Choose Life

Here we stand on the hinge of the year, New Year's Eve. Or as it is known in the Caribbean, “Old Year's Night”. Here standing at the end of one year and facing the new, we are offered an opportunity to await, to contemplate. No doubt we will spend time with friends, family, loved ones, or perhaps we prefer to be alone reflecting on the year of life that has now gone. I will joun with friends and community at our social and “Watch Night” service. A tradition I love more as the years go by.

No doubt we will all have experienced so much of the blessings and the curses of life this year. How has it been? What are the lessons this year of life has taught you? Whatever it has meant, whatever it has brought, it matters. For everything matters, every thought, every feeling, every word, every action, everything we do and do not do. So let’s remember the year now gone with gratitude, even if it has been a challenge and let us make of it all that we can. Let us make our meaning of this year in how we live this next year as we once again enter into another 365 new days of the book of life. Remember life itself is the ultimate grace, the ultimate free gift, for we did nothing to be given it. Life is the greatest free gift of them all.

Tomorrow is New Year’s Day, a time for new beginnings, a time for hope of what might be as we step forward into another year of life, a time to journey on in life. A time to once again experience both the blessings and curses of “Choosing Life”.

This brings to mind the journey that the Israelites took to the Promised Land. In Deuteronomy 30 vv 11-19 Moses speaks to the people on his 120thbirthday. God had just informed him that he would not enter the Promised Land, after fourty years in the widerness, with the people he had led out of exile.

As they reach the Promised Land the people gathered to receive Moses’ final blessing. And what does he say? He tells them that they must “choose life.” They are told that in order to keep the freedom that they have been given they must make thoughtful choices about their lives. I am sure that this must have been scary for them, for after all they were frightened of their freedom. Throughout their time in exile whenever they were given freedom they did not want it, they hoped that someone would make their decisions for them. Again this is such a universal predicament, it echoes through the ages. How often do we wish that someone would make our decisions for us? Wouldn’t that make life easier? But we must make the decisions, we must live our lives. We will make mistakes. I have made many this year, but we will also get much right. It’s what we do with what has been in the coming year that really matters.

Now "Choose Life" is a phrase that has seeped into public consciousness on at least two occasion over the last 30 years. Two places that would at first glance seem highly unlikely.

One was in a "Wham" pop video to the song "Wake me up before you go-go". I feel fairly confident in claiming that George Michael, Andrew Ridgley and Pepsi & Shirley didn't know they were quoting Moses when they were dancing along to this song.

It is also the inspiration for a poem by John Hodge that was spoken by Ewan McGregor to the tune for "Lust For Life" by Iggy Pop for the trailer to the film "Trainspotting". A film that is definitely not about "choosing Life", as it’s a film about heroin addiction. Addiction is the ultimate rejection of life

In “Choosing Life” we choose all of life, blessings and curses. We do not get one without the other, but we do get life, the ultimate free gift. The biggest mistake we ever make in living is that we wish so much of our lives away, we dream of some other place, a heaven, a nirvana, an Oz, Ithaka. Perhaps heaven, Nirvana, the Promised Land, Ithaka is actually the life that we have now, the kingdom is now, perhaps the true gift is life itself, the beautiful journey. It truly matters, every breath really matters.

This brings to mind that rather beautiful poem “Ithaka” by Constantine Cavafy.

"Ithaka" by C.P. Cavafy

As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn't have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

How often have we heard the phrase “Life is a journey”? Sometimes beautiful; sometimes frightening!

For all of us at times just to simply step out into the world takes all the courage we can muster. Choosing life is not always easy. Past experiences can often stop us dead in our tracks. Fear can block our attempts to step out into the world and back into the adventure of life with all its many challenges. Fear is always present to stop us to block us along the way.

What is it that calls us on, what is our Ithaka? Ithaka though is not about the destination itself, but the journey that comes with living life. Just like Moses none of us gets to truly reach the destination that is the Promised Land, for it is not a geographical location but the adventure of life itself. This is the gift, the pearl of great price, the kingdom of love right here right now and what we do with it is what really matters, for everything matters. The meaning of our lives comes from what we do with the life we have been given, in all its blessings and curses.

