Do Not Regret the Road Not Taken

Unitarian college, the students and tutors have a lot to answer for. No, I don’t just mean Peter the ministry student who is currently with us or Janine who was with us in the recent past. I am speaking of something completely different. Three years ago I was invited to attended “Ministry in the Making” as part of the leadership team. Molly accompanied me of course. She worked her magic and they insist that she is always there. She is becoming something akin to “The Guru’s Cat”. I am allowed to accompany her it seems. It has been a great experience for all, but has led to one or two ongoing problems. One of the tutors and some of the students turned Molly into someone who thinks she can take cuddly toys. It has cost me a few quid over the years. When we first went they encouraged her to take one of the toys that are there in the chapel for “Send a Child to Hucklow”. This developed into a habit whenever we went into shops. She no longer does so, but she will pick up anything that is on the streets of Altrincham and bring it home. She shares more than black and white markings with magpies it would seem. Invariably when I take her for a walk she comes home with all sorts. The other day she took a toy octopus that was in the doorway of a charity shop. I had to go back later with a donation, not that anyone would have known. Taking Molly for a walk can be very interesting indeed. She never regrets the path we choose and nor do I. it is never dull.

The other morning, while we were out walking, I received a voice message from a friend who had watched my last YouTube devotion, titled “A Blizzard of Blossom: Beauty Awakens the Soul to Act”. It had moved them greatly. One of the things they shared with me was very pertinent to the lives of themself, Oliver and myself. They spoke of Oliver’s poem and how he had been “taken” to a place of grief”. It was the word “taken” that really spoke to my friend. They themselves had been taken on a quest whilst on retreat. Their spiritual teacher used the word “taken”, in the context of taking your seat in meditation, a willingness to create a spaciousness and to be taken where ever we might need to go. They continued that knowing that they are not in control brings a sense of relief that the journey is about being available to being taken, wherever that may lead.

This all got me thinking about how we are often taken or perhaps take journey’s throughout our lives. To take and or be taken has multiple meanings in our lives. We take a walk, a nap, a drink. We take exams and bus rides. We take our medicines and we take a joke or not. We are taken too in so many different ways. It is the journeys that we take and do not take, or perhaps are taken on or not taken on that got me thinking. My friend talked about being taken on a spiritual journey by simply taking their seat in meditation. This sounds like an act of surrender, but not passively so. It is they who choose to take their seat in meditation. I get a strong sense that they are not regretting going on this journey.

This got me thinking about the journeys we take and do not take throughout our lives. I also wonder how much we choose these journeys and how much we are taken on them. Who knows. I wonder what regret we experience about the journeys we take and do not take. How do we discern the journey we take or get taken on? Does it actually matter? Is it about taking or not taking the right road? Or is it actually about how we take or are taken on our journey? Maybe it is not so much about the path we follow, but the path we make. The mark we make on life. This is beautifully illustrated in following by Antonio Machado from “The Soul Is Here for Its Own Joy” translated by Robert Bly.

You walking, your footprints are
the road, and nothing else;
there is no road, walker,
you make the road by walking.
By walking you make the road,
and when you look backward,
you see the path that you
never will step on again.
Walker, there is no road,
only wind-trails in the sea.

Now of course taking or not taking a road reminds me of one of the best known poems of the 20th century “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost. The poem is often celebrated as being a triumph of personal freedom and autonomy, of taking the most difficult path and this making all the difference. It is often mistakenly called “The Road Less Travelled” named after one of its lines, “and I took the road less travelled by and it’s made all the difference. I noticed Nick reading from “The Road Less Travelled” by M. Scott Peck during “Living the Questions” the other evening. A wonderful book, although its title is referencing a common misunderstanding of the poem.

The truth about the poem is that it is was written for a fellow poet friend of Frost’s called Edward Thomas. Frost it seems was taking (The proverbial) out his friend. He was gently mocking his friend. It seems that Thomas was an indecisive man and when he and Frost were out walking Thomas would always look back at the end of the day and regret which ever path they didn’t follow. He seemed to ruin is own enjoyment. Maybe his was the first example of what people today name “FOMO” (Fear of Missing Out). Frost himself experienced some regret as the poem has been taken so very seriously and yet its intention was one of light hearted humour. Even the final line and sigh were meant to be mocking his friend who would over dramatize his regret of the journey they had taken. What Frost was suggesting is that it didn’t matter which path they took. Frost and his wife when out walking would often toss a coin when meeting such forks in the road. They would follow which ever way the coin suggested. They enjoyed the walk. That was the point.

