Lessons from the Animals

Every year I conduct an "Animal Blessing" service. It is held on the first Sunday in October, the nearest one to the Feast Day of St Francis. This year we looked at animals as teachers. We explored what lessons we could learn from the animals around us and in our lives. This blog includes material and thoughts that we shared in worship. The first piece is taken from “Journeying in Place” by Gunilla Norris

“What I learned is that of all the creatures that I can see in this landscape, the geese best represent the communion of saints. They depend on one another. The lead goose does the most work, but when it is tired, it falls back and another takes its place. To be able to rely on others is a deep trust that does not come easily. The geese fly in the wake of one another’s wings. They literally get a lift from one another. I want to be with others this way. Geese tell me that it is, indeed, possible to fly with equals."

Geese and the way that they fly can teach us so much about what means to live in spiritual community, what a congregation or any loving community ought to be about. One of mutual love, support and interconnection. Yes one where the individual is encouraged to be all that they can be, but who can only truly become all that they can be through living in common unity, through living in and being in love.

The following is taken from “Medicine Cards” by Jamie Sims and David Carson

"All animals are sacred, but in many traditions White Buffalo is most sacred. The appearance of White Buffalo is a sign that prayers are being heard, that the sacred pipe is being honored, and that the promises of prophesy are being fulfilled. White Buffalo signals a time of abundance and plenty.

Buffalo was the major source of sustenance for the Plains Indians. It gave meat for food, hides for clothing, warm and soft robes for long winters, and hooves for glue. The medicine of Buffalo is prayer, gratitude and praise for that which has been received. Buffalo medicine is also knowing that abundance is present when all relations are honored as sacred, and when gratitude is expressed to every living part of creation.

Because of its desire to give the gifts that its body provided, and because of its willingness to be used on Earth for the highest good before entering the hunting grounds of Spirit, Buffalo did not readily stampede and run from hunters….

Buffalo medicine is a sign that you achieve nothing without the aid of the Great Spirit and that you must be humble enough for that assistance and then be grateful for what you receive."

...In the service we offered gratitude and thanks for our animal brothers and sisters...Here are some thoughts that were shared...

It is wonderful to be here together with our fellow animals. I’m not just talking about our animal friends here by the way. It is important to recognise that we too are animals. That the animals who we share this world with are kin. We are formed from the same flesh and I believe have the same spirit animates us all. Ok we are not exactly the same, but we are formed from the same earth and are animated by the very same breath of life. In fact it is worth remembering that the word “animal” is actually from the Latin word “animalis”, which actually means having a soul and shares the same root for breath “animus”. So yes formed from the same earth with the very same spirit within us.

Now somewhere along the lines of our history we humans began to think of ourselves as far superior to other animals with the intrinsic right to make use of them in whatever way we wished. But this was not always so, in ancient times and in the so-called primitive cultures, people revered the animals as great teachers, purveyors of wisdom, possessors of souls and of spiritual qualities. There was a time when humans and animals were more closely connected. Now some of we  so called rationalists tend to look on all this as ignorance. But I wonder if actually we have forgotten something precious and obvious to them. I wonder if they knew something that we somehow managed to forget.

We can learn so much from the animals, if we have enough humility to do so. They can teach us so much about life. They can be our greatest teachers. Jesus taught his followers to be as wise as serpents and as gentle as doves, that these were the characteristics for discipleship in a challenging world. Words that our Unitarian brothers and sisters have used as their motto, over the many trials and difficulties they have lived through. The passage in Matthew’s Gospel chapter 10 v 16 reads “Behold I am sending you forward as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be therefore wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” Here Jesus is warning his disciples of the dangers that they will face in carrying their message of radical love, to a wounded world. That they will be no safer than lambs amongst wolves; he is saying that they must employ wisdom in the way they impart this message, in a hostile world.

Now the dove of course is an important image in the Judeo-Christian tradition. It makes its first appearance in the story of Noah’s Arc. Noah sends out a dove to find land, eventually it returns with an olive branch. This symbolises the re-birth of life tying humanity to the earth, to the ground, to the soil and the cycles of life. It is important to remember that humanity and hummus are linguistically linked, along with humility. Something we can lose sight of in our technically advanced age. We are not above nature though, we are interdependent with the web of all existence.

