“How Do We Remember? To Re-Feel Our Lives Again”

The Olympics end today. I find that they always bring up memories of years gone by. They connect folk with the past and times in history, both personal and universal. The Olympics are always caught up in their time and space. In years to come no doubt these Olympics will be known as the “Covid Games”. They have already been postponed for one year. These are the 2020 Olympics, but are taking place in 2021. They have taken place without crowds of supporters cheering on the competitors. They have also been the games that have highlighted various mental health issues that top class athletes, as well as ordinary folk, suffer from. Society has changed and is changing and this is reflected in all aspects of life.

I have been watching the Olympics, but not with the same interest and attention that I have in the past. I am not sure why. Someone suggested to me the other day that is probably because of the time difference. I am not convinced of this. As a child I loved the Olympics. My first sporting hero was Brendon Foster and this dates back to the 1976 Olympics at Montreal. I was only four years old at the time. Now when I say he was my sporting hero, I suspect he was more my mum’s. She loves the Olympics and I suspect I enjoyed watching with her all those years ago. The images I remember from 1976 are not of the actual events but images repeated over the years. My mum likes to tell the story of waking me late in the night so I could watch Brendan Foster’s race, he came third and won bronze in the end. What is strange is that I do have this felt memory of being woken. It is not so much a visual memory though, more an emotional one. This though does not surprise me as memory for me is much more a felt, an emotional experience, rather than a visual one. In many ways it’s the responses of competitors after the events that stay with me, not just the competition, I am touched by the joy and the emotion.  I am touched by the years of dedication that these people and those who have supported them have put into their lives. Not just the winners and medallists, but also those competing. It is inspiring and these feelings stay with me, stored in my heart and soul. No doubt others remember differently.

If I have learnt anything in life it is that people can experience events, remember events, that they were both present at very differently. There are many reasons for this, but one may well be how their senses take in the experience, another how they actually remember. Some people are much more visually minded than others, more spacially aware. I have noticed over the years how different my brother and myself are. We recall things very differently and I suspect that this is because we process and thus remember very differently. We human beings are very diverse creatures indeed. While my brother and me look alike, we are not very alike.

A Lot of my memories were lost for many years, but have over time been re-felt and re-experienced. This is never an easy experience, but it is a rich one in the end. When I say it isn’t always easy, I am understating things, in truth it can be excruciatingly painful. I have recently re-experienced some memories while visiting an old friend who was staying in hospital in the North West. Thankfully he has been able to return home and I hope that his mental condition will continue to heal. During our conversations he talked an awful lot of our days, when we were students. Events and people and experiences that just weren’t there for me, they were gone, seemingly lost, from my mind. Some amusing and wonderful and others less so. There was an awful lot camaraderie, friendships and the odd romance, that never ended well. The memories though were not particularly visual though, they were felt, they were emotional. I re-felt these memories, I re-sensed them, they were resentments. They keep on coming as the days pass.

As I have said, many times before, I wish we had a word for re-sensing things that didn’t only have negative connotations. Resentment means to re-feel, to re-sense something, sadly we do not have a word for doing so in a positive or even neutral sense. My memories are mixed experience, aren’t all of memories a mixture of blessings and curses, just as life is. To quote good old Moses, “I lay before you life, blessings and curses, therefore choose life”

I wonder how your memories manifest in your life. Maybe you could reflect on past Olympics and where you were in your life and the folk you shared those memories with. How do you remember? What senses come alive? Perhaps talk with those who shared those memories with you, how do they remember? I Bet that they don’t in exactly the same way.

Memory is a mysterious thing. The way I remember my own life and people I share my life with has changed many times. The changes seem to coincide with the way I have experienced and understood my own humanity. The truth is that my life is made up of those lives that went before me, my life is built on their lives and those that follow me, their life will be built on mine and my contemporaries. The ancestors who walked before me and those that follow me are actually a part of me. I find that incredibly humbling.

It fascinates me how these memories take shape and form and often reshape as time goes by; it amazes me how these memories seemingly re-incarnate as the days pass. In many ways it is memory that brings the moments I am experiencing to life, how these ghosts of the past in habit our lives. They follow us like headlights on our tales.

One thing I have never had a great memory for is names. I was talking with someone the other day who told me how much he hates it that some people forget the names of others, he said he thought it was disrespectful. I told him that am one of those people. I can remember details of a person’s life, if they have told me it, faces stay with me, even though I claim I don’t have a visual memory, but I suspect that is more spacial than facial the deficit I mean. That said for some reason names can easily get lost somewhere. By the way it is not only the names of people, but places and things too. The details are there, but not the name. I am told that this is only going to get worse, I have already seen the signs of what is yet to come. Billy Collins captured this perfectly in his poem “Forgetfulness” Angela Fowler recently shared this poem at our poetry night. She loves Billy Collins, as do many of us. He has the capacity to touch places deep within but in a simple easily relatable way. Interestingly when I remined of this on Thursday she had forgotten about it, which we all laughed about together, a beautiful moment of human connection.

Here is the poem

The name of the author is the first to go
Followed obediently by the title, the plot,
The heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
Which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
Never even heard of,
As if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
Decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
To a little fishing village where there are no phones.
Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
And watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
And even now as you memorize the order of the planets,
Something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
The address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.
Whatever it is you are struggling to remember
It is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
Not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.
It has floated away down a dark mythological river
Whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
Well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
Who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.
No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
To look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
Out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

…Billy Collins captures something beautiful, if a little painful here, as he usually does.

Memory is a mystery, we all forget things. I keep on forgetting things at the moment, but I know that this grief and how it manifests in my life, how love and loss plays out. Thankfully I am keeping a sense of humour about all this. We have to maintain our sense of humour about such things. That said there are types of memory loss that less funny, tragic really. There is of course Dementia, in its many forms, the cruellest being Alzheimer’s. A disease which attacks the cortex of the brain forming bundles of tangled plaque that inhibit conversation between the neurons; as it takes away a persons identity and history as aspects of their humanity drift away. The longer we live the more likely we are to become one of its victims.

