The falling leaf game: How to live spiritually alive

I will begin with a story “Tired of Clinging” by Richard Bach

“Tired of Clinging” by Richard Bach

Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river. The current of the river swept silently over them all - young and old, rich and poor, good and evil, the current going its own way, knowing only its own crystal self.

Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks at the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current was what each had learned from birth.

But one creature said at last, 'I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom.'

The other creatures laughed and said, 'Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks, and you shall die quicker than boredom!'

But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.

Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more.

And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, 'See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the Messiah, come to save us all!'

And the one carried in the current said, 'I am no more Messiah than you. The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure.'

But they cried the more, 'Saviour!' all the while clinging to the rocks, and when they looked again he was gone, and they were left alone making legends of a Saviour.

By Richard Bach, from "Illusions"

I was hit by a falling conker the other day whilst out in the park. Do not worry I didn’t think that the sky was falling in. That said neither did I make any life changing scientific discoveries either. It was neither a moment of terror, nor was it discovery. I was though transported back to childhood and fun autumnal games that we often played. Games folk all over the land and in others played, as they did in previous and current generations too. I enjoyed watching a group of children with parents and grandparents collecting conkers the other day.

I have been watching autumn these last few weeks, watching the leaves fall from the trees. I was out the other day when I and a friend noticed a what looked like a school teacher taking notes of the trees in the park. We wondered what he was doing. A few days later we saw a group of school children doing the same thing. I never asked them exactly what they were doing, but I did enjoy the attention the paid to the trees in the park. It has helped me pay closer attention the nature of the park that Molly and I enjoy every day.

Living spiritually alive is very much about paying attention. Last week I mentioned that Simone Weil saw attention as a contemplative practice, through which we reap life’s deepest rewards. She saw attention as the rarest form of generosity. It is through attention that we open up to Grace. Attention as she saw it is something way beyond the mere will, which she saw as graceless. For Weil attention is an opening, like prayer, that is full of Grace. It is through attention that we are touched by the majesty and beauty of life, it is how we live spiritually alive.

I am someone who attempts to practise what they preach. Yes of course I do not do this perfectly but I do at least try. As I have said before in order to live spiritually alive we need to increase our sensitivity to life. This begins by paying attention, being alive to everything, fully embracing everything and giving yourself fully to it.

As I said I was reminded of autumnal games the other. One such being “The falling leaf game”.

The game goes something like this; you look at the trees and watch for when the leaves begin to fall. As you see one falling you attempt to catch the leaf before it hits the ground. This is no easy task, although it doesn’t sound too challenging. After all it’s just a leaf, it has no mind of its own and gravity should surely bring it down safely into your hands. Well apparently not. It seems that there are other forces at work, namely the wind. It is virtually impossible to catch the leaves as they fall because they are constantly blown off course by sudden and unpredictable gusts of wind.

Isn’t life like this, beautiful but unpredictable. The leaves rarely fall directly into our hands. How often are they blown off course just as we are about to catch them.

The falling leaves can teach us so much about the spiritual life and spiritual living. They remind me of another mistake we often make. Yes, we often want to rush through things and wish they were over therefore failing to truly experience the gift of the moment. That said we can often do something which inhibits the moment equally. How many of us want to cling on to what we are experiencing right now. David Bumbaugh captures this beautifully in the following meditative poem “Dancing in the wind”

“Dancing in the wind” David Bumbaugh

Except for a few stubborn holdouts
The tree outside my window
Is bare of leaves.
The wind,
This October morning,
Worries those few remaining leaves,
Pulling them this way,
twisting them that way,
tugging at them
until, one by one,
exhausted by the ceaseless effort to hang on,
they go dancing in the wind.
As they waltz past my window,
The stubbornness has left them
And they are finally free.
What is it about living things
That we expend so much energy resisting the inevitable,
Hanging on to what is already gone,
Hoping to sustain a season
Into times that are unreasonable,
Clinging to old habits
Despite the pain and discomfort?
Why are we so afraid to dance in the wind?

Why are we so afraid to dance in the wind? It’s a good question. By clinging to things, whether that be people, possessions, seasons, situations, prestige, appearance, beliefs, disbeliefs, feelings, we fail to experience life fully. We block ourselves from experiencing the full gift of life. We become like the creatures in the story we heard earlier, clinging on but not fully experiencing life. They would rather die of boredom than risk letting go and trust in the current. And then one brave one lets go and they simply mock it as it crashes against the rocks and suffers the pain of freedom until it learns the dance of the current. Still, they are afraid though to let go and experience the freedom themselves. They want their messiah to do it for them or they merely want to spin stories of his journey rather than seeing him as the example and letting go themselves and experiencing the freedom of the current.

The spiritual life, living spiritually alive, is about increasing our sensitivity to reality. This begins by simply paying attention. By lingering for a moment, the imperfect, unfinished moment, and just as importantly let the moment linger in you. To badly paraphrase Whitman, every leaf is a love letter from God. You can pick one up for a moment, but then you must leave it so someone else to find

It is the same with all of life, if we truly pay attention and increase our sensitivity to it. All life can teach us to be all that we can be. We can even learn from the leaves as they fall freely and dance in the wind.

Here’s an extract from Whitman’s Book “Leaves of Grass” from the chapter “Song of Myself” 48th Stanza, that I just badly paraphrased, pay attention the last few lines.

I have said that the soul is not more than the body,
And I have said that the body is not more than the soul,
And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one’s self is,
And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud,
And I or you pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick of the earth,
And to glance with an eye or show a bean in its pod confounds the learning of all times,
And there is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero,
And there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheel’d universe,
And I say to any man or woman, Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.

And I say to mankind, Be not curious about God,
For I who am curious about each am not curious about God,
(No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and about death.)

I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least,
Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.

Why should I wish to see God better than this day?
I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then,
In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass,
I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign’d by God’s name,
And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe’er I go,
Others will punctually come for ever and ever.

Pay attention to all that is alive around you, we do not need to cling to anything, be open, live spiritually alive. Why do so many of us cling to things and will not let go? Why do we want to live with the illusion of control? Or on the other hand why do we want to rush through things and not experience the moment we are in? Why are we always wishing for the end of things? What are we afraid of? Why do we not want to fully experience life?

I had several conversations with people last week. Some I have known all my life and others I’ve known for only a short time. In each conversation there was a constant theme. The theme was fear. Fear I believe is at the core the two autumn themes I’ve been speaking of…to either wish days away or to cling to something that is over. These are the fears symbolic of autumn. It is fear that is at the root of the need to cling on and or control and it is fear that causes this desire to wish certain feelings away.

I’m no different myself by the way. I can want to wish certain experiences away, especially if they are uncomfortable, even painful. I noticed myself doing it the other day when I working out in the gym. I don’t always want to go through the pain of it, I just want the results that would come from doing so, but still I stuck at it. I have learnt to develop faith. I’ve also clung onto comfortable things and painful and destructive things at times in my life, for the fear of what might be if I just let go and let the wind of life take hold. It was fear that stopped me.