We can learn so much from our animal brothers and sisters if we would pay attention. They can teach us how to live in the moment “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” (Matthew ch 6 v 26). Simply watch a pet and notice how they live in the moment in which they find themselves. They are not caught up in regret about the past or fear of the future.

The animals can teach us how to listen to our bodies. When they are ill they do not push themselves beyond their limits. They are yoga masters too, just watch a cat or dog and how they stretch constantly. They can teach us about balance, for they do not take more than they need. They eat what they need and do not take more than is required for themselves or their dependants. It is only domesticated animals that become overweight, depressed and or obese. They can teach us how to be true to our natures. They can help us to see ourselves as we truly are. As a part of life, as part of the nature of everything. So many of our human problems stem from our sense of separation, that we are not a part of everything. By observing the animals we can once again see that we are a part of everything and that we belong here and that there is nothing really wrong with us. We just forget who we are from time to time.

We can learn so much from our brothers and sisters the animals, they can teach us once again what it is to be fully human and a part of life.

The following is taken from “Writing Past Dark: Envy, Fear, Distraction, and Other Dilemmas in the Writer's Life” by Bonnie Friedman

"Outside the Cathedral holding ancient relics in Valencia, a woman kissed pigeons. She saw these birds as symbols of God. Gray and white and black as discarded shells, these were creatures I'd been taught to think of as 'filthy.' They seemed filthy, in fact, with their staring orange eyes and patchy feathers. But now, while I looked, they turned into doves. Of course they always were doves, or rather, of course doves always really were a type of pigeon. But I never really believed it until this woman showed me her belief. Her kiss transformed ugliness to beauty.

So it was like a fairy tale after all. It was the old story: what is loved reveals its loveliness. Here she squatted, radiant, smiling, enrobed in life, in a dozen pairs of folded wings, in a dozen pairs of pearl gray and, as I looked, yes, even lavender, even royal purple wings — a woman in an ordinary black cotton dress who smiled as if she knew she was the luckiest person on earth, swathed in blessing."

This lovely little tale brought St Francis to my mind. St Francis was a thirteenth century monk who held animals in the highest of esteem. He would commune with animals in much the same way as he would commune with people, he saw no difference. Here is one story, of many told about him, where he was found communing with a bird:

· "Once when Saint Francis was about to eat with Brother Leo he was greatly delighted to hear a nightingale singing. So he suggested to his companion that they would also sing praise to God alternately with the bird. While Leo was pleading that he was no singer, Francis lifted up his voice and, phrase by phrase, sang his duet with the nightingale."

There is a similar concept in Judaism. In “What do Jews Believe” David S Ariel wrote “While Hasidim believed in the importance of observing the mitzvot, learning Torah, and praying with devotion, they believed that there was a deeper spiritual realm of listening to the world as the song of god. The disciples of the Maggid of Mezritch, for example, noted that their teacher went to the pond every day at dawn and stayed there for a little while before returning home again. One of his students explained that he was learning the song with which the frogs praise God.”

I have a similar relationship with the blackbird that sits and sings on the top of my house. He sings sweetly and I often find myself singing back at him. To which he often responds. It seems that we are encouraging one another to sing our song of life ever more sweetly. It certainly lifts my spirit and animates my life and increases my sense of connection.

Our relationship with the animals and with all life, including one another ought to help us to develop that most vital aspect of our humanity, compassion. Compassion is at core of all the great religious traditions and it is through living compassionately that we truly live out a full spiritual life. To develop spiritually is to increase our sensitivity to life, to feel life more fully, I have learnt that this is done through compassionate living.

Karen Armstrong teaches that compassion is an act, not merely an emotion, a feeling. It is way of living and being in the world. She claims that if it were an emotion, it would not be a comfortable one, but one of discomfort. Suggesting that if we are to understand compassion for the “Other”, we must cultivate the emotions of discomfort and disturbance, we must feel their pain, we must empathise and not become detached or indifferent. We develop empathy for the “Other” by embracing the word 'umvelt,' which means honouring the world as it is experienced by different people, animals, and organisms. she believes that it is through our capacity to imagine and empathise that we will be brought into a more authentic relationship with the Earth. It is through humility in the face of our own finite humanity that allows us to see ourselves as 'one species among many' not the indomitable centre of a human centred and created world.

