The Odyssey: Xenia and the Art of Hospitality

In the last piece we explored Homer’s “The Odyssey” looking specifically at Odysseus’ journey home, his “Nostos”. Today I am exploring another central theme of the epic poem, this being “Xenia” or “Philoxenia”. What in Christopher Nolan’s recent blockbuster film based on “The Odyssey” is referred to as “Zeus’ Law”. “Xenia” has been translated to mean “guest friendship” or “Love of a stranger”.

We will explore Xenia’s parallels with other traditions, an example being hospitality in the Abrahamic ones. We will also explore ways to be both a good host and a good guest. Ways in which we may bring the spirit of Xenia alive in our current time and place.

In ancient Greece the concept of “Xenia” or “guest friendship” was something that a “virtuous person” would be expected to cultivate. It was developed from the ancient’s belief that gods visited humans and thus any guest may well be a god in disguise. One example found in “The Odyssey” is there right at the beginning of the epic, when Athena visits Odysseus’s son, Telemachus. Athena first appeared as Mentes, a family friend, and later as Mentor to encourage the young prince to search for his missing father. When Odysseus finally returns to Ithaca, Athena repeatedly visits him, altering his appearance into an old beggar so he can safely plan his revenge against the arrogant suitors. Another example would be Hermes being sent by Zeus to visit the nymph Calypso on her island to command her to release Odysseus, and later visits Odysseus himself to warn him about the witch.

You can see Xenia thread through “The Odyssey”. Virtually every encounter manifest as a test of it. There good and bad examples of being both a good host and guest. Examples of good hosts would be Nestor, Menelaus, the Phaeacians, as well as the swineherd Eumaeus. They welcome strangers with food, shelter, and gifts before they ask who they are. Their generosity reflects both good character and respect for Zeus Xenios, the protector of guests.

Now bad hosts and bad guests face consequences. The Cyclops Polyphemus rejects Xenia by imprisoning and eating his visitors, while the “Suitors” in Odysseus' palace abuse his hospitality by consuming his food, disrespecting his household, and plotting against his son.

The “Suitors” repeated violations of Xenia ultimately lead to their downfall when Odysseus returns and reclaims his home. Throughout the epic, Homer presents hospitality not as simple politeness, but as one of the foundations of a just and civilized society. It is painting an ideal by which a virtuous person ought to live. The obligation though is not just for the host, but also the guest, the visitor have their obligations too. In “The Odyssey” Xenia acts as the moral bedrock and a crucial testing ground for civilization. Xenia is understood as a sacred duty that holds civilization together.

King Alcinous and Queen Arete (The Phaeacians), portray the Xenia ideal. They welcome Odysseus when he washes ashore broken and nameless, feeding him, bathing him, and offering safe passage home before ever asking his identity. They embody the purest form of spiritual grace and civilized duty. Another example would be Nestor and Peisistratos. Odysseus son Telemachus visits Pylos, where Nestor’s son immediately offers a seat at the feast and ritual hospitality, acting as a mentoring ritual for Telemachus to learn the noble codes of the Greek world. These are the embodiment of perfect examples of Xenia being offered by the host.

Now a classic example of Xenia not being followed would be that of Polyphemus the Cyclops. The “Mythologist Joseph Campbell saw the Cyclops as the ultimate spiritual trap of raw, lawless force and ego. Polyphemus rejects the gods and the sacred laws of Xenia by immediately asking who Odysseus is in a hostile manner and instead of offering a guest-gift, he traps and eats the men. Not what you want from a host.

An example of guests not fulfilling their Xenia obligation would be the suitors in Ithaka. They occupy Odysseus’s home, consume his livestock and abuse his home. Again as Joseph Campbell highlighted “the suitors” represent an archetypal social decay and "xenia gone bad" that demands a violent reckoning.

You can find parallels to Xenia within many of the great religious traditions. Here is an example from Christianity, found in the book of Hebrews chapter 13 v2. 2Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Who is showing hospitality to these strangers in our very midst?”

Showing hospitality and caring for the vulnerable in society is a key aspect of the Judeo - Christian and Islamic traditions. You will find it deeply rooted in the Abrahamic faiths and virtually every other world religion too. Hospitality is an essential spiritual practice. It begins with an open heart and a generosity of spirit. It’s about recognising the good in life and in people, especially those in need. It’s about recognising ourselves in those very same people. It’s about being open and welcoming to all, wherever they have been, wherever they are going and wherever they find themselves now. Tibetan Buddhist monks great the strangers visiting their temples with “Welcome, friend, from what noble spiritual tradition do you come.” The Christian monastic tradition has a long held practise of taking in strangers and offering them sanctuary as if they were Christ, inspired by those very words from Hebrews. In so doing they are following the example of Jesus who mingled with all people, there was no one left outside the city gate, no untouchables. Hospitality to me seems to be the whole concept of “Kin-dom of Love” right here right now.

Sadly, our age has become characterised by distrust, there is a fear of the strange and the stranger. Hospitality is an antidote to this, to quote Joan Chittister “Hospitality is the way we come out of ourselves. It is the first step toward dismantling the barriers of the world. Hospitality is the way we turn a prejudiced world around one heart at a time.” The importance of welcoming the stranger is at the root of all the great faith traditions.

In ancient Greece the concept of “Xenia” or “guest friendship” was cultivated. Xenia came out of the ancients belief that gods visited humans and the fear that a guest may well be a god in disguise. You find similar stories in Middle-Eastern cultures also. One key story from Genesis is to key to the Abrahamic traditions. This story of Abraham’s guests has a moral to teach us all. The guests are revealed to be angels; in fact it is implied strongly that one may well be God himself. They tell the childless and aged Abraham and Sarah that they will have a son. They given the ultimate gift as a reward for showing hospitality to strangers in their land.

Being a gracious host is a primary requirement of Islam. The Qur’an 4. 36-37 reads:

“Be kind to parents.and near kins man, and to orphans, and to the needy, and to the neighbour who is of kin, and to the neighbour who is a stranger, and to the companion at your side, and to the traveller.”

Another classic example of duty to take care of the stranger is the parable of the “Good Samaritan” You may well recall that a Jewish man lay on the side of the road beaten bloody and dying. As he lay there a Jewish priest and an official of the temple both past him by and ignored him. Then a Samaritan came by, a despised enemy of the Israelites, and he looked after the man and paid for his shelter at a local inn. He welcomed the stranger. To me this is a classic example of Xenia in the Christian tradition.

Many of the great traditions have brought witnesses of light to humanity and they have often shone in the darkest of times. Many of the myths and folk tales talk of the importance of offering hospitality to the stranger. If we welcome the stranger without hope or reward, we will be rewarded way beyond our wildest dreams. This holds true, in my belief, whether or not they have supernatural powers. If we welcome the stranger, we will reap untold rewards. There is nothing new here, this is at the heart of “Xenia”, portrayed in the Odyssey.

It is not just about being a welcoming host though. To practice Xenia is also about being a good guest. At the heart of being a good guest is humility, think of Odysseys when he washes ashore at the Phaeacians. He accepts the help on offer and tells his story, he offers himself he recognises their interconnectedness, it is a grace filled encounter. In so doing he is fulfilling his Xenia, he is being a gracious guest.

It reminds me of the following contemporary piece “The Fine Art of the Good Guest” by Jeffrey Lockwood. It illustrates the importance of being a good guest and gratefully receiving what is on offer. Jeffrey Lockwood is suggesting that we should listen to what the host has to offer by graciously accepting his food or activities, however peculiar they may seem to us. This is Xenia and a wonderful example of it.

Here is Jeffrey’s offering.

“The Fine Art of the Good Guest” by Jeffrey Lockwood

The most important thing that I’ve learned in travelling to more than twenty countries is the art of being a guest. And I’m a particularly fine visitor at the supper table. I’ve consumed live fish in Inner Mongolia, not-quite-coagulated blood sausage on the Tibetan plateau, shredded pig’s ear in China, grilled lamb fat in Uzbekistan, horse steaks in Kazakhstan, vodka made from fermented mare’s milk in Siberia, vegemite in Australia, goat in Brazil, and snails in France. I don’t have an iron stomach, by any means, but I do have the will to be a virtuous visitor.