While the Alzheimer’s sufferer forgets, those who loved them never let them go. Those who shared memories with them hold their love, those feelings are felt in that deeper place that cannot be destroyed by time. Love is eternal, it is immortal. Perhaps some of us feel these experiences more deeply, depending on how we experience life. Sometimes they are so intense that we lock these memories away. Ghosts though have a habit of haunting you again when you least expect them to.

This brings to my mind the following verses from Isaiah (49 vv 15-16):

15 Can a woman forget her nursing child,
or show no compassion for the child of her womb?
Even these may forget,
yet I will not forget you.
16 See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands;
your walls are continually before me.

These words came to me the other day as I was looking at the callouses on my hands caused by training at the gym. I then spent a little time looking at the palms of my hand. I looked at what are called the heart and lifelines and remembered the love I have known and the love I have shared, with those people who have made up my life. Such feelings are surely Divine. There are times when these feelings are too much.

This is beautifully illustrated by Thich Nhat Hahn, who wrote in “Present moment, wonderful moment”

“If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people.”

Isn’t he right. All that has been before is a part of who we are.

Life awes me every single day, it humbles me also. The more I learn the less things make sense. Every day I have a growing sense of how truly ignorant I am. Nothing makes absolute sense to me. I have no idea why I feel what I feel or why my mind remembers and forgets things and then suddenly the memory is more alive than it has ever been. Clever people try to explain these things to me, but they seem to get it even less I. The sum of the parts they describe do not even begin to scratch the surface of the whole.

I am grateful to be a part of this incredible mystery that is life itself; that I get to share with the people I do; that I get to experience the sensations of these memories coming to life in my body and spirit, enhancing my experience of life today.

I am grateful to have experienced this the most amazing trip that anyone could wish to be on. Thank you for being a part of it. What a ride, what a ride…

Please click below to watch a video devotion

based on the material in this "blogspot"

 

Aftermath: Living in the Layers of Life

Now as some folk know I have a deep love of the origins of words. I have a keen interest in old words that have gone out of common usage, or words that have changed in meaning over time. One of my favourite things on “Facebook” is “Grandiloquent: Word of the Day”. I recently learnt the origins of the world “Aftermath”. In its most common understanding “Aftermath” means “the consequences or after-effects of a significant unpleasant event. There is though a second meaning. It is a farming term meaning “new grass growing after mowing or harvest. This second understanding is closer to the original meaning of “aftermath”, which dates back to the early 16th century meaning a second crop of grass grown on the same land after the first had been harvested, also known as aftercrop, aftergrass and or lattermath.

Here’s an example from the poem “Aftermath” by Longfellow

When the summer fields are mown,

When the birds are fledged and flown,

And the dry leaves strew the path;

With the falling of the snow,

With the cawing of the crow,

Once again the fields we mow

And gather in the aftermath.

So, as you can see “aftermath” means something very different to what it used to. It’s original meaning had positive connotations, like a bonus crop that can be harvested again. Yet today when we think of “aftermath” this is not what we understand; today the meaning has only negative connotations.

Some say that we are living in the aftermath of the pandemic, although truth is that it is not over. Certainly not here, but especially in other parts of the world. That said aftermath isn’t about starting over it is about growing from what is already there. No one gets to start over in life. There are no clean slates or blank sheets. We live from where we are, life goes on from the moment it is in. “Aftermath” does not only mean what follows a disaster, a terrible event, it also means a new growth of grass following one or more mowings, which may be grazed, mowed, or plowed under. Perhaps this concept of aftermath can help us in our time and place.

We have to metaphorically speaking at least, graze on what we have, we have to mow on and plough on what we have, we cannot just simply begin again. We have all been through a difficult time there has been much grief on so many levels, not just in recent days, but throughout our lives. We have live with this and grow from this.

As I was thinking of this idea of mowing on again, following a difficult time, a barren harvest, the following favourite of mine by Stanley Kunitz came to mind “The Layers”. I have shared it before, but it is worth hearing again.

“The Layers” by Stanley Kunitz

I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.

When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!

How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.

In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”

Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.

The poem was written at a pivotal moment in Kunitz’s long career. He believed that it spoke of  something that was central to his whole experience of being a poet and a person. It was written in response to a personal crisis. He had suffered several grief’s, including his mother and two older sisters as well as several dear friends. It was a time of change in his life, both personally and as a writer. He stated that:

“. . . I wrote 'The layers' in my late seventies to conclude a collection of sixty years of my poetry. . . Through the years I had endured the loss of several of my dearest friends, including Theodore Roethke, Mark Rothko, and - most recently - Robert Lowell. I felt I was near the end of a phase in my life and in my work. The poem began with two lines that came to me in a dream, spoken out of a dark cloud: 'Live in the layers, not on the litter.”

Un my eyes the poem is a wonderful example of “Aftermath”, in both senses of the word. Yes it is about picking up the pieces after a crisis, but it is also about reaping a second harvest too.

“Live in the layers, not on the litter.” There is some beautiful wisdom here.

In many ways this simple line may well be the key to everything, to live in the layers of our lives, the whole of our lives. So often we want to move on and leave behind the litter, the mess, the pain and the suffering, but to do so is to fail to bear witness to our whole lives. I believe that we have to live in our whole lives, we can’t just pick and choose and no matter how hard we try we can’t really leave our lives behind.

Kunitz was an avid gardener and maybe it is from this love that the idea of the layers grew. In horticulture “layering” is a method of propagation that brings forth new life from the dying or broken stem. This allows new roots to form and therefore life goes or do I mean grows on.

