What's in a name?

An occasional visitor to the area asked me the other day “if I knew Cornelius?”. My answer was no I don’t know anyone by that name. He told me that Cornelius knew me really well. I wracked my brain, surely I would remember someone called Cornelius. He described him and where I knew him from, but still I could not place him. I began to wonder if I was losing my mind. The next day I was talking with the visitor again and Cornelius arrived, he introduced himself to folk, “hi my name is Bernard”. I have known Bernard for many years. Apparently, Cornelius is his middle name, but that was the part that the occasional visitor could remember, not his actual name.

It has had me chuckling to myself ever since, it also got me thinking.

What’s in a name? Names are important it seems. There is a power in naming people, places and things; a power that should never be under estimated. There is a power in naming anything, not just our personal names but our lives, who and what we are.

My older brother was named after our dad and his dad, our grandad. He was named Billy (short for William) at birth. I am told I was to be called David, although my paternal grandfather wanted to name me Harry after his beloved brother who had died as a young boy, my mum didn’t like the name though. We could have been William and Harry, I am glad we are not. In the end I was called Danny, because it went with Billy apparently and David didn’t. My full name is of course Daniel David, although I have never been called this, certainly never within the family. Interestingly my brother renamed himself some 20 odd years ago and is now called Otis Wolstenholme; Wolstenholme being my mum’s maiden name.

Many people do not go by the name on their birth certificates, not just musicians like our Otis. I remember many years ago attempting to visit Molly Clarke at Wythenshawe hospital and being told there was no one by that name there. I had to think quickly and remembered somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind that Molly was not Molly at all, but had another name. Sadly I couldn’t remember it. Her birth name was Enid Mary, she had though always been called Molly.

Naming can be a tricky business. Names describe things, but never fully a person or situation or thing. As Paul Tillich said, “That which reveals, also hides”. I suspect it is true with naming of things. As Justin Sullivan sang “Trouble always begins in the naming of things. Like Gods and desires, lines in the sand.” People change their names for a variety of reasons. Folk adopt stage names. Sometimes in naming things, we close and seal them. I have been known by other names like “Dan Denver” and even “Mr Jolly” (although in truth that was the name of the band, not me) a friend use to call me “Danny Darko”. In the Christian tradition people often take on conformation names. There are many other reasons too. Company’s, political parties, even places and sports teams change their names for a variety reasons, often in an attempt to rebrand something.

As Daniel C. Matt wrote in “God and the Big Bang”

“We need names to navigate through life, but those very names obscure the flowing continuum. Behind each handy name is a teeming reality that resists our neat definitions. If this is true of the names we assign to the hundreds of thousands of things of this world, how much more so with our names for God, for the Oneness of it all.”

It seems we are nothing without a name. Well actually not always it seems. Some of the most memorable characters in cinema history had no name. Such as Clint Eastwood’s character in the Serge Leone’s Spaghetti Western Trilogy, “The Man With No name”, or Sam Elliott’s character in “The Big Lebowski”, who was simply known as “The Stranger”, or Charlie Chaplin’s “The Little Tramp”, he had no name. Or “The Doctor” in Dr Who, Who is not the Dr’s name, Dr Who is the name of the series, he and now she is simply named “The Doctor”, the character though remains unnamed. Or “Fleabag”, in the series by Sophie Waller-Bridge who is not named, she is just known as “Fleabag”.

Most of us have a name though, we are known by our names. When we introduce ourselves we usually say, “hello my name is …” Our names are one way of connecting to others face to face.

We hopefully remember the persons name, although not always. I sometimes find myself wracking my brain trying to remember people’s names. I am not quite as bad as the guy who kept on referring to Bernard as Cornelius, but I am not great.

There can be other types of calling people by one word names that are less than connecting and inviting, they can be quite the opposite. I am not going to name such names here, but I am sure we can all think of some. They are often powerful words used to exclude people and make them feel somehow less than welcome. Such words deny the inherent worth and dignity of people, they reduce them to lesser people, or they try to. I am sure we can all recall such words and name calling.

