that great mythologist, has said the orthodox interpretation is “a refusal to affirm life.” Life is seen as corrupt. It sees the serpent as the symbol that brought sin into the world and woman as the figure who handed the apple to man. My friend was explaining this to me as we walked round Dunham the other day. As Campbell says “This identification of the woman with sin, of the serpent with sin, and thus of life with sin, is the twist the has been given to the whole story in the biblical myth and doctrine of the Fall.... I don't know of it [the idea of woman as sinner...in other mythologies] elsewhere.”

The traditional understanding sees life as the problem, especially human life and sees the female, the bringer of life, as the root of the trouble. How long have we all suffered as a result of this rejection of life and woman as central to it. We see it clearly today, it has not gone away, in fact if anything the trouble seems to be intensifying. For me the problem stems from this fear of life itself. Surely though life is good. Maybe the solution is the “Tree of Life”. It nurtures us if we tend to it and it will offer us shelter. “l’chaim”, to life.

There is an eternal wisdom in the trees. The Buddha gained enlightenment beneath the Bodhi Tree. The tree blessed him as it did so showering him with blossom. In ancient Christian imagery Jesus is crucified on the “Holy Rued”, “The Tree of Life”, the second tree in the garden of Eden, from this life comes again, as does fruit that can sustain us. As Joseph Campbell highlighted man was expelled from the garden because he ate from the first tree, the “Tree of Knowledge”. The garden was the place of unity of none duality, “non-duality of male and female, none duality of man and God, none-duality of good and evil.” The tree of immortal life brings us back to paradise, to unity to life itself. Where two become one. This is identical to the tree that Buddha sits under, the tree of life is the universal symbol of life itself.

“l’chaim”, to life

Sadly it seems that so many folk are as afraid of life as we are of death. It seems to me that these ancient stories, in their essence at least, are trying to teach that death is in life as life is in death. This is the story of existence of which we are all a part of. Yet for me some reason we reject life in so many ways, we are frightened of being cast out of it, we crucify it, we torture it we persecute and distrust. We fear our own humanity, our mortality. We say there is no good in us and no good in the other.

It doesn’t have to be this way. We are born from “Original Blessing”, original goodness. This is our natural state, that too often we lose sight of. We are all formed from the tree of life, the tree of renewal, the tree of re-birth. We need to recognise this. Sometimes this comes when we lose something or someone precious to us, somehow in this suffering we turn back home again, we return to paradise. We find wholeness once again, we recognise our own sacredness and that of others. We return to the “Tree of Life” and we tend to it and it tends to us. Just as I did that rainy morning seeking shelter under the tree in Dunham Massey.

May we know this wisdom and may we bring it to life through our very being.

“l’chaim”, to life

I am going to end with a little bit of Mary Oliver “The Summer Day”. Mary has been singing in my heart a lot these last few days.

“The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Below is a devotion based on 

the material in this "blogspot"

Deliver Us To And Not From The Suffering In Our World: The Theodicy Dilemma

In the last "Blogspot" I explored Universalism in its many varied, dare I say universal, forms. When asked what kind of a Universalist I was? I said I was a Universalist, Universalist, Universalist. The service, that the "Blogspot" was based on, was delivered at three congregations that day. By the time I got to third I could almost have done so without notes. I had all kinds of interesting responses to the service, many folk seemed to identify strongly. Later that day, exhausted, I returned home and published this “blogspot” based upon it. Whoever read the post actually received what I had intended to deliver, where as those who heard it received versions as they manifested in the time and space. Again I got some very interesting responses, to the published version. At the time I did not have the energy to respond but thankfully others did. One stayed with me and and this "blogspot" has grown from it. The post read “ The thing is I worry about how much input a God of love is having, in that so many are hurt, killed, homeless, hungry etc”

It is a good question. If we look at the world, at the suffering within the world, it is reasonable to ask in what sense could a God of love be involved in all of this? Of course the response of many is that none at all, for there is no God. Or others will say that God is not all loving. Others may say well it’s all a mystery and we cannot understand how God’s love operates. Then still others will suggest that we look at the helpers and that this love manifests in their actions. Are any of these answers adequate? It is certainly something to ponder.

Now suffering and a God of Love is a question that has troubled theologians, philosophers and plain ordinary people for centuries. The question has been asked and continues to be asked as to what causes suffering and can it be overcome? Now in some quarters it has been suggested that the root cause of suffering is “evil”. Which has led to the question that if evil exists then how can God be all powerful, ever present and all loving? In theological circles this question has become known as “The Theodicy Dilemma”

Theodicy from the Greek words "theos" (God) and "dike" (justice)

“The Theodicy Dilemma” may be summed up by the following question, about God, asked by the eighteenth century philosopher David Hume:

“Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil.”