We are all visitors—even when we are home. Our time in any relationship or place is ultimately limited. We are passing through; nobody stays forever. How might we act if we consider ourselves guests in the lives of friends and family? Being a good guest is rather simple in principle but occasionally challenging in practice.

One begins by demanding nothing more than the bare elements of life and dignity, which every host is more than delighted to exceed. The good guest then simply allows the other person to be a good host—to share his gifts, to play her music, to tell his stories, to show her places, and to serve his foods. Finally, a guest should cultivate and express genuine gratitude. It need not be effusive or exorbitant, only sincere.

We might also think of ourselves as uninvited, but not unwelcome, guests of the planet. And I think the rules for being a good guest of the world are just the same: Ask little, accept what is offered, and give thanks.

I recently visited my mum and enjoyed some “Traditional Fish Chips”, cooked in “Beef Dripping”. I was chatting with a friend who is originally from Oxford and now lives in central Manchester. He told me about a “traditional fish chip shop found on Cross Street in the city. He mentioned sayings on the wall, one being a famous quotation by Milton Friedman stating, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch”. Suggesting there is a price to pay for everything. Personally, I have never found this to be true. I have received generosity and countless free meals throughout my life. I may not have acknowledged it at the time, but looking back so much has been given to me without any expectation of it being returned. I have of course given to others, even if it just my time throughout my life. The giving is not direct, paid back to those who gave to me, but indirect, it is for those in need. This to me is very much the spirit of Xenia.

Poet Philosopher David Whyte has spoken extensively of the abundance of free meals he has been given throughout his life. He says his life has been sustained by unexpected generosity, vulnerability, and the invisible help of strangers at crucial crossroads.

One powerfully and life changing example he often speaks of is when he survived a near fatal bout of dysentery in the Himalayas. He stumbled half dead into the home of Tibetan family he did not know. They took him in and nursed him with local provisions. They asked nothing in return. This was a life changing moment for Whyte, his life was never the same again and led to him feeding and nourishing the world with language and words. He moved from being a good guest to becoming a good host, in so doing he is fulfilling his Xenia.

This is exemplified in his poem “Loaves and Fishes”

“Loaves and Fishes” by David Whyte

This is not
the age of information.

This is not
the age of information.

Forget the news,
and the radio,
and the blurred screen.

This is the time of loaves
and fishes.

People are hungry,
and one good word is bread
for a thousand

Whyte’s philosophy suggests that our lives are not an isolated struggle, but a continuous, primal exchange where "one good word" or a shared meal acts as deep nourishment for the hungry. He views these gifts as reminders that we are fundamentally interconnected and that receiving grace gracefully is part of the conversational nature of life. To me this seems like a modern day embodiment of “Xenia”

“Xenia” begins by recognising that each encounter has divine potential within it. That we need to greet one another in such a way. This mutual reverence is portrayed beautifully in the following story, “The Strangers Gift”.

“The Strangers Gift”

There was once a village that had fallen on very hard times. The villages had once been very happy, and their community had been famous for its hospitality and friendliness, and the warmth with which it welcomed strangers.

But something had gone wrong in the village. People had begun to bicker with one another. Quarrels broke out for no apparent reason. Rivalry sprang up where once there had been friendship and trust. The chief of the village was very sad about this. He knew that the people would never be happy like this, but he could do nothing to restore the old times of harmony and peace. Strangers no longer wanted to visit the village. The people stopped caring for it. The village was falling into ruin.

But it happened that one day a stranger came by. He approached the village like one with a mission, as though he already knew what he would find there. And very soon, he met the village chief. He recognised the sad expression in his eyes, and the two were soon engaged in a serious conversation.

The village chief told the stranger about his feelings of despair, and his fears that soon the village would disintergarate. The stranger told the village chief that he might know a way to redeem the lost village, and restore it to a real community again.

“Tell me the secret,” The village chief begged the stranger.

“The secret is very simple,” the stranger said, by way of reply.

“The fact is, one of the villagers is actually the Messiah”

The village chief could hardly believe what he was hearing, yet the stranger had an air of authority about him that was irrefutable.

The stranger left, but the village chief couldn’t resist telling his closest friend what the stranger had told him. Soon the rumour ran through the village like wildfire.

“One of us is the Messiah! Can you believe it, somewhere, hidden among our number, the messiah is living.!”

Now deep down, the villagers were a godly folk who wanted things to be right in their community. The thought that the Messiah himself might be living among them, incognito, made them see things very differently. Could it be the baker? They wondered. Or the postman? Or the old lady who breeds chickens and sells eggs? Perhaps its old granny Riley, whom the children were in the habit of taunting because of her scarred old face. The speculation went on and on.

But the strange thing was that, after the stranger’s visit, things were never the same again. People began to treat each other with reverence. They lived like people who had a common purpose, and who were seeking for something very precious together, never quite knowing whether the treasure was actually right in front of them.

Before long, visitors began to come to the village, just to be part of the happy, holy atmosphere that prevailed there. The stranger never came back. He didn’t need to.

The stranger brought the greatest gift that the people of the village could have wished for, he taught them how to learn to revere one another. That the divine was in some sense in all of them and that if they cared and nurtured one another, as it did. Now of course he tricked them into this in some sense, but would they have listened if he’s just told them to do this?

But then isn’t that how the great stories work. They tell us one thing which often leads to something far more wonderful than could ever have imagined. Something that is found throughout “The Odyssey”.

“The Odyssey” is an ancient tale. It may seem far away and far fetched, but there at the heart is a universal message teaching how we should be with another. That we ought o treat each other as if we were Divine, with love honour and respect, to welcome the stranger as a friend, we just don’t yet know.

May we see in the face of our neighbour, who we do not know, the divine light that is in all things. May we both give and receive Xenia in all that we feel, all that we think, all that we say and all that we do.

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

The Hill’s are Alive with the Sound of Music: Universalism Inspired Oscar Hammerstein

A friend of mine sent me a message the other day stating “I’ve never been called a nerd before, I quite like it”. She had been gently teased earlier in the day as she had been showing a group of us an app on her phone showing the number of inclines in the Peak District she had recently climbed and all the ones she has yet to climb. She seemed so thrilled with this. She has in recent times taken to going off on her own on long country walks, buying maps and all sorts of things. She is having a ball and it is wonderful to see such enthusiasm for life. I replied to her message “Climb every mountain”. I meant both metaphorically and literally. I am sure she will give it a go. Later in the week she told me “15 since mid February, so another 80 to go!!!! I’m so nerdy (nerdy these days instead of needy). She later informed me that these little hill's are named "Ethel's". Named after "Ethel Mary Bassett Haythornthwaite (née Ward) MBE (18 January 1894 – 11 April 1986), who was an English environmental campaigner, activist and poet.[1][2] She was a pioneer of countryside protection as well as town and country planning both locally and nationally."

“Climb every mountain” has been on my mind these last few days. I was smiling and singing it as I drove between Urmston and Altrincham last Sunday. The seed had been planted by John Poskitt and Graham Harrison who had heard reference to Oscar Hammerstein II’s childhood and upbringing at what was described as a Unitarian Sunday school in New York and how this was a great influence on his life and work. So, this week I’ve been climbing every mountain myself and explored Hammerstein and the influence of Universalism, a faith based on hope, exemplified in songs such as “Climb every mountain” “You’ll never walk alone”, “Cockeyed optimist”.

Here is an example of religious influences in the following quote by Hammerstein

“In art the goodness of the human spirit must be fighting for its life. People must leave the theatre the church, or the lecture hall, with a deeper faith and higher interest in human kind, than they brought in with them”.

His optimism grew from his sense in the joy of living. He engaged with what was beautiful in the world and encouraged those who engaged with him to see it too. He was not denying the troubles of life, just pointing to life’s beauty. He sang the joy of living in all its mystery. In so doing he was preaching the Gospel of Hope, the Universalism of his childhood.

Again as he wrote:

“I know the world is filled with troubles and many injustices. But reality is as beautiful as it is ugly. I think it is just as important to sing about beautiful mornings as it is to talk about slums. I just couldn't write anything without hope in it.”

Or in this song from “Oaklahoma

Oh, what a beautiful mornin',
Oh, what a beautiful day.
I got a beautiful feelin'
Ev'erything's goin' my way.

