There must be another way — a way to unself just enough to remember each other

It is said that soon after his enlightenment that the Buddha passed a man on the road who was struck by the Buddha's extraordinary radiance and peaceful presence. The man stopped and asked, "My friend, what are you? Are you a celestial being or a god?"

"No," said the Buddha.

"Well, then, are you some kind of magician or wizard?"

Again the Buddha answered, "No."

"Are you a man?" "No."

"Well, my friend, then what are you?"

The Buddha replied, "I am awake"

The Buddha was awake, he was fully conscious to all that is and all that will ever be. He was fully integrated, he did not see himself as separate, well he did not see himself at all.

Now this is not a claim I would or could make about myself. I can be self conscious at times, aware of my short comings and frustrations. I more liberate from this than when I was younger. Some days I feel free and others I can get caught up in my shortcomings.

As a child I was very self conscious about the way I moved. This became excruciating as a teenager. I was born some of the nerve endings at the base of my spine underdeveloped. It was something akin to a less severe form of spina bifida. As a child I had to frequently go for physiotherapy and there was a period when I was not allowed to engage in any sport. I hated the feeling it engendered in me as I looked at the other kids running around in the playground, knowing I wasn’t allowed to join in.

It was a few years later when the pain really hit me though, in my mid to later teens when I was painfully aware of the way I walked. I waddled when I moved, I still do now. I remember walking down the street of the town I grew up in and whenever I saw someone walking towards me, especially teenage girls, I would stand up straight and attempt to push my feet inwards in the vain hope that they wouldn’t think that there was something wrong with me. I must have looked a right sight.

I was just so terribly self-consciousness, locked in on what I believed was wrong with me. As I look back now’ I’m not wholly convinced that the problem was my perceived physical imperfections. I suspect that if I’d been born without this physical difficulty the problem would have manifested in other areas of my life. The problem was the self-consciousness, I was locked in myself and therefore not fully conscious, I was separate and felt alone.

One thing I’ve learnt over the years is that I am not alone in this. So many suffer from self-consciousness, feel lost, lonely and cut off because they are locked in what they believe is wrong with them. Sometimes it is harder to see what is right, than what is wrong. This is a deeply lonely, isolated, way to be.

Socrates said that “The unexamined life is not worth living”. Now while not wishing to argue with the great philosopher I do wonder if the “over examined life” can prove just as worthless. It is so easy to get lost in oneself, wrapped up in our own underwear to such an extent that we do not live at all. We can become so self-conscious that we fail to become conscious of all that is and all that as ever been. It is so easy to become wrapped up in our own perceived needs that we fail to live in the world with others and then complain about feeling lonely. Yes it is important to examine ourselves, to understand who we are and what makes us tick, but that should not be an end in itself, a destination. It is a staging post in the spiritual adventure, but not an end in itself.

I have had several conversations with people recently who have been struggling with severe self-consciously, manifesting as pride. Bruce Lee observed "the core of pride is self-rejection" and Agnes Martin knew when she cautioned that pride destroys freedom, joy and creativity. The ancient Greeks had a word for the ultimate self-consciousness “hubris”; the most destructive form of pride; a pride that puts yourself at the centre of the universe. This strange and terrible kind of total self-consciousness invariably ends in self-annihilation. Think of Narcissus who was so locked into his own reflection that he drowned. The great writers of tradgedy have always understood this, from Sophocles to Shakespeare. We witness it in the monsters of history and some world leaders of our age.

One antidote to such destructiveness is to live creatively. Madeleine L’Engle wrote on this:

“Creativity is an act of discovering. The very small child, the baby, is still unself-conscious enough to take joy in discovering himself: he discovers his fingers; he gives them his complete, unself-conscious concentration.”

Continuing…

“The kind of unself-consciousness I’m thinking about becomes clearer to me when I turn to a different discipline: for instance, that of playing a Bach fugue at the piano, precisely because I will never be a good enough pianist to play a Bach fugue as it should be played. But when I am actually sitting at the piano, all there is for me is the music. I am wholly in it, unless I fumble so badly that I perforce become self-conscious. Mostly, no matter how inadequate my playing, the music is all that matters: I am outside time, outside self, in play, in joy. When we can play with the unself-conscious concentration of a child, this is: art: prayer: love.”

I think we all have activities that make us feel free. Free to be ourselves and be part of something more than our mere selves and part of something larger. I know I am when I sing freely. When I feel confident and comfortable enough with a piece of music. I can express myself freely, but freely as a part of something more than myself.

When I feel free in song I embody those words of Maria Popova:

“There must be another way — a way to unself just enough to remember each other, to grow a little more awake to this world that shimmers with wonder, of which any one self is only a fleck.”

When singing I unself just enough to feel fully part of the “Musica Universalis”, I feel a little more awake in the world that shimmers, I am one self in an incredible interconnected universe.

Negative self absorption keeps us separate, locked into all that is wrong with ourselves or all that is wrong with the world. When you look at your own reflection in the mirror, what do you see? Do you see someone that you love? Do you see who you really are? While we may see ourselves warts and all, how many of us see the beauty spots too? The self-absorption that most people I come into contact with suffer from, tends to be a deeply ingrained negative type. The preoccupation is often with what is wrong with them, with their shame, rather than how wonderful they are. Also the pride is in worrying what people think of them, that someone might just see their flaws and reject them.

This kind of self-consciousness can become so consuming that it takes over our human interactions. I wonder how many of us suffer from this kind of commentary when we meet up with people. “What will they think of me?” “How do I look?” “If I say something, will they think I’m an idiot?” and then as it continues, “He gave me a funny look, he must have thought me a fool. Why on earth did I have to make that stupid remark? Gosh I’m such a freak, they all seem to be staring at me.”

This kind of inner dialogue can be so crippling. It can haunt us from the moment we wake and continue throughout our day, eating away at our every decision. Oh and of course because we doubt ourselves and every decision we make, we assume that everyone else must be doing exactly the same thing. This kind of self-consciousness can be so crippling and it blocks us off almost entirely from the world around us. We can be consumed by this kind of self-consciousness we see the world from our own point of view and it aint a pretty one.

So what can we do about it? How do we wake up to a greater consciousness? How do we break free from this crippling self-consciousness?

In the Gospel’s Jesus taught his followers that they must lose themselves in order to be found. That by emptying ourselves of our self-absorption we begin to be filled with the spirit of neighbourliness. So that when we look deeply into the still waters we are not drawn in by narcissistic self-consciousness and loathing at our own reflection, but rather into a deeper contemplation of our shared lives. We become conscious of all that is, all that has been and all that will ever be. By opening ourselves to and for others we begin to shed that debilitating skin of self-consciousness that is so easy to become imprisoned in.

Gandhi said “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in service of others”

The Buddha talked of Nirvana, of being freed from the suffering that was the blight of humanity. He showed that we all suffered and that it was in seeing our suffering as individual that led to this sense of separation. He suggested that we needed to break through our suffering not only to serve others but to reach a higher state of being, true consciousness, to be awake.

Now please don’t get me wrong I am not suggesting that we do not need to know ourselves to understand how we tick. All I am saying is that we must not get stuck there, we must not get lost there and we must not see this as a destination, more a staging post on the journey. The adolescent stage I suspect. Sadly, for many folk, me included, this adolescent stage often goes well into adulthood.

I remember another antidote that probably fuels creativity suggested in Forrest Church’s “Lifecraft”, a book suggesting ways to make life an act of creation, a way to move from self-consciousness to consciousness. He offered three simple suggestions, which he called the three “E’s”, “empathy”, “ecstasy” and “enthusiasm”. The key he claimed could be found in the literal understanding of these words. “Empathy”, to suffer or feel with another; “Ecstasy”, to stand outside ourselves; “Enthusiasm”, to manifest the god (theos) within us.

Empathy is a deep felt compassion. When we open our hearts empathically to another we are courageously refusing to allow self-consciousness to stand in the way of a higher consciousness that comes into being as we feel what another is going through. In so doing we serve both ourselves and the other person, as well as that higher consciousness beyond our singular selves.

Now ecstasy has often been misunderstood as some kind of hedonistic state and therefore self- indulgent, it is far from this. In its truest sense what it actually does is takes us out of ourselves and lifts us beyond the confines of ourselves. In so doing we transcend our self-consciousness and enter a realm in which purpose begins to emerge and meaning is found.