By increasing our sensitivity to all life, we see ourselves as part of all of life and through doing so we set ourselves free. Free to what? Well free to live and be in love. You see when we increase our sensitivity to life we widen, broaden and deepen our experience of living.

When we look into our own eyes, when we look into one another’s eyes and when we look into the eyes of every creature what do we see? When we look with intensity at all life what do we see?

I see that same spirit that animates all life. I see “animalis” I see soul and I see the “animus” running through it all, the same breath, the same spirit that animates it all.

Let us give thanks for the animals...Our brothers and sisters in body and in soul...

I will end with the following blessing, the author of which I cannot find...

You – Birds of the Air,
Hawk, Sparrow, and laughing Jay
You remind us of freedom,
delight us with your song, astound us with feats of migration...
Grant us your perspective,
for too often our horizon is limited
and we are blind to the full results of our actions.

You – Worms of the Earth,
Ants, Beetles, Spiders and Centipedes
You are an essential but often forgotten part of nature’s web.
Through you the cycle is complete;
through you new life arises from old.
Remind us of humility.
For the wheel of live does not turn around us;
we are not the axle, but merely spokes
just the same as our unseen, unknown and ignored companions

You – Animals of the field and woods and mountains and desert—
Bear and Bison, Skunk and Squirrel, Weasel and Wolf
Too often we have destroyed your homes in the name of progress,
cutting the forests to gratify our desire,
or covering the earth with tarmac, cement, and lawns.
Pray that we may remember that the earth was not given for our needs alone,
and what we do to you, in the end we do to ourselves.

You – Animals of the farm—
Horse and cow, pig and chicken
Willingly or not, you give your very lives for us,
your milk for our nourishment, your flesh for our meat,
Yet too often we forget that the food on our tables was once as alive as we are.
Forgive our willful ignorance,
and remind us constantly to give thanks for your sacrifice...

And – You – dearest Companions in our lives
Dogs and Cats, Hamsters and Goldfish
Some of you are with us here today
Some were not able to come today
and there are some who will always be present in our memories
You have enriched our lives in so many ways
put up with our failings with calm acceptance
taught us something about being a good person
taught us how to love.

May we hold you in our hearts throughout the days of our lives.
We give thanks for the joy you bring into our lives
and together we give you a blessing
We pray for you – for playful days and peaceful nights;
for lots of tummy rubs and joy in being our companions.

Gracious Creator,
Hear and bless
Thy beasts and singing birds
And guard with tenderness
Small things that have no words

And may we carry that unconditional love with us in all that we feel and all that we think and all that we say and all that we do

Amen.

The Golden Rule & Rule 62

“The late Rabbi Albert Friedlander impressed upon me the importance of the biblical commandment “Love your neighbour as yourself.” I had always concentrated on the first part of that injunction, but Albert taught me that if you cannot love yourself, you cannot love other people either. He had grown up in Nazi Germany and as a child was bewildered and distressed by the vicious anti-Semitic propaganda that assailed him on all sides. One night, when he was almost eight years old, he deliberately lay awake and made a list of all his good qualities. He told himself firmly that he was not what the Nazi’s said; that he had talents and special gifts of heart and mind, which he enumerated to himself one by one. Finally he vowed that if he survived, he would use those qualities to build a better world. This was an extraordinary insight for a child in such circumstances. Albert was one of the kindest people I have ever met; he was almost pathologically gentle, and must have brought help and counsel to thousands. But he always said that he could have done no good at all unless he had learned, at that terrible moment of history to love himself.”

From “12 Steps to a Compassionate Life” by Karen Armstrong

“The Golden Rule of Compassion”, found in every one of the great faith traditions reads. “Love your neighbour as yourself”

But what if we hate ourselves?

If we hate ourselves but show love to others, surely this is just as much a betrayal of the “Golden Rule” as failing to love others? If we love others but fail to love ourselves then surely we do not love our neighbour as ourselves.