But what causes the fear, what causes this lack of trust. Well I think that it is lack of faith. Faith in life itself. It comes from a belief that life is hostile, against us and something that cannot be trusted. This is why we cling to things and will not let go. The antidote is faith. Faith in life itself, but this of course is a risk. It is a risk worth taking though and certainly beats the boredom of clinging to those rocks we heard about in the earlier story. We need to learn to let go and trust in the current and trust in the wind and to trust in the ever changing nature of life.

We need to learn to dance too, to play those autumnal games, conkers, catching leaves, hey maybe try kite flying. There is a joy in the ungovernable wind.

This brings to mind a lovely excerpt from Anthony Demello’s “The song of the Bird” it goes by the title “Don’t Change”

"I was neurotic for years. I was anxious and depressed and selfish. Everyone kept telling me to change. I resented them and I agreed with them, and I wanted to change, but simply couldn't, no matter how hard I tried. Then one day someone said to me, Don't change. I love you just as you are. Those words were music to my ears: Don't change, Don't change. Don't change . . . I love you as you are. I relaxed. I came alive. And suddenly I changed!

Now I know that I couldn’t really change until I found someone who would love me whether I changed or not.

Is this how you love me, God?"

Here lays both the problem and the solution. This is why I believe we cling to things or simply wish them away. This is why so many of us are afraid to fully experience the life we are experiencing right here right now. We don’t trust in life. We believe that life is untrustworthy. We fail to experience that love that is so present in life. We feel unacceptable as we are. Certainly this was my problem for so long. Thank God it is no longer the case. I do, I do, I do…every day…

You can see it in the leaves, in the trees in the folk and dogs in the park, in everything. All you have to do is pay attention, give yourself wholeheartedly to it.

This is how we learn to love life, to be a part of life? It begins by paying attention. By increasing our sensitivity to life. It begins perhaps by being like those falling leaves. By falling like those autumnal leaves, by not wishing away our experiences and by not clinging on…It begins by simply letting go and by learning to dance in the wind…

Let’s all learn to dance in the wind…Lets all become like falling leaves…Let’s all learn to dance the impermanence dance…Don’t pick them up though, leave them where you find them, for someone else to see.

So, let’s live more spiritually alive. Let’s increase our sensitivity to life. May our lives become our prayer.

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

Falling Leaves: Loving What is Mortal

Each morning when we awaken we do not know what the day will bring, there will no doubt be some kind of ying and yang to it, there will be blessings and curses, joys and sufferings. Last Saturday was one of those such days. I spoke with my auntie Lynne, she told me that my cousin Cheryl’s life was coming to an end. I then met with friends. An hour or so later the news came through that Cheryl had died, I was fortunate to be with those friends. Although we knew what was coming, it was still a shock to the system, losing dear Cheryl.

An hour later I set off on a long car journey, alone. I was going to pick up a puppy dog, the lovely Havanese Molly. It was a day the reminded me so powerfully of the impermanence of life, although of course not of love, that always lives on. Physical life though comes into being and sadly comes to end. Those that remain are left to grieve. Of course as a nation we are currently grieving the loss of Queen Elizabeth II after a 70 year reign.

Each morning when we awaken we do not know what the day will bring. So how do we prepare ourselves for the unknowable? This is a question that brings to my heart the following poem by David Whyte

“What To Remember When Waking”

In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake,
coming back to this life from the other
more secret, moveable and frighteningly honest world
where everything began,
there is a small opening into the new day
which closes the moment you begin your plans.

What you can plan is too small for you to live.
What you can live wholeheartedly will make plans enough
for the vitality hidden in your sleep.

To be human is to become visible
while carrying what is hidden as a gift to others.
To remember the other world in this world
is to live in your true inheritance.

You are not a troubled guest on this earth,
you are not an accident amidst other accidents
you were invited from another and greater night
than the one from which you have just emerged.

Now, looking through the slanting light of the morning window
toward the mountain presence of everything that can be
what urgency calls you to your one love?
What shape waits in the seed of you
to grow and spread its branches
against a future sky?

Is it waiting in the fertile sea?
In the trees beyond the house?
In the life you can imagine for yourself?
In the open and lovely white page on the writing desk?

By David Whyte

When we awaken, we have no idea what the day will bring. The day is a blank page. It is in that first hardly noticed moment, when you open your eyes again, that the sacredness of life is born; a sacredness which we lose when we make plans that deny that things are always changing. In that moment we close the moment, the reality, of what it means to be human, to be alive.

I have been watching the leaves falling these last few weeks. They have fallen earlier this year, no doubt a consequence of a hot summer. Watching those leaves falling reminds me of the impermanence of life, something that is hard to accept for most of us, including myself at times. Marina Popova has described this as ‘that perennial heartbreak of beholding the absurdity of our longing for permanence in a universe of constant change’.

It brought back to my mind the first of those Delphic Maxims “Know Thyself”, to know yourself of course meant to know that you are mortal, that your life will come into being, but will also come to an end. Mortality is the beauty and energy of our lives, it reminds me just how precious life is. I have watched my new puppy Molly come to life and confidence these last few days, she is a great responsibility. Being a dog it is likely that I will watch her grew and develop and become who she is, but I will also have to live with the knowledge that I will one day witness the end of her life. It will break my heart. For now I will enjoy her and my responsibility for her life. She is the most joyful of blessings.

This brings to my mind one of my favourite Mary Oliver poems “In Blackwater Woods”. I have named my puppy Miss Molly Malone. Now everyone has assumed that she is named after the Irish folk song. Well, if truth be told, she isn’t she is actually named after Mary Oliver’s life partner and wife “Molly Malone Cook”.

Here is the poem:

“In Blackwater Woods” by Mary Oliver

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is

nameless now.
Every year
Everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it
go,
to let it go.

I love Mary Oliver, she had such a real spirituality, connected to the ground in which all being exists. She saw the beauty in life, without ever hiding from the shadow, the darkness. In many ways she found God just as much in the darkness and suffering of life as the beauty of the natural world, expressed so beautifully in this poem, as she reminds us here “that, thankfully, the other side of the river of loss is salvation”. By the way she was in no way sentimental about the natural world. She was a very real observing and writer about life and at the same time truly soulful.

This poem reminds me how vital it is that I follow her instruction to “love what is mortal, to hold it against our bones, as if your life depends upon it (because I have learnt my life does) and when the time comes, to let go.” Sounds simple doesn’t, but it is far from easy. That said I agree with her, it is the only way to truly live in this world. I will repeat again her final words: “To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.”

It brings to mind some other words from another hero Forrest Church:

“The fact that death is inevitable gives meaning to our love, for the more we love, the more we risk losing. Love’s power comes, in part, from the courage required to give ourselves to that which is not ours to keep: our spouses, children, parents, dear and cherished friends.”

It takes courage to love what is mortal, to hold it to your bones as if your life depended upon it and when the time come to let it go, it takes true faith and courage.

The falling leaves remind me of this. They are letting go of what is mortal. Why do we find it so hard? Why do we wish to cling on forever to what is mortal.

The Buddhist say that life is dukkha, that there is suffering in life, that nothing last forever, is permanent, that everything in life is impermanent. I was thinking of this as I looked at those fallen leaves, as I watched Molly playing with them and noticed how many we were accidently carrying into the house. I thought of the cycle of life, how this time next year it will have gone full circle. There will be loss, there will be new life, there will be suffering and above all there will be love.