Enthusiasm means to be filled with spirit, with holy energy. Enthusiasm allows us to be fully involved and engaged in whatever it is we are doing. It allows us to see beyond the confines we have created. Forrest himself states that “Here, once again, consciousness displaces self-consciousness. We escape from our mirrored room. Its mirrors turn into windows. Or the pond grows so still that we can see beyond our own reflection to the trees and clouds and birds and sun. There is, by the way, no higher form of spiritual practice. When we step out of our own shadow, consciousness replaces self-consciousness.”

In so doing we are set free to walk with others in our own faltering ways. Instead of being lost in what we believe is wrong with us we are set free to do what we can in this our shared world and in so doing we encourage others to do the same, as perfectly imperfect children of God.

For me the purpose of the spiritual life is to develop a deepening sense of connection. We all have our troubles and our worries either within ourselves, those around us or wider world. We need to see them for what they are, we need to acknowledge the truth, but we must not get stuck there, for that will paralyse us and stop us doing what we can. We cannot change the way the world is but that need not prevent us from doing what we can do and in doing so we will grow spiritually as we become integrated into all that has been, all that exists and all that will ever be.

As a kind of conclusion I’d like to leave you with one final thought. I think that so much of modern spiritually gets it wrong because it is seeking the wrong thing. There is so much talk of finding ourselves, when in actual fact what we ought to be doing is losing ourselves. What we ought to be striving for, I believe, is integration and remove those aspects within ourselves that block this. We all ask the question “Who am I?” when really we ought to asking is “How am I doing? And if we are still feeling utterly dis-connected we need to ask why? And how can I integrate once again? You see if we can begin to integrate with all that is, all that has been and all that has ever been we begin to truly cohere. In doing so we transcend our self-consciousness and become conscious. We become spiritually mature. We become like the Buddha, awake.

So how conscious are you today? Are you truly awake?

If not. I have found a way to unself just enough so that we remember each other, to remember we are part of something wonderful and greater than our little selves. To feel a little more awake in this world that shimmers. To know that our single selves are just a fleck, but a vital part of the “Musica Universalis”

“There must be another way — a way to unself just enough to remember each other”

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

 

A Never-Ending Story: Beginning, Middle and End?

Forrest Church claimed that ”religion is our human response to being alive and having to die”.

We human beings are meaning makers. One way we try to make sense of it all, to find meaning, is through story. Religion at it’s best is about telling stories. Our personal stories and our stories about we as a people.

Our lives are made up of all kinds of stories, that tell us who we are. We connect with one another through the telling of these stories. We all have our stories and we love to hear stories. Stories come in a variety of form too. Poetry is often a kind of story. A good poet will see something and tell us a story through the art of poetry.

Here is wonderful example by Billy Collins, on the art of storytelling through poetry, “Aristotle”.

“Aristotle” by Billy Collins

This is the beginning.
Almost anything can happen.
This is where you find
the creation of light, a fish wriggling onto land,
the first word of Paradise Lost on an empty page.
Think of an egg, the letter A,
a woman ironing on a bare stage
as the heavy curtain rises.
This is the very beginning.
The first-person narrator introduces himself,
tells us about his lineage.
The mezzo-soprano stands in the wings.
Here the climbers are studying a map
or pulling on their long woolen socks.
This is early on, years before the Ark, dawn.
The profile of an animal is being smeared
on the wall of a cave,
and you have not yet learned to crawl.
This is the opening, the gambit,
a pawn moving forward an inch.
This is your first night with her,
your first night without her.
This is the first part
where the wheels begin to turn,
where the elevator begins its ascent,
before the doors lurch apart.

This is the middle.
Things have had time to get complicated,
messy, really. Nothing is simple anymore.
Cities have sprouted up along the rivers
teeming with people at cross-purposes—
a million schemes, a million wild looks.
Disappointment unshoulders his knapsack
here and pitches his ragged tent.
This is the sticky part where the plot congeals,
where the action suddenly reverses
or swerves off in an outrageous direction.
Here the narrator devotes a long paragraph
to why Miriam does not want Edward's child.
Someone hides a letter under a pillow.
Here the aria rises to a pitch,
a song of betrayal, salted with revenge.
And the climbing party is stuck on a ledge
halfway up the mountain.
This is the bridge, the painful modulation.
This is the thick of things.
So much is crowded into the middle—
the guitars of Spain, piles of ripe avocados,
Russian uniforms, noisy parties,
lakeside kisses, arguments heard through a wall—
too much to name, too much to think about.

And this is the end,
the car running out of road,
the river losing its name in an ocean,
the long nose of the photographed horse
touching the white electronic line.
This is the colophon, the last elephant in the parade,
the empty wheelchair,
and pigeons floating down in the evening.
Here the stage is littered with bodies,
the narrator leads the characters to their cells,
and the climbers are in their graves.
t is me hitting the period
and you closing the book.
It is Sylvia Plath in the kitchen
and St. Clement with an anchor around his neck.
This is the final bit
thinning away to nothing.
This is the end, according to Aristotle,
what we have all been waiting for,
what everything comes down to,
the destination we cannot help imagining,
a streak of light in the sky,
a hat on a peg, and outside the cabin, falling leaves.

Way, way before the Jospeh Campbell outlined the eleven stages of the “Heroes Journey” and the wonderful Kurt Vonnegut illustrated the shape of stories, with practical beauty and humour, it was Aristotle who formulated the notion that a story must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Now of course we clever people who live today would say, well obviously. That said what goes without saying today, had to be said by someone in the first place and then repeated over and over again, just like any good story. The best stories are not heard the once, they are repeated again and again and again.

Phil Cousineau believes that stories save our souls. In “The Oldest Story in the World: A Mosaic of Meditations on the Secret Strength of Stories” he observed that this much he knew:

"Every day we have at least one gut-check moment. Every day we are asked, 'Do you want to hear a story?' A hundred times a day our deeper life awaits our signal that, yes, we are listening. Whether we are camped around a fire on the Comanche Moon trail, sitting in the literary salons of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas on the Rue des Fleurs in Paris, craning our necks during a Hollywood studio script meeting, cosseting our children by reading out loud to them from the great round of Harry Potter adventures, or trading old baseball stories in the stands with old teammates, we are responding to the blue longing in our restless souls to be carried away by the kind of story that makes life worth living.”

Our lives are made up of stories. This is what we do. We tell and we listen to stories. As the poet Muriel Rukeyser remarked 'The world is made up of stories, not atoms.'

Stories are not fact, they are not history, they are “Mythos”. They reveal a deeper universal “truth” that all people can connect to regardless of time and place. Mythos reveals a deeper “truth” about the human condition and nature of reality. They help us engage in the conversational nature of existence. A story is a deep conversation with life that enables us to connect more deeply to the meaning in life. Even good history is really about the telling of stories, it is not just prosaic fact. History comes alive by the telling of the stories within the events

Stories and story-telling have been distilling wisdom throughout the generations and I have no doubt that this will continue on into eternity. Yes, a good story has a beginning, a middle and end, Aristotle revealed this truth. The absolute truth is that as story ends, it goes on, it begins again. As Limahl sang it’s a “Neverending Story”.

Here is a never-ending story. It is taken from “Concentration and Compassion: More Stories from the World’s Spiritual Traditions” by my friend and retired colleague Rev Bill Darlison. It goes by the title

“The Endless Story”

In the Far East there was a great king called Calapha who had no work to do. Every day, and all day long, he sat on soft cushions and listened to stories. And no matter what the story was about, he never grew tired of hearing it, even though it was very long. “There is only one fault that I find with your story,” he often said: ‘It is too short.’

All the story-tellers in the world were invited to his palace, and some of them told tales that were very long indeed. But the king was always sad when a story was ended.

At last he sent word into every city and town and country place, offering a prize to anyone who should tell him and endless tale. He said, ‘To the man that will tell me a story which shall last forever, I will give Zaidee, my fairest daughter, for his wife; and I will make him my heir, and he shall be king after me.’

But this was not all. He added a very hard condition. “If any man shall try to tell such a story, and then fail, he shall have his head cut off.’