Everything is know or named after something. Our congregation is a member of the General Assembly of Unitarian of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches. Now many ask “Unitarian! What is that?” Cliff Reid even wrote a marvellous book about it.

Unitarian originally meant “One God” as opposed to the three headed God of the Trinity in mainstream Christianity. These days most Unitarians are not overly concerned about this, the word Unitarian has lost its literal meaning for most of us. As historian Earl Morse Wilber explains: “The word Unitarian means freedom in religious belief and a trust that reason must guide our religious thought and action, and a conviction that tolerance, the cherishing of difference of opinion, is a good thing.”

The be Unitarian to me is about being open and accepting of difference, at its core is a sense of humility that keeps us open to new truths, each of us can only know so much, further understanding is aided by coming together and sharing, by so doing each of us gain so much. Tolerance and love though must also be guiding principles, as others may come to other conclusions and understandings and love, in its many forms is what finally holds us together. Actually I am not sure that tolerance is quite enough, I have come to believe that we need to celebrate difference and not just merely tolerate it.

So we name things, as we understand them, but this is often where the trouble begins, as the naming can create barriers that separate us from one another. This is particularly true when it comes to matters of faith and belief. Our Unitarian tradition gives us complete freedom here. So please remember that when I speak of God, I may not be speaking of the Divine in exactly the same way that you understand. God for me is a very open and inviting word.

I love the way that Forrest Church addressed this in “The Cathedral of the World: A Universalist Thelogy”

“God language can tie people into knots, of course. In part, that is because ‘God’ is not God's name. Referring to the highest power we can imagine, ‘God’ is our name for that which is greater than all and yet present in each. For some the highest imaginable power will be a petty and angry tribal baron ensconced high above the clouds on a golden throne, visiting punishment on all who don't believe in him. But for others, the highest power is love, goodness, justice, or the spirit of life itself. Each of us projects our limited experience on a cosmic screen in letters as big as our minds can fashion. For those whose vision is constricted (illiberal, narrow-minded people), this can have horrific consequences. But others respond to the munificence of creation with broad imagination and sympathy. Answering to the highest and best within and beyond themselves, they draw lessons and fathom meaning so redemptive that surely it touches the divine.”

It can be difficult to speak of the Divine in any sense that keeps us open, trouble always begins in the naming of things. This brings to mind good old Moses in Exodus. The book depicts him fleeing Egypt to escape the consequences of killing a slave driver. He takes up the quiet life of a shepherd. One day he finds himself alone in the mountains, when a bush burst into flames. A voice tells him to shake off his shoes for he stands on holy ground, he realises he is in the presence of God. God had seen the sufferings of the Israelites and told Moses to go to Egypt and plead with the Pharaoh to let the Israelites go. Moses wondered why the Israelites would follow him, of all people, and so he asked for a sign, a name that would give him credibility with them. God responded, “I AM WHO I AM.” Here God has no name.

We are known by our names, everything is known by its name, but here God has no name, like the mysterious stranger in “The Big Lebowski”. This God is beyond limit and definition, beyond being named, beyond our limited understanding. We cannot confine God by our limited minds.

We can though find ourselves in a holy place, on holy ground and thus know the presence of the divine love. How do we do this, by blessing life with our holy presence, by being open to all that life is. In so doing we will surely know the love that is divine. We will surely be known by our true names.

So, what’s in a name? Well maybe this is something to think about as we enjoy this summer. Why are you called by your name? What other names, nouns and pro-nouns describe who you are? What does it mean to you to be a member of this congregation? What does it mean in a wider context? How do you live out who and what you are? How can we live as if all ground was holy ground? How do we bless one another and life with our holy presence?

What’s in a name indeed.

