Snowdrops of Hope: Journeying from Winter to Spring

I’m going to begin with a re-telling of a classic tale by Aesop. This version approaches the story from an entirely different angle, offering an alternative perspective. It is the story of “The Hare and the Tortoise”

Is it tortus or tore toys? I think it was Lewis Carol who said “It was the tortus that taught us”

“The Hare and the Tortoise”

Once upon a time there was a hare and a tortoise. The hare liked to run and jump and roll in the flowers. The tortoise stuck to the ground looking always to the front, never to the left, never to the right.

One day the tortoise began to argue with the hare.

"You have no direction. You are aimless. You are wasting your life," the tortoise said. The hare chewed on a dandelion to see what it was like.

"Whereas I on the other claw," the tortoise continued, "have purpose. I have drive. I have ambition." The hare began doing backward somersaults.

"And I can prove it!" the tortoise shouted, getting angry. "We will race through the wood to the river. The first one onto the bridge is the winner!"

And so that's how the race began. All the other animals gathered to watch and the crow, who was a bird and could fly, agreed to be the invigilator. When all was ready the squirrel opened a nut as a starting signal.

"Crack!" The race was on! The hare was into the wood in a couple of bounds. The tortoise moved slowly forward looking always to the front, never to the left, never to the right.

The hare ran halfway through the wood. Then the hare stopped to watch a cobweb dancing in a patch of sunlight. The sound of music drifted by on the breeze. The hare hopped off to investigate. The hare loved music. Music always reminded the hare of food. The hare began looking for some baby grass shoots to nibble. The tortoise continued, always looking to the front, never to the left, never to the right.

The hare found an old, hollow log covered in toadstools. It made a great hide away and for a while the hare hid in it imagining the fox was outside. After that it felt good to jump and stretch, stretch and jump, and jump some more.

The tortoise plodded on looking straight ahead. To the left there was a wild raspberry bush so heavy with fruit that its top was brushing the ground. To the right a fledgling fell from its nest to lie helpless caught in some undergrowth. The tortoise noticed neither.

After the jumping and stretching the hare felt hot and thirsty. So the hare ran to the river and had a drink. Then finding a shady spot the hare settled down for a nap.

The tortoise left the wood and neared the bridge, looking never to the left and never to the right. The tortoise reached the bridge, looking never to the left and never to the right. The hare woke up. The tortoise crawled onto the bridge, triumphant. The crow reported to the animals at the starting line that the tortoise had won. Some of them cheered and then they all went about their business.

When it got dark and there was no one to see the hare climbed up carefully from under the bridge and went home. The moon was very beautiful.

Now while it is certainly is true that the tortoise won the race...which one truly experienced the journey? Sometimes it’s nice to turn truth upside down and to look at things from an entirely different angle.

I went for a walk with a friend and our dogs down to Dunham Massey on Monday. There were a few obstacles thrown in our way, that seemed to be blocking us, but we got there in the end. It was much needed; it was lovely to walk and talk side by side. It is one of my great pleasures to saunter with another, talking and listening and sharing the natural beauty, just being alive to everything. We grew up in the same part of the world and at the same time, so there were many things to share. We talked about our lives, as well as our own spiritual journey’s. There was much laughter too. It was lovely and we passed many folk along the way. It was also interesting to see the two dogs personalities at play. Molly always curious and into discovering new things, Holly, my friends dog, not really moving from her side. We were deep in conversation when suddenly in front of us was an unexpected sight. There was a couple with what turned out to be six white ferrets. Molly was fascinated and wanted to have a good sniff and look, she did not bark, she was just curious. Thankfully neither of them were “Ferret-legging”, not something that you would expect to see in Cheshire, only in Yorkshire. We talked with them for a while and then journeyed on. We sauntered on round and round. It was just what I needed, I think we both needed it, before returning to our respective lives.

I love to journey with others, you never know what will open up to you in a day. I have found the key is not so much where you go, but how you journey and of course with who. Remembering of course journey means what you do, or where you travel in one day. It is derived from the Latin word "diarnum" meaning daily portion from which the old French word "jornee" which meant a day’s work or a day's travel, is derived. I love this truth, it makes me smile broadly. We all live one day at a time, this is the beautiful journey of life; beautiful but sometimes heartbreakingly painful. You just don’t know what you are stepping into when you journey out each day. Monday was a beautiful journey. As I reflected that evening I was taken on many journey’s throughout my life; I was connected and reconnected to many days and many folk I have journeyed with throughout my life. It connected my present to the past and filled my heart with loving hope of the journeys I will wander on in the future. It brought, faith, hope and above all love alive in me, the three that call me out each day.

Monday was of course 3rd February, which is a special day on the Calendar. Do you know what special day it was? Well Monday was “Elmo’s” Day. Elmo is a wonderfully and loving character from Sesame Street, we should all be more like Elmo. Elmo is probably best know for the following little aphorism: “Elmo thinks it’s important to be kind because if you’re kind to somebody, then they’ll be kind to somebody, and it goes on and on and on.”

Surely this is how each of us ought journey on with one another. Might sound a bit radical in this day an age, well so be it. Be kind, be loving, be respectful, acknowledge the Divine within each and every person you meet, all life that you greet. In so doing you will make life a beautiful journey. What are you going to do with the day?

Last weekend was Imbolc, St Brigid’s Day, Candlemass and of course Groundhog Day. This is considered the beginning of Spring. I have certainly been seeing many snowdrops, particularly around the great trees. I love how these tiny, delicate little flowers stand out at the base of these enormous trees. We have journeyed through another winter, or so it seems. The Groundhog it seems disagrees. Sadly. bad news on the Punxsutawney Phil front, the groundhog, he saw his shadow. This means, according to the tradition, six more weeks of winter. So, winter might be a little longer this year.