It is so easy to get hung up on our human failings to give ourselves a hard time for not being perfect compassionate beings all of the time; to hate the person looking back at us each morning in the mirror. For an awful long time I hated that man looking back at me in the mirror.

How often have we listened to that voice that has told us we are just not good enough?

How many of us have true compassion for ourselves? Karen Armstrong in “12 Steps to a Compassionate Life” states that:

“The Golden Rule requires self knowledge, it asks that we use our own feelings as a guide to our behaviour with others. If we treat ourselves harshly, this is the way we are likely to treat other people.”

She suggests that we do this by taking an honest appraisal of ourselves and recognise both our positive and negative qualities. This though must be done with a degree of lightness, we need to be careful not to get too lost in ourselves. We need to learn to smile at the person looking back at ourselves each and every morning.

I had a moment of enlightenment myself a few years ago, at a time when I allowed life to really weigh me down. I woke up one day I looked at myself in the mirror, smiled and simply said “Life is too serious, to be taken too seriously...have a laugh” I’ve found myself chuckling away ever since.

Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is a world wide organisation that is held together by the least amount of governance as possible. Alcoholics are notorious for taking themselves too seriously. In the early days of  AA the myth of “Rule 62” developed. Now no one is really sure where it came from and there appears to be no rule 1,2,3,4....upto 61 or beyond 62. Yet “Rule 62” appeared...the rule is “don’t take yourself so seriously, lighten up”.

Life really is too serious to be taken too seriously

Maybe we do in fact love or hate our neighbours as we love or hate ourselves. Maybe the real reason that we do not love others is because we do not truly love ourselves?  So what do we do? We attempt to suppress those darker qualities that are part of our humanity. By doing so we actually strengthen them, we feed them and they grow stronger. We feed the negative wolf deep within us. When what we ought to be doing instead is developing our compassionate natures and feeding that inner wolf instead.

I love the story of “The Two Wolves. Here is one version I found:

An old Cherokee chief is teaching his grandson about life: "A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy. "It is 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, self-doubt, and ego. "The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. "This 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 chief simply replied, "The one you feed."

We are not always as compassionate as we could be when it comes to ours or others pain. We tell each other that we must soldier on and ignore it, live with it. But is this a solution?

I remember talking with a counsellor many years ago and she told me that a large number of her clients were elderly men who had experienced some real horrors during the war, but had battened down the hatches and never dealt with this deep rooted pain. Sadly years later they suffered severely because of this.

Is this how we are meant to live? Are we meant to be stoic and strong all the time? Is it in fact weak to show and share our pain?

Armstrong states that “The ancient Greeks had no problem with shedding tears: they believed that weeping together created a bond between human beings; in Shakespeare’s day it was considered quite normal for men to weep.”

I do wonder if we truly honour each other’s pain; if we ever truly allow one another to grieve. Do we instead spend our time trying to cheer one another up and get each other through the suffering as quickly as possible. I know I have been guilty of this in the past and I do have to ask myself is this really about the other person’s pain or me feeling uncomfortable with their pain?

Armstrong says that it is vital that we see and accept our pain, no matter how insignificant it may appear in the grand scheme of things. She says that we need to have compassion for our own pain too, or we will fail to have compassion for others when they themselves are suffering. We will dismiss it, we will tell them to stiffen up and get on with it.

Armstrong is not encouraging self pity, quite the opposite. Instead she advocates that we use our past sufferings to help others during their struggles. This is true empathy, it is compassionate living. No one escapes the pain that comes with the joy of living.

Buddhism teaches all existence is suffering – Dukha –nothing last forever; that there is always a price to be paid for whatever we may achieve in life. The mistake we make is that we believe that we will attain happiness and escape pain and suffering if we get everything that we always wanted. These are human traits and we should not berate ourselves for having them, for being less than perfect. We need to develop compassion for these parts of ourselves. By doing so we will have compassion for the same traits in others and we will also begin to work on the other part of ourselves, our compassionate wolf that also dwells within us.