So as we stand on the hinge of the year let us not do so in fear of what is to come, for the truth is not one of us can know. There will be much suffering for all of us, for that is part of life. That said there will also be much joy too. For some of us it may be our last year and for some that we know and love that will certainly be the case. Now while our actual lives may not end, perhaps some aspect will. We should not fear this, for every ending is a new beginning.

So let us step forward in Hope, of what might be, of what we might make of the year ahead. Let’s make the meaning of the year that has passed with the way we live the year ahead

So let us step forward into this threshold moment that is New Eve or Old Years Night, let us do so in love. Let’s end in love and let’s begin again in love.

We have before us life, blessing and curses, suffering and joy, the beautiful journey, for life itself is the Promised Land, the ultimate free gift, the ultimate Grace. Let’s choose life.

I will end thid "blogspot"with some words of beginning by Edward Searl

Always there is a beginning —
a new day,
a new month,
a new season,
a new year.

Forever the old passes away
and newness emerges
from the richness that was.

Nothing is ever lost
in the many changes
time brings.

What was, in some way,
will be,
though changed in form.

Know this:
This moment is a beginning; 

and your lives,
individually and together,
are full of richness, of freshness,
of hope and of promise.

From “We Pledge Our Hearts” by Edward Searl

“Yom Kippur” a Gentiles lesson: At-One-Ment

Please note that the dates below apply to Yom Kippur during 2011

From next Friday night until Saturday at sunset 7^th – 8^th of October millions of Jewish people, throughout the world, will be celebrating the festival of Yom Kippur “The Day of Atonement”.

According to Jewish tradition, God inscribes each person's fate for the coming year into the Book of Life on Rosh Hashanah and waits until Yom Kippur to "seal" the verdict. During the Days of Awe, a Jew tries to amend his or her behaviour and seek forgiveness for wrongs done against God and against other human beings. The evening and day of Yom Kippur are set aside for public and private petitions and confessions of guilt. At the end of Yom Kippur, the Jewish person is considered absolved by God and therefore can then be placed in the “Book of Life” for another year.

What is significant for me, as a gentile, about this concept of atonement is that the wrong doer must first of all seek forgiveness from those they have wronged before they then turn to God and ask that they be returned to the “Book of Life”. Only after the transgressor has been forgiven by the transgressed can God’s forgiveness be obtained.

So what can be learnt from this tradition and understanding of atonement? Well for me it stems from this idea of coming into right relationship, not only with God but also the rest of humanity and life itself. Experience has taught me that through coming into right relationship with other people and life in general, I begin to come into right relationship with myself and then and only then do I began to experience the power that I call God. This seems to go against much of what the faith traditions teach, but it is definitely my experience, God it seems came last. My experience of God has been revealed through an attempt to live honestly and openly which began by me being able to see where I had been wrong. It began to be experienced as I dropped those barriers of self protection I had built up over the years.

Now I could share hundreds of examples of how my internal walls have “come a tumbling down” over the years, some appear mind blowing and others are really quite simple. The one I will share here may not sound very significant to most folk, but it meant a lot to me.

For most of my adult life I was one of those people who could never admit to be being wrong. I could say sorry but I could not admit to being wrong. I would argue and argue until I convinced the other that I was right. I remember once persuading a very intelligent friend of mine that the water in Yorkshire is somehow better than it is in Lancashire. It took me hours but she did eventually come round to my point of view. The argument was utterly pointless but there was no way my esteem would allow me to concede defeat.

This though began to change during an exchange I had with another friend about 7 years ago now. I was spouting my mouth off about something, really showing off if I’m honest, when my friend corrected me and explained what the real truth of this particular situation was. Now in my guts I wanted to fight and argue, but for once I did not. I stopped and listened and realised that I was incorrect. I then admitted I was wrong and do you know what it didn’t matter. Now there was a lot of change occurring within me at this juncture in my life and this small incident pieced a lot of it together. I suddenly realised that by admitting I was wrong about one thing it did not mean that I was wholly wrong about everything. I had developed enough honest self esteem to realise that being wrong about one thing did not make me wrong full stop; it did not make me wrong to the core of my being, which I believe had been the problem all along. I could not lose an argument because if I did it would prove to me, what I really believed that I was wrong to the core. I do not believe that any of us is wrong to the core.