Zaidee was very pretty, and there were many young men in that country who were willing to do anything to win her. But none of them wanted to lose their heads, and so only a few tried for the prize.

One young man invented a story that lasted three months, but at the end of that time, he could think of nothing more. His fate was a warning to others, and it was a long time before another story-teller was so rash as to try the king’s patience.

But one day a stranger from the South came into the palace.
‘Great king,’ he said, ‘is it true that you offer a prize to the man who can tell a story that has no end?’
‘It is true,; said the king.
‘And shall this man have your fairest daughter for his wife, and shall he be your heir?’
‘Yes, if he succeeds,’ said the king. ‘But if he fails, he shall lose his head.’
‘Very well, then,’ said the stranger. ‘I have a pleasant story about locusts which I would like to relate.’
‘Tell it’ said the king. ‘I will listen to you.’
The story teller began his tale. ‘Once upon a time a certain king seized upon all the corn in his country, and stored it away in a strong granary. But a storm of locusts came over the land and saw where the grain had been put. After searching for many days they found on the east side of the granary a crevice that was just large enough for one locust to pass through at a time. So one locust went in and carried away a grain of corn; then another locust went in and carried away a grain of corn; then another locust went in and carried away a grain of corn.’
Day after day, week after week, the man kept on saying, ‘Then another locust went in and carried away a grain of corn.’
A month passed; a year passed. At the end of two years, the king said, ‘How much longer will the locust be going in and carrying away corn?’
‘O king! Said the story-teller, ‘they have as yet cleared only one small corner; and there are millions more grains of corn in the granary.’
‘Stop, Stop!’ cried the king, ‘You will drive me mad. I can listen to it no longer. Take my daughter; be my heir; rule my kingdom. But do not let me hear another word about those horrible locusts!’
And so the strange story-teller married Princess Zaidee, and he lived happily ever after in the land for many years. But his father-in-law, the king, had had enough of the endless stories.

One of my great pleasures is listening to people’s stories. I mentioned last week that I listened to 105 year old man tell his story. It was a beautiful experience as he spoke so eloquently, for 45 minutes, about his 70 years of recovery. 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. The feeling I got was of a man still looking forward to whatever story he still had to live. His story will one day end, but not just yet.

I was invited to share my story the other day. Afterwards a young man approached me and said he had heard my story before, even though we had ever met. As he listened to me he said he had heard my story before. Here was three years later a new person to recovery and heard my story from my moth. Apparently what he had heard had stayed with him and eventually prompted him to act. We came together that day and he heard and connected with it. I could have wept, but instead I just simply smiled.

Here is a classic parable from the New Testament on “Love and Forgiveness”, from Luke’s Gospel Chapter 15 vv 11-32

The Parable of the Prodigal and His Brother

11 Then Jesus[a] said, “There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the wealth that will belong to me.’ So he divided his assets between them. 13 A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant region, and there he squandered his wealth in dissolute living. 14 When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that region, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that region, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. 16 He would gladly have filled his stomach[b] with the pods that the pigs were eating, and no one gave him anything. 17 But when he came to his senses he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! 18 I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.” ’ 20 So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. 21 Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’[c] 22 But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate, 24 for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.

25 “Now his elder son was in the field, and as he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. 27 He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf because he has got him back safe and sound.’ 28 Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. 29 But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command, yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your assets with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ 31 Then the father[d] said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’ ”

The great sages like Jesus and the Buddha excelled in storytelling. They knew how to relate to and reach people, that a story could open them up, that it could put flesh on the word. Shaman and elders of other traditions shared this wisdom, as they told their tales around the campfires and gatherings. They drew their listeners to deeper visions of life with imagery and symbolism. The storyteller has always been with us and is with us today. Today everyone is a story teller. On social media we have our stories, they are designed to be shared. Like all classic tales, these stories are an interesting mixture of the good and bad, the negative and the positive, the light and dark.

The old stories were not just entertainment, they were trying to teach something about the nature of humanity and life itself, they had a kind of morality about them, an ethic a meaning,. Some say that today this narrative has almost disappeared.

Post-modernism would claim that today there is no longer one narrative. The French philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard has defined post-modernism as ‘the death of metanarrative’. He claimed that we no longer have nor need the big stories ‘that tell us who we are, where we come from, and what we are called to do.’

Personally, I am not convinced by this argument as I do see universal qualities in all these tales. Whether it’s the one I hear from friends and family, or the one I see on the big screen, or the one I read in some ancient text. The stories may be told in different ways but they still connect us with one another through time and space. They do more than connect us though, they heal us, they renew us and spur us on to greater things. Regardless of when they were first told and by who they still have the capacity to tell us who we are, where we come from and what we are called to do.

Here's a favourite story from my favourite character, someone I can relate to.

“One afternoon, Nasruddin and his friend were sitting in a cafe, drinking tea and talking about life and love. His friend asked: ‘How come you never married?’

‘Well,’ said Nasruddin, ‘to tell you the truth, I spent my youth looking for the perfect woman. In Cairo I met a beautiful and intelligent woman, but she was unkind. Then in Baghdad, I met a woman who was a wonderful and generous soul, but we had no common interests. One woman after another would seem just right, but there would always be something missing. Then one day, I met her; beautiful, intelligent, generous and kind. We had very much in common. In fact, she was perfect!’

‘So, what happened?’ asked Nasruddin’s friend, ‘Why didn’t you marry her?’

Nasruddin sipped his tea reflectively. ‘Well,’ he replied, ‘it’s really the sad story of my life…. It seemed that she was looking for the perfect man…’ “

I love Nasruddin, the holy fool. You will find characters like him in most cultures. Through humour they reveal deep truths, ones that are too often hidden.

Humour is something that helps us through the great trials of life. Many of the great stories have laughter and humour within them. Sadly humour can be absent in the spiritual life, it ought not to be. There is something lacking in a spirituality that takes itself too seriously. The spiritual life can at times be perceived as an arid and serious world, utterly devoid of humour and lightness. Many of us look at the spiritual, the religious life, as if were a dose of rather distasteful medicine. We may well see the benefits of it, but aren’t sure we would like the way it tastes. We are frightened that it might actually reduce our experience of life. We can easily become too intense and earnest in our approach to spirituality; by doing so we can view laughter as sacrilegious and end up apologising for the freedom that it can breed. We should never apologise for experiencing joy and laughter. The spiritual life needs humour. There is humour in the ancient tales, so surely there is a place for it in our age. There is always room for Divine humour. “Life is too serious to be taken too seriously.”

As we come towards the end of this adventure in story I wonder what your story is. What is the story that speaks to you and of you? Where do you find yourself, what gives you the permission to simply be? What is your favourite story. Here is one of mine:

It comes from "Have a Little Faith" by Mitch Albom.

“A man seeks employment on a farm. He hands his letter of recommendation to his new employer. It reads simply, `He sleeps in a storm.’

The owner is desperate for help, so he hires the man.

Several week pass, and suddenly, in the middle of the night, a powerful storm rips through the valley.
Awakened by the swirling rain and howling wind, the owner leaps out of bed. He calls for his new hired hand, but the man is sleeping soundly.

So he dashes off to the barn. He sees, to his amazement, that the animals are secure with plenty of feed. He runs out to the field. He sees the bales of wheat have been bound and are wrapped in tarpaulins. He races to the silo. The doors are latched, and the grain is dry.

And then he understands.

`He sleeps in a storm.’

My friends, if we tend to the things that are important in life, if we are right with those we love and behave in line with our [beliefs], our lives will not be cursed with the aching throb of unfulfilled business. Our words will always be sincere, our embraces will be tight. We will never wallow in the agony of `I could have, I should have.’ We can sleep in a storm.

And when it’s time, our good-byes will be complete.”

In “Crow and Weasel” Barry Lopez said

“The stories people tell have a way of taking care of them. If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. That is why we put these stories in each other’s memory. This is how people care for themselves.”

I will continue to listen to the stories and when they come to me I will nurture them, I will take care of them and I will continue to give them away, we all need them. I ask that you do the same, because by doing so we will better take care of ourselves.

I will continue telling the tale and I will listen as you tell yours. For the story goes on and on. The story is never ending.

So I will leave you with a question to ponder. What is your story? What is the story that speaks to you and of you?