Remember as Mary wrote:

To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it
go,
to let it go.

I am holding these words in my heart at the moment. They teach me how to live spiritually alive. They teach me a beautiful reverence for life, how sacred life is, how vital it is to recognise this. To love as deeply as you can this life, to love fiercely and hold those you love tightly to your heart and when the time comes, when they breathe their last breath, to let them go. You have to in order to love this mortal life that we are all a part of. This is the only way to live spiritually alive.

This is what we are here for, to live and to love what is mortal, our lives depend upon it.

Below is a devotion based on the

 material in this "Blogspot"

Turning To Autumn: Our Ever Changing Seasons

Tomorrow is the Autumn Equinox. Where has the summer gone? Where has the year gone? This time of year can bring a feeling of melancholy for what has passed and will not return.

Yes summer has gone, but with its passing comes the beauty of autumn. There are new energies at work at this time of year. Tomorrow Autumn begins. Next Sunday we celebrate harvest and then move into the seasons of Remembrance before entering into winter and the many festivals of light and Hope born again in the new year. Yes the green of summer and spring is dying and the leaves are falling, but seeds of new life are also being born, each carrying with them the promise of new birth, new hope.

Autumn is about to begin. Here’s a poem “Love Wants to Know How” by that famous author “Unknown”.

“Love Wants to Know How”
author unknown

Autumn comes with its riot of death,
its clarion bells of color,
drives the living green to ground
even as it thins the veil between worlds.
The visible and invisible walk now together
with arms outstretched over fields
where workers hasten to the harvest
none may divide against itself.

So: where are you in this?
How long do you loiter
between the said and unsaid,
the done and undone,
between the half and true rhyme
of a life answering a life?

Geese mark the sky with dark wedges,
call with harsh tongues
to what thrives at the margins
of all we so reluctantly receive.
Go now,
quickly and with great force,
toward what burns in your dreams
at the dying of the year.

Who can say?
Perhaps you reap the whirlwind,
perhaps the harvest—
but is it ever enough to not know
the bonds and bounds of what will one day
forsake you for the grave?

We are in liminal space once again, tomorrow is the autumnal equinox. So as we step through the threshold of summer into autumn where are you in this time of transition? How long are you going to loiter between the said and the unsaid, the done and the undone? What burns in your dreams? How will you ride this great force of nature that is this changing season? Will you reap the whirlwind, perhaps the harvest before your time comes to an end? As we enter another season it is vital to recognise the potentials present in life.

Autumn offers so much potential, as every season does, but there is something unique about the Autumn.

There is a special beauty about the Autumn; it is a beauty is found in its deepness. There is a special depth in the Autumn. Yes. Spring is full of newness, springing to life. It’s an exciting time, a flighty time, a time when we have our heads in the clouds perhaps, blown by the wind. The summer with its long days are perhaps the days of joy of running free, perhaps for swimming in the waters of life. Winter has Christmas and New year at its heart, a time of sitting by the hearth and being warmed by fire. But Autumn is different, it has a depth, a deep, deep beauty. It’s about getting deep down into our roots, into the soil, it is a time for earthing our selves, for going deep down within, to reflect in the ground as summer ends and winter comes. Of all the seasons Autumn to me is the deepest season. There is a depth in Autumn's beauty.

I love Autumn, glorious Autumn, beautiful Autumn, best of the year. Everything just seems that bit more precious at this time of year. Maybe the reason for this is because this is the time when things come to an end, or begin to come to an end. Maybe everything is that bit more beautiful at this time of year, because everything is dying. Or at least it seems that way. It’s an awareness of this, a real sense of this, in my blood and in my soul, right down in the marrow of my soul, that helps me fall in love with life in a much deeper way. I feel a sense of love for every leaf as it falls. For every leaf is a letter from God. Every leaf teaches us something about life. We are leaves ourselves. Everyone precious; everyone unique; everyone will one day fall.

Here’s another poem about Autumn by Rainer Maria Rilke

“Autumn” by Rainer Maria Rilke

The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,
as if orchards were dying high in space.
Each leaf falls as if it were motioning "no."

And tonight the heavy earth is falling
away from all other stars in the loneliness.

We're all falling. This hand here is falling.
And look at the other one. It's in them all.

And yet there is Someone, whose hands
infinitely calm, holding up all this falling.

I love the beauty of Autumn. It took me a long time to truly appreciate it, but I am grateful that I finally do. I did not always, particularly in my teens and twenties. I did not see the beauty in its steady decline, my sensitive soul got caught up in its deep sadness. As the days grew shorter and colder and as the trees shed their leaves, their splendour, all I saw was the abundant beauty decaying and heading toward the bareness of the cold stark winter. As the colour died my spirit morphed into sadness as I watched what was beautiful die. All I could see was what was being lost. It would seem that the prospect of death consumed all the beautiful life, that was contained in this season of falling leaves. This season of change, that would bring something new. It wasn’t until the second third of life that I began see the promise in each falling leaf. That in the autumn new life was potentially being born, that new seeds were being planted as the leaves were being composted into the earth, preparing it for the new life being born following the Hope of Winter.

Now as I settle into the second half of life I feel a deep appreciation for Autumn both in natures turning and life’s turning too. Today I understand that we always live in liminal space, that life is always transitional, that life is always changing, being born, rising, flowering, dying and being born once again.

Youth was certainly wasted on me.

Here is "Autumn" from Vivaldi's "Four Seasons"

Perhaps the most beautiful aspect of Autumn, and maybe its most symbolic is the changing of the colour of deciduous tree leaves. Now as I’m sure you all know leaves are green because of chlorophyll. It is chlorophyll that gives leaves their distinctive green colour. Now this combined with sunshine is the key ingredient in the incredible, life-producing process, of photosynthesis.

Now what I find the most beautiful about the process is what is hidden. For the truth is that the leaves don’t actually become another colour The hidden secret of the falling leaves is that they don’t actually “turn” colour. What happens is that due to the lessening of sunshine the chlorophyll begins to be broken down and so the green disappears and the other colours, that were always there, the reds, the golds, the oranges, begin to express themselves. The leaves don’t actually change colour, its just that other colours are revealed due to the death of the green that had been masking them.

Perhaps it is the same with us. Maybe this is the point of Autumn to go deeper into our own roots, into the earth of our being and allow something new to be born again. Is there a hidden secret in the Autumn of each of us?

This brings to mind another favourite poem by Robert Frost “Nothing Gold Can Stay”

“Nothing Gold Can Stay”

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

By Robert Frost

Everything is beautiful, because everything is dying. Nothing last forever. Nothing stays the same. Aspects of life must fall and die for new life to be born again. This humbles me, it draws me into the ground, the earth, to my roots, something beautiful that autumn reminds me of

Autumn is the season for falling more deeply in love with life; Autumn is the season of the earth, of the ground for going deep into our roots that sustain us. Autumn is the season when we once again see just how precious everything is. You see everything matters…Everything matters because it does not last for ever, it is finite. Every drop of rain, every thought and feeling, every word and every action matters. I hope and pray that you know that. Everything matters, because nothing ever lasts forever.