It also taught me something else, which for some reason had passed me by before...once you can see you are wrong, admit to being wrong and do what is required to correct what was wrong, you are no longer wrong...you are right again; you are at one, you have atoned.

Let me just repeat that...because I need to remember this...

once you can see you are wrong, admit to being wrong and do what is required to correct what was wrong, you are no longer wrong...you are right again; you are at one, you have atoned.

That said to be able to accomplish this requires the development of natural self esteem, which I have discovered only develops by living honestly. I realised some time ago that you cannot work on self esteem itself by telling yourself how wonderful you are, it just doesn’t work. It can only grow naturally by living honestly from the core of your being and by healing the relationships between yourself, the rest of humanity, life and whatever we understand is at the core of it all.

I have discovered that the essence of atonement is to bring life back into relationship. As Peter Sampson (one of my all time favourite Unitarians, or do I mean Lunitarians) once taught me Atonement literally means At-One-Ment... “Atonement literally means At-One-Ment.” It is the quality of being the one undivided whole. So if atonement means being the one undivided whole then the opposite is this sense of separation, this experience of fragmentation which can occur within ourselves, within our wider society and within that which holds all of life together. So this healing of not only ourselves but humanity and all of life simply begins by first of all admitting where we have been wrong as individuals. By the way this takes courage and true faith. It is a healing process that begins to break down the barriers that separate us from one another.

Many people are estranged from one another, both within families and communities. Who is no longer friends with someone because of a quarrel that got out of hand?

I have been estranged from many members of my family for long periods at different times of my life. This is no longer the case I am united with all of them today. We were brought back to this state of at-one-ment because I was willing to level my own pride and make the first move. I was willing to atone for the wrongs I had done and able to forgive the harms that had been done to me and to others too.

And isn’t this the case for all of us. We can all feel uncomfortable by some individuals who we have fallen out at some time and place in the past often we don’t remember why and yet we can become enslaved by the memory of these slights. This anger affects all who are around us and this sense of negativity breaks up any sense of true community. And yet we could easily begin the healing process if we could just admit where we have been wrong. That though of course leaves us vulnerable to criticism and I believe that this is what we are most afraid of. I know I was and can still be so from time to time. Fear of criticism has always been my greatest downfall.

This concept of atonement does appear out of synch with our 21^st century world. Our culture tacitly encourages us to cover up, deny, forget our lies, our indiscretions, and our exploitation of others. Our media is full of public figures behaving in this manner. Many only genuinely offer regret and occasionally ask forgiveness when there is nowhere else to go. Rarely is the apology directed at the person or persons harmed. More often it is directed towards the general public who the figure is frightened of losing their support of. How many times have we heard celebrities’ apologies to their fans for letting them down? Not for what they have actually done.

This is not atonement by any stretch of the imagination. This is not at-one-ment! A genuine apology expresses remorse when it is directed to the person hurt and is given with the intention of seeking to be in an honest relationship with ourselves and others. It is an acknowledgement of personal wrongdoing. It is an attempt to make amends, to heal to put right what is wrong. It also carries the intention to change and grow from the person making amends.

I like the Jewish concept of atonement, it seems so human centred. I am sure that in practise many Jewish people fail to live up to its true ideals, but then who amongst us ever truly walks the path that we talk about. I know for one that I do not. I am able to acknowledge my short comings and to bring myself back into relationship with those I share my life with. I am much freer today of the old bondage of perfectionism fuelled by the fear of criticism. I have learnt a lot from seeing where and when I am wrong. By the way I am also able to see and acknowledge when I am right (I will talk more about that in my next post). 


All these things have brought me closer to the rest of humanity and begun to heal that aching loneliness that was at the core of me for so long. Finally and vitally it has begun to return me to the love that I understand to be God.

Remember Atonement means At-One-Ment!

Thank you Mr Sampson for teaching me that Atonement means At-One-Ment and everyone else who has opened my eyes as we have walked along life’s rich and Broad Highway.