Below is a video devotion based 

on the material in this "blogspot"

A Labour of Love: Dedication it's What You Need

I love ministering to the communities I serve. It is a labour of love. What I love the most is that they don’t expect perfection from either myself or one another. As I so often say we are the church, we are the chapel, we are the community where everything goes wrong. Now despite this and maybe because of this we are a place of dedication, of welcome, of acceptance and most of all love. I think sometimes people are a little surprised by the informality. I hope that thy sense the care and concern, I believe that they do. I hope that they feel the warmth and the friendliness. I will always remember something that Margaret Darbyshire, a member from Urmston who died during the pandemic, said to me when she had been coming for a couple of years, “this is a church like no other I have ever been to, but I like it, it is how a church should be.” She came to us almost by mistake by accident, she is not the first and hope she won’t be the last to so. She stayed because as she said it was what she had been looking for all of her life.

Nothing works perfectly, something always seems to go wrong, I don’t think we have ever had a Sunday where everything has gone smoothly, or there has not been a seeming disaster at some point in the week. We are perfectly imperfect communities. The things we get wrong, our mistakes aren’t the most important parts of us. What matters more is what is at the heart of us; what matters the most is kindness and compassion. This is what I have witnessed and continue to witness more and more over the years. I have felt it oh so powerfully these last few weeks, it has touched me in those places that really count.

There is such love and deep dedication in these two communities. People show their love by blessing them with their presence. It is made holy by becoming sanctified by loving dedication. What I see is love in action, love alive in common humanity, love in tangible form. Here’s a little verse on that by Susan Karlson

“Love In Tangible Form” by Susan Karlson

Looking at the overflowing cup,
Seeing from another perspective,
Witnessing life in all its fullness,
We share from a place of hope and dedication
And put our love into tangible form.

Following this Sunday’s service, in Altrincham, we will be acknowledging the dedicated service of Martin West to the congregation, by unveiling a plaque in his honour at the organ. I will not embarrass Martin, he is a humble man, by listing all that he has done for the congregation and the wider Unitarian movement, it would take a long time to do so. Most of what he has done has been behind the scenes as he has for other causes too. He has done so much for others, often anonymously.

There is a similar plaque at Urmston in honour of Robert Haslem. He served the congregation in so many ways. The plaque reads “A labour of love”. This seems appropriate, as such dedication is most certainly done from love.

“Labour of Love” is an interesting phrase. I think I first became aware of it in the late 1980’s. It was a song by the Scottish group “Hue and Cry”. The phrase comes from translations of the King James version of the Bible, that was no doubt influenced by Shakespeare’s “Loves Labour Lost”, although he never actually used the phrase. It is to be found though in two verses in Thessalonians and Hebrews. It is the verse in Hebrews 6:10, that speaks to me: “For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister.”

Ministry for me is a labour of love. That said I am not the only person who ministers, we minister as a community of people. To minister literally means to serve, something I often want to remind those of a political persuasion about at times, particularly the Prime Minister, who ought to see himself as the number servant of the people, I suspect he does not. Do any of them?

I see examples of these labours of love all around, people serving from love, people ministering in their own ways, adding what they can to make the flavour and substance of the community, the ministrone of this ministry. Ministrone and minister both mean to serve.

I have seen wonderful examples of this in Urmston in recent weeks as folk have gone out of their way to ensure that we get the work done on the ceiling, so that we can function and survive and hopefully one day thrive again. We need to be here to offer a free religious community, to those who seek. I have witnessed that same dedication in Altrincham too. I have witnessed so much love and dedication here, during lockdown and as we have opened up again. We saw it last summer as Gwyneth ensured that we got the wind telephone installed to help with those in grief. Or in the Andrea’s insistence on getting those benches installed so we could meet outside, we will dedicate them to her memory and we will honour her after the service as we scatter half of her ashes in the Garden of Remembrance and place her name on the wall. The family will take the rest back to Aberdeen with them. She was such a blessing to us all, to this community.