Everything has to come to an end, everything must fall into the earth so it can create something new and beautiful. To make room for something new to be born again.

Autumn I love you, I pay homage to all that you teach me…Autumn, glorious Autumn, beautiful Autumn, best of the year…

"Autumn" by New Model Army

Harvest: Wisdom to Know the Difference

“Harvest” is a time for reaping, but it is also a time for reflection; “Harvest” is a time just before Autumn sets in and all around us slows down; “Harvest is a time to gather in all that has occurred in our lives; “Harvest” is a time to feast on the good and perhaps chuck out what is of no use.

We will, before we are probably aware of it, soon enter into the winter of the year. Let us hope we have gathered enough to see us through the darkness of winter; let us hope we have planted enough, and cared for what we have planted, so that our harvest will be plentiful, that it will leave us fulfilled.

It is said that we reap what we so, but I'm not sure this is entirely true. There are after all other forces at work. We cannot control every element of life; there are powers at work other than our own. Sometimes everything can be destroyed, can be blown away by forces way beyond ourselves. This can lead us to believe that all is lost, but this is not necessarily so. We can begin again at any time. Seeds can begin to grow again, even after utter devastation.

“Harvest” is a time to reflect on what has been and to plan for times ahead. How is your harvest this year? Have the seeds you planted failed to grow? Are you been left with a bad harvest? Is this because you have not nurtured and cared for your crop as you should have or is it due to forces way beyond your control? Either way do not despair, hope springs eternal, even in the Autumn and the winter. There is always time for new beginnings. Let’s gather in the harvests of our lives and lets offer thanks and praise for all that we have been given, even if it’s a hard lesson, let’s give thanks for the lesson.

For tomorrow is another day and we can begin again in love.

I recently came across the following meditation "The Wisdom to Know the Difference" by Sarah York, it really touched me as I reflected on some of the people I serve and how they live with growing older...

“The Wisdom to Know the Difference” by Sarah York

My colleague Harry Meserve described as a pleasant surprise of advancing years the discovery of areas of knowledge, activity, and enjoyment that he had never before had time for or even considered. “This discovery,” he writes, “reminds one that no matter how distinguished, competent, and successful we may have been…we are now as little children who must be taught from the start how to make our way in other fields of knowledge and activity. Such experience is good for the soul.”

Aging is a lifelong process of adjustment to change. The people who age the best are those who are granted serenity – as the famous prayer puts it – the serenity to accept the things they cannot change, the courage to change the things they can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Getting older is one of those things that cannot be changed. The losses are different for different people. Sometimes the loss means giving up possessions to move to a smaller home, or giving up independence to move in with a family member. Or it may be the loss of physical abilities – hearing, walking, seeing. Gradually, age reminds us that we can’t do things we used to do. Age forces us to redefine ourselves in terms of what we can do. It is an art to be able to grow through the losses and accept the process without giving in to a spirit of decline.

Aging is a process of growth, not of decline. I admire people who age well more than those who remain youthful. Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference, for both may appear vital and alert. But one avoids the realities of the autumn season of life by pretending that it’s still summer, while the other enjoys the brilliant colours.

...I love the final paragraph, especially the short sentence that opens it, "Aging is a process of growth, not of decline.". It also got me thinking about "The Serenity Prayer" in relation to "Harvest"...

The word Harvest is derived from the Anglo-Saxon haerfest, meaning “Autumn”. Autumn is always the reflective season. A time to gather in all that our lives have produced and then to separate what is of no use, to let it go and to store up what is of good use. It also got me thinking of the following parable from Matthew's Gospel Ch 13 vv 24 - 30

24 He put before them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; 25but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. 26So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. 27And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, “Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?” 28He answered, “An enemy has done this.” The slaves said to him, “Then do you want us to go and gather them?” 29But he replied, “No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. 30Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.” ’

This parable got me thinking about what "Harvest" is really about and I believe it is two very important things. "Harvest is about storing up what is of value and good to us and offering thanks and praise for this and letting go of what is not. This time of year is very much about preparing for the future, making best use of what we gather in but also about acknowledging the power of letting go of what is not. For by doing so we are making room for more of what is of good use.

Now of course not everything can simply be let go of, life just isn’t like that. There are aspects of our lives and who we are as people that no matter how much we may wish them away will always remain. That said how we live with them will make all the difference. In fact we may even be able to make good use of these perceived problems. Sometimes the only thing we can do is to adopt a different attitude towards these problems in our lives; sometimes this is all that we need to do.

Now isn't this the wisdom of "The Serenity Prayer” “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Courage to change the things I can. And wisdom to know the difference”

The “Serenity Prayer” is one of the great prayers, simple, practical and beautifully universal. It speaks powerfully to the heart and soul of so many people and has been doing so ever since it was first written by Reinhold Niebhur in the 1930’s. I even got into a conversation about it in a remote village in Transylvania when I went on a trip there a few years.

Several years ago I visited Unitarians in Transylvania. One day I visited a small community a village called Icland - there is no other settlement in the region whose name ends in land, the story goes that it was originally settled by people from Ireland or England – I walked up the hill towards the parish house and settled into a little schoolroom with a few adults and two teenage girls. For some reason I had images of Thomas Hardy or even Dickens in my mind as I walked up to the house and looked at the village. None of the houses had running water, everyone had a well. The minister led a short religious education class and I was deeply moved by the conversation which she translated for me. It was a conversation about struggles with the current economic climate and the importance of letting go of control and not becoming blocked off from God. The words of the serenity prayer came to my mind as we spoke “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference” – if only we could all find that wisdom to know the difference. I mentioned this and then a few moments later one of the women present produced a copy of the prayer from her purse. We then continued with the conversation which was one of the most beautifully moving and connective ones I have ever had. We spoke deep into one another's hearts. I left these people knowing I will probably never see them again, but also knowing that this conversation would be etched on my soul for a long time to come. During the conversation I had felt the presence of the spirit that I call God powerfully. I can picture the woman Elizabeth in my mind’s eye as she talked openly and eloquently of her struggles with life and faith. I can picture her now.

The key to this time of year and every time of year is in finding the wisdom to know the difference. The key to this of course is discernment. We need to be able to discern, to sift out, what needs to be let go of, what needs to be accepted and what needs to change either internally or externally for this to happen.

Now the word discernment comes from the Latin “discernere” which means to separate, to distinguish, to sort out. Just think of prospectors panning for gold or sifting through rocks and dirt in search of gem stones. They are separating, they are sorting through the muck for what is precious, they are distinguishing, they are discerning.

Discernment is the key to more fruitful harvests in our future. We need to discover what is of value and what needs to be discarded from our hearts, our minds and our lives. We need to do this in order to live fully and experience all that life has to offer. We need to discard the dirt and muck in order to discover all that is precious in life; we need to do this in order to be fully aware not only of our own lives, but the lives of those around us.

So how do we clear our minds so that we can discern, so that we can sift through the muck of life? Well I believe that we need to create space and we need silence. Our lives, our minds are so full of stuff that it is really difficult to discern what is right and healthy sometimes. This makes it difficult to make wise choices about life. In order to make those wise decisions we need to be still, we need to be silent, we need to connect to our bodies, to our breathing. We need to prepare ourselves for what life has to offer us. If we do we may just hear that still small voice of calm; that voice that is less than a whisper and yet so much more than silence. That voice that will grant us the wisdom to know the difference.