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

The language of friendship: The language of love

I’m sure you’ve heard me badly misquote good old Moses many times “Choose Life, Blessings and Curses”. The phrase says to me that in life you don’t get the good without the bad and the bad without the good, you get life though and we are here to live it. The blessing is in being here and being alive.

I am enjoying the blessing of spring time. I am loving the colour of the blossoms and the songs of the birds. It is a delight, especially for my eyes and my ears. That said it isn’t all blessings. There is a negative to all this new life and it is one also for my eyes and my ears. My eyes and ears, my nose and my throat are being badly affected by the pollen. It is my ears that are frustrating me as I am not hearing people when they speak as well as I would like.

I can still hear the birds though and their beautiful spring songs. The birds are telling many things.

Another favourite phrase of mine is “a little bird told me”. I loved it as a child; there was something enchanting about it. I love it equally as an adult. It is a cute way of relaying information about people, sharing good news, like birthdays or small achievements. Little birds telling me things is basically half of my life; I spend half my life listening to folk tell me stories, sharing and caring. Lots of little birds have been whispering in my ear recently. It seems that my purpose in life is primarily to be a friend, to live as a friend to many. I suspect that my primary role as a minister of religion is to be a good friend, this I am discovering is what it means to live spiritually alive. Maybe this is the whole of the spiritual life, the love that we are supposed to live by. Maybe we are here to be friends to one another sharing and caring, telling our tales. I love funny little phrases, and I love language, how it changes, how it develops. It speaks so much about time and place, past, present and even future.

You can tell a lot about a culture by its language. The English language has many words for different types of rain, probably because it rains a lot. Iceland has about forty words for snow and the ancient Greeks had at least six words for love. These were “Eros”, primarily romantic, sexual or passionate desire. “Philia” which was a deep bond that was formed through friendship and or comradeship. Think of the city of Philadelphia, the city of “brotherly love. Another was “Storge” which was a kind of familial love. “Ludus” which was a kind of playful or flirtatious love. “Pragma” or longstanding love. This was a form of mature love that developed over long-term relationships, say between married couples. “Agape” love, this was a love without prejudice, a selfless love, some call it religious love. Finally, “Philautia”, self-love. This had a light and shadow side. Its shadow manifested in Narcissism, but its light was seen as vital in order to offer all the other forms of love in a healthy way.

Two of these forms of love seem to be vital to living in spiritual community with others. These being “Philia” and “Agape”. As I’ve been wandering around walking and talking with folk in recent times these are the two forms I’ve been experiencing. I feel that these loves are at the heart of true friendship. We need these loves right now, as we live through these difficult and sometime disturbing times, as we look at our wider world. “Agape” and “Philia” love are the two types that I am often aware of when I live with my senses open to those I interact with. These two types that truly bring the blessings and curses of choosing life. They are vital to living spiritually alive.

I engaged in all kinds of conversations with folk at our recent General Assembly meetings. It was lovely catching up with old friends. People tell me many things. Yes, they share their many and varied troubles, but also share other wonderful stories too. I am blessed by what people choose to share with me. One thing I particularly enjoyed this year was a conversation I was invited to participate in with other regular writers for “The Inquirer”, our denominational magazine. We were asked to talk about how we write, what inspires us, our whole process as well as questions about the things we ought to be exploring. It was really an attempt to encourage others to give writing a go. It was interesting listening to the other contributors and comparing their processes with my own. We are so different. They seem far more deliberate and structured, whereas my inspirations seems to blow in the wind. A bit like this conversation really. There is structure and purpose though, it is perhaps just less obvious than others. I see everything that I create as a kind of conversation between friends and for friends, some of whom I am yet to meet and yet perhaps already know and are known. Speaking and hearing the language of love.

During the “Inquirer Panel” there was an interesting conversation about the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Something none of us felt we would want to use in our own work. I am not against the use of AI in terms of discovering information. It also seems to help people who have limited writing skills or lack confidence in this area. I know it has helped friends of mine to build confidence. So, like most things AI has its place. It just doesn’t have a place in my creativity. I want to speak through the spirit, the language of the heart. A conversation based on love. It seems to me that A.I. is a soulless product. When I read things created by it, it does not touch my soul at least.

Language and words used in my line of work ought to be formed by love and creativity, of that spirit, formed from agapeic and philia love. They should be about creativity and connection. I recently had a powerful experience around forgiveness, a beautiful example of how Agape can work its magic in bringing repair to “Philia Love” and restoring a once broken friendship. I recently reacquainted myself with someone I was close to many years ago. I had once said something that had unintentionally hurt them. I was speaking from a place of arrogance and perhaps hubris, getting a bit too big for my boots, to use another wonderful old phrase. The words I used were not personal, but they hurt the person. It broke a friendship. One that no matter what I said and did seemed like it would never be healed. Well recently it has been. It just took some humility and truth speaking. It took the practice of Agapeic love to heal a friendship and rekindle a form of damaged Philia Love. It was a lovely experience and led to the most amazing and moving conversation as we shared loving words. We both levelled our pride, gave something of ourselves, recognised one another’s humanity and rekindled a friendship. Agapeic love healed a relationship, it reformed a Philia love.

The reconciliation brought to my mind the following from John’s Gospel Ch21 vv 15-19

15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” 16 A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” 17 He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. 18 Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” 19 (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, “Follow me.”

This conversation between Jesus and Peter comes later in the Gospel, after the “Resurrection” It is a fascinating piece, mirroring Peter’s denial of Jesus three times. What is interesting to me is the use of the word “Love”. The first two times when Jesus asks Peter if he loves him, he is using the word Agape, while Peter responds with the word Philia. On the third occasion Jesus then reverts to the word Philia. Now both words are used interchangeably in John’s account and much has been discussed by theologians as to the meaning of this passage. To me it is about reconciliation, forgiveness and moving forward as Jesus is asking Peter to take care of his “sheep, lambs”, his people and what he is prepared to sacrifice. For me it is about how vital both forms of love are to living spiritually alive in this world. If I have learnt anything, it is that I need to live by both Philia love and Agape love in order to live alive in this world, to choose life. In so doing the Kin-dom of Love, begins to be brought to life.

We all need “Philia” love, for we are relational beings. Everyone needs friends, to experience that deep loving care that is not connected by blood, by family and romantic feelings, a love for those we share our time and space with. This is the love that spiritual community is built upon, actually all forms of community.

Aristotle said, “What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.”

Emerson wrote, “Let us approach our friend with an audacious trust in the truth of his heart.”

A friend is someone you can trust, you can rely upon, someone who will be there for you. I have been blessed with such friendships throughout my life. Some have been there for decades and others for shorter periods of time, but we have touched one another’s lives in deep and meaningful ways. We have laughed and we have cried together. We have enjoyed some wild and crazy times together and we have grieved as we have lost one of our number. I have lost a lot of friends over the years, far too many. Each loss breaks my heart; each loss takes a little piece of my heart. Love hurts. It was the first anniversary of the loss of one my oldest and dearest friends this week. The very next day I heard of the loss of another mutual friend. Gone far too soon.

A friend helps you become a better person, certainly my friends have helped me to do so, they have spurred me on by their example and encouragement and occasional criticism. This was a central claim of Aristotle’s “Ethics” who envisioned an escalating competition in goodness. He suggested that people try to do their best so as to be valued and respected by their friends thus inspiring them to do likewise. This is the power of “Philia” Love.

Friendship is a key component of Buddhism. This is illustrated in the following tale:

One day while the Buddha was out walking with his attendant Ananda, Ananda declared, “Teacher, to have companions and comrades on the great way is so amazing! I have come to realize that friendship is fully half of an authentic spiritual life.” They continued walking in silence when eventually the Buddha responded. “No, dear one. Without companions and comrades, no one can live into the deep, finding the true harmonies of life, to achieve authentic wisdom. To say it simply, friendship is the whole of the spiritual life.”

Could this be true? Is friendship the whole of the spiritual life?

Jesus said to his disciples, in John’s Gospel “I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything.” To me this is what a true relationship with God is about, friendship. Something that we are meant to mirror in our lives. This if you like is the Kin-dom coming alive in our lives. We gain knowledge of the spiritual life through living in such an intimate relationship with God, with life and with one another.