We cannot live on the brokenness of our lives, but we can grow anew from the litter if we live within the layers. We cannot completely begin anew, nor should we want too; we cannot leave behind what has gone before, nor should we want too; we cannot escape who we are, nor should we want too. The spiritual journey is not one of distance it is one of depth, it’s about finding ourselves at home in the ground at our feet. It’s about living in the layers. We can mow and plough once more through the litter and create new life from this. We can truly live and learn from aftermath.

Life goes on, life moves forward, this can be a little frightening at times. We might not know which way to turn either. We can feel utterly lost. It can all feel discombobulating. How often in life do we find ourselves in this place and not know which way to turn. Which road do we take?

This brings to mind another favourite poem, which I have shared before:

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

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

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

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

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

“The Road Not Taken” truly is an everyman poem, it speaks such a universal truth. How often in life do we all meet that fork in the road and have to make a decision, often not an easy one, to walk down that road to who knows where? Of course for every road that we take, there is at least one other road that we do not take and I am sure that we all wonder, from time to time, where that road may well have led.

Now of course in every moment of our lives we have to make small almost insignificant decisions. We often make them without really thinking, they are purely instinctive. That said some of the decisions we make are monumental and life changing. I suspect in the poem, this fork in the road is one of those big moments, those life changing moments. Of course when making these decisions we cannot have the gift of foresight. Like the path in the poem we can only see so far ahead. The future truly is unwritten, we cannot know for certain what is to come.

“The Road Not Taken” ends with the immortal words “I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence; two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference.”

The poem ends with this sense of not living with regret. It is about taking the path that will make all the difference; about taking the more challenging path. The path less taken is the one that will lead to the deep and meaningful life.

To leave the comfort zone of our established way of being often appears terrifying; after all this is the way we’ve always done things. To wander down an uncertain path, the one rarely travelled down, does appear scary. No doubt it will be uncomfortable and uneven and a little overgrown. But should we avoid this path? Should we choose the easier softer way? By avoiding the path, that is still partially grassed over are we choosing life, or are we just making things harder than they need to be? Is it better to choose caution, to just let life happen to us than to choose the riskier path that forces us to engage with danger?

to make those decisions what is required is discernment.

The word discernment is formed from the Latin word “discernere”, which means to separate, to distinguish, to sort out. Just think of prospectors panning for gold or sifting through the rocks and dirt in search of gem stones. They are separating, they are sorting through the muck for the jewels, they are distinguishing, they are discerning. It brings to mind once again images of layering in gardening or raking over ground and ploughing once again, that old meaning of aftermath.

Discernment is the key to making those wise choices. We need to discover what is of value and what needs to be discarded in our minds. We need to discard the dirt and muck to uncover the gold, the gems, to have clarity of thought, so that we can those decisions in life. This is not easy, especially when we think of all that information that swims around in our lives and are consciousness; information like an enormous shoal of fish swimming round and round aimlessly in a small tank and not really going anywhere. Our lives, our heads are just so full of stuff. How do we discern what is healthy, what is right? Well we need silence; we need time away from all this information and all these things that pull us in so many directions. We need time to be still, time to be silent, time to connect to our bodies and our breathing; time to hear that still small voice of calm. A voice less than a whisper, but somehow more than silence.

We need to awaken to our true consciousness in order to make those sane and sensible decisions about life. We need to learn to separate those things that are of value and those that are not. We need to do this in order to hear that voice, that is less than whisper but that is somehow more than silence; that voice that has spoken down the centuries, to those who had ears that could hear it”

The choices we make matter. It matters what we are and what we do. I do not think that God chooses this for us. Yes, God offers guidance, “The Lure of Divine Love” but it is up to us to choose the path that we follow. Often the most rewarding path is the one that is less worn and more over grown and perhaps seemingly more treacherous. Often it is the one that is less travelled by. Maybe this is truly living by “Aftermath”

So, let’s live our lives by “Aftermath”, lets rake that ground again and try to grow something new, lets live in the complex layers of our lives and separate the litter, lets live by discernment and choose the right path as we move forward. Always remembering that we can turn again and change direction at any time, should it turn out we need to reassess our decisions. Let us live in and by “Aftermath”

Here is a video devotion based on the material in this "Blogspot"

Having Moved Full Circle: 366 Days

“Having Moved Full Circle: 366 Days ”

“Epigrams” by Edwin Markham

Preparedness

FOR all your days prepare,

And meet them ever alike:

When you are the anvil, bear--

When you are the hammer, Strike.

Outwitted

He drew a circle that shut me out--

Heretic, a rebel, a thing to flout.

But Love and I had the wit to win:

We drew a circle that took him in!

The Avengers

The laws are the secret avengers,

And they rule above all lands;

They come on wool-soft sandals,

But they strike with iron hands.

 

We have travelled a complete circle, 365, well actually 366 days as it was a “Leap Year” since Sue and I married and since we had to go into our first lockdown. It has been quite a year. A hard year, a challenging year, a year of suffering on oh so many levels. The loss of life has been terrible, I cannot imagine what would have happened had most of us not responded as we had. Yes, mistakes have been made, but on the whole people have supported one another and done what they can. The cost has been phenomenal and it will take some time to recover on so many levels. As we slowly return to some kind of normality over the later Spring and summer, there is much that we must do for one another. I wonder where we will be on the second anniversary. I don’t just mean our wedding anniversary, but of this difficult time in human history. We have been through worse and we have rebuilt and no doubt we will again. So, let us build and rebuild, but let us do so in more loving and compassionate ways.

It is a time to widen our circles and begin to invite folk into more loving and compassionate ways. It begins with our individual circles and widens to our community and then to the whole of humanity. The last twelve months have brought to the surface many of the fractures in society, fractures that need healing and it begins by widening our circles of compassion and inviting folk in.

This brings to mind a favourite poem of mine by Rainer Maria Rilke. It speaks powerfully to me of what the purpose of living in an engaged way is all about, as we invite others into our lives we invite more of the true experience of living alive. Here is Rilke’s poem

"I Live My Life In Widening Circles" by Rainer Maria Rilke

I live my life in widening circles

that reach out across the world.