People give their heart in love in many ways. There are so many labours of love. People dedicate themselves in so many ways and bless life in so many ways. I have witnessed this for years in the small schoolroom at Altrincham, which has been a home for Alcoholics Anonymous for nearly 50 years. Thanks in no small part to Andrea’s efforts it now houses 8 meetings a week. The dedicated service, the ministry in its many forms that goes on there has led to the transformation of so many lives. That little building, that humble building, truly is a temple of love, of dedication and of transformation, it truly is holy ground, although there is no need to shake off your shoes, when you step over the threshold.

Dedication is how we show our love through blessing the lives we touch and the places we visit with our loving presence. Places are made holy when we sanctify them with loving dedication.

“Dedication” is one of those words that has changed in meaning over time. It comes from an old French word “dedicacion which meant “concecration of a church or chapel”, coming from the Latin word “dedicare” meaning to concecrate, proclaim, affirm or set aside. It later came to mean to give yourself to a purpose. This is what the folk do in the communities I serve, I witness such dedication. We carry that love into our world, that is the purpose of my blessing each and every Sunday at the end of worship. For if we live in dedication to love and life we begin to bless all life, we make the ground at our feet holy ground as we consecrate it with our loving presence.

To me this is the true meaning of church, a place of transformation, a place where we recognise the sacred uniqueness of ourselves and one another, that we recognise the blessings that we are and the blessings in life and where we learn to go out into the world and bless it with our sacred uniqueness. The world awaits our blessing, for it surely needs it.

If we live in dedication to love and life we begin to bless all life, we make the ground at our feet holy ground as we consecrate it with our loving presence. Like Moses in Exodus who is told to “shake of his shoes” for he is standing on holy ground, in the presence of “I am”.

We can all hear the call of the Holy from deep within us and from all around us, we can all bless life with our holy presence. All we have to do is live with dedication, to consecrate the ground at our feet and the people who we meet, all we have to do is live with dedication and become the blessing that we have all been searching for. In so doing we will find ourselves instantly in the “Promised Land”

To live in dedication all we have to do is shake off our shoes and live our lives recognising that this truly is a holy place. Sacred living, holiness, dedication is about being fully alive. Holiness is a life fully alive, a life where we truly pay attention.

All we have to do to awaken the holy is to truly pay attention to the world and the people around us and truly inhabit the space in which we live and breathe and share our being. All we have to do is come to believe that we all walk on holy ground. All we have to do is wholly live our lives. All we have to do is live our lives in dedication to the holiest of holy purposes, to live in love. To love one another and to serve life in whatever way we can.

All we need is dedication…

Dedication, dedication, dedication, that’s what you need. If you want to be the best and if you want to beat to the rest, dedication is what you need.

Below is a devotion based on the 

material in this "Blogspot"

Dedication: To bless the space we're in

Last Sunday I attended the 80th birthday celebration of Peter Sampson at Cross street chapelm in Manchester (England). It was a joy and blessing to be there and celebrate this wonderful human being’s life. Peter is one of my favourite people and in so many ways epitomises what it is to be a Unitarian. Peter has dedicated his life to living Unitarianially, if such a word exists. He has also been a beloved member of Cross Street since even before the new chapel building was built in 1998. He travels in from Lancaster,sometimes three times a week. He has blessed this place with his dedicated service and loving presence. He has helped to truly make it holy ground. It was Peter who greeted me as I first walked through the door there some 14 years ago, as he has done for so many others.

Now during the celebration Rev Cody Coyne spoke of Peter’s dedication to Cross Street. I listened carefully and as I did my homiletic consciousness began to awaken. It got me thinking about dedication, about how we show our love through what we bless with our presence, it got me thinking about holy places, holy ground and how life becomes sanctified by loving dedication.

Now the word “dedication” itself is one of those words that has changed, nay been reduced in meaning as time has gone by. So here’s a little etymology for you. Dedication comes from an old French word “dedicacion which meant “concecration of a church or chapel”, coming from the Latin word “dedicare” meaning to concecrate, proclaim, affirm or set aside. It later came to mean to give yourself to a purpose. Over the years people have dedicated books and music to people as a thank you for inspiration and support.