I’m with the Buddha and Jesus; I believe that friendship is the whole of the spiritual life. In fact, to live spiritually is to truly be a friend to life. This is how knowledge is truly revealed. This is the kin-dom of love, coming alive in our lives. This is how we make our lives a scared space. This is how we manifest love in our lives, by being a friend to life. This is what being a part of a spiritual community is about, becoming a friend to life and to all we meet. Friendship is those little birds whispering in my ear, sharing deep concern.

It begins with radical acceptance. It requires Agape Love, to accept those we meet as they are, exactly as they are. This does not mean we don’t point out when someone is in the wrong, no it just means we love and accept them right or wrong. It’s also about raising one another up through our example. You see by being the best we can be, in loving friendship, we automatically encourage our friends to be the best version of themselves that they too can be.

Friendships are relationships born from love; they speak the language of love. They are mirrors of the spiritual life for they are about both philia and at times agape love.

Life is all about relationships; the spiritual life is all about relationships. Relationships with life, with each other, with ourselves and with God, whatever we understand God to be. And how do relationships develop? Well through conversation, through sharing ourselves with each other, not by losing ourselves, but becoming ourselves through our conversations with the other, lower and upper case. We relate through conversation and thus we grow spiritually, through relationship.

Relationships speak the language love. Friendships being one of the most powerful, deep and meaningful. They must be formed and sustained by both “Philia” and “Agape” Love.

For love will bring us together again.

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

When has the night ended and the day begun? Awakening from the Hour of Dog and Wolf

There is a story told of a rabbi in ancient times who gathered his students together very early one morning, while it was still dark. He put this question to them: "How can you tell when night has ended and the day has begun?"

One student made a suggestion: "Could it be when you can see an animal and you can tell whether it is a sheep or a goat?"

"No, that's not it," answered the rabbi.

Another student said: "Could it be when you look at a tree in the distance and you can tell whether it is a fig tree or a peach tree?"

Again the rabbi answered: "No."

After a few more guesses the students said: "Well, how do you tell when night has ended?"

The rabbi answered: "It is when you look on the face of any man or woman and you see them as your brother or sister. If you cannot do this, then, no matter what time it is, it is still night."

The nights are becoming longer, as I am sure you have noticed. This often brings with it a sense within us to seek hibernation, to go into ourselves. We need to be careful here, as tempting as it is. If we hibernate we are not awake, we are falling asleep.

It can become difficult to awake from our slumber on these cold, darkening mornings that the Autumn brings. The temptation is to stay in and not awaken to life, to turn inwards and not to live in the world.

This last Tuesday I experienced a lovely example of this. I regularly attend an early morning meditation. Now when my alarm went off early on Tuesday morning a part of me didn’t want to get up and step into the cold darkness of the morning. But I did. I prayed my morning prayers; I sought inspiration from the great mystery and listened to the birds outside my window. I got ready for the day. I brushed Molly’s hair and took her to the toilet. We then went to join in meditation. Molly shot in and greeted the folk and also greeted each individual as they arrived. We humans greeted one another with humour and coffee and then we enjoyed silence together in complete darkness as Molly settled down in her bed. As the silence ended the light was just starting to appear. We then began to share about our own personal joys and troubles, our own spiritual journeys. As everyone spoke I looked at their faces and connected with them and saw in them as my own brother and sister, I saw myself reflected back at me. I saw a reflection of the Divine in their eyes and heard it in their words.

It is so tempting at times to separate people into those that are for me and those that are against me; that there are those that are my friends and those who are my foes. That we need to keep an eagle eye out for the ‘foes’, because if we do not they may well cause us harm; that these people are dangerous, even “toxic” and you must keep them out of your life. This is not helpful or healthy. We are all formed from the one flesh and we all have the same spirit flowing through us. Divisiveness does not help anyone.

There is a French saying...Please excuse my accent... “L’heure entre chien et loup” which translates as “The hour between dog and wolf”. The saying is basically describing the time just as the sun is setting, the twilight hours when you cannot really differentiate between dog and wolf, between who is a friend and who is a foe.

Has anyone heard this phrase before “The hour between dog and wolf?”

It first came into my consciousness a few years ago because it was the title of a New Model Army album, as well as a documentary film that was made about their strange and enduring career.

“Between dog and wolf, between water and wine, between wine and blood.” This brings to mind some lyrics from a really old songs of theirs “Better than them” and the words of the chorus...

Divided we were born,divided we live

divided we fall,yeah,divided we die

still we tell ourselves over and over again

we're better than them... (we're better than them)

we're better than them..

We’re not like them, we’re better than them...

“Them” are whoever we think are somehow separate from us...

The song is essentially a rant against this sense of superiority and separation that all groups of people and individuals feel from time to time, that sadly some feel permanently; this sense that somehow we are better than, or less than other people. It seems to go on in all sections of society and throughout human history. It is there in religion, but also secular society. Some religious groups talk about the saved and the unsaved, others talk of being God’s chosen people. When they speak this way they are talking of a God I do not recognise. The God I know accepts and loves all universally. Experience has revealed to me that we are all chosen by God, it’s just that so many of us turn away and cannot believe that there is a spirit that is there in all life.

Then of course there are the anti-religionists who reject any kind of faith at all; who see it all as purely infantile projections. They mock, they poke fun, they separate people into the stupid and the wise. They say we are not like them, we’re better than them.

I am no better by the way; I do it too. There are days when I feel superior to other people and there are days when I feel less than them. That said thank God most days I recognise the truth that there is one human family. We are made of the same flesh and we have the same spirit within each of us.

Something I felt powerful as the dark turned into light on Tuesday morning. In that hour of dog and wolf as the night turned into day.

If we see others as separate from ourselves, we see us and we see them. As Walter Kaufmann, who translated Martin Buber into English put it, when we use words like “Us-Them”, “'the world is divided in two: the children of light and the children of darkness, the sheep and the goats, the elect and the damned.' It is this that leads to a lack of empathy for all people and thus their suffering can be ignored. In such a state any form of barbarity and abuse can become acceptable, something we have seen throughout human history. It still goes on today, we continue to dehumanise, breeding hatred and violence.

As the Nobel Peace Prize Winner, author of such greats as “Night” and Holocaust Survivor Elie Wiesel put it " 'Hatred, is a cancer that is passed from one person to another, one people to another.'

There is one human family, we are each other’s keepers. In “Conversations with Elie Wiesel” Wiesel sees the Biblical question Cain poses to God after killing Abel “Am I my brother’s keeper?” becomes a lens to see brother and sisterhood in broadest humanist sense. As he reflects:

We are all our brothers’ keepers… Either we see in each other brothers, or we live in a world of strangers… There are no strangers in a world that becomes smaller and smaller. Today I know right away when something happens, whatever happens, anywhere in the world. So there is no excuse for us not to be involved in these problems. A century ago, by the time the news of a war reached another place, the war was over. Now people die and the pictures of their dying are offered to you and to me while we are having dinner. Since I know, how can I not transform that knowledge into responsibility? So the key word is “responsibility.” That means I must keep my brother.

When the epistle Paul talked of the oneness, the unity in Christianity, he wrote that in Christ “there is no longer Jew or Greek.” He did not say that there are no longer Jews or Greeks more that people are no longer separated by these distinctions; that they are all one in love, in body and in spirit; that if all people are viewed in the light they are brothers and sisters to one another.

As Tenzin Gyatso XIVth Dalai Lama has said “Mentally, physically and emotionally we are the same. We each have the potential to good and bad and to be overcome by disturbing emotions such as anger, fear, hatred, suspicion and greed. These emotions can be the cause of many problems. On the other hand if you cultivate loving kindness, compassion and concern for others, there will be no room for anger, hatred and jealousy.

These words very much chime with that favourite story of mine, which seem appropriate today, “The Two Wolves”

Do you recall it?

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life.

“A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.

“It’s a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, ego and it makes me cynical about life.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, faith and it fills me with enthusiasm for life. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

Where does this sense of superiority come from, this sense that we are somehow better than other people? Where does this fear come from? Well I believe it comes from habit. We are taught to fear the stranger who is not exactly like us, we are taught to separate one another, to see the difference. Habits, especially fear based ones, are hard to break.