I may not complete this last one

but I give myself to it.

I circle around God, around the primordial tower.

I've been circling for thousands of years

and I still don't know: am I a falcon,

a storm, or a great song?

Rilke’s poem so beautifully evokes the image of ever expanding spheres, much like ripples on a pond, those concentric circles. It brings to my heart the idea of moving from the centre of the circle, expanding and stretching ourselves to include ever more of life. As we are expanded, we expose ourselves to new experiences and people, this is both exhilarating and frightening all at the same time. As the journey continues fear evaporates and though the circles are never completed, certainly not the last one. That said one is compelled to give their whole life to the experience. This is the classic spiritual journey, as it is not about the destination, this is not the gift, the gift is the journey itself. The beauty is not in the outcome but the experience. The poem beautifully reminds me how great it is to live in such a way, to ever widen the circles so as to include more people, more ideas, more experiences, rather than to live in contracting spaces that seek to cut out that which makes one feel uncomfortable. This just makes life smaller and less fulfilling.

This last year has created a distance between people. No doubt there is much anxiety about returning to life as it once was. There is a great deal of fear around, fears about personal safety. There has been a growing awareness of the troubles in our world, when some are rejected and or treated as if they were not equal citizens. There has been an awakening around race and gender this year, let us hope that we can truly begin to see that we are all made of the same stuff, born under the same earth, under the same sun, with the same spirit flowing through us. That our role in life is first and foremost to care for one another, to cause no harm. Let us hope that our circles will ever widen and that we finally begin to see that there is one circle of humanity, a circle that brings all in. There are other deadly diseases that humanity struggles with, ones of exclusion and unacceptance just because someone is different. There are not two types of people in this world there is one, there is one humanity. We need to widen our circles for if we do not then distrust and violence grows. We need to find ways to widen our circles and bring them all in. This was beautifully captured in middle section “Outwitted” from Edwin Markham’s “Epigrams”

Outwitted

He drew a circle that shut me out--

Heretic, a rebel, a thing to flout.

But Love and I had the wit to win:

We drew a circle that took him in!

So, what can we do? Well, I believe we can do much. Where does it begin? Well, I believe it begins in our own hearts and souls, in our own homes and in our own communities. We need to begin to expand our own circles. We need to begin to live more invitationally and openly, we need to invite the other into our circle. This is risky and scary I know but my goodness our world needs it. This to me is our ultimate religious role and task. In so doing we will not only allow others to be less afraid of us and who they are, but we will also liberate ourselves.

Now this is no easy task, of course it is not. That said I believe that it is one that is worth undertaking. I believe it is the challenge of our age. I believe that maybe it is the task and the challenge of my own open faith tradition. I believe that it is our task to ever widen our circle so as include all, for there can be no limit to love. This begins by putting love at the core of the circle and to understand that if we see love as the circumference we will see there is no limit, for no one can be excluded from love. For if they are, it is not love.

For love is eternal and love is perfect and love knows no limits.

I would like to share a poem by Wendell Berry “The Larger Circle.”

The Larger Circle, by Wendell Berry

We clasp the hands of those that go before us,

And the hands of those who come after us.

We enter the little circle of each other’s arms

And the larger circle of lovers,

Whose hands are joined in a dance

And the larger circle of all creatures

Passing in and out of life

Who move also in a dance

To a music so subtle and vast that no ear hears it

Except in fragments.

Here's a recording of a devotion based on the content of this "blogspot". Please click to watch.

Hygge: To touch the heart, mind and soul in a time of physical separation

We have been nesting, during my week off duty. We spent much of last week decorating the house, making it our own. This is new to me, not something that has had much meaning in my life before. I know it probably sounds strange to most folk, but then again I never claimed not to be strange fruit. That said I do appreciate the comfort of home, more and more in these challenging times. Home comforts are becoming increasingly important, something that most folks have paid greater attention too since we were forced to spend increasing time at home due to the impact of the Corona virus on our lives. Our worlds and our intimate connections have shrunk to some degree these last few months. We have had to get creative, to find new ways to be intimate, to connect, to touch life in different ways. So surprisingly enough even a man like me is begin to understand the importance of nesting.

Now something that won’t come as a surprise to most folk is my love of language and words, especially words that have either changed in meaning, or somehow got lost or disappeared. New words, or at least new words to our culture are also of interest to me. One word has come into prominence in recent years, the word is Hygge (pronounced hew-geh). It is a word of Scandinavian origin, primarily Danish but also Norwegian. According to Louisa Thomson Brits in “The Book of Hygge” Hygge is defined as “a quality of presence and an experience of belonging and togetherness. It is a feeling of being warm, safe, comforted and sheltered. Hygge is an experience of selfhood and communion with people and places that anchors and affirms us, gives us courage and consolation”. Now aren’t these qualities that we are all seeking after in our current time and global situation? Perhaps there is something in Hygge that can help us as individuals, communities and society as a whole.

Hygge (hew-geh) helps Danes imagine who they are and how they should be together, there is something of the collective and not merely individual about it. Hygge began to come to prominence globally due to an increase in fascination with the Scandinavian countries ever since the launch of the UN World Happiness Report in 2012, in which both Denmark and Norway have never been out of the top three with regards to levels of happiness amongst their population. Could it be down to this concept of Hygge?

So where did this come from? There are various theories as the origin of Hygge. It appears to be rooted in the nineteenth century. Some trace it back to the Biedermeier movement, which developed as a reaction the early nineteenth century revolution passion, throughout Europe. During this period artists and designers returned to the home and developed their private lives as a reaction against the public pretentions of the upper class. Another theory suggests that it was influenced by what was considered to be a more liberal guilt free Protestantism that developed in Denmark in comparison to their Scandinavian neighbours, which was established by the theologian N.F.S Grudtvig. It also developed under the social democratic and egalitarian values of the Danish people.