Hammerstein’s father was from a Jewish family and was prominent in New York theatre. His mother was from a British liberal protestant family, I suspect Unitarian. As a child he attended “The Church of the Divine Paternity” in New York. This is now the Fourth Universalist Society in the City of New York and part of the Unitarian Universalist denomination. The Unitarians and Universalist became one denomination in the 1960’s not long after Hammerstein’s death due to stomach cancer.

He carried his spirit of Universalism with him throughout his life and work. It was how he engaged with life. Foundational to him was the following “The Fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man and salvation by character”. Now of course this is old fashioned language today, man in those days meant every human being, not just males. The God of love that he believed in, loved all equally. You will find Universalist themes throughout Hammerstein’s lyrics; themes such as hope, compassion and the potential for human goodness, were threaded throughout the lyrics of Oklahoma, Carousel, South Pacific and the King and I. It is incredible to think that this joy filled musical theatre was some of the most powerful social commentary of its time.

Just think of the following from “South Pacific” reflecting on the internalised racism of Lt Cable and Nellie

You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear,
You’ve got to be taught from year to year,
It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear—
You’ve got to be carefully taught!

You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a different shade—
You’ve got to be carefully taught.

Hammerstein’s work revealed his Universalism so beautifully; these musicals are a wonderful exploration of his theological depth. In his work you see the Universalists belief in the possibility for change, for hope, for human progress. You see God at the heart of this, a loving God who accepts all, a Divine Unity; you see the possibility for redemption and the restoration of the soul, as well as his belief in the social Gospel and in the assertion of human unity. Perhaps we ought to re-examine some of these musicals in these divisive times. They are filled with joy too, something we all need.

Hammerstein was hope filled, he believed in the God of love and that this love is what ought to be at the heart of what we do. He wrote constantly about love, in its many and varied forms. He also sang about never losing sight of what is wholesome and beautiful in this world. Something I’ve focused on much in recent weeks. As my friend has as she’s been climbing every mountain. The hills are alive with the sound of music. May it fill all our hearts.

Hammerstein faith was about how we engage with this world. It was a conversation fuelled by hope and possibility and beauty, despite the very real troubles we all face. It is important how we face and greet life. The conversations we have with life and the conversations life has with us.

Another friend sent me a message this week. She had been reading a book I gave to her as a present several years ago. It was a funny exploration around the origins of words. The book is “The Etymologicon” by Mark Forsyth

The word was “Ciao”, a greeting that has become universal through the world over the last hundred years. It came from an old Venetia dialect word “S’Ciao” which was translated as “I am your slave”. Clearly it has rather unpleasant origins. That said in time this meaning evolved to mean “I’m at your service” or “I am here for you if you need me”. So, “Ciao” became a way to express deep respect, loyalty and trust. It became a universal phrase that encompassed everyone in spite of social standing. It was a greeting that expressed deep devotion and love. Maybe Oscar Hammerstein ought to have turned it into a song. I would love to sing it, “Ciao baby!”

I received another message from another friend this week. She is back home visiting family in Transylvania. It brought to my mind those beautiful and soulful people and their lovely phrase, which like “ciao” is both a greeting and a way of saying goodbye. The phrase being “Isten aldjon”, meaning “God bless”. I love that both “ciao” and “Isten aldjon” are ways of saying hello and waving goodbye. There is something loving, respectful and beautiful about them. They are lovely ways of beginning and ending a conversation. It matters how we greet the world and how the world greets us.

As I have lived through this week I have been noticing how I engage with people and life. What my conversation with everything is and its conversation with me. Like the spring weather it has been ever changing. Sometimes four seasons in one day.

The poet philosopher and former marine zoologist David Whyte sees our lives as focused on what he calls "the great conversation" we have with ourselves and the great mysteries of life which surround us. He calls this “the conversational nature of reality.” Like Whyte I have come to believe that the essence of any real conversation is attention. It is about paying attention to that space where we meet life and life meets us, I suspect that it is in this space that God truly comes to life, or at least this is what my experiences teach me. This is a song I love to sing, the joy of living in all its mystery.

I love the way that David describes the conversational nature of reality, that we are constantly in conversation, whether we are speaking or not, so long as we are alive, awake and fully engaged.

This is beautifully illustrated in his poem “Everything Is Waiting for You?”

After Derek Mahon

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

I love the way that Whyte, through is words, encourages us to “feel the grand array; the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding out your solo voice.” He insists that the frontier of this profound reality of the world can be and is found in “the intimacy of your surroundings,” in “the way the soap dish enables you, or the window latch grants you freedom.” The key is in this line. That, “Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.” That it is about being alive to everything and allowing everything to be alive to you. This is more than just being mindful, it is about being in conversation with everything and everything with you; with everything in you and you in everything.

Everything is waiting for you. Everything is waiting for all of us. The conversation is reality. The beauty and profound nature of reality is everywhere, in everything, even the kettle boiling as you make that cup of tea for a guest. All we have to do is bring our attentiveness to the frontier between self and the rest of creation, and then enter into conversation with it. We must come out of abstraction and back into the world.

The spiritual life is about living more spiritually alive, in this life. It is about increasing our sensitivity to life itself. It is about being increasingly affected and then becoming more effective in life.

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

We have to believe we belong here of course, that we do not reject our humanity. Everything is waiting for us. More than that everything needs us to engage in the conversation of life. Life needs all of us. Everything is waiting for us.

Everything is waiting for us.

So I invite you to join with me in the conversational nature of reality.

When you walk through a storm
Keep your chin up high
And don’t be afraid of the dark.

At the end of the storm
Is a golden sky
And the sweet, silver song of a lark.

Walk on through the wind,
Walk on through the rain,
Though your dreams be tossed and blown.

Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart,
And you’ll never walk alone!

You’ll never walk alone.

Life is alive all around us and within us. We are part of it, and we play a crucial role within it. May the love that is God come alive with in us. Let’s climb every mountain, who knows what we will find at the summit.

For the hill’s are alive with the sound of music.

My heart wants to beat
Like the wings of the birds that rise
From the lake to the trees.
My heart wants to sigh
Like a chime that flies
From a church on a breeze,

To laugh like a brook
When it trips and falls
Over stones in its way,
To sing through the night
Like a lark who is learning to pray!

I go to the hills
When my heart is lonely;
I know I will hear
What I’ve heard before—
My heart will be blessed
With the sound of music,
And I’ll sing once more.

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

What is your question? Maybe by asking it one another we can live our way in answers

A friend recently asked me a tricky question. He asked me how he should answer a difficult question posed by his son. His son wanted to know what happens to us when we die. A difficult question to answer, an impossible one perhaps. One I cannot answer honestly. I think it is important not to just to pretend that you can answer a question, if you cannot do so honesty. Sometimes silence is the only truly honest answer.

It brought to my mind the rather wonderful poem “The Afterlife” by Billy Collins that was shared at both Angela Fowler’s funeral and the scattering of her ashes last week. Here it is:

“The Afterlife” by Billy Collins

While you are preparing for sleep, brushing your teeth,
or riffling through a magazine in bed,
the dead of the day are setting out on their journey.

They’re moving off in all imaginable directions,
each according to his own private belief,
and this is the secret that silent Lazarus would not reveal:
that everyone is right, as it turns out.
you go to the place you always thought you would go,
The place you kept lit in an alcove in your head.

Some are being shot into a funnel of flashing colours
into a zone of light, white as a January sun.
Others are standing naked before a forbidding judge who sits
with a golden ladder on one side, a coal chute on the other.

Some have already joined the celestial choir
and are singing as if they have been doing this forever,
while the less inventive find themselves stuck
in a big air conditioned room full of food and chorus girls.

Some are approaching the apartment of the female God,
a woman in her forties with short wiry hair
and glasses hanging from her neck by a string.
With one eye she regards the dead through a hole in her door.

There are those who are squeezing into the bodies
of animals–eagles and leopards–and one trying on
the skin of a monkey like a tight suit,
ready to begin another life in a more simple key,

while others float off into some benign vagueness,
little units of energy heading for the ultimate elsewhere.

There are even a few classicists being led to an underworld
by a mythological creature with a beard and hooves.
He will bring them to the mouth of the furious cave
guarded over by Edith Hamilton and her three-headed dog.