When I think about Peter Sampson it is plain to me that he has dedicated his life to living Unitarianally. He has done so by blessing those he meets and living a life of loving presence. He has been his unique self and in so doing he has encouraged those blessed by his presence to become all that they could possibly be. He has dedicated his life to making the ground at his feet holy by blessing it with his presence. Peter is a man of dedication.

As Roy Castle sang as the end of "Record Breakers"

Dedication. Â Dedication. Â Dedication.
That’s what you need.
If you wanna be the best,
and you wanna beat the rest.
Oo-ooh! Â Dedications what you need.

Whenever I go to Cross I am always filled with many emotions, so many beautiful but also heart breaking too. My days there, many years ago, were so important to my spiritual development. It even has a special place in my early relationship with Sue. On the day of our first date we called into the place as we were waiting for the theatre to open. Cross Street is one of my holy places, I feel like I am on holy ground when I am there. I suspect that Cross Street is one of those “thin places” that the ancient Celts described. A place where there is only a very thin divide between the past, present and future. It certainly feels like that for me. In this place I reconnect with my past and perhaps get a glimpse into the future which enables me to truly connect with the present. Oddly in those moments time actually feels very “thick”, in the sense that I experience it richly and deeply. As a result of these feelings I tend to feel this blessing in most places, as I connect to the love present in life.

Once you have felt the power of sacred space and time you can experience it everywhere and as a result I have discovered that you can dedicate your life to love and learn to bless all time and place with your loving presence. Something I see clearly in the life of Peter Sampson, a man of true dedication.

Dedication. Â Dedication. Â Dedication.
That’s what you need.
If you wanna be the best,
and you wanna beat the rest.
Oo-ooh! Â Dedications what you need.

If we live in dedication to love and life we begin to bless all life, we make the ground at our feet holy ground as we consecrate it with our loving presence. This brings to mind perhaps one of the best known references to holy ground, found the Book of Exodus. It describes Moses catching sight of a bush which is on fire, but which is not being consumed by the flames. An odd sight indeed, which draws Moses nearer, to get a closer look. “God calls his name from the bush.” “Moses, Moses.” When Moses answers, “Here I am,” He is told to remove his shoes for he stands on holy ground.

Moses is called to deliver the Hebrew people out of Egypt, to free them from slavery. God says to Moses, “I have seen the misery of my people. I have heard them crying out and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come to rescue them from the land of the Egyptians. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharoah to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

Now Moses wondered why on earth the people would follow him, so he asked for a sign, he asked for a name that the people would believe. To which God told him to tell them that “I am” had sent him. He was not offering them certainty, just mystery. They would have to risk everything in order to reach the Promised Land.

Now all this sounds a little strange, but there is meaning here, hidden in the beautiful universal mythos, a truth that can speak to all of us. When I read scripture I do not do so as history more meaningful mystery. For me the burning bush is about Moses uncovering his own meaning, his own purpose. It’s about him being caught by the flame. It’s about him paying attention to the ground at his feet and the people he lived with. It’s about him seeing that the ground at his feet is holy ground and that his task was to lead his people to the Promised Land. So they wandered for forty years in the desert looking for the Promised Land. Something we can all do in our lives searching for Heaven, for Nirvana when the truth is we are already in it. All we have to do is truly live on the land in which we find ourselves and to truly bless it and one another with our loving presence. We don’t need to be led to the Promised Land we just need to realise that we are already standing on it. We just need to bring this space and place alive. We need to risk everything by giving our love away.

We can all hear the call of the Holy from deep within us and from all around us, all we have to do is to listen is to pay attention. All we have to do is risk everything by giving our love away. We too can be like Moses and the Hebrews we can come to find ourselves, after many trials in the Promised Land by learning to live in the land that are feet are firmly planted in. all that’s needed is dedication.