Despite this as we walked round Dunham, it felt like Spring was in the air and those snowdrops were beautiful silver buds of hope. The snow drops are everywhere. The snowdrop is considered a symbol of hope. Legend has it that they appeared as such after Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden. Eve was about to give up hope that the winter would never end, but an angel appeared and transformed some snowflakes into the flower the snowdrop, showing that the winter will eventually come to an end. The flower is linked to the purification associated with “Candlemass” as the old rhyme goes:

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

End of winter or not, we get to journey. We journey on together and we journey on in hope. I have certainly felt, faith, hope and above all love in my heart, despite some of the troubles of life, being heavy on my heart.

I was part of a wonderful celebration of 50 years of recovery taking place in the small schoolroom at the chapel. It brought to my mind so many lives I have journeyed with these past few years. It brought to my heart thoughts of those who came before me and those who will journey on day by day. So much faith and hope and above all love.

There are times when we have to trudge as we journey, when we have to hanker down, but we must not do so facing the ground. The word trudge originally meant to walk in snow shoes, it is a word of Scandinavian origin, it depicts labour and a faith and hope and love to keep on going, this is needed in the winter months of course. We do not need to do so with our heads to the ground. We can also saunter, a word of disputed origin, with a both a joyful and an image that depicts a holy journey. Some say that travellers to the holy land were on a saunter, who knows. The key is to journey, but to do so taking in all of life, to do so joyfully, in wonderful company, taking in all of life. You will be amazed by what you see.

Remember to journey is what we do in a day. Sometimes the biggest mistake we make is that we continue journeying on, head down, not looking all around us, too focused on a perceived goal. This is due I am sure to the fear that if we don’t keep on moving, we might get lost or that our troubles might catch up with us. I do not believe that this is healthy. In many ways by just marching on ever forward we can become completely lost, in the sense that we lose who we are at the core of ourselves, that sense of belonging here in life, as we are, wanted, needed and loved.

These thoughts bring to mind the beautiful poem “Lost” by David Wagoner.

“Lost”

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

by David Wagoner

It is so vital to pause to take in the life we lead to enjoy this life. To be the hare and not the tortoise.

No one is ever truly lost, provided you maintain a faith in life and love.

It matters what sustains us, what holds us through life, what calls us out to journey on. What daily bread we take. The reason the rich young man could not follow Jesus was that his faith, his love was in finite things. A repeated message of the Gospels is that you cannot serve two masters. Sometimes our master is of course some perceived goal, some place we feel we must get to, so much so that we don’t get to experience all that is life, we fail to live by love and eventually lose all faith and hope, this is no way to live.

Throughout our journeys’ we pass through many stages of our lives and looking back no doubt we can see these staging posts. I was reflecting on this after my walk with my friend on Monday. I was reliving so many staging posts and so many folk I have both sauntered and trudged side by side with, as I have journeyed on. It has filled my heart with love all week long.

We folk wandering around the parks are no different to those characters from the ancient stories and their many great examples of the different types of journeys, pilgrimages and Odyssey’s that we may undertake. In his meditation “The Spiritual Journey” David O Rankin names a few who have walked courageously through theirs. Stating:

“It is Moses leading the Jews through the desert of Sinai, and Jesus enduring the temptation in the wilderness of Israel, and Buddha seeking enlightenment along the dusty roads of India.

It is the glorious voyage of Odysseus in Homer’s Odyssey, the narrow paths through the circles of hell in Dante’s Inferno, and the confessions of the travellers in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.

It is the pilgrims sailing on the Mayflower, the settlers moving westward, being On the Road with Jack Kerouac, and spinning through a black hole in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey”

We are all of us pilgrims on the sacred journey that is life and like so many of the more famous ones we think we have to go someplace else to discover our own Nirvana or to build the New Jerusalem. Just as the pilgrims on the Mayflower did in the seventeenth century. They believed that they had to travel a great distance to a new land to create their heaven on earth. They were focused on some perceived destination. I have discovered that this is not necessary. In fact in so doing you may just fail to experience the gift that is this life. You do not have to travel great distances to experience the beautiful journey and you do not need to travel great distances to build the New Jerusalem, it must be here, in our own hearts or nowhere. The “Kin-dom” of Love has to be built here or nowhere.

I suspect it’s the same about finding ourselves once again when we feel lost. Just be here, you are not lost. Look around and look within you and listen to that voice within and that of those you journey with. Don’t walk on, head down, look up at life all around you, be awake. Look for the light that shines bright, that spark of the Divine that is within everything. That which awakens the sense of my senses, and enables us to journey on. That which allows us to feel at home wherever our feet are planted. That Kin-dom of Love, within me, within each of us and within everything.

Let love be our navigator it will always lead us home, to the place where we belong.

Enjoy the gift that is the beautiful journey, where ever it may lead.

Enjoy the journey, it is the gift, this day.

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

Do not follow blindly, 'cos you'll soon find yourself lost

I was sat with friends enjoying coffee, outside Café Nero, in the early morning sun the other day. I was facing away from the street, a position I don’t usually enjoy; I much prefer to face out, watching the world go by. We were in a positive mood, the beautiful hot weather no doubt playing a major part in this. This was suddenly brought to an abrupt halt. There was some kind of distressed sound from right behind me. We all stood up and turned round. Right there in front of us was the street cleaner with his cart, he had halted and looked shocked. There was also a woman with a baby in a papoose in front of her, she had a black Labrador. The dog was a guide dog as the woman was blind. We were all in shock, not knowing what had happened or what to do. There was the fear the baby was hurt, thankfully the child was not. The woman broke down in tears and was led to sit down. The street cleaner was ok too. Things settled down and all was ok. Folk continued about their business. I returned home a little later. The woman, her baby and guide dog were just behind me and two friends as we walked towards the chapel. I was stood talking with two friends having crossed the road. Molly has learnt not to cross until the green man appears and it begins to beep. I stood talking with the friends on the chapel side of the road. As we were talking we saw the woman, her baby and guide dog safely cross the road. We spoke with her, all was well, and interestingly she was coming to the large schoolroom at the chapel to go to her regular mother and child exercise class. The guide dog knew the way very well.