The rest just lie on their backs in their coffins
wishing they could return so they could learn Italian
or see the pyramids, or play some golf in a light rain.
They wish they could wake in the morning like you
and stand at a window examining the winter trees,
every branch traced with the ghost writing of snow.

(And some just smile, forever on)

The honest answer to my friends son is I don’t know. My honest answer is that I prefer to focus on this life and learning to live fully alive before I die. I can come to answers to the question how should we love, but I will pretend to have answers to questions I do not have. Silence is sometimes the only answer. Or perhaps more honestly, I don’t know.

This brings to mind a story I once heard about a medieval saint. Every day, people came to ask the saint questions about life, the world, faith, the heart, the path, politics, and more.

One person came and asked a question about the law. The saint simply answered, “I don’t know.” Another had a philosophical question. The saint, again answered, “I don’t know.” All in all, 29 people came and asked questions. To each and every one the saint answered, “I don’t know.” It was when the 30th person asked a question that the saint said: “Oh, I have something to answer about this one.”

One out of 30. The rest of the time, the saint realized that silence was an improvement over words.

Now I don’t think this would work in our age, “when I don’t know” seems an unacceptable answer. Certainly not for public, figures, politicians etc. A humble honest I don’t know seems to be unacceptable in our time and place. There seems little room for humility in our modern age.

“I don’t know” is surely the starting to seeking answers to any questions. “I don’t know” and maybe we could begin to explore together, perhaps more so. It wouldn’t work the public spear though sadly. It might not work for ministers of religions or dads of 9 year olds, but it is honest and humble though. A humble honest “I don’t know” would opens us to the possibility though. But hey, what do I know?

Now as I said what happens when we die is not the question I am most interested in asking. My questions are more focused on how better to live in this life. I have found so often we end up asking the questions that others ask of us, instead of our own questions. In order to truly live alive in this world you have to begin with your own question, the one that comes to you, you need to begin there. This is beautifully portrayed in David Whyte’s beautiful poem “Start Close In”

“Start Close In” by David Whyte

Start close in,
don’t take the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step
you don’t want to take.

Start with
the ground
you know,
the pale ground
beneath your feet,
your own
way to begin
the conversation.

Start with your own
question,
give up on other
people’s questions,
don’t let them
smother something
simple.

To hear
another’s voice,
follow
your own voice,
wait until
that voice
becomes an
intimate
private ear
that can
then
really listen
to another.

Start right now
take a small step
you can call your own
don’t follow
someone else’s
heroics, be humble
and focused,
start close in,
don’t mistake
that other
for your own.

Start close in,
don’t take
the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step
you don’t want to take.

There are questions we ask ourselves, there are questions we ask one another and there are questions we ask of life. There are many questions and numerous ways to ask them. I suspect that in order to live fully alive begins with seeking our own questions.

The word question is a fascination in and of itself. It dates back to the thirteenth century meaning "philosophical or theological problem;" becoming an "utterance meant to elicit an answer or discussion," also as "a difficulty, a doubt," it is rooted in the Anglo-French questiun, Old French question"question, difficulty, problem; legal inquest, interrogation, torture," from Latin quaestionem(nominative quaestio) "a seeking, a questioning, inquiry, examining, judicial investigation,"

I find this fascinating. Even in its roots there are examples of good or bad questions. In one form it is meant to elicit an answer or discussion and another it suggests that a question is a form of interrogation or even torture.

It brought back memories of watching Monty Python as a child and the “Spanish Inquisition” sketch. “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.”

A question can be an invitation or it can become some form of interrogation. It matters how me ask a question and how we respond to any question asked. It matters in what spirit we ask, whether the question is of ourselves, of others and or of life.

There is an art to asking questions.

David Whyte has said that “there is an art to asking the beautiful question.”

The beautiful question is one that has the power to shift our thinking, to be the catalyst to inner change and open us to new possibilities aligned with our deepest longings and truth. As he explained in an interview with Krista Tippet for “On Being”

“The ability to ask beautiful questions, often in very unbeautiful moments, is one of the great disciplines of a human life. And a beautiful question starts to shape your identity as much by asking it, as it does by having it answered. You just have to keep asking. And before you know it, you will find yourself actually shaping a different life, meeting different people, finding conversations that are leading you in those directions that you wouldn’t even have seen before.”

The beautiful question ignites curiosity and encourages meaningful inquiry. As he has said “what would my life look like if I was to drink from a deeper source” and “what would it be like to start a conversation with myself that my future self would thank me for – what would it be like to become the saintly ancestor of my future happiness”.

Whyte’s point is that the conversations we are having with ourselves, both consciously and unconsciously, are the foundation of our future. By asking ourselves “beautiful questions” we can begin new inner conversations, expand what is possible, and open up new interior frontiers that align with our deepest purpose in the world.

e.e. cummings said “Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question."

In the Gospel accounts you find Jesus over and over engaging people with questions, he had a question for everyone he met. Such questions were an invitation to follow him. Blind Batimaeus being an example, the Samaritan woman at the well another, and the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Asking beautiful questions is not about opening a dialogue on equal terms. For example Jesus didn’t tell Bartimaeus what he thought he wanted he didn’t diagnose his problem for him, instead he asked’ Instead he asked, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’” It is a humble invitation, based around the principle of love and service.

What are the beautiful questions that you need to ask yourself, those you encounter and life itself? They will open you up to new and wonderful experiences. Be curious about and in an open way.

A beautiful question is open in nature. Parker J Palmer asked the following question “When was the last time someone asked you an honest, open question — one that invited you to reflect more deeply on your own life, asked by a person who did not want to advise you or “fix” you but “hear you into speech,” deeper and deeper speech?”

When was the last time you were invited by an open question, invited to quest with the other? An open question is a beautiful question and it is a wonderful gift that we can offer to others. This is beautifully exemplified in Denise Levertov’s poem “The Gift”

Just when you seem to yourself
nothing but a flimsy web
of questions, you are given
the questions of others to hold
in the emptiness of your hands,
songbird eggs that can still hatch
if you keep them warm,
butterflies opening and closing themselves
in your cupped palms, trusting you not to injure
their scintillant fur, their dust.
You are given the questions of others
as if they were answers
to all you ask. Yes, perhaps
this gift is your answer.

An open question, the beautiful question is a wonderful gift we can offer to ourselves, to one another and to life. It is a beautiful invitation to journey on to something new, to quest together. Of course it is not enough to merely ask the question, to truly invite the other requires us to walk with them and truly listen to their answer, to join with them in their struggles with the answers they uncover.

It seems to me that a good, beautiful and open question is an invitation to the other to journey and quest together. In many ways this is how I beleive a good sermon ought to be. It is an invitation to go on a quest. It is not so much an offering of a definite answer, but instead it is an invitation to journey, to quest together with others. It is an aspect of the creative interchange whose impact may not be felt immediately and hopefully will lead to more beautiful questions along the way. As Fran Peavy has observed “A very powerful question may not have an answer at the moment it is asked…It will sit rattling in the mind for days or weeks as the person works on an answer. If the seed is planted, the answer will grow. Questions are alive.”

The key is to be alive, awake and involved with the beautiful and open questing and questions. The key is to keep on inviting one another to journey on the beautiful journey, with the beautiful questions.

We need not quest alone. We gain so much more than the sum of our individual parts if we join with fellow travelers. We may not discover the same answers, we may not even have the same questions, but if we invite one another to join in the beautiful quest we will uncover incredible treasures in our own lives, beautiful gifts. Together we can support one another joyfully as we seek together. We can become companions to one another as we share our experiences in the beautiful quest.

So what is your beautiful question of yourself, of this life. Asking and maybe together we can find a beautiful way to live our way into it and find a way to live more beautifully in this world. In so doing whatever follows will take care of itself.

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

Blue Monday: Finding Comfort, Solace and Joy in Winter

Today Monday 15th of January has become one of those days that have been marked out on the yearly calendar. Not an official public holiday, there isn’t one until Easter. That said it is still a day we mark. It is known as “Blue Monday”, no I don’t mean the song by New Order. “Blue Monday” has become regarded as the hardest day of the year, afterall the Christmas spirit has all gone and we are right in depths of winter. It is dark, it is cold and there is little light around, Spring seems so far away. The day light hours will increase over the coming weeks but still we must face winter. January and February can be difficult as we feel stuck in the cold on these dark winter evenings.