Anyway here is the poem

“The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

It seems we have been reading this poem wrongly ever since and it has made no real difference.

So perhaps there is a different lesson to learn about the roads we take or are taken on. The paths we tread or choose to follow. Maybe it’s not that important what path we take or don’t take. Maybe what really matters is how we travel and who we travel with. Maybe what matters is to accept the invitation and make the most of what we take and who we meet and opportunities that come our way. What matters the most I suspect is not to live in and by regret for whatever path we do or do not take. We make the road as we walk on, which ever way we turn.

Again to repeat those words by Antonio Machado

You walking, your footprints are
the road, and nothing else;
there is no road, walker,
you make the road by walking.
By walking you make the road,
and when you look backward,
you see the path that you
never will step on again.
Walker, there is no road,
only wind-trails in the sea.

Do not regret the road you have taken, instead take what is offered before you. Keep on taking the next step, even if you have got it wrong a thousand times before. As Rumi wrote:

“Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving. It doesn't matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times. Come, yet again , come , come.”

Jelaluddin Rumi

I love the line that is sometimes edited out of this verse, “It doesn’t matter, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times.” Who amongst us has not fallen short of what they had hoped to be, who hasn’t broken their vows so many times? Who does not live with regret for the things they have done in life, or failed to have done in life? I know I have. Only Frank Sinatra it seems lived without regret, well along with Edif Piaf and Robbie Williams. We must not though let the regret destroy us and ruin the journey we will continue to take, as it did for Robert Frost’s friend Edwards Thomas.

Regret is an interesting word, it is in itself a lament, from the Old French word ‘regreter”, meaning “one who bewails the dead,” which comes from a Germanic root meaning “to greet.” As Mark Nepo has said of regret “We always face these two phases of regret: to bewail what is dead and gone, and, if we can move through that grief, to greet the chance to do things differently as we move on.”

Nepo notes something of real value here, it is a lesson from grief. Yes, regret is a lament for what has gone, what has died, but if we greet it fully with love we can learn from the past and do things differently in the future. The response to regret is both of life and death. The choice is ours. By the way this is the one choice we have in life. We do not choose what happens to us but we can choose how we respond to what happens to us. This is the one ultimate freedom, that is open to all of us.

To quote Viktor Frankl:

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.”

So our response to regret is ours. We can either choose life or death. We can close in and shut down or we can create with love.

This freedom cannot be taken from us. We can choose life and continue on, instead of constantly lamenting the path we have taken or the one we haven’t..

There are two interesting examples of responses to regret within the New Testament. They are found within the Easter story, following Jesus’s betrayal. Luke’s (Ch22 vv 60-62) Gospel depicts Peter regretting his betrayal of Jesus. He wept bitterly for his fear based denial and yet how did he respond. Well it was on Peter that the earlier Christian Church was built. For Peter Hope was once again born. Matthew (Ch 27 vv 3-5) depicts a very different response to regret that of Judas Iscariot.

I have regrets about some of roads I have taken, as well as those I have allowed others to take me down too. No doubt I will make many more mistakes later on. I cannot afford to live in such regret. To spend my days agonising over it, as Edward Thomas did. This is oh so life denying. It will stop me building, creating and sharing something as I journey on. We have the freedom to make something of the journey we are on. Even if that is just sharing some wisdom from our own journey.

Last week I had privilege of being invited to listen to a man speak of his powerful journey. It was on Zoom as he was in America. He was 105 years old and he talked so eloquently and beautifully about his 70 years of recovery. He spoke for about 45 minutes. He talked about many trials and tribulations as well as loves and joys he had experienced in such a long life. He spoke mainly about love and forgiveness. There seemed not a hint of regret and or pity in his voice. He shone like a light and had the most amazing skin. If you could manufacture what he had as a beauty company you would make a fortune. You cannot though. He did not seem to regret the path he had taken or the one he had not taken.