The central concept of the “Hygge Life”, according to Louisa Thomsen Brits, is “a quality of presence and a feeling of belongness and togetherness. It is a feeling of being warm, safe, comforted and sheltered.” It is a state of being, a way of being and living in the world and not something that you can possess. It is a quality of hominess, of being, of welcome and hospitable, of being warm, safe and sheltered and enables the other to feel that way in your company. It is not a uniquely Danish quality and the Danes themselves do not consider it to be so, it is a quality that you will find at the core of the great religious and spiritual traditions, but perhaps one that has become lost in our individualistic and fast paced lives. Hygge though is central to Danish civil and public life, I am not sure that this can be said of other states outside of Scandinavia.

Hygge has been described as the art of creating intimacy, cosy togetherness and taking pleasure in the presence of soothing things. Although it is often developed through material products it is more about creating a particular atmosphere or to shape an experience. Hyyge is about creating a communal atmosphere of simplicity and presence; it is about living by soulful presence. It is about how to be with each other and nurturing those relationship so as to build respect, goodwill to all and hope, with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your soul. It is about being good neighbours to all; it is about creating a quiet space, in the rush and push of life to enable our soulfulness to come out of hiding and express itself fully in life, thus inviting the other to do so. Hygge enables the individual to love their neighbours as themselves. We need such places as we live in and through the storms of life. There are many storms in life, both literally and figuratively.

I must be feeling pretty much in that soulful place in my own home as I did not stir in the storms this week, that seem to come through the night. Apparently, it was pandemonium in our house on Monday night, not that I noticed. The old dog Poppy was very upset by the storm and the young dog was going crazy with excitement, Sue and Lucy were awoken and dealt with the dogs, I did not stir once. My soul, my mind and my body were at one, maybe I have found this quality of Hygge.

Hygge is about a love and appreciation of the simple, close to hand things in life. It encourages gratitude for the everyday moments in life. It is about equality and egality, about working together. It has deeply spiritual qualities, but earthy real ones. It recognises the worth of each person, it desires peace and harmony, equality for all, a heartfelt appreciation of the natural world. It builds trust and connection between people, it is about harmonious living. It celebrates the simple pleasure of being alive where ever you find yourself, encouraging soulful presence. To me this is the essence of spiritual living. By living this way you encourage others to come and join with you, to come as they are, exactly as they are. Hygge is about creating intentional intimacy, intimacy with ourselves, with God, with each other and with all life. It is about living by the Divine commandment, to love God and to love our neighbours as ourselves.

Now under our current situation where we cannot offer love and intimacy in our usual manner maybe we need to find new ways to offer intimacy to invite the other into our lives, to connect in a none physical sense. We can still hold and hug and touch it is just with our eyes and voices. I had this experience in chapel and in another setting recently where we were all in masks and socially distant and yet enjoyed deeply spiritual intimacy. The eyes seem to say so much more, possibly because they are the only way to express with our faces and the human voice has seemingly taken on deeper intimacy too. For many folk the telephone has taken on deeper meaning along with all kinds of modern technology which has helped us to connect in new and beautiful ways.

Despite the physical limits the values of Hygge can still shine through, even if we are not fully aware of it. We can still hug, even though we cannot do so with our hands and bodies. By the way Hygge and hug share the same linguistic root, both come from the old Norse word hugr, which meant soul, mind, consciousness. If we live by these principles we can touch those deeper places we can hug and sooth, our souls, our minds, our consciousness. To truly hug someone is far more than a physical act, thus all is not lost when we lose that sense of physical touch. We can touch those deeper places with our intentions, with our eyes and our voices. An attitude of Hygge can help enable this. For it is vital that we do, until the day comes where we can invite others fully into our human presence, who knows when we do we might enable them to do so in more deeper and intimate ways, with our hearts, our minds and souls. Maybe we will be touched by life in more deeper ways.

I want to share with something David Whyte posted this week in response to a reflection he wrote a few years on the importance of touch, something that has become a physical danger due to the virus. He wrote:

“One of the many traumas around the fear of contagion with the Coronavirus is the sudden fear of touch: something absolutely necessary for human beings becomes something that brings not promise or solace or condolence but a possible closeness to illness and death. Touch is a hallmark of our humanity and a necessity for us all, it is a sign of our own gifted vulnerability, and a sign of loyalty when touch is required with a close loved one - irrespective of danger – few parents will leave their child untouched in their misery, no matter the possible dangers. All the more important then, to remember through this temporary and necessary distancing that this societal contagion requires, what a privilege we have in touch; how important it is for each of us, how much need there will be, and how nourishing it will feel, to restore our daily, sometimes tiny but necessary forms of reaching out as soon as we possibly can.”

Well maybe the qualities of Hygge will help not only in this time when we cannot physically hug but in the future when we begin to rebuild our damaged world, our wounded communities and our hurting hearts. Remember that hygge draws meaning from the fabric of ordinary living. It's a way of acknowledging the sacred in the secular, of giving something ordinary a special context, spirit, and warmth, and taking time to make it extraordinary. Well these are extraordinary times and we can be extraordinary people if we let our spirits come alive. We can hug one another far more deeply than with our human bodies. Remember that to truly hug someone is far more than a physical act, We can touch those deeper places with our intentions, with our eyes and our voices.

So, I invite us to adopt an attitude of Hygge, now and in the days yet to come. For it enable us to touch those deeper aspects of our own humanity and help hold one another in a communal spiritual hug. For it is vital that we do to carry us through this storm until the day comes where we can invite others fully into our human presence,  and thus enable ourselves and others to touch in deeper and intimate ways, with our hearts, our minds and souls.

Let us live in and by the spirit of Hygge.