Winter is not an easy time, so many of us want it over as soon as possible. We want spring and the new birth and life that it brings, but that is not the way to live and we know it. To live, always looking towards the spring yet to come, is to fail to fully experience what is present now. There is such richness in the dark cold of winter and we need to feel it and allow our eyes to adjust to the darkness. There is a beautiful wonder about winter that we would do well to embrace. There is a need to embrace and fully experience the darkness, the lifelessness and the starkness of this time of year. We should not wish it all away, for everything there is a season and a time for everything under the sun.

Whenever I look at the winter world it looks barren and bleak. Like those trees I passed as I wandered round Dunham Massey with Molly and a friend the other day. The trees look so vulnerable just standing there all alone and yet I know they are alive, standing there bold and upright. They remind me of my own vulnerability and my exposure to the cold of winter and to the challenges of life, challenges I do not shrink from, even though I do from time to time feel tempted to do so.

Like everyone I want to feel safe, protected and warm, I want comfort, I seek solace, I do not want to feel cold, exposed and vulnerable. It is a refuge that we all seek; often it is a refuge that folk seek and believe they will find in religion and spirituality. This sense that we are protected and safe, but is it realistic? So often we seek protection from the troubles of life, from its winter. If life has taught me anything it has shown me that the insulation I often seek so easily becomes isolation. These attempts to protect myself from exposure only increase the suffering. If I have learnt anything in life it’s that self-protection just cuts you off and leaves you feeling all alone, once again. What is needed to live through the winter is comfort and solace, not isolation.

Comfort and solace offer something different; something so needed in winter; something that can be found in many ways. I was thinking of this as I enjoyed some traditional Transylvania soup that a friend had given me, a chicken type broth. It brought comfort to my body, but also my soul. It truly was chicken soup for the heart, the body and the soul.

One of the advantages of ministry is that it really forces you to pay attention to the passing seasons. By doing so you learn to appreciate what each has to offer. Winter has so much to offer if we would but let ourselves appreciate it. I think the trees in winter have much to teach we who would prefer to hibernate. If I have learnt anything I have learnt that the spiritual life is about living openly and vulnerably, it’s about accepting the reality of life. It’s about standing their upright, arms outstretch in the cold vulnerability of life waiting for the time of re-birth and renewal in whatever form this takes, just like the trees in winter.

That said we also need solace and comfort. Unlike those trees we have one another. We can share in each others warmth and we can seek help and comfort from both visible and invisible sources. This is how we live through winter, we find its power and beauty and instead of hibernating we learn to live fulling alive; we do not have to just survive, we can learn to thrive. Sometimes all you need is a bowl of soup, whether that be for the body, the heart and or the soul.

We all need solace, we all need comfort and consolation in times of distress. It is wonderful to be able to receive both visible and invisible help at such times.

As David Whyte so beautifully put in his essay on the word “Solace”

“Solace is not an evasion, nor a cure for our suffering, nor a made up state of mind. Solace is a direct seeing and participation; a celebration of the beautiful coming and going, appearance and disappearance of which we have always been a part. Solace is not meant to be an answer, but an invitation, through the door of pain and difficulty, the depth of suffering and simultaneous beauty in the world that the strategic mind by itself cannot grasp nor make sense of.”

Solace isn’t just about comforting as we understand it today, as a “there, there”, in its original meaning there is a sense of pleasure and joy too. This brings to mind the 5th verse of the 30th Psalm “Despair may last for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” I and friends were sharing in joy early on Tuesday morning, there was much laughter in our coming together. Yes, some had their struggles and were offered comfort, a hug and listening ear, but we also shared in solace together as we laughed and had real fun. This is true solace and it certainly warmed our cockles on that cold winters morning.

Another thing that has been bringing me solace, a great deal of joy in fact, in recent weeks has been remembering songs my dad and grandad used to sing to me as a child. I have been sharing them with friends. They were often rude and funny musical songs, with a Yorkshire twist. Sometimes a little naughty, but always good hearted. They brought me solace when I was a child and they have been bringing me solace this winter.

Such as “I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts”

I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts
Seem them all a standing in a row
Big ones, small ones, some as big as your head
A turn of the wrist a flick of the fist and up the showman said

I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts
Every ball you throw will make me rich
There stands my wife, the idol of me life
Singing roll a bowl a ball a penny a pitch

Singing Roll a bowl, a ball, a penny, a pitch
Roll a bowl, a ball, a penny, a pitch
Roll a bowl, a ball, roll a bowl, a ball
Singing roll a bowl a ball a penny a pitch

Rememebring these old songs has brought me much solace these last few weeks.

Where do we seek solace, when life is difficult? Where do we turn for comfort? Comfort is another of those interesting words that does not mean exactly what it once did.

Comfort comes from the Latin word comfortare, which means “strengthen greatly.” To give comfort is to shore up the mood or physical state of someone else. It may take quite some time to shore up someone when they are lost, in a state or despair, or deep depression. It takes more than just going for a walk, taking flowers, encouraging them to find a love and connection through nature. Yes, these help, of course they do, but you cannot just lift a deep state of depression this way. The support maybe needed for quite some time. To strengthen someone greatly takes some time and effort and above all consistency. It’s about standing or sitting with someone through what is at times a long haul. This is counter intuitive to our age. We are living through the age of the quick fix.

When you are struggling in the need for comfort and solace it can feel like it will never end, a bit like a long cold winter. It will though, at least if we find ways to stick with it, if we find comfort and solace to keep on living through the winter. As Wendell Berry so beautifully put it in “Hannah Coulter”

“You think winter will never end, and then, when you don't expect it, when you have almost forgotten it, warmth comes and a different light.”

Winter is not an easy time, so many of us want it over as soon as possible. We want spring and the new birth and life that it brings, but that is not the way to live and we know it. To live, always holding on to the spring yet to come, is to fail to fully experience what is present now. There is such richness in the dark cold of winter and we need to feel it and allow our eyes to adjust to the darkness. There is a beautiful wonder about winter that we would do well to embrace.

We do not have to do so alone though. We can seek comfort and solace from one another. We can walk through this season together, experiencing it all, wholly alive. We can offer comfort and solace. Whether that is by being with one another in our shared suffering, offering something that warms the body, the heart and soul, like that bowl of soup. Solace can also come with joy and laughter. I was with friends on Friday night at my friends album launch in Manchester. A wonderful night of shared celebration. It was just wonderful watching friends shine, following their bliss. It can come in walking together on cold days enjoying the splendour of nature. It can come in so many ways. I hope you all have your oen Molly’s. She is such a treasure, who brings comfort, solace and above all joy to so more, not least me.

Where do you find comfort? Where do you find solace in the cold of winter. How do you find ways to stay alive and awake, rather than hibernate? How can you find ways to support and comfort those struggling around you? How can you offer solace? Whether by shoring someone up or bringing joy to their hearts, Perhaps something to think about this morning, rather than sinking into “Blue Monday”

I will end today with these beautiful words by Kathleen McTigue. A “Winter Blessing”

“Winter Blessing” Kathleen Mctigue

The world catches our hearts through its light:
splintering dance of sun on water,
calm moonlight poured through branches,
candles lit on early winter evenings,
a splatter of stars on a clear night,
and the bright eyes of those we love.
But the brilliance never ends,
even when the light goes out.
Mystery shimmers and shines in the world
in even the darkest corners.
It’s there where the roots push life into soil and rock,
in small lives lived under every stone;
there is the silent pulse beneath the tree bark.
It’s in the depth of slow tides as they turn,
there in the sky on moonless nights
when muffling clouds block out the stars.
It’s there in the prison, the hospital,
by hospice bed,
there at the graveside, in the empty house –
something beating in the dark shelter
of our hearts -
the small shine of hope, the gilt edge of kindness.

May we be granted the gift of deeper sight
that we might see – with or without the light.