So how do we get to the place where we can tell when the night has ended, where when we look into someone else’s eyes we see our brother and our sister. How do we get out of the habit of separating people into one camp or another? Well I believe it begins by us waking up to reverence in one another and to practise loving kindness each and every day. This is not easy. I know this from personal experience. Every day I find myself putting up the barriers of separation; every day I find myself doing all I can to ensure that they come tumbling back down again. It is perhaps a whole life times work and perhaps beyond, this moving from night to day. That said I believe it is possible and we can begin aspiring to it right here right now. We just need to wake up.

Why don’t you try it now? Why don’t you offer a blessing to one another?

Give it a go. Go to one another, look one another in the eye and recognise yourself within each other. Then why don’t you bow in reverence, shake one another’s hand, or if you feel really brave you could even hug your neighbour. As you do why not say to each other...”I honour your sacred humanity, we are made of the same flesh and have the same spirit running through us.”

Now of course this is easy to do amongst friends, people you know. This is perhaps less easy out there in the world outside our window. A hug might be a bit much for a stranger. That said we can practise recognising the sacred in each of us. We can bring an end to the night and a beginning to a new day. We can wake up.

I am going to end today with this story from the life of the Buddha

It is said that soon after his enlightenment that the Buddha passed a man on the road who was struck by the Buddha's extraordinary radiance and peaceful presence. The man stopped and asked, "My friend, what are you? Are you a celestial being or a god?"

"No," said the Buddha.

"Well, then, are you some kind of magician or wizard?"

Again the Buddha answered, "No."

"Are you a man?" "No."

"Well, my friend, then what are you?"

The Buddha replied, “I am awake”.

The night has ended and the day has begun.

We need to be awake.

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

The Three E’s Empathy, Ecstasy and Enthusiasm: Turning Self Consciousness into Consciousness

I was in the park with Molly on Monday morning. I was feeling tired and somewhat run down. I had woken up with a bad throat. Sunday had been a long day, three services and several other activities. There weren’t many dogs around for Molly to play with so she made her own fun. She is such a happy little dog, full of life and character, at ease with herself and life itself. After a while a woman appeared with her tiny dark cavalier spaniel. I have passed the woman in the street many times over the time I have had Molly. Her little dog was somewhat unfriendly towards Molly as a puppy, the woman said her dog didn’t like puppies, or men for that matter. Even as Molly became an adult the woman never stopped for them to get to know each other. It was different this time though. The woman came talking to me, she seemed upset. She told me her dog was unwell, in fact she had heart failure, she was only eight years old. It was her fifth Cavalier and two of her previous ones had died the same way. I told her I had seen her dog with a walker a few days before and I pointed out to the walker that there something wrong with her. The walker had informed the woman and she had taken the dog to the vet. The woman told me that she was trying to get her dog to go to the toilet, but didn’t want to walk. Then Molly brought her to life and she ran around and played for a little while, before they went off to the coffee shop. The poor woman has some big decisions to make over the next few days, as she doesn’t want her little dog to suffer. I felt for her.

As I walked away I was thinking about the three keys of the spiritual life that Forrest Church had identified, “Empathy”, “Ecstasy” and “Enthusiasm”. They are essential antitdotes to the blight of self-consciousness and lead to connection and consciousness. I was awake, I was conscious that day, despite feeling somewhat low and tired in mood. I had been a few days earlier when I noticed the little spaniel struggling. Molly had too, her empathy and enthusiasm had brought a few moments of ecstasy to that sweet little dog. We were at ease with ourselves, we knew ourselves and thus we were not slaves to ourselves, we were instead awake to the life around us.

Socrates said that “The unexamined life is not worth living”. Now while not wishing to argue with the great philosopher I do wonder if the “over examined life” can prove just as worthless. It is so easy to get lost in ourselves, wrapped up in our own underwear, to such an extent that we do not live at all. We can become so self-conscious that we fail to become conscious of all that is and all that has ever been. It is so easy to become wrapped up in our own perceived needs that we fail to live in the world with others and then complain about feeling lonely. Yes it is important to examine ourselves, to understand who we are and what makes us tick, but that should not be an end in itself, a destination. It is a staging post in the spiritual adventure, but not an end in itself.

I remember at last year’s “Ministry in the Making” I was asked to speak on the purpose of ministry, which literally means to serve. The college principal was somewhat concerned that while the students had a great deal of self understanding this in itself was not all that the spiritual life is about. That it is not just about knowing and understand ourselves. Self awareness and spirituality is something that comes to life in the real world, that its purpose is to fit us to be of maximum usefulness in this life. I thought about my time in the park with Molly, I probably do as much ministry there as anywhere else in life. Monday morning proved that once again.

The spiritual life is about love. Yes love for ourselves, but also one another and life itself and of course whatever it is we believe is at the core of all, what I call God. Sadly sometimes spirituality can tend to be too inner focused and a turning away from life. Such approaches can make us even more self focused and instead of setting us free, enchains us even more.

So yes I agree with Socrates, that “the unexamined life is not worth living”. That said the “over examined life” can prove just as worthless. It can easily become inhibiting and can lead to a kind of self-consciousness that can become so consuming that it takes over our human interactions. I wonder how many of us suffer from this kind of commentary when we meet up with people. “What will they think of me?” “How do I look?” “If I say something, will they think I’m an idiot?” and then as it continues, “He gave me a funny look, he must have thought me a fool. Why on earth did I have to make that stupid remark? Gosh I’m such a freak, they all seem to be staring at me.”

I was talking with a friend on Tuesday morning who described some such interaction at a work event the other day. She found herself becoming consumed by such an inner dialogue. Thankfully she was able to step out of herself and begin to make contact with others, this helped them do the same thing.

This though is not always the case. This kind of self conscious inner dialogue can be so crippling. It can haunt us from the moment we wake and continue throughout our day, eating away at our every decision. Oh and of course because we doubt ourselves and every decision we make, we assume that everyone else must be doing exactly the same thing. This kind of self-consciousness can be so crippling and it blocks us off almost entirely from the world around us. We can become so consumed by this kind of self-consciousness that we see the world entirely from our own point of view, excluding all others.

One of my great frustrations with a lot of modern “so called spirituality” is that it does not seem to be about relationships at all. It seems to be all about the self, almost about protecting the self, from the so called “messiness” of living. It seems to have become almost narcissistic in its nature. Maybe that’s why it can seem so appealing. The truth is of course that all we ever achieve in blocking ourselves off from the messiness, from circling our spiritual wagons, is increase the loneliness and the emptiness.

The spiritual life is about relationship. We need to be in what I have often heard called right relationship, with ourselves, with others and with whatever it is we connects all of life, what is often called the Divine, to live spiritually alive.

I can usually get a good measure as to where I am at spiritually by simply checking where I am at relationally with myself, with others and with God, they are all interconnected and inter related.

So what can we do about it? How do we wake up to a greater consciousness? How do we break free from this crippling self-consciousness? How do we become better inter-related.

According to the Gospel’s Jesus taught his followers that they must lose themselves in order to be found. That by emptying ourselves of our self-absorption we begin to be filled with the spirit of neighbourliness. So that when we look deeply into the still waters we are not drawn in by narcissistic self-consciousness and loathing at our own reflection, but rather into a deeper contemplation of our shared lives. We become conscious of all that is, all that has been and all that will ever be. By opening ourselves to and for others we begin to shed that debilitating skin of self-consciousness that is so easy to become imprisoned in.

Gandhi said “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in service of others”

The Buddha talked of Nirvana, of being freed from the suffering that was the blight of humanity. He showed that we all suffered and that it was in seeing our suffering as individual that led to this sense of separation. He suggested that we needed to break through our suffering not only to serve others but to reach a higher state of being, true consciousness, to be awake to the life in which we live.

Now please don’t get me wrong this morning I am not suggesting that we do not need to know ourselves to understand how we tick, “The unexamined life is not worth living”. All I am saying is that we must not get stuck there, we must not get lost there and we must not see this as a destination, more a staging post on the journey. The adolescent stage I suspect. Sadly for many folk, me included, this adolescent stage often goes well into adulthood.

So how do we move from self-consciouness to consciousness. Well as I mentioned earlier Forrest Church in his wonderful book “Lifecraft” offered three simple suggestions, which he called the three “E’s”, “empathy”, “ecstasy” and “enthusiasm”. The key he claimed could be found in the literal understanding of these words. “Empathy”, to suffer or feel with another; “Ecstasy”, to stand outside ourselves; “Enthusiasm”, to manifest the god (theos) within us.