The whole incident has been on my mind ever since. It certainly awakened my “homiletic consciousness”, which I once heard described as “going through life thinking, “Can I use this in a sermon?” . Any person who uses their own experiences of life to create something for others does the same, such as an artist or poet, a writer, teacher, song writer or storyteller. As you can see this is happening now. It got me thinking about how much the woman has to trust in her guide dog to live freely in the world. How much that incident must have shaken her up. How frightening it must have been not only for her own safety, but also her baby. How whilst we were all shocked, everyone responded in loving and caring ways and just wanted to make sure everyone was ok. How after breaking down the woman picked herself up, dusted herself down and started all over again. She got on with her day, she trusted her dog absolutely and all was well. She knew the path that she must follow, as did the dog and she continued on it.

I was talking about the incident with the friends who were present a few mornings later, trying to make sense of what happened. We hadn’t seen it as it happened. It was the noise and change in atmosphere that caught our attention. We surmised that both parties must have been moving slowly. How did the dog not see what was in front of him? How did the street cleaner not see them? They just slowly walked into each other, like two ships in a fog. We surmised the road cleaner was probably daydreaming and the guide dog got distracted. One friend suggested that perhaps the dog had been distracted by the scent of Molly who is in season. This seems possible, but who knows. It got me thinking and as you can see it awakened my homiletic consciousness.

I’ve never had a great sense of direction and or spatial awareness. My mind does not operate in images. Maybe this is why I rarely if ever remember my dreams or even recall having them. I’m more of a communicator really and mainly through sound and conversation. I can describe to you exactly how things felt that morning, the emotions of the individuals, but the imagery is all a bit vague. I have other friends who will be able to describe who was say where, what people were wearing and what the individuals looked like. We are all different, it is very important to understand this. We truly do not all think alike, although I do like to believe that we can all love alike.

Now while my way of operating has its advantages, there are some disadvantages too. I get lost very easily. This is why since I learnt to drive I have relied on Sat Nav. Moving onto the Waze system in more recent years. It has usually proved reliable. The great thing about it is if you take a wrong turn, it will quickly adjust and direct you back on track. Generally, this has worked out well, but once or twice it has not. Sat Nav is very good but it cannot be relied upon 100%, sometimes it can send you down the wrong path, especially if you follow unquestioningly. Sat nav is a good guide, but you must never stop trusting your eyes, and or common sense. No guide is 100% reliable all the time, even the best trained of guide dogs it seems. We will take knocks, we will get lost on our journeys through life.

Life itself and the spiritual life in particular are often described as a journey. That said it’s not a journey in which we really travel a great distance. As Wendell Berry so beautifully wrote, echoing that great mystic Meister Eckhart, “And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground at our feet, and learn to be at home.”

On this journey we often come to forks in the road when we must take decisions on which way we ought to turn. Many times we make wrong decisions, I think we have to get it wrong many times, before we get it right. Many times we get lost too. Many times we take advice from others and follow it blindly. Many times this is helpful but other times it really is not. It can lead us down the wrong path, but that’s ok because we can always get back on track again.

Often this journey is described as a path, I have just done so, and I have heard many say that it gets narrower. I am not convinced of this. If I have learnt anything I have learnt that the spiritual journey is not like a path at all and certainly not a narrow one. In my experience it is broad and rooming all inclusive and welcoming, never exclusive or forbidding and open to all. What in 12 step culture they call “The Broad Highway” and one that allows a great deal of room for error.

I think one of the biggest mistakes we make when we speak of spiritual matters is when we describe them in narrow language. It puts people off, because it sounds too much and beyond us. It should not be like that, there is room for us all and it isn’t so hard to get started, it just requires a slight change in direction.

Let us also remember that the spiritual journey is one of depth and not really distance. Sometimes the biggest mistake we make is that we continue journeying on, head down, not looking all around us, too focused on a perceived goal. This is due, I am sure, to the fear that if we don’t keep on moving we might get lost or that our troubles might catch up with us. I do not believe that this is healthy. In many ways by just marching on ever forward we can become completely lost, in the sense that we lose who we are at the core of ourselves, that sense of belonging here in life, as we are, wanted, needed and loved. Or we walk into something without knowing it is front of us. Anyone can live their life as if they were blind.

These thoughts bring to mind the beautiful poem “Lost” by David Wagoner,

“Lost”

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

by David Wagoner

Sometimes when you feel lost you aren’t as lost as you think. What you are is actually in a place you would rather not be. This is beautifully illustrated in the following bit of wisdom form my old favourite Mulla Nasruddin

Nasruddin was sat on a river bank when someone shouted to him from the opposite side:

“Hey! how do I get to the other side?”
To which Nasruddin replied “You are on the other side!”

We are always on the other side of the river.

Throughout our journeys’ we pass through many stages of our lives and looking back no doubt we can see these staging posts, moments in our lives that have made us who we are, that have deepened our experiences of life and given us wisdom to pass on to others, if they would care to have it.

On our journeys there are not only staging posts, but guide posts and actual guides too, that have helped we pilgrims along the way. Some we have paid heed of, others we have not. Some ancient, some contemporary. Hopefully we have not followed them blindly, but sometimes no doubt we have as we have trusted too implicitly perhaps, a bit like those Sat Nav horror stories we sometime here about of people driving almost blindly into a lake or river. We have to learn to trust our senses as well as the sixth sense too, the inner voice, the inner light that speaks to us when we have ears that can hear.