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

Welcome to the House of Belonging

“Roots hold me close, wings set me free”. “Spirit of Life” by Carolyn McDade is a much loved hymn, I certainly love it. I wonder how many times I have sung it out and loud and proud in my life. I love that we sing of roots holding us close before wings that set us free. This makes sense because before you can fly free, express your full humanity, you must first feel that you belong, you need strong roots before you can be set free. This brings to my heart my understanding of our flaming chalice, the symbol of our free religious faith, rooted in belonging, in history, in tradition, but not held back by any of this. It is this sense of belonging though that enables us to fly free, to express our souls, to who knows where. Before we can know freedom, we must first feel secure where we are, that we belong. We can then begin to express who we truly are, without fear of rejection. Belonging must come before freedom. We need roots that will hold us close, love us unconditionally, before we can even attempt to fly free.

I remember when I was a young man I thought that freedom and the attainment of it were the things of the highest value in life; that liberation meant escaping the shackles that hold us back and stop us being all that we were meant to be. That I needed to escape where I had come from, the drudgery of my life. I sang songs about freedom as I left behind all that I saw as unimportant. When I look back now what I see is a man who was a slave to freedom.

Over the last few years I have learnt about belonging; and I have learnt that belonging is really about love; I have learnt something about what love actually is. I am not talking about romance here. No, I am talking about that unseen force that connects all life and that enables us to form deep and meaningful relationships with ourselves, with each other and with all life. I name this God, others may use different words. To me this is the essence of belonging, to live in and through love. To love who you are, the life that you have and the tasks that this life asks you to fulfil.

It is this love that allows me to belong, that enables me to connect with all that exists now, all that has been in the time before now and all that will be in the future. It is love that has become the roots that hold me close so that I can stretch out the wings that will set me free and allow me to glide in the wind. To know love is to know that you belong and it is this that is perhaps the ultimate freedom. Before you can be truly free, to express all that you were born to be, you must first believe that you belong; belong as you are, exactly as you are in this time and place. It is the roots of belonging that give us the freedom to stretch out our wings and fly in the wind, free. This is the highest form of love to me.

A sense of belonging is a deeply precious thing. It is belonging that helps us become who we are meant to be. It is a sense of being rooted and being held and loved by these roots that allows us to spread our wings and fly free; it is a sense of being rooted that enables us to not fear the wind, but to embrace it and to let ourselves go. When you feel that you do not belong you cannot thrive, you shrivel up and perhaps die.

Now of course we do not need to belong in exactly the same way; our roots need not, in fact should not, be identical in order for us to belong. Each root has to find its own way into the soil. To truly belong is to be welcomed exactly as you are warts and all and beauty spots too. Not every tree in the forest is rooted in an identical way, it is the same for folk in community. We do not have to try to be like those here, in order to truly belong, in fact we don’t want you to comply in order to belong here.

I am going to share with a favourite by a favourite. “The House of Belonging” by David Whyte

“The House of Belonging” by David Whyte

I awoke this morning in the gold light turning this way and that thinking for a moment it was one day like any other. But the veil had gone from my darkened heart and I thought it must have been the quiet candlelight that filled my room, it must have been the first easy rhythm with which I breathed myself to sleep, it must have been the prayer I said speaking to the otherness of the night. And I thought this is the good day you could meet your love, this is the black day someone close to you could die. This is the day you realize how easily the thread is broken between this world and the next and I found myself sitting up in the quiet pathway of light, the tawny close grained cedar burning round me like fire and all the angels of this housely heaven ascending through the first roof of light the sun has made. This is the bright home in which I live, this is where I ask my friends to come, this is where I want to love all the things it has taken me so long to learn to love. This is the temple of my adult aloneness and I belong to that aloneness as I belong to my life. There is no house like the house of belonging.

A new life has recently come into my house of belonging, Molly the Havanese puppy. She has had no trouble finding a sense of belonging here. She has easily settled in. Everyone who meets her says how at ease she is with strangers, both human and dog like. She has a comfortable sense of herself. She feels a part of the community around the chapel and in the town too. Now fortunately she has had no bad experiences as of yet, thank God. She has never been hurt or rejected. I suspect that this isn’t the case with anyone else either within the chapel community or the wider community. I suspect that she thinks that the buildings and gardens are all a part of her house of belonging and all the people here a part of her family. Whenever we leave the house she goes looking for her family, she is so excited about who she will meet, particularly the familiar. She knows that she belongs here and thus feels free to express herself, if only it was so easy for we folk. It is not so easy for we to be ourselves, unlike Molly who is totally at ease were herself. I have never known a dog so in love with their own reflection. She stops at shop windows to admire herself and when she approaches my bedroom mirror she happily touches her nose against her own reflection, as she would when meeting another dog in the street. Molly is happily herself.

To belong you need to be yourself, while paradoxically in order to be yourself you must first of all feel that you belong. When you feel that you belong you will no longer feel the need to fit into, because you will be at ease with yourself.

Brene Brown has said

“Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.”

I like Brene Brown, I particularly like what she has to say about the difference between “Belonging” and “Fitting in” that they are not the same thing although they are often mistaken for one another.

Brene Brown explains that “Fitting in” is really about assessing situations and becoming the person that you believe you need to be in order to be accepted and acceptable. Whereas “Belonging” does not require us to change who we are, but to be who we really are.

Belonging is an innate desire to be a part of something larger than ourselves. This is a primal yearning, deep within the soul of us and thus we often try to acquire it by fitting in and seeking approval from others. Now not only does this not satisfy this yearning it actually becomes a barrier to it. In so doing we lose our identity and feel even more lost and lonely. True belonging you see only happens when we present our true, authentic, imperfect selves to the world, “warts and all” and beauty spots too. Unless we are at home within ourselves we will never feel that we belong anywhere. This is why Molly is such a good teacher to me, she feels that she belongs as she is, exactly as she is.

John O’Donohue’s in his wonderful book “Anam Cara”, relates belonging to longing and yearning. He suggests that we need to find a balance in belonging and that often our problems stem from not being truly at home with ourselves; that we should be our own longing; that the key is to be-long within ourselves. If we belong within ourselves then we will feel at ease and belong wherever we are. Therefore the sense of who we are, our identity will not be ruled by the need to fit in, to belong, externally.

The problem of trying to fit in and not belonging stems from a sense of being different, something I know I’ve experienced at times. This can be a real barrier. Now of course sometimes these barriers are put up by those who would exclude certain types of people for being different. We have seen horrific examples of this throughout human history. People exclude for racial, political, religious, gender and sexual identity. There still are barriers that exist, although thankfully many have come down.

That said it can still be difficult to join a group where you feel that you are different from the others.

Most people find it difficult to join something, to belong to something when they feel different to those already present. It’s the same with any group or community, including church and chapel communities. It is hard to walk into anything you have never been to before. I know it took me some time to pluck up the courage and explore religions community all those years ago

We say here that all are welcome, to come as you are regardless of who you are, where ever you have been and where ever you are going. You are welcome as you are exactly as you are in this moment. That said people are still reluctant to walk through the door and when they do they often find it hard to belong here, even amongst us. The reasons for this are many and varied and how we resolve it is not easy either. I think that the key is to be as open and welcoming as we can be. They key is to cultivate a true sense of belonging, which begins within ourselves. For if we belong we will not need to try to fit in and hopefully the stranger will more easily feel like the neighbour. As Philip L Bermoan wrote in “The Journey Home”

“Truly spiritual people are in the habit of cultivating the nearly forgotten art of basic hospitality, perhaps because they realize that when we are able to make others feel comfortable, the pleasures of belonging are close at hand.”

They key is to cultivate the pleasure of belonging.

The key is to bless one another with our presence and they will feel that they belong amongst we people who belong here as they are exactly as they are in this moment. For as Rachel Naomi Remen wrote in "My Grandfather's Blessings"

"A blessing is not something that one person gives another. A blessing is a moment of meeting, a certain kind of relationship in which both people involved remember and acknowledge their true nature and worth, and strengthen what is whole in one another. By making a place for wholeness within our relationships, we offer others the opportunity to be whole without shame and become a place of refuge from everything in them that are not genuine. We enable people to remember who they are."

A sense of belonging is a deeply precious thing. It is belonging that helps us become who we are meant to be; it is sense of belonging that give us deep roots that will enable us to fly free; It is a sense of belonging that enables us to be ourselves, in whatever company we find ourselves without feeling the need to fit in; it is a sense of belonging that allows us to become good neighbours and to bless the whole world with our welcome.

Here I hope you find a place where you belong. Here I hope you find a house of belonging.