I will end this little chip of a blog with following “Autumns Arrival” by the late Simon John Barlow.

"Autumn's Arrival"

The chill in the air of mists and rain,
The grey and blue of sky meeting the reds and golds of leaves
Announce that autumn has arrived.
A feast for the seasons.
The fruit-laden branches of tree and the berry festooned bushes,
The bare fields now reaped of grain and vegetables,
Announce that harvest has arrived –
A feast for the body.
But what of the feast of the soul?
What have we gathered from our lives?
What of the harvest of experience?
The words of Julian of Norwich remind us that
“Peace and love are always alive in us,
but we are not always alive to peace and love”.
And so beloved,
In this season of ingathering and feasting, let us remember
The harvest for the senses,
The harvest for the body,
And the harvest of the soul
- lessons learned, peace sensed and love felt –
- the ingathering of Commonwealth of God.
God of Creation,
We give thanks for the bounty of our harvest of senses, body and soul
We hold in compassion those whose harvest is not yet ready,
Or seems too difficult to reap:
Guide us to use our blessings to bring a brighter harvest for all beings:
And grant us the wisdom to be alive to the harvest of peace and love.





Simon J Barlow

Bonkers for Conkers: Spirituality & Joy

Last week I was trawling through my collection of anthologies and meditation books for suitable material for the service I created on “Autumn: Impermanence & Change”. As is always the case I found far more than I needed for the task. One piece I chose not to share was “Conker Time” by Elizabeth Tarbox. I will share it with you now...I think it is gorgeous...

"I picked up a horse chestnut Friday, right on the street in Cambridge near Harvard Divinity School.

Imagine that, a perfectly new horse chestnut. There were more for the picking had not my shyness and the stares of passersby prevented me from darting and pouncing to gather them up.

When I was a child, horse chestnuts were currency. Conkers, we called them. Better than a sixpence or even a shilling: a new conker had market value. Kids couldn’t wait to harvest the green prickly cocoon with its polished mahogany prize. We’d climb the branches and knock the conkers off with a stick. No adult would’ve gotten near a bonanza like the one I found on Friday.

Funny the things we value: a new coat or a new car, a job that pays better, a best friend, or a good night’s sleep. Me, I have always valued gifts from the earth. I hold this horse chestnut as I write about it. The warm brown nut fits my palm like a thumb in a baby’s mouth, and the rich shiny skin gives my eyes something worthy of their sight. So I stare at it as if it were a crystal that could show me not the future, but the past; autumns of childhood and wading in Wellington boots through rustling leaves and playing with conkers on my way home from school."

...I love it...Isn't it beautiful...

Now although I had originally rejected it I carried so much of the beautiful wisdom contained with it with me, it has been tapping me on shoulder ever since.

Well a little later I was chatting with a friend who was recounting tales from her childhood. She was telling me how so much of her view about her own life had changed in recent times and how so many of her memories were now so joy filled. She spoke of growing up in Ireland and after a while she began to recount a tale about going conkering and how conkers became currency among her friends. As I was listening to her images of my own childhood came back to me. What was truly beautiful was that my friend’s memories, Elizabeth Tarbox’s memories and my own memories were almost identical, we shared the same autumn rituals, even though we grew up at different times and in different places.

I then told my friend that I had just read a short piece that was almost identical to what she had just recounted to me. We were both blown away by the synchronicity of it all. It was one of those beautiful, magical, moments that living open heartedly can bring.

After the conversation lots of childhood memories came flooding into my mind, my heart and my soul. Memories of Sunday afternoons and going down to Briar Wood with my grandma and brother and sister and hunting for conkers and being totally immersed in the activity. After the harvest we would then take them back to the farm and try to select the best ones and create the champion conker. We would try all the different techniques that we had heard of to create the one that would be able to beat the one of legend that someone at school had, "someone said they had a ‘hundred’er’, someone said they had a ‘thousand’er’."

When I look back at it the whole process was a mindfulness practise, as we became totally absorbed in what we were doing and the people we were engaging in it with.

Think about it…

We became totally absorbed in the thrill and anticipation as we walked down to Briar Woods and as we told tales about the woods and how they came to be and all the mythology about and the place, there were history lessons thrown in too as well as lessons about biology, geography, mythology and a little theology too. The whole enterprise was Hope filled, this time we were going to find and create the champion conker. As we gathered the conkers in we became increasingly connected to the process, filling our bags as we gathered from the ground and throwing up sticks to try and reach the ones that had not yet fallen. Then there was the thrill and connection and conversation as we walked back up the hill, listening and telling stories and dreaming of creating the champion conker. We would then empty our bags onto my grandma’s kitchen worktop and she would add the ones she had obviously lovingly spent time collecting all week. She would tell us of her and friends trip to Harrogate and of them all going collecting conkers for their grandchildren, such loving action.

We would then set about trying all the different techniques to create the champion conker. Again discussing all the myth and mystery in it. Then came the hardest bit of skewering them and putting a strong shoe lace through. I wonder how many potential champions I ruined in my attempts to get the skewers through. Eventually, with a little bit of help, I managed to get a few decent ones.

Then it would be Monday morning and thrill and buzz of conversations in the playground as we became absorbed in our stories about our own conkers and then battle would commence. Yes there was a little pain as we would miss and wrap one another on the knuckles. So we would shorten the string for more accuracy but less power. This would go on for weeks it seems until someone became champion, well at least for one year.

I never became champion, but by golly I never felt happier and never felt more connected to the world in which I lived and the people I shared my life with.

Just beautiful, beautiful memories…

Apparently this year is a bumper year for Horse Chestnuts (the official name for conkers) This is due to the mild weather and lack of rain this year. So you would expect to hear of great stories of conkers and conkering, but alas this is not so. It seems that conkering is another one of those activities that has waned in popularity over the years as children have found other things to do and schools have become afraid of children injuring themselves with these apparent “deadly weapons”. I cannot imagine though that whatever these activities maybe they engage holistically to exactly the same extent as conkering did.

Oh well I have enjoyed remembering happy childhood times these last few days and several friends have also shared similar memories with me of their own childhoods. It has been wonderful for us all as it has brought us closer together both to one another and to our pasts. Something that I believe is vital to those who wish to live in the present moment.

Memory is a funny thing. It is amazing what we remember and what we cannot remember, how memory can be so very selective. Memory also changes over time. My memory or do I mean my perspective on past events in my life, have changed over time. It happened again only this week.

My friend and colleague Rev David Shaw says this about memory...

“The dictionary reminds us that ‘remember’ literally means to ‘re-member’; to put back together that which has been torn apart. In some way remembering has a similarity to ‘religion’, which means ‘to rebind together’.

Both are about seeking after a wholeness, and isn’t that what we are about most of the time?”

Well that again has been happening this week, this autumn. I have been rebinding so many memories and this has allowed me to connect to life on a much deeper level. It has been great. It has certainly brought a deeper sense of wholeness to my life and I hope to the lives of others who I have engaged with.