So how do we develop the compassion within us? How do we feed the loving wolf within us? How do we love ourselves and therefore love our neighbours as ourselves? Armstrong suggests that one way is through the daily practise of meditation. She highlights that the Buddha devised a meditation that made him conscious of the positive emotions that lay dormant within him.

The meditation begins by drawing on the warmth of friendship (maitri), that is already within us and directing it to our whole selves. This enables us to see how much love we do possess and how much we long for loving friendship.

The meditation then asks us to become conscious of our anger, fear anxiety; to unearth the seeds of rage that lay within ourselves; to bring to our minds our past suffering; to attempt to put current irritations to one side. The meditation is attempting to help us feel compassion for ourselves. It asks us to look at the seeds of rage within ourselves; to bring to mind past suffering; to try to put current irritations to one side. The purpose here is to feel compassion (Karuna) for ourselves.

It then asks us to bring our capacity for joy (Mudita) to the surface and become consciously aware of things that we take for granted that bring us joy such as our family and friends or other simple loves, craft work, walking in the countryside, dancing and singing...whatever brings us joy. Whatever puts a smile on our faces.

The final aspect asks us to look at ourselves with even mindedness and none attachment (upeksha) and to be aware that we are not unique in our joy or suffering, that we all have failings and we all have talents and gifts to offer to the world too.

The purpose of the meditation is to help us better serve one another. By developing our compassionate natures we can love ourselves and then truly love others too.

As the Buddha told his followers

“When your mind is filled with love, send it in one direction, then a second, then a third, and a fourth, then above, then below. Identifying with everything without hatred, resentment, anger or enmity. This mind of love is very wide. It grows immeasurably and eventually is able to embrace the whole world.”

The meditations purpose is self transcendence which will bring us into oneness, into wholeness, with all that is. We do not love ourselves because we are trapped in ourselves and we are trapped in ourselves because we are afraid of the darkness that we see in others, the very same darkness we want to remain hidden within ourselves. We can transcend this though and live open and loving and compassionate lives. When we consciously make the effort to abandon the “me first mentality”, which paradoxically begins by truly loving who we are wholeheartedly, our horizons begin to expand and our fears begin to disappear; the selfish wolf begins to die off and we begin to live the life that we are capable of living. As a result the compassionate wolf just naturally comes to the surface.

The purpose of developing our inner compassion is to unleash our true human potential and to encourage others to do likewise, to be the example. By simply practising the two exercises of balanced self examination and daily meditation on love, we can begin to love ourselves wholeheartedly. Then we can truly love our neighbours as ourselves, by showing them compassion, even if they are not doing so themselves. It is only by feeling genuine compassion for ourselves that we are then capable of genuinely extending it to others.

Having said all of that it is just as important that we remain light hearted about all of this. We need to remember “Rule 62”, not to take ourselves so seriously...we need to lighten up at times. I know I do.

Why?

Because life is too serious to be taken too seriously.

Whatever happened to the heroes?

Social networking has had a bad press of late, especially in the wake of the recent troubles in our cities. We have heard similar complaints in the past. It always amazes when people blame developments in communication for society’s ills. Yet again we have heard the cries that it is modern media that is corrupting our youth. It would appear that we humans are always looking for scapegoats but I don’t think you can really blame our troubles on tools of communication.

I cannot claim to be the most technically savvy of people, I’m well behind most of my contemporaries to be honest. That said I do make good use of some elements. I am a big fan of Facebook. It has enabled me to make many useful connections. One of  my favourite aspects are the daily updates and series of quotes that different friends of mine post on there, they have helped me on many occasions as I have struggled for themes to explore in worship.

The other day a friend posted this quote:

“Don’t speak to me about your religion; first show it to me in how you treat other people. Don't tell me how much you love your God; show me in how much you love all His children. Don't preach to me your passion for your faith; teach me through your compassion for your neighbors. In the end, I'm not as interested in what you have to tell or sell as I am in how you choose to live and give.” ~ Cory Booker, Mayor of Newark, NJ

“Deed’s not Creed’s” is a central claim of my chosen Unitarian faith. We assert that religion is more about how a person lives their life rather than what they do or do not believe in.