Odyssey: Returning Home and Journeying On

“Odysseus” by Tom Leonard

it took me so long to get back to who I am 
why was I away so long why was the journey so tortuous 
all those false masks against a backdrop narrative to do with authenticity 

but now arriving back there is still much debris to clear 
the clearer to see the point from which I started 

that from which I set out confused in sundry identities at war with themselves 
now to find calm on that setting-out point as the final destination 

How do we all feel? No doubt a mixture of emotions. No doubt so many of us have missed that feeling of congregating together in time and space. It has been a tough time. Let’s not think it is over, if is not, we are just starting to come out of our shelters and attempting to be together once again, in a variety of ways. This week has proven this to us. The virus is very much with us and we need to take real care about howw e are around each other. This is hard for everyone but it is the loving and considerate thing to do, for the good of everyone. Things are not the same, things will never be exactly the same, but then remember as Heraclitus so famously said “No one steps in the same river twice, because the river is not the same and neither is the person stepping into it.” Or at least he said something like it. I suspect in these last few months, to some extent, we have all changed and even as we return to some of the old familiar, we will find that they are not quite the same either. We need not fear this, although change can feel uncomfortable at times. My life has certainly changed in so many ways these last few months as I have adjusted to a variety of changes in my life, personally and professionally. So, I know that I am not returning to the same places in my life in exactly the same way.

I returned to the gym on Monday. It was strange and really tough, but I soon got used to the changes. It will take time to build my fitness up, but I am getting there. I have adjusted to the changes there, due to the virus, they are doing a good job. It was wonderful too to see many of the same faces. It certainly lifted my spirits, to be there. That said I have not been back since Thursday nights announcement and I do wonder if I should continue to do.

Now please do not die of shock, but I have something I need to tell you. I have served as minister to the good folk in Urmston and Altrincham for ten years. Hard to believe I know, but nevertheless it is true. My ministry began on 1st of August 2010, Yorkshire Day of course. So much has changed in this time, Although nothing in comparison to the last few months, we are living through unprecedented times.

Living of course is what we must do, perhaps differently, but living still the same. We journey on together if in different ways. I am certain that as we pass through these challenging times that change will come; a change that will not be merely transitional or even developmental, more transformational, if we allow ourselves to flow with the river and not anchor ourselves too much in fear.

Any journey of transformation begins with an event in one’s life sometimes referred to as “The Call.” An event that grabs at our souls and catches our attention. Sometimes it is subtle in nature, it taps at our soul and other times it is more a drastic event that is unpredicted and unwanted, like this pandemic. The Call offers us an opportunity to lean into the unknown and to explore the unforeseen. It is a portal to adventure that lies ahead filled with opportunities for shedding some old skin, discovering aspects of our lives and of ourselves, and the potential for a more fulfilling life yet to be lived.

No one wants the call to change that this virus has brought, but we cannot escape it. The task is to make something meaningful from it and not only for ourselves, but for world and the future generations that will follow us. Our task is to journey on and to invite others to come and join with us. We must journey on and not be held down too tightly by the anchors of life. Things are never going to be quite the same again. Well maybe this is an opportunity to create something better.

As we return as we come back, things will seem unfamiliar. We may not recognise them as they were. More shockingly if there has been change in ourselves and or others we may not recognise one another. This may be a little frightening at first, but we need not fear it. We certainly cannot wish or will it away.

Returning to something unfamiliar can lead to us wishing for a time past, to become anchored in some form of nostalgia. Nostalgia tcan be a dangerous thing, it can lead to a denial of reality and keep one anchored in a time and place that does not exist.

I do like the word Nostalgia though. It is one of those interesting ones, as words often are. Nostalgia is one of those words that has changed in meaning over time. Originally it meant “severe homesickness considered as a disease” from the German heimweh (home+woe) homesickness. It is rooted in the ancient Greek words “algos” meaning pain, Grief, distress and “nostos” meaning homecoming. Nostalgia is a painful homecoming. 

As we return to our lives it will at times be painful, it may well cause us to yearn for a time long gone. Sometimes as we return, especially if something has changed within us, we may feel rejected by those we meet. The river may well be the same, but we stepping into it are not. This can lead to a deep homesickness, even though you have physically come home. A classic example of this can be found in Mark's Gospel Ch 6. It depiscts an account of Jesus returning home. When he speaks to his own people he is mocked. He said to his disciples ‘Prophets are not without honour, except in their home town, and among their own kin, and in their own house.’

Sometimes we might not be recognised when we return home, how painful can that be. We can feel like a stranger in our own land. Think of Odysseus, in homer’s Odyssey, who is recognised by no one on his return. It is only as he begins to speak that his old, now blind, dog recognises his voice and his tail begins to thud with joy and love and recognition. To not be recognised must feel like the most painful kind of rejection.

I am going to share with you a wonderful poem by Luis Borges "The Art of Poetry"

"The Art of Poetry" By Jorge Luís Borges

To look at the river made of time and water
and remember that time is another river,
to know that we lose ourselves like the river
and that faces go by like the water.

To feel that wakefulness is another sleep
that dreams it is not dreaming and that the death
that our flesh fears is that death
every night that is called sleep.

To see in the day or in the year a symbol
of the days of mankind and of his years,
to change the outrage of the years
into a music, a rumor, and a symbol,

to see in death sleep, in sunset
a sad gold, such is the poetry 
that is immortal and poor. Poetry
returns like dawn and sunset.

Sometimes in the evening a face
looks at us from the bottom of a mirror;
art should be like that mirror
that reveals our own face to us.

They tell that Ulysses, tired of wonders, 
wept with love at the sight of his Ithaca,
green and humble. Art is that Ithaca 
of green eternity, not of wonders.

It is also like the endless river
that passes and remains and is the mirror of one same
inconstant Heraclitus, who is the same 
and is another, like the endless river.