So, let’s not sigh about the road we have and have not taken. Let’s not die in regret, let’s instead live in possibility. Let’s journey on in love, begin again in love, even if we have fallen short a thousand times. We need not be paralysed lamenting the past, nor do we need to close the door on it. Let us instead move through the grief of regret and greet the future with its possibility of what might yet be.

Let us keep on making the road, by taking the next step forward and share it with whom ever wishes to journey with us.

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

Lessons from Stan and Ollie: Betrayal Forgiveness, Friendship and Love

It’s funny the things that you grow up with and love, the things that you remember. It’s always the heartwarming things or the distressingly painful ones, that stay with you. For some reason a couple of cultural ones from my mum and former step dad have been floating around in my consciousness. The first is a Drifters Album of my mum’s “Saturday Night at the Movies”. I have over the last year spent many Friday nights at the movies and just like the Drifters sang

“Saturday night at the movies

Who cares what picture you see

When you're hugging with your baby

Last row in the balcony?”

I have enjoyed some wonderful films and some less so, and shared some heart filling experiences.

We have seen quite a variety of films and recently went to see something that takes both of us back to our childhoods, as well as our parents and grandparents childhoods. By the way it also links to my nieces and nephews as I know my brother's children share in this love, a love for “Laurel and Hardy”. Sue and I recently went to see “Stan and Ollie”. It was truly wonderful. Now I do have a tenuous family link to Stan Laurel. A lady known as auntie Nancy, she was actually my mum’s husband’s Godmother,  her mother was Stan Laurel’s cousin. She helped with the research on the book “Laurel before Hardy” about Stan’s early life, some of which was spent in my home town of Batley. and I know that my mum helped Stan’s daughter Lois do some family research a few years ago, she helped her solve a family mystery. My mum is a family history detective, an expert genealogist.

The film got me in all the places one would hope it could. It was funny and beautifully moving and enabled me to connect heart to heart with so many people I have known and loved, it brought back some beautiful memories. It was a true love story, a very human story too and funny with it. It is a love story in so many ways, a story about philia love. The ancient Greeks saw this kind of love, that between friends, as one of the highest, certainly higher than Eros.

Now the film is not your classic biopic. It focuses on a tour they both made to Britain when they had fallen on hard times and were both not in the best of health. Ollie was seriously ill with a heart condition. It was an attempt to relaunch their film careers, which never happened. It beautifully portrayed their loving partnership and how they struggled on. There is obviously a deep love between them, the wives are brilliant too. There is an interesting aspect to film that caught my attention. It looked at betrayal. Stan felt betrayed by Ollie as he had made a film “Zenobia” with another actor in 1939, this was due to them having separate contacts and Stan being out of contract at the time. Stan believed that this was what put them in the predicament they were in during the 1950's, struggling playing small venues in Britain. During the tour resentment rises to the surface: “I loved us,” Stan claims. “But you never loved me,” replies Ollie. Stan, the brains and the workaholic, loved the double act, but for Ollie life is more about real people and real relationships.

There is a scene later in the film where they have an almighty public fall out, although those present thought that they were acting. A few days later Ollie has a heart attack and is told he can no longer perform. Despite this being the end of their working dreams the two men make up as the love they have for each other is stronger than the resentment they feel. Stan is about to go on stage with another character but finds he cannot do so and then Ollie decides he can’t break up the partnership and they go together to Ireland to a heroes welcome. They both return to America and Ollie dies within three years, Stan lives a few years longer continuing to write material for Laurel and Hardy until the day he died.

It is a beautiful and moving story about friendship, about love. The love for one another and the power of that love to touch hearts when things work together. It’s also a story about betrayal and forgiveness too. How love is the most important and powerful emotion there is.

I loved the film, it touched my heart deeply and connected me to so many deep memories. It helped me to re-feel so much love for the people I have loved and still love in my life, many no longer here. Many who at some point I have let down and even betrayed and who have done the same to me and those I love too. It is a beautiful human story about the power of love, family and community, past, present and future. I laughed and I cried and felt so alive.

I think the key component for long term relationships, of any kind, is love and the capacity to forgive. For the truth is that if you spend enough time with anybody, no matter how deep the love they will at some point or another let you down, even betray you in some way or another, as you will them. They may not mean to, but they will all the same. I have heard it said that when you meet someone, if you want to develop a deep bond its best to get the disappointment out of the way quickly and move on, because it is going to come sooner or later.