I’m going to end with a blessing by John O’Donohue “For Belonging”

“For Belonging” by John O'Donohue

May you listen to your longing to be free.

May the frames of your belonging be generous enough
for your dreams.

May you arise each day with a voice of blessing
whispering in your heart.

May you find a harmony between your soul and

your life.

May the sanctuary of your soul never become haunted.

May you know the eternal longing that lives at the heart of time.

May there be kindness in your gaze when you look within.

May you never place walls between the light and yourself.

May you allow the wild beauty of the invisible world

to gather you, mind you, and embrace you in

belonging.

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

From Paralysing Worry to Creative Concern

I have a new joy in my life, Molly the beautiful Havanese puppy. She is a wonderful blessing and a great responsibility. She is also, I have noticed, something else to worry about. Like I don’t have enough. I found myself the other day very worried as she had eaten something, probably from the garden, that had made her sick. She then went very quiet for an hour or so and I got increasingly worried that there was something seriously wrong with her. I was so worried I couldn’t focus on anything else. I made the fatal error of googling. This is never a good idea as you can go down all sorts of avenues and end up convincing yourself of all kinds of trouble. I need not have worried as an hour later she was her usual self. No doubt it will happen again as this happens a lot with dogs, big and small.

I have experienced a few other worries over the last few weeks, around Molly, family and friends, all those who I love and care about. This week I have had much to hold in my heart and many people to be concerned about, it is my job afterall. It has also been the funeral of my cousin Cheryl and I have been back and forth to Yorkshire on a couple of occasions. There are other family troubles too. It has been a week of carrying so much, a heavy week and a deeply emotional one, hearbreaking at times. Cheryl’s funeral went as well as such things can, but word it was painful.

Now please do not get me wrong none of this worry had paralysed me. I have been very productive, despite what I have been carrying in my heart. I have also had the joy of Molly and one or two pleasures in my life. I have often stepped out into the world and sung. Unlike Mary Oliver singing is not something I worry about. Here is a bit of Mary on worry.

“I Worried” by Mary Oliver

I worried a lot.
Will the garden grow,
will the rivers flow in the right direction,
will the earth turn as it was taught,
and if not how shall I correct it?
Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better?
Will I ever be able to sing,
even the sparrows can do it and I am,well, hopeless.
Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism, lockjaw, dementia?
Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And gave it up.
And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang.

Mary Oliver. Swan – Poems and Prose, 2010 Beacon Press

We all have our worries in life. I am sure that some of you share Mary Oliver’s or perhaps some of your own. Many are deeply concerned about how they might cope through this winter. I know a lot of people are deeply worried, that financially, they will be unable to get by. Many have health worries whether physical, emotional, mental and or spiritual. Many worry that if they become ill, that they will be unable to get the help they need. Such worry can only impact negatively on people’s well-being.

There is no doubt to me that anxiety and depression is on the increase. Things have not returned to “normal” since Covid, if anything people seem to be struggling more now. It is also worth noting that we had these very same problems long before the Pandemic.

Worrying and getting caught up anxiety will not solve any of these problems, in fact it can only make them worse. That said just telling folk not to worry doesn’t help either. All it does is eat away at their well-being further. If we could just stop worrying, I am sure that we all would. Besides it is not feeling worried that is the real problem, it is becoming paralysed by it.

Being paralysed by worry does none of us any good, it can be deeply crippling and life reducing. Now of course we should not dismiss the challenge of life and live like some kind of delusional Pollyanna, but to live in and through worry destroys any joy in life. I remember a few years ago speaking with Rev Jill McCallister who was visiting from the US. She told me how she worried about her congregants; she worried how she could help them with their crippling anxiety about life. She described them as people of privilege and yet they were still ruled by worry. I have the same concerns about you folk as well as friends and family. I wonder how much of our energy is spent worrying about the people in our lives? Is this the best use of our limited resources? Surely it would better to put our energy into something more constructive.

I spend a lot of my time listening to people. They tell me of their worries and often end their time sharing with the classic line “Oh not to worry”, which of course is precisely what they are doing. That said I know that by sharing our worries they do somehow occupy less of our head space. I had a long conversation with my brother the other morning, as I was working on Cheryl’s eulogy, he was seeking help with his deep worries. They are not trivial. In sharing with me he gained some strength to continue doing what he can and not become paralysed by fear. While we were speaking Molly was sat on my lap, almost sensing I needed support. She stayed there all the time I wrote Cheryl’s eulogy. It was a bit of a challenge as for most of it her head was resting on one of my hands and thus I had to type one handed. She kept me going though.

Sometimes the most crippling aspect of worry is worrying about what might be, the worst possible scenario, as I did when exploring Google after Molly was sick.

The thing about worry is that, as Mark Twain observed, is that most of the things that we worry about never happen, Molly was fine afterall. And yet as we go through our day the worry machine is there chugging away in our minds stopping us experiencing this life we have been given. How many of us worry so much about being on time that we ruin every journey we take. This is one of mine by the way, especially on the Washway Road. How many of us worry about the weather when going on holiday. How many of us spend our days worrying about how we look, what people think of us, will the world come to an end, the political situation of the day. Our children and what their lives will be like and a myriad of other possible troubles. We are no different to Mary Oliver in our worries. The problem is not worry of course, it is what we do with our worries.

Now please don’t get me wrong I’m not suggesting any of these worries are real, of course they are. Surely though wouldn’t it be better dealing with the things that trouble us as best we can rather than wasting our days worrying about every little thing.

Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we waste so much energy on worry? Why are we so afraid of things going wrong? Why do we believe that we can stop such things happening, that we can somehow control life? Well we can’t. Things will go wrong. And do you know what that aint always a bad thing.

Not that worry is wholly bad either, it has its place. We have the capacity to worry for good reason. As we anticipate that something bad could happen, the discomfort of worry spurs us to avoid that unfortunate something or at least mitigate against it. No doubt it is something that has evolved in humanity to guard against danger and to prepare for troubles ahead etc. Such as storing food for winter. The problem is though that we go too far with this and become paralysed by worry.

It would seem that the key is where we focus our attention. Worry and concern can help us to do so in positive ways. Likewise, it can paralyse us too, as our attention becomes purely focused on the worry and not what we can do about it. The problem is not so much the worry and concern, but what we focus our attention on and how it leads us to act. For what we focus our attention on really matters.

Throughout the Gospel accounts Jesus is often portrayed as being concerned with what the people he is with focus their attention on. When he said “consider the lilies” he was turning their attention on the lilies, to experience them. Likewise when he said “the kingdom on heaven is at hand,” he was pinpointing the exact location of where attention ought to be in order to enter the kingdom. And when he said “fear not, judge not, love one another.” He was suggesting that the focus ought to move away from images that generate fear and judgement towards ones centered on love. This it would appear is a solution to being dominated by worry. Worry was as troubling 2,000 years ago, just as much as it is today.

The key it would seem is to focus our attention in loving ways in the moment that we find ourselves rather than being paralysed by worries of what might be.

We cannot escape the trouble of life. Life is by its nature a risking business. It does us no good to waste our days worrying about what might go wrong. Instead what we need to do is embrace the risk of life. I’m not saying to go involve ourselves in foolish risk taking, no what I mean is that we need to give ourselves away to something useful, something beautiful, something life enhancing. The key is to “risk ourselves for the world…to hazard ourselves for the right thing.” As David Whyte wrote in his essay on “Longing” from his wonderful book “CONSOLATIONS:The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words.”

To quote David:

"We are here essentially to risk ourselves in the world. We are a form of invitation to others and to otherness, we are meant to hazard ourselves for the right thing, for the right woman or the right man, for a son or a daughter, for the right work or for a gift given against all the odds. And in all this continual risking the most profound courage may be found in the simple willingness to allow ourselves to be happy along the way….”

I just want to repeat the last sentence ‘in all this continual risking the most profound courage may be found in the simple willingness to allow ourselves to be happy along the way….’

Worry can eat away at any chance to be happy in daily living.

None of us knows what the future holds. There will be joy and there will be troubles ahead for all of us. That said we cannot waste this life worrying about what might be before it ever happens. Surely it is better to risk our lives to some greater love, whatever that love might be. It’s love of course that leads us to a sense of wholeness and connection with all of life.