The ancient stories give many great examples of the different types of journeys, pilgrimages and Odyssey’s that we may undertake. In his meditation “The Spiritual Journey” David O Rankin names a few who have walked courageously through theirs. Stating:

“It is Moses leading the Jews through the desert of Sinai, and Jesus enduring the temptation in the wilderness of Israel, and Buddha seeking enlightenment along the dusty roads of India.

It is the glorious voyage of Odysseus in Homer’s Odyssey, the narrow paths through the circles of hell in Dante’s Inferno, and the confessions of the travellers in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.

It is the pilgrims sailing on the Mayflower, the settlers moving westward, being On the Road with Jack Kerouac, and spinning through a black hole in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey”

We are all of us pilgrims on the sacred journey that is life and like so many of the more famous ones we think we have to go someplace else to discover our own Nirvana or to build the New Jerusalem. Just as the pilgrims on the Mayflower did in the seventeenth century, with those words from Hebrews we heard earlier singing in their hearts. They believed that they had to travel a great distance to a new land to create their heaven on earth. Well, I have discovered that this is not necessary. You do not have to travel great distances to experience the beautiful journey and you do not need to travel great distances to build the New Jerusalem, it must be here, in our own hearts or nowhere. The “Kin-dom” of Love has to be built here or nowhere.

I suspect it’s the same about finding ourselves once again when we feel lost. Who or what do we listen to? Well I am learning to listen to that inner voice, that light that shines bright within all of us. That spark of the Divine that is within everything. That which awakens the sense of my senses, that which guides me home no matter how lost I am and that which allows me to be at home wherever my feet are planted. That Kin-dom of Love, within me, within each of you and within everything.

Let love be our navigator it will always lead us home, to the place where we belong.

The problem isn’t getting lost, we all get lost at times. The problem is in losing faith that you cannot find your way again. The key is how we live when we find ourselves lost. Do we close down and get lost deeper in our fear, or do we pause and reach out and ask for help from those loving forces that are all around whether visible or invisible.

I saw a beautiful example of faith and trust the other day sat outside Café Nero. A woman who had experienced a terrifying knock, it must have been an awful shock to her confidence in herself and her guide. She took stock, she accepted help and comfort and then she got up once again, with her baby safe and secure in her papoose, hanging infront of her heart. She trusted her guide dog and she continued on her way with her daily activities. I saw she had absolute trust and no fear as she waited to be guided across the road. What a beautiful example of faith and trust and most of all love.

Thank you

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

“If you wonder while you wander then you are never lost”

 

From “Stay Curious: How Questions and Doubts Can Save Your Faith”

By Stephanie Williams O'Brien 

A thought-provoking exploration of the difference between wandering and wondering.

"If the wilderness wandering we read about in Scripture were reframed as a time of wonder, it would be an entirely different experience! I see the difference between wandering and wondering like this:

"Wandering is a coping mechanism of avoidance that tries to minimize what is uncomfortable.

"Wondering is an active pursuit of questions and a willingness to risk the tension in the unknown.

"Wandering is a way to steer clear of the stress that comes from a deep concern about the direction that might be best for you and others around you.

"Wondering is a heightened curiosity about God, yourself, others, and the world that, while often uncomfortable, is full of passion and intrigue.

"Wandering is motivated by fear, confusion, apathy, and an endless search for novelty.

"Wondering is motivated by passionate uncertainty about the mystery of God and the excitement that comes with discovery.

"Throughout the story, God was inviting a different approach. And God still offers that invitation to us — to take on a posture of wonder.

"Wonder that fuels our passion and leads to discovery. Wonder that pushes us to even deeper questions and away from pat answers. God is calling us not to satisfying contentment but to deeper meaning-making experiences — the kind of experiences that bring a community or a family closer together rather than further apart. The kind of journey that invites the courage to risk and squelches apathy.

"With questions propelling us along the way, we wonder through the woods rather than wander."

...I wonder while I wander...Will you come and wander with with me while I wonder my way through this little "blogspot"...

Like most folk I have felt like I’ve been wandering around in circles in the wilderness these last 12 months. Almost as if I haven’t been fully living in reality, as alive as I would want to be, my senses have been a little dulled. I have felt, to some degree, a little physically separate. So. I haven’t felt like I was wandering like the ancient Israelites did together, in community for forty years, with Good old Moses. That said I have not felt like I was in isolation either like Jesus enduring forty days of temptation. I have been connected and of course not completely alone but at the same time wandering around aimlessly, getting by, surviving, somehow not fully alive.

I went for a walk with this in my mind the other morning. I passed a speed limit sign that read max speed 40mph, this brought 40 into my mind. I asked myself why does the Bible always refer to the number 40? Well, the number 40 symbolises a period of test. It is referenced a total of 146 times in the Bible, in both the Jewish and Christian scripture. The last twelve months have been a test for so many of us and it is not over yet. This week brought good news of course. Death rates are falling as the vaccine continues to be rolled out and a road map out of the restrictions we have been living through is being drawn. It seems that we are tentatively heading towards life as we would like to live it. This will rightly be a slow process, not an overnight matter, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. The schools will be open again soon. We will begin to be able to socialise in small numbers outdoor, the gyms, hairdressers and eateries will begin to open. Who knows in a few months time we may all be able to sing together, although that is not going to happen this side of summer, I suspect. We are starting to slowly come out of the wilderness. Let us continue to tread carefully as we do so.