This question encapsulates the whole Theodicy debate.

The debate is also captured in the following poem by Czeslaw Milosz "Theodicy”

“Theodicy” by Czeslaw Milosz

No, it won’t do, my sweet theologians.
Desire will not save the morality of God.
If he created beings able to choose between good and evil,
And they chose, and the world lies in iniquity,
Nevertheless, there is pain, and the undeserved torture of creatures,
Which would find its explanation only by assuming
The existence of an archetypal Paradise
And a pre-human downfall so grave
That the world of matter received its shape from diabolic power.

The poem is even more hard hitting, I would suggest, than Hume’s questions. This from Milosz a Nobel Prize winning Poet who was a Polish Catholic, who spent much of his life wrestling with his own faith.

I remember exploring “Theodicy”, in depth, while training for the ministry. I probably spent more time on the piece I wrote on the subject than any other, which showed in my final marks. I struggled and I wrestled, as so many have no doubt done. Looking back I can see how important it was for me to do so.- By the way I struggled once again while trying to put the service together, that this "Blogspot" is taken from.- I am grateful for the struggle as I have learnt, in my time as a minister, that a large part of the work is to be with others in their suffering, often seemingly senseless suffering by the way. It is of course suffering that brought me into ministry in the first place.

I remember wrestling for hours, in the library and walking in the park, with the theodicy question, I continue to do so by the way. I found my own unsettled faith in it and as a result a greater purpose has emerged. If I have learned anything from suffering, it is that I cannot take away the suffering of anyone else, but I can be with them in it. I have learned that in so doing the God of my limited understanding comes into being once more.

The Christian tradition has wrestled for centuries with the Theodicy question. One strand, beginning with Augustine of Hippo concluded that evil was the absence of good in a person’s life and was the consequence of God given free will. He believed that God was aware of the potential misuse of free will but allowed it, as to deny it would be worse than to allow the evil that could stem from it. He believed that the fall of Adam, his original sin, had permanently corrupted humanity and compelled people, through destructive behaviour, to develop habitual wickedness. He believed that the root of our troubles was our inability to accept our creation and all that it entails, therefore we do not submit to God and instead submit to habitual evil which creates suffering for all.

For the medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas evil resulted from the absence of God, the lack of a positive substance, in the same way that blindness is the absence of sight. He suggested that there is no such thing as pure evil, just that something created good has become defective.

One of the leading figures of the Reformation Jean Calvin believed in God’s “Divine Plan” or Predestination. He believed that nothing took place by chance and that God was involved in every aspect of life. Like Augustine he believed that evil was caused by man’s fall and that we are enslaved by this ‘original sin’.

During the Twentieth century theologians have attempted, from a variety of stand points, to understand the nature of evil, suffering and God. John Hick offered a view very different to that followed by Augustine, Aquinus and Calvin and traces his thinking back to Iraneas. He saw the world as a vale of soul making where people are shaped by God, who desires all creatures to grow into relationship with him. Therefore, suffering is essential for this to take place. He claimed that God is, in some sense, hidden within creation and that coming to terms with suffering is part of this process. This leads to salvation which occurs when humans enjoy this perfect relationship with God. Richard Swinburn’s “Natural Law Theodicy” follows a similar line claiming that natural evil has to exist if humans are to make the correct choices that will prevent human evil.

Dorothee Soellee critiqued Hick’s position claiming that suffering, caused by God, cannot be justified. “No heaven can rectify Auschwitz” She was critical of this Christian Masochism and its concomitant Theological Sadism, claiming that human beings have become powerless masochistic accomplices to the sadistic God. She believed that to truly know God is to see Him as the God who suffers with humanity. The key question for Soelle was, who are the victims and who are the oppressors? For her God suffers with the victim, that God is present there within the suffering. Her position was powerfully illustrated in the following, told by Eli Wiesel, of two men and a small boy being hung by SS guards, from his seminal work “The Night”. Wiesel recalls:

“Where is God? Where is He? Someone behind me asked...but the third rope was still moving, being so light, the child was still alive. For more than half an hour he stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes. And we had to look him full in the face...Behind me I heard the same man asking: “Where is God now?” And I heard a voice within me answer him: “Where is he? Here He is hanging here on the gallows.”

Process theology and those influenced by it have offered other explanations as to why suffering occurs. It sees all entities as self creative and therefore free. This includes the smallest particles, which like humans are capable of responding to God. Therefore they can reject God’s purpose and it is this that creates the suffering in the world.

Process theology does not see humanity as corrupt in nature instead it claims that often we fail to live up to our potential. It recognises God as being infinite but also relative, both imminent and transcendent.It offers an explanation for both human and natural suffering. It is suggested that as man has emerged from the natural world human feeling and emotions must be present in all of creation. In essence it suggests life can respond to the Lure of Divine Love, but does not always do so and thus suffering result.