This poem by Borges explores some of the great ancient Greek stories. One being Ulysses (which is the Latin translation of Odysseus) and his painful return to Ithaca. He also speaks of Heraclitus who, as I have already said suggested that we can never return to the same river. This is because water continual flows on and on and the water we step into is never quite the same, but also because we who stand in the river are not the same person either, life will have changed us too, so much so that we are not recognised on our return home. Like the river our lives, go on and on, ever changing. It will serve no good purpose to continue yearning to return to some mythical ideal, for it will stop us living the life, we are passing through and that is passing through us, the life in front of us. We need to fully experience the adventure, the beautiful journey as the poem by Constantine Cavafy, “Ithaca” suggests. This is the lesson of Homer’s Odyssey and perhaps all the great stories. The treasure is the journey itself. We do not get to choose the journey, but we can choose how we journey and of course who we journey with. Remebering always that to journey literally means what you do or where you go in a day. To journey means to travel one day at a time. 

We need to remember as we begin to return to our lives, that we need to be careful not to yearn too much for times gone by, as these will become anchors that will hold us down and perhaps lead us to reject the life we have now in front of us. If we do not welcome this life and perhaps find a way for us to turn away from it, we might just make ourselves feel unwelcome in our own homes.

Anchors are there to keep us secure for a short while as we take refuge in port, they are not to hold us forever though and become chains. As Margaret Silf so wonderfully put it in “

"The only trouble with anchors is that they can grow roots! We need the still point of rest and restoration that our anchor offers, but we also need to be able to let go of the mooring and set sail again. We must let go of every signpost and journey on. We cannot be 'established.'

Life is a journey and a beautiful one at that. One in which we are coconstantly turning and returning again and again and again. It is not always an easy, there are always troubles and difficulties. There will even be times when we will not be recognised and may not even recognise ourselves; there will even be times when we will feel completely lost and won’t know where to turn for sanctuary; there will even be times of darkness too, but we all must journey on, not knowing which direction we are heading, but we have to trust the journey. In the end of course we return from where we came. We return, return, return, from the beautiful Odyssey.

So let’s keep on journeying on together, in our fellowship of love.

I am going to end this little "blogspot" with a rather wonderful poem by Barbara Crooker, which goes by the rather wonderful title “Poem on a Line by Anne Sexton, ‘We are All Writing God’s Poem’”

Poem on a Line by Anne Sexton, 'We are All Writing God's Poem'

By Barbara Crooker

Today, the sky's the soft blue of a work shirt washed
a thousand times. The journey of a thousand miles
begins with a single step. On the interstate listening
to NPR, I heard a Hubble scientist
say, "The universe is not only stranger than we
think, it's stranger than we can think." I think
I've driven into spring, as the woods revive
with a loud shout, redbud trees, their gaudy
scarves flung over bark's bare limbs. Barely doing
sixty, I pass a tractor trailer called Glory Bound,
and aren't we just? Just yesterday,
I read Li Po: "There is no end of things
in the heart," but it seems like things
are always ending—vacation or childhood,
relationships, stores going out of business,
like the one that sold jeans that really fit—
And where do we fit in? How can we get up
in the morning, knowing what we do? But we do,
put one foot after the other, open the window,
make coffee, watch the steam curl up
and disappear. At night, the scent of phlox curls
in the open window, while the sky turns red violet,
lavender, thistle, a box of spilled crayons.
The moon spills its milk on the black tabletop
for the thousandth time.

The Come Teach Me and The Go Away Tribes

I’m going to begin with a telling of a tale I came across from Mark Nepo. It is called “The Two Tribes”. It is a kind of modern creation mythos.

“In the beginning, when the first humans came across each other, it went two ways. Upon seeing someone different, the more fearful one said, "You're different. Go away." The other, upon seeing someone not like him, said, "You're different. Come, teach me what I don't know." While our reasoning has grown more complicated throughout the centuries, it's essentially the same. "Go away" or "Come, teach me."

Since the beginning, the two tribes have had their philosophies. The "Go away" tribe has always believed that human beings, by their nature, are self-serving and untrustworthy, in need of control. The "Go away" tribe believes in stringent laws and constraints, both moral and legal, to ensure that people don't run amuck. The "Come, teach me" tribe believes that human beings, by their nature, are kind and trustworthy. The "Come, teach me" tribe believes in empowering laws that cultivate freedom, to ensure that people actualize their web of gifts through relationship.

The truth is that we are born into both tribes and can move from one to the other, depending on the level of our fear. The times of genocide throughout history mark the extreme, malignant manifestation of the "Go away" tribe. Distorted by fear, it's not enough just to say, "Go away." For unbridled fear turns to anger, which normalized turns into prejudice and hate. Such deep, embedded fear dictates that we need to make sure that those who are different can't return. And so, we exile them, jail them, hurt them, and in extremely ugly cases, persecute and kill them.

However, the times of enlightenment throughout history mark the extreme manifestation of the "Come, teach me" tribe, which through learning and wonder leads to eras of compassion and cooperation. Empowered by trust, curiosity turns into interdependence and a belief that we are more together than alone. When allowed to blossom, we realize that we need each other and our diversity of gifts to make life whole.”

...It matters from which we tribe we are living our little and yet no less significant lives...

Fear in any form can be a deeply corrosive emotion. In its worse aspects it can lead to deep distrust and paranoia. If it grips our psyche it can destroy us from within and lead to destruction without. We live in fearful times. Whether that be of environmental destruction, economic turmoil, the Corona virus. It would appear that the tribe that distrust the becomes the dominant one. Now I am not in denial of the very real dangers present in life, my head is not buried in the ground. No, proper precautions re the current virus need to be followed and remedies to the environmental crises need to be found. These troubles are real. There is though an equally corrosive disease eating its way through life. This is the one of division, the one that sees the other as different, nay dangerous. This at its extreme paranoid level leads to the worst kind of destruction. Not just on a material external level either, but also within our own individual human souls. Fear can be the most dangerous, destructive infectious disease that consumes and destroys life; fear can be deeply addictive and all consuming.

Perhaps there is a better way, the open way, the courageous way, the path of love that sees the other as a part of the self and not separate and something to fear. Love, it is said, is the opposite of fear.