I’ve been thinking about the wild and the wilderness as I have found myself walking about again this Lent. I am taking a long daily walk, connecting in silence to life all around me. It is doing me a whole load of good. Of course it is helping me physically, as the gyms won’t be open for six or seven weeks. It is also helping me connect both inwardly and outwardly too. Walking alone is something I have done at different times in my life. As a child I would go off alone and almost live in a kind of bubble, I felt safe, but cut off in this state, it was so vital then. This was my childhood safe place. It disconnected me from a painful and frightening reality. As an adult it is a different feeling. These days it is about connecting ever more to reality. By doing so I connect to God both within myself and alive in reality. When I am out walking alone, I am not doing so as someone who feels lost and is looking to be found. Rather this is a time to wander and to wonder and thus feel connected.

Sometimes we can find ourselves utterly lost, even when in familiar surroundings. We can of course feel lost because our lives have had to be restricted and we do not know what to do with ourselves. Or that we have lost someone or something precious and we are drowning in grief.  There are other times when we can feel utterly lost within ourselves. This happens when we separate ourselves from what we know to be true, from that love at the heart of ourselves and the heart of life. When we have blinded ourselves to the light both within and without. I remember the feeling oh so well, when I walled myself in and I began to feel alone and utterly lost.

So, what do we do when we feel lost? Well sometimes we keep on wandering, round and round hoping to find the promised land, alive and awake attempting to learn from the experience, like the ancient Israelites did. Other times, the thing to do is to pause to stop wandering and begin to wonder instead. To loosen up, to lighten up, to be patient and to trust, to take a breath, to enter calm and quiet, to be open once again to let love reach in as well as pour out. As we do, we don’t feel as lost in the wild and instead of wandering aimlessly we begin to wonder with purpose.

This brings to mind a wonderful poem titled “The Way” by Edwin Muir

Friend, I have lost the way.
The way leads on.

Is there another way?
The way is one.

I must retrace the track.
It’s lost and gone.

Back, I must travel back!
None goes there, none.

Then I’ll make here my place –
The road runs on –

Stay here, forever stay.
None stays here, none.

I cannot find the way.
The way leads on.

Oh, places I have passed!
That journey’s done.

And what will come at last?
The way leads on.

Now of course sometimes when you feel lost you aren’t as lost as you think. What you are is actually in a place you would rather not be, or in a situation you would rather not be living through. I am sure we have all felt this at times these last 12 months, I know I have. This brings to mind a wonderful piece of wisdom form my old favourite Mulla Nasruddin

Nasruddin was sat on a river bank when someone shouted to him from the opposite side:

“Hey! how do I get to the other side?”

To which Nasruddin replied “You are on the other side!”

We are all on the other side of the river bank.

By the way I saw a delightful sight on the other side of the canal the other day. I saw a family walking with two dogs. One was a little Shih Tzu who was the spitting image of our little Charlie, walking side by side was a giant Saint Bernard. It was a wonderful and hilarious sight. I have been chuckling about it ever since. I would have missed it if I’d been lost in myself and not walking in the wilds of life. My mind has wondered about many scenarios about that little combination these last few days.

I digress.

Whether any of us like it or not, we all find ourselves on the wrong river bank at times, not knowing how to get to the side we would like to. We all find ourselves in an uncertain place, lost and without guidance. We all feel lost at times. Sometimes we need to just let our minds wander and begin to wonder. Sometimes those old tales help here. These stories have a way of revealing reality through their beautiful mystery.

In his meditation “The Spiritual Journey” David O Rankin names a few who have walked courageously through theirs. Stating:

“It is Moses leading the Jews through the desert of Sinai, and Jesus enduring the temptation in the wilderness of Israel, and Buddha seeking enlightenment along the dusty roads of India.

It is the glorious voyage of Odysseus in Homer’s Odyssey, the narrow paths through the circles of hell in Dante’s Inferno, and the confessions of the travellers in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.

It is the pilgrims sailing on the Mayflower, the settlers moving westward, being On the Road with Jack Kerouac, and spinning through a black hole in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey”

We are all of us pilgrims on the sacred journey that is life and like so many of the more famous ones we think we have to go someplace else to discover our own Nirvana or to build the New Jerusalem. Just as the pilgrims on the Mayflower did in the seventeenth century. They believed that they had to travel a great distance to a new land to create their heaven on earth. Well, I have discovered that this is not necessary. You do not have to travel great distances to experience the beautiful journey and you do not need to travel great distances to build the New Jerusalem, it must be here, in our own hearts or nowhere. The “Kin-dom” of Love has to be built here or nowhere.

I suspect it’s the same about finding ourselves once again when we feel lost. Who or what do we listen to? Well, I am learning to listen to that inner voice, that light that shines bright within all of us. That spark of the Divine that is within everything. That which awakens the sense of my senses, that which guides me home no matter how lost I am and that which allows me to be at home wherever my feet are planted. That Kin-dom of Love, within me, within each of you and within everything.

Let love be our navigator it will always lead us home, to the place where we belong. Do not worry too much about feeling lost, we all feel that way at times.

The problem isn’t getting lost, we all get lost at times. The problem is in losing faith that you can be found once again. The key is how we live when we find ourselves lost. Do we close down and get lost deeper in our fear, or do we pause and reach out and ask for help from those loving forces that are all around whether visible or invisible. Sometimes all we need to do is stand still and listen, to what is both within us and without us, all around us. Sometimes you just need to sing with the blackbirds, they will always sing back to you and ever more sweetly. Sometimes you just need to follow the directions in this final poem “Lost” by David Wagoner. Just  “Stand still. The forest knows where you are. You must let it find you.”

"Lost" by David Wagoner

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

Lost and Found

I ended my last "blogspot" with the following words by Mark Nepo

I keep looking for one more teacher, only to find that fish learn from water and birds learn from sky.
If you want to learn about the sea, it helps to be at sea.
If you want to learn about compassion, it helps to be in love.
If you want to learn about healing, it helps to know of suffering.
The strong live in the storm without worshipping the storm.