I’m not sure any of the attempts to reconcile suffering with an all powerful loving God are adequate and all resort to some extent to mystery. None give a clear picture of all loving and powerful God, who never changes.

Does this mean that "God is Dead?" as Nietzsche suggested in "The Gay Science" and many others have since.

And what do I believe, you may well ask. Well I for one do respond to the idea of a God of Love, as my experiences and observations of life suggest this. I also experience this love coming to life as I am present with those who suffer and do all I can to be with them in their pain, but I cannot prove that beyond any doubt. Like the great and lesser theolgians, I too resort to mystery. I am sorry if this answer is inadequate, but it is my honest view. No doubt this inadequate response would lead to some to reject the whole idea of God. I cannot reject the whole God concept though, for I do know and experience the lure of Divine Love. This comes alive in mine and others response to suffering, it comes to life as I turn to rather than turn away from life itself.

My growing sense of Universalism helps me to live faithfully, in love, in a world in which there is so much beauty but also suffering. I accept that no matter how loving I and others live, that horrific, dare I say evil, things will happen both personally and universally. It is the God of love, that is so great and ever compelling to me, that allows one to overcome even the most horrific situations, with a response grown from a sacred reverence for life itself. This is the God of Love that I worship, that is beyond my understanding.

I have come to believe that it is our holy duty to respond to the suffering of others, to stand in solidarity with them and act in holy compassion and never to declare the other as somehow less than human.

In my prayers I ask this Universal Love to help me feel a deep connection to all life and to bring some healing to the world in which I live and the world beyond my being.

It is I believe our holy duty to begin to bring healing to our world, to wipe the tears that flow from our humanity and to repair the tears in the fabric of the world, to bring compassion and love to those in fear, to bind up the broken and bring wholeness to those who feel separated from the love in life. This is the call of love from the God of my limited understanding.

It is a call that asks my senses to be opened to the world and instead of being delivered from evil, it is a call from an ever-loving God to be delivered to the suffering in this world.

I’m sorry if it does not answer why a God of love would allow suffering. I am sorry if that is not good enough. I am sorry.

All I can offer is a loving purpose that comes to life in this beautiful and at times suffering world.

I’m going to end this little chip of a "blogspot" with a poem by Billy Collins titled “See No Evil”

“See No Evil” by Billy Collins

No one expected all three of them
to sit there on their tree stumps forever,
their sense covered with their sinuous paws
so as to shut out the vile, nefarious world.

As it happened,
it was the one on the left
who was the first to desert his post,
uncupping his ears,
then loping off into the orbit of rumors and lies,
but also into the realm of symphonies,
the sound of water tumbling over rocks
and wind stirring the leafy domes of trees.

Then the monkey on the right lowered his hands
from his wide mouth and slipped away
in search of someone to talk to,
some news he could spread,
maybe something to curse or shout about.

And that left the monkey in the middle
alone with his silent vigil.
shielding his eyes from depravity’s spectacle,
blind to the man whipping his horse,
the woman shaking her baby in the air,
but also unable to see
the russet sun on a rough shelf of rock
and apples in the grass at the base of a tree.

Sometimes, he wonders about the other two,
listens for the faint sounds of their breathing
up there on the mantel alongside the clock and candlesticks.

And some nights in the quiet house
he wishes he could break the silence with a question,
but he knows the one on his right
would not be able to hear,
and the one to his left,
according to their sacred oath-
the one they all took with one paw raised-
is forbidden forever to speak, even in reply.

Let Life Be Your Prayer

I love this song it speaks to me in so many ways and about so many different times in my life...


For most of my life prayer meant nothing to me. I did not see its purpose or point and therefore never engaged with it, well except in those dark deadly moments. Things have changed in recent times and prayer is now something that is a vital part of my life. I pray a lot, perhaps constantly. I see this blog as a prayer if I’m really being honest; I see everything I do as a form of prayer.

The first prayer that I intentionally wrote was at a World AIDS day service I attended a few years back. I was trying to heal some of the wounds left by my dad’s life and death. He was a gay man who I am told had died of an AIDs related illness. Near the end of the service the vicar asked if people would like to write a prayer. I wanted to say something, but didn’t know how to. I just simply wrote a message of love to my dad, I expressed my regret for all that had gone on between us and hoped that he had now found peace. Looking back now that was probably my first sincere prayer and it has had a lasting effect.