“Empathy” is a deep felt compassion. When we open our hearts empathically to another we are courageously refusing to allow self-consciousness to stand in the way of a higher consciousness that comes into being as we feel what another is going through. In so doing we serve both ourselves and the other person, as well as that higher consciousness beyond our singular selves.

Now “Ecstasy” has often been misunderstood as some kind of hedonistic state and therefore self- indulgent, it is far from this. In its truest sense what it actually does is takes us out of ourselves and lifts us beyond the confines of ourselves. In so doing we transcend our self-consciousness and enter a realm in which purpose begins to emerge and meaning is found.

“Enthusiasm” means to be filled with spirit, with holy energy. Enthusiasm allows us to be fully involved and engaged in whatever it is we are doing. It allows us to see beyond the confines we have created. Forrest himself states that “Here, once again, consciousness displaces self-consciousness. We escape from our mirrored room. Its mirrors turn into windows. Or the pond grows so still that we can see beyond our own reflection to the trees and clouds and birds and sun. There is, by the way, no higher form of spiritual practice. When we step out of our own shadow, consciousness replaces self-consciousness.”

In so doing we are set free to walk with others in our own faltering ways. Instead of being lost in what we believe is wrong with us we are set free to do what we can in this our shared world and in so doing we encourage others to do the same, as perfectly imperfect children of God.

For me the purpose of the spiritual life is to develop a deepening sense of connection. We all have our troubles and our worries either within ourselves, those around us or wider world. We need to see them for what they are, we need to acknowledge the truth, but we must not get stuck there, for that will paralyse us and stop us doing what we can. We cannot change the way the world is but that need not prevent us from doing what we can do and in doing so we will grow spiritually as we become integrated into all that has been, all that exists and all that will ever.

So much of modern spiritually gets it wrong because it is seeking the wrong thing. There is so much talk of finding ourselves, when in actual fact what we ought to be doing is losing ourselves. What we ought to be striving for, I believe, is integration and remove those aspects within ourselves that block this. We all ask the question “Who am I?” when really we ought to asking is “How am I doing? And if we are still feeling utterly dis-connected we need to ask why? And how can I integrate once again? You see if we can begin to integrate with all that is, all that has been and all that has ever been we begin to truly cohere. In doing so we transcend our self-consciousness and become conscious. We become spiritually mature. We wake up to the world in which live and breathe and share our being and we will know the joy of living, in all its mystery.

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

Attention without feeling is only a report

I have a friend who pays attention, who notices everything. It is a wonderful quality, although it can be somewhat exhausting for them at times. I empathise and am both blessed and cursed by this aspect of humanity. I notice things.

My friend hosted a dinner party at the weekend. It was a wonderful evening. I paid attention to them as they paid attention to the needs of those present. The food was incredible and the company equally so. Each persona needs were fed, each was served in a loving and attentive way and the conversations were listened to with an attentive ear. It was wonderful to observe someone giving their full attention to others. It was a person offering what they had to others in a deeply loving way, it was a joy to behold. It was deep devotion, prayer in action if I have ever witnessed it. My friend reminded me of both Mary and Martha in a passage from Luke’s Gospel.

I saw a similar example last Tuesday morning going for coffee with friends. It was my turn to pay and I was mesmerised by the young woman behind the counter, called Mars, who knew the orders of all 12 of us. Now we are regulars at this place, but I didn’t have a clue what each of us drink. Whereas Mars clearly pays attention to each of her customers, she is devoted to her work and those she dutifully serves. She also pays attention to us as individuals, she listens and shares as we listen to her. I often take time in conversation, I notice when something isn’t right with her and of course we talk. My gift it seems to many.

Mars told me a few days later that generally she has a terrible memory. She is diagnosed with “Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder” (ADHD). So generally she can struggle with paying attention. Yet her love and dedication to her work seems to focus her attention.

Attention is about love. It is love in its most basic form. When we pay attention to one another, when we notice each other’s needs, we are living by love. By paying attention to another’s needs we are loving them and accepting them as they are. This to me is the love that is spoken of in the great spiritual traditions. It is more than passively observing in a mindful way. It is also more than empathy, feeling with another, true attention leads to devoted action. It is form of deep generous love. When we are generous we give our whole hearts to life and one another.

It is said that whenever the Buddha would teach he would always begin with lessons on generosity. He did this because it brings with it joy and self respect and therefore it is a platform from which to look at all our life experiences, including the very painful ones and thus not become overwhelmed by them. It is thought that the Buddha always began talking about generosity because he believed that we all have something to give. Our gifts might not be material in nature.

Giving begins with attention, in one form or another. It might be by offering a listening ear, enabling another to be comfortable in an uncomfortable situation, I have another friend who is wonderful at this. Generosity is a kind of hospitality it welcomes the other, the stranger as they are, exactly as they are. Attention is the ultimate welcome and act of generosity. Something I saw in my friend at the dinner party and Mars in the coffee shop, something I see in many others too. It brings me back also to the welcome of Mary and Martha.

The visit of Jesus to Mary and Martha’s is a fascination to me. It comes at the end of chapter 10 in Luke’s Gospel immediately after “The Parable of the Good Samaritan”, suggesting to me that it is teaching something about how we should offer loving hospitality. To me this is all about paying attention. Something I witnessed with my friend and in Mars at Café Nero, for example. They were both Mary and Martha it seems. Generally Mary’s Way, that of prayerful devotion is seen as the better way. Love though is also about service, both are acts of attention. Remember the visit follows the story of the Good Samaritan. A parable of loving attention and devoted service, a story of love wherever it is needed. Isn’t this the essence of the spiritual life, this is faith and works. The story of Mary and Martha seems to me to be an invitation; an invitation to everyone to decide how we use our attention; to explore how we pay attention and to whom. It is about love in its highest form. For what we give our attention to we love. Attention is true love; attention is the most basic form of love. When we give our attention to someone or something we bless and in turn we are blessed by our love. My friend and Mars both exemplified this love, they incarnated the Love spoken of throughout the Gospels.

It matters what we pay attention to in life. Yes it is vital to the spiritual life, but also the physical life too. Actually, I tend not to separate the two. Attention is the key to problem solving, creativity, and civilization in general. Our lives depend on what we pay attention to. This is why everything competes for our attention. We are so saturated by information these days, that it can be difficult just to pay attention to the life we inhabit. Yet our lives depend upon it. We need to pay attention; we need to pay attention to what really matters.

Unitarian Universalist minister Rev Victoria Safford in her sermon “An Ethics of Attention” said:

“Pay attention, say the mystics and the poets, and the little kids tugging on our legs. Pay attention, says the sunset and the ice-cold morning, and the person telling you their story. Pay attention, say the good friends at the barbecue, and the good food, and the voices in your head and heart. Only that day dawns to which we are awake.”

It matters what we pay attention to; it matters also how we pay attention; it matters not only what we look at, but how we look at life. Attention may well be our most precious resource we have. Remember it is how we love; remember it is how we both feel and express our love. The Stoic philosopher Epictetus is reported to have said “You become what you give your attention to. If you don’t choose what thoughts and images you expose yourself to, someone else will.” Attention is not a passive act, it is deliberate, an ethical act. For if we do not choose our attention will be put upon us by all this information that we are constantly drowned by. It matters what we pay attention to and how we pay attention, it shapes our very lives.

The twentieth century French philosopher Simone Weil viewed attention as a moral virtue, just like justice and courage. She differentiated it from concentration. It is not just about focussing on minutiae, it is more than mindfulness. As she observed: Concentration constricts. Attention expands — concentration tires. Attention rejuvenates. Concentration is focused thinking. Attention is thinking suspended.

For Weil attention ought to be seen as the rarest and purest form of generosity. She saw attention as the pathway to transformation, far superior to our human will. In “First and Last Notebooks” she wrote “We have to try to cure our faults by attention and not by will.” She believed that the will alone constricts the spirit while attention is about expanding it. Attention opens us up to so much more.

Weil equated attention to prayer. Love and service to me is highest form of prayer. It makes me think of the attention of my friend. Weil wrote “Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love.” This brings me back to both Mary and Martha, Mars in the coffee shop and my friend hosting that dinner party, with such love care and attention.