Mark Nepo

Now don’t we all feel at sea at times, Tossed around by the storms of life. The storms are not life by the way, but they are part of life.

I have felt myself at sea many times in my life; I have done so at times these last few months too; my mind has not been as clear as it could be at times. I have noticed I’ve got a little lost at times and I have lost things at times. My services have not been at the standard I would have liked too. I’ve also felt more tired than usual. Now there are obvious reasons for this as I have been experiencing deep grief and concern for my nearest and dearest. We are hoping that some healing will come now as last week we attended our Daniel’s (my step-brother’) inquest in Bradford. It was a deeply painful day. We held one another as we listened and bore witness. I also felt so powerfully, as powerfully as I have ever done, that loving presence holding us as we lived in the storm, but did not worship it. Something has changed, or do I mean awakened within me since Tuesday.

I have felt lost at sea quite a bit these last few months, it has changed me, but then it ought to. Living spiritually is not about transcendence, it is about transformation, formation, reformation. I feel that I know the sea more intimately than before and therefore feel better able to help my fellow travellers who from time to time, will get caught up in the storm and feel all at sea. We do not sail the ship alone, we travel in the ship of love together, as one and never alone.

I remember during a theme talk at this years Summer School one of the speakers stating something like. “Do not worry if you lose your car, that isn’t the problem. You are in trouble only when you forget that you have a car.” Well last week I thought I’d lost my car, I hadn’t I’d just parked on a different street than I thought near to Sue’s new house. I did though feel that horrible sensation in the pit of my stomach I have felt it a little too frequently in recent weeks. I thought I was losing my mind a little, I wasn’t I was just experiencing what it feels like to be lost. It humbled, it grounded me and it helped me to connect. It certainly brought down any of those barriers I am tempted to put up from time to time.

All you've got to do is surrender...

I have noticed, over time, a large collection of lost items appearing in the small schoolroom at Dunham Road. Items like scarves and hats and gloves and sunglasses and ordinary glasses. It is hard to know what to do with them, perhaps we need a “lost and found” box. I always remember such things as a child. I remember leaving something important on a bus and two or three days later getting it back as it was handed in and kept in the lost and found box. The same thing happened at the gym a few months ago as I had left my spare pair of glasses there on the Friday and only realised it when I returned on the Monday. Well there they were, a few days later, in the lost and found box. Sadly the same thing didn’t happen with my watch and then a little later my wallet when I left it in the post office after buying stamps. At least I remembered I had them and had lost them of course, now if I'd forgotten I had a watch or wallet that would have signified real trouble.

I find something deeply reassuring in the fact that “lost and found” are paired together. There is something very powerful  in the journey of faith in their pairing. There is something beautifully paradoxical in all of this. A bit like Nepo’s line, “If you want to learn about the sea, it helps to be at sea.” Gets me to think that if you want to be found you have to first of all get lost. It is the “Hero’s Journey”.

If I have learnt anything in life, and this year has taught me this once again and more deeply, it is that the problem isn’t whether or not we will get lot at times, the question is how will we live when we get lost. Now of course the first step towards finding my way again is to recognise, first of all, that I am lost. This doesn’t necessarily mean literally lost, but lost in myself, whether that be lost in fear, self-doubt, self-pity, basically lost in my own underpants.

When I am lost in myself and find myself truly “all at sea” I find that what has really happened is that I’ve separated myself once again from what I know to be true, about what is at the heart of me and the heart of life and have blinded myself to the light both within and without and I have once again walled myself in and I begin to feel alone and utterly lost. I have cut myself off from others and the love present in life. In such a state I can really do damage to myself and or others. I have done so in the past. I know that this is exactly where our Daniel had found himself, this is clear to me right now as anything has ever been. I know when I am lost, all at sea, internally, I find myself giving in to guilt, to loneliness and defensiveness. While externally I will begin to blame others for this sense of "lostness", resentment grows as does confusion in others. Don’t we all?

So when I find myself lost, how do I once again find myself? How do I go and look in that “lost and found” box of life? Well it begins, as it did when I left that important item on the bus at the age of 11 or when I lost my glasses recently. First of all I pause and then I ask for help. I ask for help internally and externally and do you know what if life has taught me anything it is that when you ask for help so many people always come rushing. As I have heard said many times, when trouble strikes, when horror and disaster strikes always look for the helpers. When you do it shows the love that is so present in humanity. It restores my faith once again.

I am most lost when I’m uptight and frightened. They key to being found is to lighten and loosen up. It requires patience and trust, perhaps the best qualities of faith. When a person is all it sea it is no use to thrash around, you need to be calm, take a breath and solutions usually come, usually you find yourself found. Sometimes you get rescued as someone else reaches through your defences with a kind word and or gentle touch and sometimes all it needs is a gentle word of encouragement and you can once again find your way back to shore.

Here is a rather lovely poem “The Way” by Edwin Muir

Friend, I have lost the way.
The way leads on.

Is there another way?
The way is one.

I must retrace the track.
It’s lost and gone.

Back, I must travel back!
None goes there, none.

Then I’ll make here my place –
The road runs on –

Stay here, forever stay.
None stays here, none.

I cannot find the way.
The way leads on.

Oh, places I have passed!
That journey’s done.

And what will come at last?
The way leads on.

Now of course sometimes when you feel lost you aren’t actually as lost as you think. What you are is actually in a place you would rather not be. I have felt that at times these last few months and I have certainly done so for my nearest and dearest. Acceptance has felt distant at times, but eventually it comes and you accept that you are where you are. This is beautifully illustrated in the following bit of wisdom form my old favourite Mulla Nasruddin

Nasruddin was sat on a river bank when someone shouted to him from the opposite side:
“Hey! how do I get to the other side?”
To which Nasruddin replied “You are on the other side!”