As I have stated previously I have signed up to the “Charter for Compassion” and am attempting to promote Karen Armstrong’s “12 Steps to a Compassionate Life” in my ministry. Step 2 suggests that we look at our own world to discover where we can act and make a difference. She also proposes that when doing so we seek inspiration from the heroes of the past; people who in their day climbed out of their boxes and observed their reality from an entirely different angle. They made a difference to their time and place and acted in the world. She is saying that we too can become heroes of our time and place; that we too can be truly religious people who can influence our world for the better.

She states:

“As we seek to create a more compassionate world, we too must think outside the box, reconsider the major categories of our time, and find new ways of dealing with today’s challenges. But as we approach this task, we need the guidance of such people as the Buddha or Confucius, because they are the experts.” pg 58-59

What is a hero?

Heroes can be found in every single human tradition. They have existed ever since we began telling stories around the camp fire. Ancient Greek and Roman mythology spoke of Aneaus, Hercules, Odysseus and Theseus. The Hebrew Scriptures describe the heroic deeds of David, Joseph, Moses and Samson. Similar stories can be found in every culture. They describe heroic figures who stood up for righteousness and made a difference in their time and place.

The stories we tell today are also full of heroic characters. We only need look at the recent movie remakes of the comic strip super heroes such as Spiderman, Batman, The X-Men, or Star Wars, Harry Potter, Dr Who, the Lord of the Rings, James Bond, Indiana Jones, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. These are modern day heroes, but they are no different in character to the heroes of ancient times. I myself have a love for detective programs like Columbo, Poirot or Monk. I love the slightly quirky and a little bit odd hero. The obvious hero is not really for me.

Joseph Campbell studied the ancient myths and uncovered a pattern that was common to the heroes described within them. He talked of a journey that they all seemed to embark on. It begins with the innocence of childhood and the call to adventure; a call that is initially refused or rejected, but eventually accepted. The hero leaves behind the comforts of family and community. They experience the pain of separation from all that they know and hold dear. They undergo a series of initiation rights and challenges. They do battle with the monsters and demons both within themselves and externally to them until they hit a point of surrender. They hit rock bottom. From this they emerge with a new found humilty. At this point a female character appears, often in the form of the goddess. She leads the hero to a deeper recognition and reconciliation with both his masculine and feminine attributes. The father figure appears and the hero becomes reconciled with his past. The sons power and prowess is finally recognised, the initiation phase comes to an end and the hero becomes fully aware of the newly found gifts within his possession. It is now time for the hero to return with his new found bounty and wisdom. Although he has returned he is not the same person who left and things will never be quite the same again. He can now give all that he has and all that he is to his world.

Karen Armstrong highlights that you can see these heroic characteristics in the great religious sages. They all underwent their own trials before embarking on their missions. The Buddha abandoned his family, shaved his head and donned yellow robes renouncing the ascetic and set off into the world to cure it of suffering. Jesus began his ministry, following his Baptism by John, by stepping out into the wilderness for forty days of temptation. Muhammed, before his revelation, went to Mount Hiren outside of Mecca. Here he fasted and subjected himself to spiritual exercises and gave alms to the poor; here he meditated on the suffering malaise that had overcome his tribesmen and sought out a solution to their problems.

Armstrong suggests that if we wish to live more compassionately and to affect our world for the better that we should follow the example of these ancient sages. That we should search out the heroes of our time and even uncover the heroes within ourselves; to not merely talk about religion, but to live religiously. To live fully engaged and compassionate lives. For her this is essence and purpose of religion and I for one agree with her.

So who are our 21^st century heroes?

I recently came across this quote by Christopher Reeve (1952 – 2004). He said:

“When the first Superman movie came out I was frequently asked, "What is a hero?" My answer was that a hero is someone who commits a courageous action without considering the consequences...

...Now my definition is completely different. I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.”

Well this one time superman certainly exhibited great courage in the last few years of his life, following the accident that left him a paraplegic. I recently learnt that later in life that he, like myself, became a Unitarian.