The forgiveness and the healing that comes is about the power of the relationship, it is never an individual act. It is about something greater than merely ourselves. For Stan and Ollie is was about their partnership and what it gave to them and so many other people, this was greater than their individual resentments and disappointments. There is so much more power in reconciliation than resentment. It builds bridges, it builds community, it certainly beats walls and separation.

This brings to mind a wonderful story in Jack Kornfield’s “The Art of Forgiveness, Loving kindness, and Peace”. He writes:

"In the Babemba tribe of South Africa, when a person acts irresponsibly or unjustly, he is placed in the center of the village, alone and unfettered. All work ceases, and every man, woman and child in the village gathers in a large circle around the accused individual. Then each person in the tribe speaks to the accused, one at a time, each recalling the good things the person in the center of the circle has done in his lifetime. Every incident, every experience that can be recalled with any detail and accuracy, is recounted. All his positive attributes, good deeds, strengths, and kindnesses are recited carefully and at length. This tribal ceremony often lasts for several days. At the end, the tribal circle is broken, a joyous celebration takes place, and the person is symbolically and literally welcomed back into the tribe."

For the Babemba it seems that healing and reconciliation is far more important than individual wrong doing.

Wow can you imagine what things could be like if we all lived this way. Sadly though, too often, we live with resentment and seek revenge. Too often folk want pay back. An eye for an eye, which as Gandhi pointed out, leaves everyone blind. Now interestingly even an eye for an eye doesn’t mean exactly what we might think. When Hammarubi came up with this code is was actually an attempt to limit punishment and revenge. He wasn’t so much recommending that we take and eye for an eye, instead he was suggesting take that much, but no more. Then came a more radical idea. If you are injured do not seek revenge, instead offer forgiveness. Just think of the prayer that Jesus taught “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” A radical idea even now, but an acknowledgement of our shared humanity, because in the end we all let someone down at some point and forgiveness is about connection, it’s about building bridges, not those walls of separation. It’s about seeing the other as ourselves and not as someone separate and or different.

No one person is truly a single separate human being, we are who we are in community, we are part of one family, the human one. This brings to mind Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu’s thoughts on the African term “Ubuntu”. He said:

" 'We say a person is a person through other persons. We don't come fully formed into the world. We learn how to think, how to walk, how to speak, how to behave, indeed how to be human from other human beings. We need other human beings in order to be human. We are made for togetherness, we are made for family, for fellowship, to exist in a tender network of interdependence.”

Tutu devoted his life to reconciliation, having grown up under the horrors of Apartheid, a system that saw some people as being less than others, due to the colour of their skin.

This speaks powerfully of Jesus teachings on love, perfectly exemplified in forgiveness. Put simply in the Golden Rule of Compassion, the basic teaching of virtually every religious tradition that has ever existed. He said 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength . . . (and) you shall love your neighbor as yourself' (Mk. 12:30-31).

Sounds simple hey, well yes but it aint easy. I know that. The truth is though it is vital. Our world so desperately needs more love, needs more bridges and reconciliation and less walls of separation.

There is a love that can come to life in this world; a love that is in all of us; a love that so desperately needs our bodily experience to live and breath through. It comes to life when we begin to see that we are not so different; that we are all made form the same stuff; that we all need, community and companionship. A simple love that is so wonderfully exemplified in the charming humour of Stan and Ollie, two every men, two seeming losers, but ones that had an ability to tap into something simple and beautiful in each and every one of us. A love that lives on long after they have gone and a love that connects so many generations. When I think of Stan and Ollie I think of both of my grandfather’s and I also think of my niece Scarlett and so many other people I love and have loved deeply, people who I have let down and who have let me down too. As I think of them I laugh and I cry, I live and one day I know we will all die. That said I also know that when we die, the love that we shared will live on,beyond our bodily mortality.