Simone Weil saw a deep connection between our capacity for paying attention and our capacity for prayer. “Prayer consists of attention,” she said, “It is the orientation of all the attention of which the soul is capable toward God. The quality of attention counts for much in the quality of the prayer.”

Now of course paying attention will affect us, it should affect us and deeply. As Mary Oliver wrote “Attention without feeling is only a report”. Everything touched Mary deeply, it affected her and she didn’t merely report what she saw. Her attention was the ultimate prayer and her poetry was devotion itself. As she said “Attention is the beginning of devotion” This is beautifully exemplified in the poem “Spring”, which I will end this morning’s service with. It is a poem about spring, which is on the horizon, but it is also a poem about how we should live our lives. We should live like the black bear coming down the mountain as it awakens from hibernation, showing her “perfect love”. Mary asked the question how should we live our lives? Well attentively, loving the world, living our lives like a prayer. As Mary wrote “There is only one question: how to love the world”. Loving the world means simply paying attention to the life that we are surrounded by, loving it by devoting our selves fully to it, being touched and affected by it. Just like my friend who hosted her dinner party and Mars in the coffee shop on Tuesday morning. They served from their hearts and they paid attention to everyone’s needs without discrimination. They showed me how to simply love the world, it is not that difficult. All you have to do is pay attention, but to do so with feeling.

Here's the poem, I invite you to pay attention to it.

"Spring" by Mary Oliver

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sauntering Along Together: The Holiest of Holy walks

“Walking” by Henry David Thoreau

"I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks — who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering, which word is beautifully derived “from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity, under pretense of going a la Sainte Terre, to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, “There goes a Sainte-Terrer,” a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander. They who never go to the Holy Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, however, would derive the word from sans terre, without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all; but the saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea."

One of my favourite things is to walk and talk side by side with folk, with Molly of course. I probably journey with several folk a week like this. It is always fascinating what comes, what is shared. I suspect I notice and experience far more in conversation with someone, than I do alone. The sum of our parts is far more than our individual units it seems. I was out with a friend and Molly the other day for several hours. We walked much further and longer than we had intended and to places we had not planned to go. We shared a great deal together as the three of us sauntered on, despite the wetness of the air. It was an absolute joy, filled with many blessing, including towards the end seeing the first snow drops of the year. Spring is near it feels and the snow drops are always a sign.

Friday just gone was traditionally considered the beginning of Spring; 2nd of February was traditionally the end of the Christmas Season marked with Candlemass and not Epiphany, the 12th day of Christmas. The snowdrops being a beautiful symbol of the new spring coming, a symbol of hope. Legend has it that they appeared as such symbols after Adam and Even were expelled from Eden. Eve was about to give up hope that the winter would never end, but an angel appeared and transformed some snowflakes into the flower snowdrop, showing that the winter will eventually come to an end. The flower is linked to the purification associated with “Candlemass” as the old rhyme goes:

“The Snowdrop, in purest white array, first rears her head in “Candlemass” day.

It felt this on that walk with a friend and Molly the other day. We stopped and paused and admired the snowdrop, that caught our eye. The first any of us had seen this year. Molly blessed them by sniffing and we sauntered off to find something to eat. I love to saunter with others. It matters not where we go, but how we go and it matters the company you keep on the journey. In some ways life is really about who you travel with, not where you travel too. I love to saunter along.

Now “Saunter” is one of those interesting words of disputed origin. There is a popular Meme floating around the internet. It is a quote, of disputed origin, on hiking or more accurately “sauntering” by John Muir. The quote cannot be found in his writing. It can be found in book written Albert Palmer “The Mountain Trail and its Message” and is reported as something Muir said while they were walking together, sauntering together perhaps.

Here is the quote:

by John Muir on hiking, titled “Sauntering”.

"Hiking - I don't like either the word or the thing. People ought to saunter in the mountains - not hike! Do you know the origin of that word 'saunter?' It's a beautiful word. Away back in the Middle Ages people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and when people in the villages through which they passed asked where they were going, they would reply, "A la sainte terre,' 'To the Holy Land.' And so they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. Now these mountains are our Holy Land, and we ought to saunter through them reverently, not 'hike' through them."

It seems that no one knows the exact origin of the word saunter but many have suggested it is connected to some kind of pilgrimage to the “Holy Land”. Henry David Thoreau regarded “Sauntering” as making any journey and true walk (from “Walking”) as a Holy Pilgrimage, where a person is at home wherever they find themselves and that the two walking together make the walk a holy pilgrimage, this is a true companion.

I’m with Thoreau, I love such walks, because when you return from them, you feel that you have been enhanced as a person and have enhanced who you have journeyed with, some spirit has come to life in this holy journey together. Now whether the true origin of the word “Saunter” is linked to travellers on a journey to the Holy land or not doesn’t matter to me. I certainly see a lot of truth in both Muir’s reported thoughts on it and that of Thoreau’s.

For Thoreau walking wasn’t a utilitarian activity. It wasn’t purely about exercise. He wasn’t trying to reach at least 10,000 steps in a day. No, he consider it primarily a spiritual activity. I have found this to be true whether walking alone, with Molly and or with those people who I connect with in those special ways. As he said:

“The walking of which I speak has nothing in it akin to taking exercise, as it is called, as the sick take medicine at stated hours — as the Swinging of dumb-bells or chairs; but is itself the enterprise and adventure of the day. If you would get exercise, go in search of the springs of life. Think of a man’s swinging dumbbells for his health, when those springs are bubbling up in far-off pastures unsought by him!”

I was out with another friend on Tuesday morning. It was short walk in distance, just an hour around the park and King George V pond. We got talking about spiritual matters. We talked about a lost Biblical word, found in John’s Gospel, the word Paraclete, which meant comforter, companion, advocate, but not in a human form, more a spiritual form. In Christianity, it is what is understood as the Holy Spirit. I suspect that if we walk with others in that spirit and understanding then we are truly living spiritually alive. Maybe this is what it means to truly saunter together.

Jean Varnier in “Drawn into The Mystery of Jesus” catches the meaning nearly perfectly:

The word "paraclete" is one of those rich Greek words
that are difficult to translate completely.
A paraclete is someone who defends and comforts,
and speaks up for and helps a weak person.
So the word "paraclete" can be translated as "advocate," as well as
"comforter," "consoler," or "helper."
Etymologically, the word "paraclete" means
"the one who answers the call."
What a beautiful name!
God is the one who answers the cry of the weak and those in need.
A mother is a "paraclete" for her child
when she answers the cry of her little one,
hold and loves him or her.
Every time we look after a person in need and answer their cry,
we become paracletes.
Jesus was a paraclete for his disciples.

The Paraclete is given
to those who are lonely and need the presence of a friend,
to those who are lost and poor in spirit
and who cry out for God.

Perhaps to saunter with another is what it truly means to be a friend, to truly live spiritually alive. Perhaps this is what we are truly here for. To be a Paraclete to one another.

To saunter together, is to be a true friend, a companion. To walk with a friend is to improve both your lives, to bring a greater spirit to life. Such friendship is a key component of Buddhism. Beautifully illustrated in the following tale.

One day while the Buddha was out walking with his attendant Ananda, who declared, “Teacher, to have companions and comrades on the great way is so amazing! I have come to realise that friendship is fully half of an authentic spiritual life.” They continued walking in silence when eventually the Buddha responded. “No, dear one. Without companions and comrades, no one can live into the deep, finding the true harmonies of life, to achieve authentic wisdom. To say it simply, friendship is the whole of the spiritual life.”

Could this be true? Is friendship the whole of the spiritual life?

Well I would say in such relationships, as we saunter together that greater spirit comes to life. This is the key. To be a good friend and companion, to journey on side by side together. To saunter on sharing yourself and in so doing a greater spirit comes to life which blesses your life and the lives of those you come into contact with.

I shared the picture of the snow drop with many people. I know it helped one in particular who finds January a real struggle. It showed them that Spring is nearly here, it lifted their spirit as so many friends have done with me at times.

Something so simple, but so easy to miss. It was by journeying together that we were able to notice those tiny snow drops in Dunham Massey as Molly, a friend and myself sauntered on together on our little Holy Journey together side by side.

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