Playfulness and joyfulness are essential elements of a deep and meaningful life. Sometimes this is an aspect of spiritual life which can easily get lost as we take it and ourselves too seriously. God though surely wants us to be happy joyous and free and not live life glumly, as if it were a veil of tears. Yes there is suffering present in life and there is a time for everything under the sun. Well the last few weeks have reminded me how vital play is, as I have re-membered so many joyful and joy filled times, throughout my life. A couple of weeks ago I even spent a day at Alton Towers going on all the rides and been thrown about and thrilled and exhilarated. It was wonderful and wonder filled time as I let go absolutely. I will be making sure I make more time for play in the future.

Play is vital. It does not have to be physical either, the best kind if play can often be found in conversation or sometimes just the look someone can give. We must play though if we are to live a fulfilling spiritual life.

We each of us have inside us, no matter how old we are, that child who knows how to play, with complete abandon. Our whole world needs us to be playful, God needs us to live playfully. It is a vital aspect of creation and I firmly believe that we are co-creators in the dance that is creation. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said “It is a happy talent to know how to play.” It is playfulness that sets us free and enables us to use our natural creativity as best we can.

Playfulness often leads to laughter. Laughter is not only the best medicine it can also lead us to deeper truths about ourselves and the mysteries of life. Every spiritual tradition has it Holy Fool. Every Sunday, during worship, I share at least one story from our human canon, often there is great humour and playfulness within them, but there is also a serious message, that the humour helps to deliver.

Humour is so vital, it helps us to connect spiritually...It is vital to live in good humour...

To be in good humour means to be in good health. Linguistically humour has its roots in the ‘old’ French word ‘humor’, derived from the Latin ‘umere’. Physicians of medieval times believed that we had four different types of internal fluids that they called ‘humors’ and it was these that determined our physical and mental health. Therefore if a person became ill it was believed that their humors were out of balance. I do so love etymology, language has had such a fascinating journey and an amusing one at that.

So to be in good humour literally means to be in good health. This is why playfulness and humour is so vital to a healthy spiritual life. Humour is best enjoyed with others in the company of others who want to really let go. It is so easy to get caught up in the seriousness of life and to worry about what might be or to live with regret of what has been in the past. This is not healthy you know and I don’t think it helps us or anyone else. Sometimes we need to let go and have some serious fun, to be childlike once again, so that we are then better equipped to live with the serious issues of life.

John O' Donohue said of humour and laughter...

“There’s something really subversive in laughter and in the smile on the human face. It’s lovely and infectious to be in the company of someone who can smile deeply.

I think a smile comes from the soul. And I also love its transitive kind of nature—that if you’re in the presence of someone who has a happiness and a laughter about them, it’ll affect you and it’ll call that out in you as well.

Your body relaxes completely when you’re having fun. I think one of the things that religion has often prevented us from doing is having really great fun. To be here, in a way—despite the sadness and difficulty and awkwardness of individual identity—is to be permanently invited to the festival of great laughter."

So I invite you this autumn to bring alive both within yourselves and one another a festival of great laughter, to bring some joy to our world and to have a little fun…Remember life is too serious a business to be taken too seriously.

To end I'd like to share another childhood memory "The Wombles: A Conkering Hero"

Autumn: Impermanence & Change

Some folk tell me that Spring and maybe even Summer are the seasons for falling in love. Perhaps they say the same to you. I am not convinced. I think it’s Autumn, glorious Autumn, beautiful Autumn, best of the year. Everything just seems that bit more precious at this time of year. Maybe the reason for this is because this is the time when things come to an end, or begin to come to an end. Maybe everything is that bit more beautiful at this time of year, because everything is dying. Or at least it seems that way. It’s an awareness of this, a real sense of this in my blood and in my soul, right down in the marrow of my soul, that helps me fall in love with life in a much deeper way. I feel a sense of love for every leaf as it falls. For every leaf is a letter from God. Every leaf teaches us something about life. We are leaves ourselves. Everyone precious; everyone unique; everyone will one day fall.

Autumn is the season for falling in love; Autumn is the season for falling in love with life in every sense. Autumn is the season when we once again see just how precious everything is. Everything matters…Everything matters...

Everything matters because it does not last for ever, it is finite. You know there was a time that I used to think that nothing mattered for this very same reason. Now I understand that everything matters. Every drop of rain, every thought and feeling, every word and every action matters. I hope and pray that you know that. Everything matters, because nothing ever lasts forever.

Autumn I love you, I pay homage to all that you teach me…Autumn, glorious Autumn, beautiful Autumn, best of the year…

Autumn is the season of change. It reveals to us the impermanence of our finite lives. Here in lays the beauty of life, but also its fear…

There is a gorgeous Buddhist saying that, I recently heard, that captures the beauty of the impermanence of life. It beautifully captures the turning nature of life, it is a call to us to live our lives fully.

“Thus shall you think of all this fleeting world: a star at dawn, a bubble in a stream, a flash of lightning in a summer cloud, a flickering flame, an illusion, a dream...”

Impermanence is the beauty and the energy of life. Life is forever changing and transforming and turning into something new.

Jesus captured this idea in a gorgeous way too when he described wheat as a metaphor for the resurrected life. He taught that all must die before new life can rise again. In the same way that seeds must die and cease being seeds in order to become life giving food, so must we in order to be transformed into something new. This can happen at many stages of our lives if we allow the natural cycle to just be and don’t get in the way.

Nothing ever stays exactly the same and nothing is ever repeated in exactly the same way again. This was wonderfully expressed by the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus some 2,500 years ago. Who said, among many other things, “Everything flows, nothing stands still.” “No one ever steps into the same river twice.” And “Nothing endures but change.” He was saying that the only constant in life was and is change, that life was constantly in flux and that everything is impermanent. In more contemporary times The Buddhist Pema Chodron has said “Impermanence is the goodness of reality…it’s the essence of everything.”

Also in more recent times the now deceased Unitarian Universalist minister Elizabeth Tarbox said

“Dukkha, all is impermanence, nothing lasts. I thought of that yesterday while watching leaves come down in a shower and inhaling the smell of rotting leaves returning to the earth. Leaf to humus and back to earth to nourish the roots of the mother tree, The crows crying as the leaves fall and their nests are exposed – dukkha, all is impermanence.

Life goes by and people who were with us last year at this time have died. All souls pass on, all is dukkha, nothing lasts.”

I have for some time been fascinated by the Buddhist concept of “Dukkha”.

Now "Dukkha is one of those words that is hard to explain. It is often translated as suffering, that "all life is suffering". This though is not an entirely accurate translation, in the sense that suffering is understood in the west. I believe it is trying to teach that suffering is a part of life, that nothing ever lasts for ever. That nothing stays exactly as it in its current state. Impermanence is central to the Buddhist path; the path to enlightenment is to accept that nothing ever lasts forever.

So often in life we try to cling to things, to hold on to things to maintain things exactly as they are. This seems to be going against life and the nature of things. Nothing stays exactly as it is in its current nature, everything changes from moment to moment and to resist this is to resist life.