Anyone can be a hero; we all possess those qualities within us. All we need to do is uncover those virtues within each and every one of us. Now we may not all have the opportunity to be the brave courageous hero of the ancient and modern tales. That said I am certain that every single one of us has at one time or another had to overcome many obstacles of varying shapes and sizes, no life is without problems. Further, we can all do little wonderful and caring things that can change our world a little bit at a time.

The key for me to uncovering and developing the hero inside each and every one of us is to make that decision each day to do what we can. To effect change does not require super powers, lots of money, complicated gadgets; we do not need to wear a special outfit and cape. All we need to do is to make a decision and follow it with appropriate action, each and every day.

The question we may well ask ourselves is can we do it? Well I for one believe that we can.

When I personally doubt my effectiveness, my ability to make a difference I simply return to these words by Edward Everett Hale

 “I am only one

But still I am one.

I cannot do everything

But still I can do something

And because I cannot do everything

I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.”

We do not have to search for our modern day heroes; they are inside every single one of us. All that we need to do is look at the person staring back at us in the mirror and not refuse to do the something that we can do.

The Charter for Compassion

One winter’s evening whilst gathered round a blazing camp fire, an old Sioux Indian chief told his grandson about the inner struggle that goes on inside people.

“You see” said the old man, “this inner struggle is like two wolves fighting each other. One is evil, full of anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, deceit, false pride, superiority, and ego”.

“The other one,” he continued, poking the fire with a stick so that the fire crackled, sending the flames clawing at the night sky, “is good, full of joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith”.

 For a few minutes his grandson pondered his grandfather’s words and then asked, “So which wolf wins, grandfather?”

“Well”, said the wise old chief, his lined face breaking into a wry smile, “The one you feed!”

Religion for me is a simple matter, its sole purpose is to awaken our natural goodness and enable each human being to develop their compassionate natures. I do not believe that anyone is wholly bad, nor am I so naive as to believe that we are perfect either. We all have the capacity to be selfish and we can all be deeply compassionate too.  Whichever aspect of ourselves flourishes, depends primarily on what is nurtured.

Karen Armstrong has stated “that religion isn’t about believing things. It’s ethical alchemy. It’s about behaving in a way that changes you, that gives you intimations of holiness and sacredness” She has spent many years studying the great faith traditions of the world and has discovered a common value that lays at the heart of all of them, compassion. She claims that the true purpose of religion is to develop our compassionate natures. Sadly though these traditions have often become lost and or hidden and over powered by fundamentalist strains within them. In her Book “The Case For God” she disputes the claims of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris, writing that those three “insist that fundamentalism constitutes the essence and core of all religion.” In fact, she argues, it is “a defiantly unorthodox form of faith that frequently misrepresents the tradition it is trying to defend.”

Armstrong views the Golden Rule, “love your neighbour as yourself”, as the essence of religious practice; claiming that it is a universal principle and that versions of it are at the core of every single one of the major faiths, theistic and non-theistic. She does not advocate one tradition above any other; she just states that at the core of all of them is the “Golden Rule of Compassion”

Armstrong recently launched the “Charter For Compassion ( http://charterforcompassion.org) to help promote what she sees as the essence of religion. At our denominational annual meetings we Unitarians and Free Christians voted unanimously to sign up to the charter. As a result of this I have pledged to promote the charter in my ministry. Over the coming weeks and months I will begin this process. Come and join me and thousands of others. All  are welcome

Examples of “The Golden Rule” found in the major faith traditions:

Christianity	All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye so to them; for this is the law and the prophets.        Matthew 7:1
Confucianism	Do not do to others what you would not like yourself. Then there will be no resentment against you, either in the family or in the state.        Analects 12:2
Buddhism	Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.        Udana-Varga 5,1
Hinduism	This is the sum of duty; do naught onto others what you would not have them do unto you.        Mahabharata 5,1517
Islam	No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.        Sunnah
Judaism	What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellowman. This is the entire Law; all the rest is commentary.        Talmud, Shabbat 3id
Taoism	Regard your neighbor’s gain as your gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.       Tai Shang Kan Yin P’ien
Zoroastrianism	That nature alone is good which refrains from doing another whatsoever is not good for itself.        Dadisten-I-dinik, 94,5