We Are Formed From Love: A Palm Sunday Reflection

Last Sunday I led the evening service at Dukinfield Old Chapel, it is the last time I will do so as their services will soon be moving to the afternoon. During the sermon one of the many things I talked about was something I had done, a mistake I had made that had hurt someone and how it still, to some degree, makes me wince when I think of it. Now it was only for a few brief seconds in the address that I mentioned this and yet as the congregation were leaving one of those in attendance reminded me that we are all human and we all make mistakes and that we should forgive ourselves for our all too human mistakes. As she spoke I smiled, just another reminder that often it is the congregations I serve, however irregularly, that minister to me and not the other way round. I have lost count of the times that people have said things to me that have touched that deep place, in the marrow of my soul.

As I was driving home that evening I became enchanted by the powerfully dramatic sky. It was electric, there was definitely something in the air that evening. I could smell it, I could taste it, so powerful, so alive. As I drove back to Altrincham I felt myself deeply touched and moved by the whole evening and as I did I felt a sensation wash all over me as I thought of forgiveness and our common humanity. I can usually forgive others, but sometimes I find it difficult to forgive myself for my all too human mistakes, especially if what I have said or done, or failed to say or do has let down and or hurt someone I care deeply about.

I know I am not alone in this. I have heard similar things from friends and loved ones these last few days. I have heard those who mean much to me giving themselves a hard time about their oh so very human imperfections.

Today “Palm Sunday” marks the beginning of the holiest of holy weeks in the Christian calendar. Today is the beginning of “Holy Week”. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about Christianity and what it means to me. I know several Unitarian congregations have been holding courses during Lent asking what Easter means to them. I myself have been attending the Lent Breakfast courses hosted by Churches Together in Urmston and lead one session exploring “Jesus Our Teacher”. It got me thinking about what Christianity means to me? There is so much that does speak to me, but then again there is much in other traditions too, both ancient, modern and post-modern that speaks to me too. I am a Universalist in every sense of the word. That said at this time of year I feel compelled to look at Jesus, his teachings as well as his passion and death and how that can bring meaning to my life and I hope the lives of those I minister to.

Central to Christianity is this concept of love incarnating in human form. Now it seems clear that this occurred in the life of Jesus as it is told in the Gospels. My main argument with traditional Christian orthodoxy is the view that this occurred only in one form and at one point in human history. This I find impossible to accept. I only have to look at my life and I know I have experienced this love in the lives of so many other people. I can think of several people who through their love and example have not only changed my life, but truly saved it. I have seen the word become flesh and dwell amongst us many times in my life, I have become aware of it again only this week. I believe that we all have the capacity to become channels of the divine in this life. We can all incarnate love in our very being. Sadly all too often we fail to do so; all too often we fall short and we betray one another. This aspect of our humanity becomes all too clear in the narrative of Holy week.

On Palm Sunday Jesus enters Jerusalem riding on the back of a humble donkey and is received by the crowds waving palm branches and shouting “Hosanna, hosanna in the highest heaven” The crowds welcome Jesus who they believe will save him. This though does not happen and just a few days later he is betrayed, rejected, brutalised and killed. The body is killed, the figure dies, but the love that is left behind lives on. It is this love that I believe is the true Easter story; a love that can live on and once again incarnate in the lives of all people.

The Palm Sunday narrative is not just about Jesus it is also about the crowd and all the people around him. People just like you and me. We can all get caught up in the crowd mentality can we not? I did myself in a meeting I attended recently. I went along with something I wasn’t wholly in agreement with. I didn’t have the energy or inclination to voice my objections at that moment. I was new to the group and felt I’d already said more than I ought too. That said I probably should have spoken up and may well live to regret not doing so. Although I must ensure that I do not give myself too hard a time about this.

Now while the world we live in today is very different to that experienced by the crowd on Palm Sunday, this should not mean we cannot identify with the people there. We share a common humanity with them; we are all formed from the same breath of life; we all have the Divine spark within us; well at least I believe that we do. We are not God’s. We are fully human just like those folk on the side of the street waving their palms grateful for any reason to celebrate. People are always looking for something to celebrate, doesn’t seem to matter what this is. I can certainly see myself in them. And just like them we all fall short, we get bogged down in little and bigger things; just like them we are finite creatures; just like them we are looking for hope, to lift us out of suffering, to take us to better things; just like them we are looking for someone or something to lead us to better things, to give us another chance to live better lives.

How many times have we fallen short, messed up and wished we could live up to our ideals? Well we can. Or at least we can if we forgive ourselves for the all too human mistakes we all make.