We are all always on the opposite side of the river to the other riverbank.

“If you want to learn about the sea, it helps to be at sea.” To be found you have to first of all get lost. I have learnt that it is important to be lost at times.

Whether any of us like it or not, we all find ourselves on the wrong river bank at times, not knowing how to get to the side we would like to. We all find ourselves in an uncertain place, lost and without guidance. We all feel lost at times. By the way we don’t really get lost in the woods and wilderness. Life isn’t really like the fairy tales although they can help us see the reality. These stories have a way of revealing reality through their beautiful mystery.

This brings to mind a rather beautiful poem “Afraid So” by Jeanne Marie Beaumont

Is it starting to rain?
Did the check bounce?
Are we out of coffee?
Is this going to hurt?
Could you lose your job?
Did the glass break?
Was the baggage misrouted?
Will this go on my record?
Are you missing much money?
Was anyone injured?
Is the traffic heavy?
Do I have to remove my clothes?
Will it leave a scar?
Must you go?
Will this be in the papers?
Is my time up already?
Are we seeing the understudy?
Will it affect my eyesight?
Did all the books burn?
Are you still smoking?
Is the bone broken?
Will I have to put him to sleep?
Was the car totaled?
Am I responsible for these charges?
Are you contagious?
Will we have to wait long?
Is the runway icy?
Was the gun loaded?
Could this cause side effects?
Do you know who betrayed you?
Is the wound infected?
Are we lost?
Will it get any worse?

We all feel lost at times, all at sea. I have re-learnt how important that is. It keeps you connected to life and allows you to grow, to be transformed. This is the point of the spiritual life. This year I have learnt once again about vulnerability. Everyone of us is vulnerable to the troubles of life. No matter how comfortable life might be at this moment that can be quickly shaken and all can be lost. That phone call can come, that changes everything, that breaks your heart.

The problem isn’t getting lost, we all get lost at times. The problem is in losing faith that you can be found once again. The key is how we live when we find ourselves lost. Do we close down and get lost deeper in our fear, or do we pause and reach out and ask for help from those loving forces that are all around whether visible or invisible.

I’m going to end this "blogspot" with one final poem, a favourite by David Wagoner that goes by the title “Lost”

Lost

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

Which Way to Turn

"Map of the Journey in Progress" by Victoria Safford

Here is where I found my voice and chose to be brave.
Here’s a place where I forgave someone, against my better judgement, and I survived that, and
unexpectedly, amazingly, I became wiser.
Here’s where I was once forgiven, was ready for once in life to receive forgiveness and to be
transformed. And I survived that also. I lived to tell the tale.

This is the place where I said no, more loudly than I’d thought I ever could, and everybody stared, but I said no loudly anyway, because I knew it must be said, and those staring settled
down into harmless, ineffective grumbling, and over me they had no power anymore.
Here’s a time, and here’s another, when I laid down my fear and walked right on into it, right up to my neck in that roiling water.

Here’s where cruelty taught me something. And here’s where I was first astonished by gratuitous compassion and knew it for the miracle it was, the requirement it is. It was a trembling time.

And here, much later, is where I returned the blessing, clumsily. It wasn’t hard, but I was
unaccustomed. It cycled round, and as best I could I sent it back on out, passed the gift along.
This circular motion, around and around, has no apparent end.
Here’s a place, a murky puddle, where I have stumbled more than once and fallen. I don’t know yet what to learn there.

On this site I was outraged and the rage sustains me still; it clarifies my seeing.
And here’s where something caught me a warm breeze in late winter, birdsong in late summer.
Here’s where I was told that something was wrong with my eyes, that I see the world strangely, and here’s what I said, “Yes, I know, I walk in beauty.”
Here is where I began to look with my own eyes and listen with my ears and sing my own song, shaky as it is.

Here is where, if by surgeon’s knife, my heart was opened up and here, and here, and here, and here. These are the landmarks of conversion.

“From Walking Toward Morning, Meditations”

...There are many landmarks in our lives and many times when turn this way or that...

I’ve never had a great sense of direction and or spatial awareness. My mind does not operate in images. Maybe this is why I rarely, if ever, remember my dreams or even recall having them. I’m more of a communicator really and mainly through sound and conversation. We are all different, it is very important to understand this. We truly do not all think alike, although I do like to believe that we can all love alike.

Now while my way of operating has its advantages, there are some disadvantages too. I get lost very easily. Even in the town I live, a place I’ve driven round for five years, I can still quite easily find myself heading almost in the opposite direction to where I’m going. My mind does not seem able to picture exactly where I ought to be going. That said where ever I am and no matter how lost I get I can always find my way back home. 

I have also noticed that I don’t seem to ever get lost when driving round back home, in West Yorkshire. The lay of the land seems much more familiar to me. I think that this is because it is stored in my heart, it is heart memory, while Greater Manchester is still very much brain memory and therefore for some reason I find it less intuitive, hence I get lost and yet my heart still manages to always take me safely back home. This may seem strange to some as I have spent 18 of my 43 years here in Greater Manchester, but it is not truly home. It is not where my heart is.

Since I passed my driving test a little over five years ago I have relied heavily on Sat Nav. Mostly this has proved reliable. The great thing about is if you take a wrong turn, it will quickly adjust and direct you back on track. It’s kind of nice to have the soothing Radio Four type female voice pointing me in the right direction when I veer off course or take a wrong turn. Generally this has worked out well, but I can think of three occasions when it has not. The first was on the way to Great Hucklow when I missed my turning and the voice directed me to take the next right. This was a terrible mistake and I soon realised I was driving up a road fit only for tractors. I got through the ordeal, as did my car and for a couple of years I learnt my lesson. The next occasion was on a journey to Crosby beach to stand with the Gormley statues. Again I missed my turn and was directed through what appeared initially to be a country lane. I passed a farmer in a tractor who looked at me bemused and a little later I realised I’d made another error and found myself virtually in a field. I managed to turn the car around and not get stuck, so it did not turn into a John Cleese moment from Clockwise, thank God. The third time was a few weeks ago when I got stuck in Devon after my nephews wedding, which I wrote about in the last blogspot. So yes while Sat Nav is very good it cannot be relied upon 100%, sometimes the softly yet authoritatively spoken voice can send you down the wrong path, especially if you follow her lead unquestioningly.