In “Everyday Spiritual Practice” James Ishmail Ford talks about the lessons he has learnt from practising Zen Buddhism. He tells the tale of Achaan Chah Subato and the story of broken glass. Which he recalls goes something like this:

“One day some people came to the master and asked 'How can you be happy in a world of such impermanence, where you cannot protect your loved ones from harm, illness and death?' The master held up a glass and said 'Someone gave me this glass, and I really like this glass. It holds my water admirably and it glistens in the sunlight. I touch it and it rings! One day the wind may blow it off the shelf, or my elbow may knock it from the table. I know this glass is already broken, so I enjoy it incredibly.'"

Here lies the lesson of impermanence. Knowing that the glass is already broken we can enjoy it in all its finite beauty.

Those falling leaves that signal Autumn’s arrival remind us of the cycle of nature that is mirrored in our own lives. They are love letters from God reminding us that we too must let go and let the spirit flow in and through us and take charge of our lives, so that we can be at one with all life.

Now the way to do this is to live openhearted. We have to be open to all that is. How do we do this? Well in “Awake Mind, Open Heart” Cynthia Kneen suggest the following Autumnal practise:

"When you are brave and have an open heart, you have affection for this world — this sunlight, this other human being, this experience. You experience it nakedly, and when it touches your heart, you realize this world is very fleeting. So it is perfect to say 'Hello means good-bye.' And also, 'My hope, hello again.' "

It’s about being open to all that is. It is prayer and meditation that allows me to do this. Simple time alone in silence enables me to be open to all that is as I walk through life, slowly but surely noticing all that is, understanding that everything matters. Experiencing that same spirit, God, in everything. And thus receiving love letters from God in every falling leaf.

Autumn is the season for falling in love; Autumn is the season for falling in love with life in every sense. Autumn is the season when we once again see just how precious everything is. You see everything matters…Everything matters because it does not last for ever, it is finite. Every drop of rain, every thought and feeling, every word and every action matters. I hope and pray that you know that. Everything matters, because nothing ever lasts forever.

Autumn I love you, I pay homage to all that you teach me…Autumn, glorious Autumn, beautiful Autumn, best of the year…

I’m going to end with some beautiful words on Autumn by Robert T Weston

“Autumn Speaks” by Robert T Weston

Out of doors
the colors of bright autumn and the bright sun
tell of the beauty of that which dies
But always comes again.
They speak directly to the heart
of the eternal which outlives all moments
and yet lives only in them,
outlives all forms, yet comes again in them as in ourselves.
It is said that there is nothing new in the world,
no thoughts, even, which others have not thought
yet every thought is new to him who for himself
thinks it for the first time.
Each miracle of life is also rebirth, life born again,
though every individual be new,
existing at his birth for his first time.
Life in each one, as in leaf and flower,
accepts and yet cheats death.
There is a sadness in the autumn leaf: I feel a sorrow that its beauty dies
and feel its message for the lives of those,
as of myself, whom I have known and loved.
The leaf comes not again, though other leaves
and flowers will bloom, and other lives,
richer that we have been, shall take our place.
Perhaps the autumn teaches us a wiser grace
through which we live, by learning to let go.

Autumn: The Inner harvest

A friend recently sent me the following story...it really got me thinking...

A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said : ' I am blind, please help.' There were only a few coins in the hat.

A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words.

Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were. The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, "Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write? "

The man said, " I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way."

I wrote : ' Today is a beautiful day but I cannot see it.'

As the song goes “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til its gone”

We do not always notice what we have, the blessings we have been given until we either lose them or truly notice that others do not have them. So much of life is given unbidden, is a real grace a free gift. So much so that we do not appreciate the fruits we are surrounded but.

We need to learn to offer thanks and praise for what we have been given and to use these gifts in creative and positive ways for the good of all.

A good and useful life is one in which we count our blessings, one in which we enjoy our days with a heart of gratitude.

A friend said to me the other day that there had been quite a lot of death this year. I agreed I have certainly found myself being with friends and family as they have come to the end of their lives.

I spent quite some time over the summer months with a friend as his life came to an end. It was an awry experience. Yes it was painful at times, but it was also beautifully moving and definitely awe inspiring. My friend had over the last twenty years lost his sight and had also had to face many other physical difficulties. Finally he slowly succumbed to cancer. What moved me greatly about him was how he accepted whatever happened with Grace. It did not waste his life wishfully thinking that he could have back what he had lost. Don’t get me wrong of course he grieved his losses, particularly his sight, but he adjusted and he accepted. I remember several years ago marvelling at his ability to memories passages from books he had read. His memory was a real marvel as he developed a new gift that he would never have known but for the loss of his sight.

The greatest gift he gave to me as I sat with him over the last few weeks of his life, was listening to his stories. He shared a rich harvest with me. It was both a blessing and a joy to sit and listen to him. He did all the talking. In fact the last thing he said to me, just two days before he died was “The next time you come Danny, I’ll let you do some of the talking”, sadly there was not a next time.

My friend lived a full life. Like any full life there were many things that he got wrong. There was some regret, but not too much. Those last few weeks he passed on much of his knowledge to me. It was a fruitful time as I harvested so much from his life. I hope that I too will be able to pass on what I have gained from his life. That I will be able to nurture these seedlings and bring something to fruit from them.

Yes in some ways this year has been one of personal loss, but I do see seedlings and shoots of hope that can be passed on from those that have been lost. Much of who they were/are lives on.

There is a beautiful chapter in John O'Donohue's book "Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom" "Aging: The Beauty of the Inner Harvest". Below is an extract from it...

"There are four seasons of the heart. Several seasons can be present simultaneously in the heart, though usually, at any one time, one season is dominant in your life. It is customary to understand autumn as synchronous with old age. In the autumn time of your life, your experience is harvested. This is a lovely backdrop against which we can understand aging. Aging is not merely about the body losing its poise, strength, and self-trust. Aging also invites you to become aware of the sacred circle that shelters your life. Within the harvest circle, you are able to gather lost memories and experiences, bring them together, and hold them as one. In actual fact, if you can come to see aging not as a demise of your body but as the harvest of your soul, you will learn that aging can be a time of strength, poise, and confidence. To understand the harvest of your soul against the background of seasonal rhythm should give you a sense of quiet delight at the arrival of this time in your life. It should give you strength and a sense of how the deeper belonging of your soul-world will be revealed to you.”

O’Donohue suggests that “the autumn of our lives.” can be a time of rich harvest, where we can dig deep into our souls and uncover the lessons that are their to be learnt. it is a time to gather in all the moments of our lives, even the ones that have been seemingly lost or even discarded as unpleasant and bringing them in and “holding them as one.” It is a time when we can gather in our inner harvest and thus develop new strength, poise and confidence and therefore enter a "quiet delight" as we harvest our own lives.

I witnessed this with my friend in the last weeks of his life as his spirituality deepened, as his soul bore his fruits and he passed this on to others. We did not do the reaping, we just feasted on the crop that he produced. I hope I can pass on what was so freely given to me. All I gave was my time.

I offer thanks and praise for the life that my friend lived and the harvest that I have shared in. I offer thanks and praise for all the lives I have known and all that they have given to me and countless others, the wisdom that they shared. I offer thanks and praise for all that has been so freely given and I hope I can make the most of it and pass it on to those who follow.