All we have to do is live with dedication, to consecrate the ground at our feet and the people who we meet, all we have to do is live with dedication and become the blessing that we have all been searching for. In so doing we will find ourselves instantly in the “Promised Land”

Dedication. Â Dedication. Â Dedication.
That’s what you need.
If you wanna be the best,
and you wanna beat the rest.
Oo-ooh! Â Dedications what you need.

To live in dedication all we have to do is shake off our shoes and live our lives recognising that this truly is a holy place. Sacred living, holiness, dedication is about being fully alive. Holiness is a life fully lived, a life where we truly pay attention.

All we have to do to awaken the holy is to truly pay attention to the world and the people around us and truly inhabit the space in which we live and breathe and share our being. All we have to do is come to believe that we all walk on holy ground. All we have to do is wholly live our lives. All we have to do is live our lives in dedication to the holiest of holy purposes, to live in love.

All we need is dedication… 

Dedication. Â Dedication. Â Dedication.
That’s what you need.
If you wanna be the best,
and you wanna beat the rest.
Oo-ooh! Â Dedications what you need.

Shake Off Your Shoes

“T’Hillah”

Barukh atah, Emeth!

Blest are you, o Truth,
Like the fabled Moses,
I too can never claim to have seen you
“face to face.”
Too often, I’ve hung my own face on you
And pretended that I know something I do not.
Indeed my most honest heart confesses
That at most,
I have only caught the briefest glimpse of you
At the very edge of my eye,
And only when I got out of my own way,

My own rush, my own fury.

I sense your cool shadow on me

When I grow hot from the tears
I’ve been holding back,
Or when I notice the sadness or whimsy
Hiding in the silent eyes of those around me.

I sense your closeness when I gaze

At a star suddenly unveiled by a toreador cloud,
Or catch at an early yellowness
In the leaves of the oak.

It’s then I feel a brush of wings nearby,

And realize that I am only a small part of it all.
Then I know that I am not the
Great high power of the world,
But only a puff of breath hidden amid the
Mighty blast of the great whirlwind
Called the universe.
Like a lacewing barely floating
On the tip of a small blade of green grass is my life
From beginning to end, a short footnote to
A vast essay of stars and space unbounded,
An essay neither signed nor fully symbolic.
And yet this truth, your truth,
Is no sadness, but a joy,
No lack but a blessing,
Like the sight of a child at play,
Totally absorbed in the moment, and glad.
Blest are you, O Truth, who plays in the silence
Like a child in the waves of an infinite sea.

Barukh atah, Emeth.

By Mark Belletini 

I awoke last Sunday with this sense that my heart was in a holy place. To slightly misquote the hymn “I felt blessed with love and amazing grace”. It felt like a week of holy encounters; that I had been blessed by the company of some amazing people over the last few days; that I had enjoyed some beautiful spiritual encounters.

Now strangely I had struggled to get up that morning. I was tired; I had gone to bed tired. It had been a very busy week. An intense week, an absorbed week, but a very good week. I had spent many moments when I had truly known “thick time”. It had been a very involved but also deeply moving week. The day before I had hosted something I had wanted to begin doing for a long time now, and finally, it had got off the ground.

I had felt for a long time the need to create the space for people to come and share together their grief, for the loved ones they had lost; to share their love and to share their pain for their loss. I had not known how to do this, but put my faith in the loving spirit that holds me, leads me and sustains me. So I put something together and I created the space. What followed was deeply moving. It feels like the beginning of something special. I was touched by every moment. It was a deeply spiritual experience and it felt we were truly sharing together on Holy ground.

 

I say it felt like we were on "holy ground", but this wasn’t because the building was anything special, it was the small schoolroom at Dunham Road Unitarian Chapel, Altrincham. No we had made the space holy by blessing it with our presence. In doing so, in such loving and open ways, I felt the presence of the Divine Love holding us through it all.