Life itself and the spiritual life in particular are often described as a journey. That said it’s not a journey in which we really travel a great distance. As Wendell Berry so beautifully wrote, echoing that great mystic Meister Eckhart, “And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground at our feet,and learn to be at home.”

On this journey we often come to forks in the road when we must take decisions on which way we ought to turn. Many times we make wrong decisions, I think we have to get it wrong many times, before we get it right. Many times we get lost too. Many times we take advice from others and follow it blindly. Many times this is helpful but other times it really is not. It can lead us down the wrong path, but that’s ok because we can always find our way back home.

Often this journey is described as a path, I have just done so, and I have heard many say that it gets narrower. I am not convinced of this. If I have learnt anything I have learnt that the spiritual journey is not like a path at all and certainly not a narrow one. In my experience it is broad and roomy all inclusive and welcoming, never exclusive or forbidding and open to all. What in 12 Step culture they call “The Broad Highway” and one that allows a great deal of room for error.

I think one of the biggest mistakes we make when we speak of spiritual matters is when we describe them in narrow language. It puts people off, because it sounds too much and beyond them. It should not be like that, there is room for us all and it isn’t so hard to get started, it just requires a slight change in direction.

Let us also remember that the spiritual journey is one of depth and not really distance. Sometimes the biggest mistake we make is that we continue journeying on, head down, not looking all around us, too focused on a perceived goal. This is due I am sure to the fear that if we don’t keep on moving we might get lost or that our troubles might catch up with us. I do not believe that this is healthy. In many ways by just marching on ever forward we can become completely lost, in the sense that we lose who we are at the core of ourselves, that sense of belonging here in life, as we are, wanted, needed and loved.

These thoughts bring to mind the beautiful poem “Lost” by David Wagoner.

“Lost”

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

by David Wagoner

...No one is ever truly lost, we can always find our way back home...

Throughout our journeys’ we pass through many stages of our lives and looking back no doubt we can see these staging posts. This is illustrated in those beautiful words of Victoria Safford's at the beginning of this "blogspot". Here she describes all those moments in our lives that have made us who we are, that have deepened our experiences of life and given us wisdom to pass on to others, if they would care to have it.

Now on our journeys there are not only staging posts, but guide posts and actual guides too, that have helped we pilgrims along the way. Some we have paid heed of, others we have not. Some ancient, some contemporary. Hopefully we have not followed them blindly, but sometimes no doubt we have as we have trusted too implicitly perhaps, like I did with my Sat Nav. We have to learn to trust our senses as well as the sixth sense too, the inner voice, the inner light that speaks to us when we have ears that can hear.

Now of course the ancient stories give many great examples of the different types of journeys, pilgrimages and Odyssey’s that we may undertake. In his meditation “The Spiritual Journey” David O Rankin names several who have walked courageously through theirs. Stating:

“It is Moses leading the Jews through the desert of Sinai, and Jesus enduring the temptation in the wilderness of Israel, and Buddha seeking enlightenment along the dusty roads of India.

It is the glorious voyage of Odysseus in Homer’s Odyssey, the narrow paths through the circles of hell in Dante’s Inferno, and the confessions of the travellers in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.

It is the pilgrims sailing on the Mayflower, the settlers moving westward, being On the Road with Jack Kerouac, and spinning through a black hole in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey”

We are all of us pilgrims on the sacred journey that is life and like so many of the more famous travellers we often believe that we have to go some place else to discover our own Nirvana or to build the New Jerusalem. Just as the pilgrims on the Mayflower did in the seventeenth century. They believed that they had travel a great distance to a new land to create their heaven on earth. Well I have discovered that this is not necessary. You do not have to travel great distances to experience the beautiful journey and you do not need to travel great distances to build the New Jerusalem, it must be here, in our own hearts or nowhere. The “Kin-dom” of Love has to be built here or nowhere.

I suspect it’s the same with finding ourselves once again, when we feel lost. Who or what do we listen to, when this happens? Well I am learning to listen to that inner voice, that light that shines bright within all of us. That spark of the Divine that is within everything. That which awakens the sense of my senses, that which guides me home no matter how lost I am and that which allows me to be at home wherever my feet are planted. That Kin-dom of Love, within me, within each of us and within everything.

Let Love be our navigator it will always lead us home, to the place where we belong.

I'm going to end with this prayer "Prayer for Travellers" by Angela Herrera

“Prayer for Travellers”

This is a prayer for all the travellers. For the ones who start out in beauty, who fall from grace, who step gingerly, looking for the way back. And for those who are born into the margins, who travel from one liminal space to another, crossing boundaries in search of centre.

This is a prayer for the ones whose births are a passing from darkness to darkness, who all their lives are drawn toward the light, and keep moving, and for those whose journeys are a winding road that begins and ends in the same place, though only when the journey is completed do they finally know where they are.

For all the travellers, young and old, aching and joyful, weary and full of life; the ones who are here, and the ones who are not here; the ones like you (and they’re all like you) and the ones who are different (for in some ways, we each travel alone).

This is a prayer for traveling memories, and surefootedness, for clear vision, and bread for your body and spirit, and water, for your safe arrival and for everyone you see along the way.