So what exactly is prayer? I do not think that there is a simple answer to this. If we explore the different faith traditions there are a variety of examples. Not all prayers are addressed to a diety or deities. Some address God, but still others speak to the earth or the universe and there are others that simply invoke a blessing. Some prayers address a masculine understanding, others a feminine one and still others invoke a purely impersonal image.

It’s funny but this makes me think of a facebook update that I wrote recently. I ended it with the phrase God bless and stay free, it’s something I say a lot. A colleague replied “And Goddess bless too”. I remember feeling ever so slightly irritated by this because when I think of God I don’t think of a person male or female. That said she did make a good point, because when many folk think of God they do put human characteristics to this image and male one’s at that.

Not all prayers are spoken. In the Japanese Shinto tradition prayers and blessings are calliagraphed on paper streamers and tied to the braches of trees and bushes. As the streamers wave in the wind the blessings then fly out over the world. In Tibet prayers are carved into wooden band wheels which are spun like a top sending the prayers up into the sky. Sometimes the wheels are positioned in a stream so that the current of the water spins the wheels and the prayers are then carried off without the need of human assistance.                

One of the five pillars of Islamic practice is to pray facing Mecca five times every day, here it’s not so much the words but the direction of the prayers that matter. During the middle ages monastic orders that took vows of silence considered work done by the hands as a form of prayer – therefore everything that was done in life was considered a prayer to God. This seems very similar to the mindfulness practiced by Zen Buddhist – in which every action is practiced with deep attention. 

And what about singing – something I love. I believe it was Augustine of Hippo who said that singing is praying twice. Now I’m not one to agree with Augustine, all the time, in fact rarely to be honest, but here I do. When I am singing I feel closer to God than in virtually any other activity I engage with. Singing for me is a deeply mindful and yet at the same time liberating activity. “How can I keep from singing?”

I have in recent time begun leading Singing Meditations and I have to say I love them. I feel utterly connected during this simple practise of song chants interspersed with silence. Each session takes on a life of its own depending on the participants. The singing is a prayer which builds with power and deepens the connections between the participants and the divine; the silence is a form of meditation, when the divine speaks to those participating. By the way this practice is fun too, I find it incredibly exhilarating. It touches those parts that are are rarely reached.

Prayer takes many forms and it need not be seen as a purely solemn activity, practised in isolation. Yes we can close ourselves away and pray in isolation, but it’s not essential. Neither do we have to necessarily use words when we are praying, every activity we engage in can be a form of prayer.

But what about the atheist, how and why should they pray and what could they possibly gain from it? As I have already stated prayer in many human religious traditions is not always directed at a deity or deities. It can be seen as a form of concentrated thought or an attempt to connect to that greater reality within our own humanity.

Prayer is that hidden treasure that we don’t often see. In fact we can easily view it as a weakness and denial of our humanity to even engage in the practise, I know I once did. We can easily despise the need for it and yet prayer can enable us to do what we may well have considered humanly impossible. It’s certainly given me the courage to face what at one time I would have considered humanly impossible obstacles.

All of us at one time or another experience moments of crippling fear, or feel the need for personal confession. We are all hit by moments of regret, inadequacy, alienation and loneliness. We all at times become aware that we have hurt others. We also experience moments of awe, wonder and absolute bliss, when the simple beauty of life just overwhelm us. There are other moments when we experience the frustration and utter dejected desperation of life’s tragedies, when we would invoke every single power that the universe has to offer to change the course of some event. Whether these feelings, emotions, these elemental responses are addressed to a personal God or whether they are experienced inwardly in a more meditative sense, the substance and the need is still there. Why else would prayer, in one form or another, have developed in every culture throughout human history?

For a religious life to be full and rich it has to deal with every element of human existence, from joy and celebration, to grief, frustration, anger, bitterness and utter desperation. For the religious life to be authentic surely it must give voice to every aspect of the human experience. The religious life has to involve prayer.

Rheinhold Neibuhr once said “Prayer does not change things; prayer changes people, and people change things...Prayer is not hearing voices, prayer is acquiring a voice.”

Prayer is vital to me because it unlocks my potential and loosens the chains of fear; prayer allows me to fully function in the world; prayer allows me to live in a way I didn’t think possible until I began to fully experience it; prayer enables me to connect beyond the confines of myself to a greater reality; prayer gives me strength and direction and allows me to give myself fully to what I am doing; prayer enables me to see the things in me that need to change. Cold hard logic, simply sitting and thinking does not seem able to do this, nor does conversation and counsel alone. I have discovered that I need to connect beyond the confines of my human experience to truly experience my full humanity. Prayer enables me to know that something in the corner of my life that I cannot quite see.

Life is becoming my prayer. It is opening me up to every encounter in every moment and enabling me to experience the divine in every aspect of my life.

I thank God for discovering the power of prayer...my life is becoming one big prayer...