So, I am not saying to you this morning, don’t worry. What would be the point of that? Instead what I am saying is turn your worry into concern, be inspired by it and act in this world in loving and more beautiful ways. You never know but by doing so you might just allow yourself to be happy along the way.

I will end today with a favourite poem by favourite farmer poet Wendell |Berry “The Peace of Wild Things” which offers a solution to being consumed and paralysed by fear. It came to me as I walked around King George V pond the other morning after I had finished writing our Cheryl’s eulogy and before I returned to write this sermon. As I wandered around the pond with Molly safely in her papoose, and as I observed the ducks, the geese and swans,I took in the peace of wild things having turned my worry into useful concern. Yes I shed tears, but I also connected to the life all around and as I rested in the grace of the world and I felt free.

“The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Below is a video devotion based 

on the material in this "blogspot2

Joy is there everywhere: Let's get giddy with it

I have enjoyed a couple of weeks break. I have known much joy. Whether that has been spending time with friends, visiting beloved places, connecting with nature. I also spent a few days with little Charlie, a time we both enjoyed immensely. I have reflected on these joys in my daily sharing of the little things. I cannot tell you much this has helped me since early December. I have also known a great deal of deep love, from so many folks. Yes there are still the great difficulties that we all face in life. I do not turn from them and as a result I also know the joy of living, in all its mystery. So much joy.

I have learnt that joy comes from appreciation; appreciation of course comes from paying attention. As Mary Oliver said Attention is the beginning of devotion” and I have learnt that such attention and thus devotion enables us to fully experience the joy of living. To know joy you must engage fully in the reality of everything, even that which causes deep pain.

Rabindranath Tagore wrote…

“Joy is everywhere; it is in the earth’s green covering of grass; in the blue serenity of the sky; in the reckless exuberance of spring; in the severe abstinence of grey winter; in the living flesh that animates our bodily frame; in the perfect poise of the human figure, noble and upright; in living; in the exercise of all our powers; in the acquisition of knowledge; in fighting evils; in dying for gains we never can share. Joy is there everywhere.”

“Joy is there everywhere.” Do we believe this? What does your life teach you? What energises you? How do you feel when you are around a person filled with joy, en-joying life, en-joying who they are, singing the joy of living in all its mystery? What do you do when you are around such a person? I do hope you never try to clip their wings, to put them off being who they truly are, learning to fly free. I hope you never try to enslave them by the dangers of living with too much safety. In fact if you are going to be cautious about anything in life, it ought to safety. Be very careful about playing it safe, for it won’t guard you against the dangers of life, it will only strangle the joys of living, in all its mystery.

I was recently sat with friends enjoying coffee and conversations. I was in a joyful mood, full of song, for no apparent reason. What was lovely was that none of them were trying to curb my enthusiasm, I was with good friends.

All my life I’ve experienced people who have tried to curb my enthusiasm. It used to work as I allowed fear to inhibit my natural experience of joy, I didn’t want others to think I was a weirdo or nuts. By the way it worked for it sucked all the joy out of living as I suppressed my true human nature. There are people still try today but I know that it is more about their fear than anything I am doing or not doing. These days I always respectfully listen to others, but I do not take on board their fears and negativity. I would rather listen to the voice of joy and possibility deep within me; I prefer to live from a place of faith in life and not fear. Ever since I rediscovered faith in life itself, I have found the courage to be.

David Whyte has said of joy:

“JOY is a meeting place, of deep intentionality and of self-forgetting, the bodily alchemy of what lies inside us in communion with what formerly seemed outside, but is now neither, but become a living frontier, a voice speaking between us and the world: dance, laughter, affection, skin touching skin, singing in the car, music in the street, the quiet irreplaceable and companionable presence of a daughter: the sheer intoxicating beauty of the world inhabited as an edge between what we previously thought was us and what we thought was other than us.”

Joy is the conversational nature of reality according to Whyte.

Now to live in joy, to have faith in life is not easy, it is even harder to describe. It is far easier to talk about pain and suffering, to talk about despair. Just enter any academic environment or follow social media or the daily news. People find it far easier to talk about their pain, than their joy.

Henri Nouwen observed that anxiety and suffering are far more easily expressed than joy. He wrote:

"I vividly remember how one of my university teachers spoke for a whole year about anxiety in human life. He discussed in great detail the thoughts of Kierkegaard, Sartre, Heidegger, and Camus and gave an impressive exposé of the anatomy of fear. One day, during the last month of the course, a few students found the courage to interrupt him and ask him to speak a little about joy before the course was over. At first he was taken aback. But then he promised to give it a try. The next class he started hesitantly to speak about joy. His words sounded less convincing and penetrating than when he spoke about anxiety and fear. Finally, after two more meetings, he told us that he had run out of ideas about joy and would continue his interrupted train of thought. This event made a deep impression on me, especially since I had such great admiration for my teacher. I kept asking myself why he was unable to teach about joy as eloquently as he had taught about anxiety.

It’s a good question, “why is it so much easier to speak about anxiety than joy?" We have no trouble describing our sadness, what is wrong, what sickens us as individuals and as a society. Nouwen observed there are far “more words for sickness than for health, more for abnormal conditions than for normal conditions. When my leg hurts, my head aches, my eyes burn, or my heart stings, I talk about it, often in elaborate ways, but when I am perfectly healthy I have little, if anything, to say about those parts of my body.”

Think about the word resentment. It comes from resentere which literally means to re-feel something. Now when we re-feel something a memory from our past life it doesn’t have to be a painful memory, something that makes us angry and yet the word resentment only has negative connotation. We do not have a word that means to re-feel something joyful. There is no specific word for this in the English language.

“Joy is there everywhere.” Do we believe this? What does your life teach you?

Here’s a little wisdom from Mary Oliver re not hesitating when joy suddenly comes.

“Don't Hesitate” by Mary Oliver

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the
case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

I am with Mary “Joy is not made to be a crumb”. No way, it is to be shared abundantly. Yet we hide from it, we find it hard to talk about it. Why is this?

I have come to believe that one reason that we struggle to speak of joy is that it is not a surface experience, it is not of the body or the mind, it is more about the spirit. It is harder to make sense of and or control with our minds and our language. Now some may say the reason for this is that joy is an abnormal state, but I have come to believe that the truth is the opposite of this. Joy is actually the essence of life. We can’t tame joy, we can’t control it and perhaps this is why we fear and distrust it in ourselves and others so much.

Joy is linked closely to ecstasy, no not the party drug, but ecstasy in its true meaning. It is derived from the Greek 'ekstasis,' formed from 'ek,' meaning out, and 'stasis,' a state of standstill. So to be ecstatic literally means to be outside of a static place. It is a constantly moving state, not a rigid or fixed one. Joy is the same, it is always new, it is about life, it is about creation. Thus, those who live ecstatic lives are always moving away from rigidly fixed situations and exploring new, unmapped dimensions of reality. This is the essence of joy.

Joy is always new; it is about life; it is about creation; it’s about energy. Think about those joy filled moments you had when you were really free, maybe while dancing, singing, playing, creating, running free, at the birth of a child whatever that might be. When you were like a child.

Can you remember the last time you got giddy? I get giddy with those folks I share my life with all the time. Yes I share many other things, but do enjoy getting “giddy” with it too.

We need to get “giddy” with it. By doing so we may well just begin to experience the joy of living. By the way “giddy” is one of the words that has been reduced in meaning over time. In medieval times it used to mean being 'possessed by a god or spirit.' Now this was not considered to be a good thing as to be in such a state was considered to be a form of insanity, simplemindedness or to be some kind of religious fanatic. Religion has shied away from such expressions and feelings. We Unitarians have sadly been at the vanguard of this, distrusting emotion and worshipping rationality. Weren’t we once known as “God’s frozen people?” Not any longer I hope. Never fear who you are, your true nature.

So something to think of as we enter the final weeks of summer. What is the nature and energy of life? Is joy the essence of life? Is it the energy that forms all life? Also how do we find ways to articulate and express this in ways that others can understand? I suspect that it might not be through the limit of words. Maybe we can’t tell, perhaps all we can do is show. So show it in all that you do and if you must, use words.

“Joy is there everywhere.” Do we believe this? What does your life teach you?

Please find below a video devotion based

 on the material in this "blogspot"