Harvest is a time to offer thanks for all that has been given us. To do so we need to see what has been given to us. It is so easy to see what we do not have and therefore fail to see the gifts that we are surrounded by, gifts that are there for all of us to share in, gifts that are so freely given.

Let us be thankful for what we have and what we have to share and see the gifts we have to give to others. For one day those very gifts may well be gone.

Autumn

Ministry compels me to pay attention. Even during those moments when I really do not want to, this work compels me to pay attention. I now understand that this is one of the great gifts of my work. Ministry compels me not only to pay attention to the people that I serve, but to all life. I now understand how much ministry is a deeply spiritual practice. Why is this? Well because it increases my sensitivity to life.

As the year has developed and as I have created worship and engaged with the communities I serve I have noticed how I increasingly pay attention to the changing seasons. This seems especially so this autumn. Autumn has had a powerful impact on me this time around. This year I seem to have noticed nature more than I ever have before; this year I have heard Autumn’s song more clearly than ever before. I am listening and I am attempting to harmonise with it.

I've been singing these words for weeks now...

“Think of the springtime,

Think of the summer,

Think of the winter,

Soon to be here,

But this is autumn,

Glorious autumn,

Beautiful autumn,

Best of the year.

Beautiful autumn best of the year...

Rilke wrote of “Autumn”

“The leaves are falling, falling as from far, as though above were withering farthest gardens; they fall with a denying attitude.

And by night, down into solitude, the heavy earth falls far from every star.

We are all falling. This hand’s falling too – and have this falling-sickness none withstands.

And yet there’s One whose gently-holding hands This universal falling can’t fall through.”

Everything seems to be falling and dying during the Autumn; "everything is beautiful because everything is dying". This is of course only temporary as all that is seemingly dying today is actually preparing itself for the renewal that will come in the spring time. 

It is hard to miss the glories of Autumn. Those simple falling and fallen leaves turn the most beautiful shades and from a distance can appear to be aflame in a red gold splendour. I noticed them as I was driving back to Altrincham only the other day.

Harvest feasts are celebrated, in many cultures, during the autumn. 

The other day a member of the congregation was telling me of her recent visit to a Sukkot celebration. Sukkot is a Jewish celebration where temporary shelters, with a hole revealing the sky are created in remembrance of ancestors who wandered in the wilderness; as the hardships of ancient times are remembered, so too a celebration is enjoyed and a thanksgiving harvest is shared by family, friends and guests. The shelters are decorated lavishly and are adorned with symbols of home, harvest and perhaps most importantly hope. By spending time outdoors, in these simple shelters, the Jewish people are reminded of their connection both to nature and their heritage.

In the coming weeks Hindu’s will be celebrating “Divali” the festival of lights. This is in essence a celebration of harvest and thanks giving when thanks are offered to the Divine for the blessings of nature. The festival honours the sacredness of light as a symbol of connection to the Divine. Prayers of petition are offered to the “Goddess of Abundance” “Lakshmi” to fill their homes with all that is beautiful and good, during the celebrations. This though is not merely a time to ask for gifts but also a time to offer generosity to family and friends. It is a time of celebration, a time for giving and forgetting and it is also a time of remembrance too; a time to recall deliverance of ancestors by the Avatar Krishna from a tyrant. Divali is a celebration, a time of thanks giving, not only for the harvest, but also of deliverance.

At this time of year many Pagans celebrate Samhain, a new year harvest. Samhain also represents the time when the veil between the worlds is at its thinnest. It is a time to remember those who have died, to remember and connect to ancestors and to prepare for the harsh realities of the coming winter; a time when the ground will once again become lifeless, only to be reborn again in the springtime.

The Christian churches have recently celebrated their own harvest festivals. We had ours here at Dunham Road, only two weeks ago. The coming weeks are also a time of remembrance with All Hallows, All Saints and All Souls Day, as well as Remembrance Sunday itself. December brings Advent and the Hope that comes with the new light, the Hope of Christmas and that humble birth in a simple stable. Like many of the other traditions this is also a time for giving and for getting (forgiving and forgetting).

Each of these very different traditions honours the past and gives thanks for the present while preparing for the hope that is to come, looking for the light in the darkness of winter and the coming of new life in the spring time.

Anyone who knows me will be aware that I have a deep love for the writings of Forrest Church. Forrest served for more than thirty years as minister at All Souls Unitarian Church in New York. He authored many books and I particularly love his writings post the year 2,000. With the dawning of the new millennium he changed and developed a more relational heart based theology as opposed to his previous head based one. As he said himself “My heart had always been in play – how could it not with love and death my abiding theme – but now a trunk line opened from my mind straight to my heart, a line that was almost always open. My long standing belief in a distant God slowly transfigured itself into my felt experience of a loving God. Ah, what a difference: to feel, not merely know, what one believes.”

His penultimate masterpiece “Love and Death”, which he wrote while dying of oesophagul cancer, is the most beautiful life affirming book imaginable. It extols the virtue of the power love in the face of death. Church does not bemoan his fate of dying before he himself is ready, instead he celebrates love. He says that death is in fact loves measure...

“...not only because at a loved one’s death our grief, however we express it, is equal to our love, but also because, when we ourselves die, the love we have given to others during our own brief span of days is the one thing death can’t kill. Because we and our loved ones manage to devise so many ways for fear to bind our hearts – fear of intimacy, fear of disappointment, fear of embarrassment, fear of confrontation – because our fear of pain or possible pain manifest itself in so many guises, we often hurt each other without really meaning to. We hurt one another and ourselves by learning, over the practice of a lifetime, how to protect ourselves from pain. Add to this all the mistakes we make, and all the mistakes others make, and only one solvent can loosen our hearts from self protective captivity. Only love. And only a forgiving heart, one capable both of accepting and bestowing forgiveness, is open both to give and receive the saving power of love. (Love and Death pg74)

This to me is a message of hope, a message of love and a message that connects all of us to one another.  It speaks to me powerfully of Autumn of that which is dying, so that it can be born again, so that it can bring about renewal. It symbolises the light of hope, the light of love that is to come only following the death that Autumn symbolises. 

"Autumn, glorious Autumn, beautiful Autumn, best of the year."

"This is indeed Autumn, glorious Autumn, beautiful Autumn, best of the year." Everything is indeed beautiful, because everything is dying. We are about to enter a season of remembrance for those who have gone before us. We have already gathered in the fruits of year. We have given thanks for the circling year as well as given thanks for our ancestors who made this life that we enjoy possible. Autumn links the past with the present as well as the future yet to come. A hope filled future, a dawning of new light, which symbolises the love which will always survive death.

"This is Autumn, glorious Autumn, beautiful Autumn best of the year." Autumn may well feel like an ending, but really it is a new beginning. We should not fall for the fool’s gold of death with the first of the winter frosts or the falling of the leaves. Those falling leaves are the first sign of the renewal that is yet to come. They should remind us of our ancestors that lived before us as well as those who will follow us when we are gone. Yes winter will soon be upon us, but there is new light, there is hope yet to come. New life will soon be upon us with the dawning of the spring yet to come.

"For this is Autumn, glorious Autumn, beautiful Autumn best of the year."

Amen