I was recently sent the following words by Maya Angelou on forgiveness, words that strike deep into my soul:

“I don’t know if I continue, even today, always liking myself. But what I learned to do many years ago was to forgive myself. It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes – it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, ‘well, if I’d known better I’d have done better,’ that’s all. So you say to people who you think you may have injured, ‘I’m sorry,’ and then you say to yourself, ‘I’m sorry.’ If we all hold on to the mistake, we can’t see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can’t see what we’re capable of being. You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one’s own self. I think that young men and women are so caught by the way they see themselves. Now mind you, when a larger society sees them as unattractive, as threats, as too black or too white, or too poor, or too fat or too thin, or too sexual or too asexual, that’s rough. But you can overcome that. The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself. If we don’t have that we never grow, we never learn, and sure as hell we should never teach.”

Words as a minister it is vital I take heed of...

So what is that holds us back? What is that stops us being the loving people that we can be?

When I listen to some people what I witness is this need to find forgiveness to start all over again, they are looking for someone or something to redeem them, to set them free. Isn’t that what those people who waved those palms on that day were celebrating “The redeemer who would set them free”. I wonder what that might mean for we who live today?

Well maybe it's about learning to forgive ourselves for those mistakes we make. Maybe its about truly learning to love ourselves "warts and all" and beauty spots too of course; maybe It's about learning to live by the ultimate commandment; maybe it's about being set free to love our neighbours as we love ourselves. We need to learn to love ourselves; we need to see clearly our own glory in the mirror looking back at us; we need to learn to see what we are capable of being.

I believe that we all keep the "Golden Rule", the commandment to "love our neighbour as we love ourselves. The problem is of course that so few of us truly love ourselves. I know I don't always love myself. Sometimes when I look back at that man in the mirror I do not feel love for him. I wish this were not the case, but some days it is.

Just like those citizens of Jerusalem in the story we too can feel love starved; we too can find ourselves seeking someone to redeem us and set us free from our perceived loveless state; we too can find ourselves seeking someone who we will see us as more than we see ourselves who we believe can give us the love we so desperately seek; we too can believe that if someone can love us that we too can then be acceptable. Why do we find it so hard to see that we are children born from love? Why is that so hard to accept? Why do we find this so hard to believe?

Maybe the problem for some of us is that we measure ourselves against perfection, this image of Jesus.

It is very difficult to measure ourselves against Jesus, especially if we see him as the one and only incarnation of Divine Love on earth, as God. How can that help us? How can we learn to live the life he spoke of if we cannot live up to who he was, because he was something that we can never be.

I suspect that by seeing Jesus as different from us leads to us not seeing that same divine breath within ourselves.We need to be able to see that we are all children of love, we need to be able see our own glory in the mirror, to me this is vital if we are to live the lives that we are capable of living and become the people we are capable of becoming. I believe that by doing so we can become lights to others and thus inspire them to do the same. It is vital that we see that spirit that was so clearly in Jesus in one another, especially that person looking back at us in the mirror.

By doing so we can begin to recognise that we are children of love, children of worth and children of value, who stumble and fall from time to time. We sometimes fail and even betray all that is loving and beautiful in our lives. We should not despair at this though. If we recognise what we are made of we can once again rise like the spring does from winter and like love did from the empty Easter cave. We too, can begin again in love, but only if we truly accept that we are children of love, formed from that same breath of love that forms all life.

Here lays the essence of the story of Palm Sunday and the week that follows that leads to the new beginning that is Easter. We can begin again we can start anew, we can forgive and be forgiven for our very human mistakes and shortcomings, for our betrayals of love however it manifests in this our imperfect world. It means that we will get things wrong sometimes, lots of times, but that, if we pay attention, maybe next time, we’ll do better. The Palm Sunday story means that, if we work at it, we can see our own glory in the mirror; it means we can see what we’re capable of being; it means we can recognise that we truly are children of love; it means that we can begin again in love.

Blessed are those who come in the name of the Lord. Blessed are those who come in the name of redemption. Blessed are those who come in the name of forgiveness. And Blessed are those who come in the name of love.

May we be the blessed ones and may we bring those blessing into life…in all that we feel, all that we think, all that we say and all that we do.