It is said that we humans are not as complicated as we often think that we are, that we are basically motivated by two forces, the same two forces that motivated the two tribes, fear and love. When fear takes hold we close in, we shut down, we pull away from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance.

If you would like to understand the current state of your own humanity ask yourself these questions: What have I noticed this last week? Have I noticed insanity, hate and sorrow or have I noticed love, compassion and understanding? Have I accepted insanity, hate and sorrow? Or have I accepted love, compassion and understanding? Have I given out insanity, hate and sorrow? Or have I given out love and compassion and understanding?

If you are like me it has probably been a mixture. We all belong to both tribes, the one that is most dominant will control our lives.

Love of self, love of neighbors, and love of God are the foundational stones of the great religious traditions, the Golden Rule of Compassion is there at the core of them all. A classic example of this comes from the following story from the Jewish tradition:

"Standing on One Foot"

A man came to talk with Rabbi Shamai, one of the most famous of all the rabbis, nearly as famous as Rabbi Hillel.

"I would like to convert to Judaism and become a Jew," said the man. "But I don't have much time. I know I have to learn the entire book you call the Torah, but you must teach it to me while I stand on one foot."

The Torah is the most important Jewish book there is, and this crazy man wanted to learn it while standing on one foot? Why, people spent years learning the Torah; it was not something you can learn in five minutes! Rabbi Shamai grew angry with this man, and he pushed the man away using a builder's yardstick he happened to be holding in his hand.

The man hurried away, and found Rabbi Hillel. "I would like to convert to Judaism and become a Jew," said the man. "But I don't have much time. I know I have to learn the entire book you call the Torah, but you must teach it to me while I stand on one foot."

"Certainly," said Rabbi Hillel. "Stand on one foot."

The man balanced on one foot.

"Repeat after me," said Rabbi Hillel. "What is hateful to you, don't do that to someone else."

The man repeated after Rabbi Hillel, "What is hateful to me, I won't do that to someone else."

"That is the whole law," said Rabbi Hillel. "All the rest of the Torah, all the rest of the oral teaching, is there to help explain this simple law. Now, go and learn it so it is a part of you."

...The Golden rule and living by it is simple, but it is not necessarily easy...

Fear can eat away at the very foundations of our humanity. Fear can block us from the love at the core of all being, the love present in life. We can become afraid to risk ourselves in love; we can become afraid of what love can teach us and turn it away.

Love is a universal principle, in fact Universalism preaches the Gospel of Love for all, there is no partiality in such love. It offers an ever widening, deepening love, it preaches what Russell Miller has titled “the larger hope”. It is a love that embraces all life, engages in every aspect of existence, a universal love. It is born in the come teach me tribe. It holds out its loving arms and says come as you are, exactly as you are but remain open to loving transformation.

I am by instinct a universalist, I am at home in the “Come, teach me” tribe, but I have not always made camp there. Fear has at times taken over me, I am as human as any of us. I have taken residence with the “Go away” tribe. I have at times mistaken which tribe I was in too. I have thought I was in the “Come teach me” tribe, when In truth I have taken up residence in the “Go away” tribe. This has usually been when I have not wanted to spend time with the fearful and negative, that I have somehow believed I was above these things. I have rejected the call for love, because I was afraid of becoming vulnerable because of it. I have been like the priest and Levite in the classic parable of the “Good Samaritan”, I have walked by on the other side because I was afraid of getting caught up in the suffering of others. I have averted my eyes, I have been unable to see what is in front of me. This is very human. I attempt each day to begin again in love, I return to love. This begins by humbly accepting my finite humanity.

I find Nepo’s two tribes metaphor helpful, but like all mythos it needs to held lightly and not literally. There are not two types of people in this world. There is only one humanity. We all belong to both tribes. The key to living in love and not to be consumed by fear is to recognize this and not to condemn our fellows when they fall short and become consumed by fear.

To live in and by love is the solution to fear that consume our lives. Love though requires effort and it requires practise. To live by love is universalism, it is to recognise that we are all parts of one indivisible whole. Yes we all pull this apart at times, we all reject or push away the other in fear, but eventually we have to come back together in love or human society would completely destroy itself. How do we do this? Well through love, trust, courage, and the ability to listen are the agencies of heart, these are the qualities that allow us to “rejoin” as Nepo describes it. As he puts it “These are the qualities that each soul has waiting within it like golden seeds to be watered by the strength of our kindness. This is the purpose of community: to water these seeds and to join and rejoin.”

So which tribe are you going to live from today. “The come teach me tribe” or “The go away tribe”. It matter you know, it really does. How are going to live today in fear, or in love. It is up to us.

I’m going to end this "blogspot" with a recasting of the 23rd Psalm. It is titled “Psalm 23 for This Moment”

“Psalm 23 for This Moment” by Kevin Tarsa

May I remember
in this tender moment
that Love is my guide,
always,
shepherding me toward ways of openness and compassion.

I have what I need, really,
with Love at my side,
above me, below me, in front of me, behind me,
inside every cell of me,
Love infused everywhere!

Just when the weight of the world I inhabit
threatens to drop me in place
and press my hope down into the ground beneath me
Love invites me to rest for a gentle while,
and leads the center of my soul to the quiet, still,
restoring waters nearby that,
somehow,
I had not noticed.

And so, Love,
quietly,
sets me once again on its tender and demanding path.

Even when the walls close around me
and the cries of death echo through untold corners,
gripping my heart with fear and sadness,
I know...
I know
that all will be well,
that I will be well,
when Love whispers
near to me,
glints at the corner of my eye,
rests with gentle and persistent invitation upon my shoulders.

Yes, Love blesses me,
Even as the sources and symbols of my pain look on.
Love blesses me from its infinite well,
And I turn
and notice...
that goodness and kindness and grace,
follow me everywhere,
everywhere I go.

I live in a house of Love,
Love that will not let me go.

I live in a house of love,
And always will.