The time I share with congregations I serve, especially during worship is a deeply holy time, but not because we are in a building that is any more special than any other. It is just bricks and mortar. It is made Holy by what goes on here and what has gone on there for generations now. We are blessed by Holy ground in those temples of Love because what occurs there is, in my view, concentrated love. We share “thick time”, in what has become “thin places”, for me.

Maybe it’s the falling Cherry Blossom, but at this time of year I feel more alive. I suspect it’s because I just seem to pay more attention to places and the ground at my feet. I feel deeply connected to places at this time of year, I feel like I am constantly walking on holy ground. I feel deeply nourished by the ground at my feet. I feel the Spirit of Life rising up through the souls of my feet. So much so that I want to be like Moses and shake off my shoes.

There’s a deeper sense of belonging going on, I feel at home wherever I find myself. When I feel like, my heart is filled with memories. Good memories and painful memories;  memories that allow the moment to truly come alive. Maybe this is why I’ve noticed myself saying “thank you” a lot to the seemingly inanimate. I can’t seem to stop myself offering a constant prayer of gratitude.

I feel it powerfully in the houses of love that I lead worship in, they are special places of love and attention. I think attention is the key by the way; it is attention that allows us to bless the space in which we find ourselves. As Wendell Berry once said, “This place, if I am to live well in it, requires and deserves a lifetime of the most careful attention.” The key is attention. It is by giving a time and space attention that we make it a Holy place. I felt this powerfully last Saturday as I shared attention with others as we opened ourselves to our shared experiences of love and loss. In that time we made space for the Divine, for the presence of God. In so doing we all make the ground at our feet Holy.
 

Perhaps the best known reference to "Holy Ground" can be found in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Book of Exodus. It describes Moses, who is out tending his flock near the Mountain of Horeb, he sees a bush which is on fire and yet not burning up with the flames. It must have seemed an odd sight to Moses and it drew him nearer. So he turns away from his flock to get a closer look at the bush. As he turns “God calls his name from the bush.” “Moses, Moses.” When Moses answers, “Here I am,” He is told to remove his shoes for he stands on holy ground.

Moses is called to deliver the Hebrew people out of Egypt, to free them from slavery. God says to Moses, “I have seen the misery of my people. I have heard them crying out and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come to rescue them from the land of the Egyptians. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharoah to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

Now Moses wondered why on earth the people would follow him, so he asked for a sign, he asked for a name that the people would believe. To which God told him to tell them that “I am” had sent him.

In saying "I am has sent me" Moses was not offering them certainty, just mystery. They would have to risk everything in order to reach the promised land.  This they did I suspect because the mystery of the unknown was more attractive than the slavery they were currently in. This speaks powerfully to me about experiences I have had in my own life. How many times have I stepped into the unknown?

Now you may well ask what can this mean to we who live now? Well like a lot of scripture I see a beautiful universal mythos, a truth that can speak to all of us. I do not read scripture as history, I read it as meaningful mystery. For me the burning bush is about Moses uncovering his own meaning, his own purpose. It’s about him being caught by the flame. It’s about him paying attention to the ground at his feet and the people he lived with. It’s about him seeing that the ground at his feet is holy ground and that his task was to lead his people to the Promised Land. So they wandered for forty years in the desert looking for the Promised Land. Something we can all do in our lives searching for Heaven, for Nirvana when the truth is we are already in it. All we have to do is truly live on the land in which we find ourselves and to truly bless it and one another with our loving presence. We don’t need to be led to the promise land we just need to realise that we are already standing on it. We just need to bring this space and place alive.

We can all be caught by the flame as Moses was, we can hear the call of the Holy from deep within us and from all around us, all we have to do is to listen; all we have to do is to pay attention; all that we have to do is to live fully alive, to open our senses; all we have to do is risk everything by giving our love away. We too can be like Moses and the Hebrews. We can come to find ourselves, after many trials in the Promised land, by learning to live in the ground that are feet are firmly planted in.

We can live our lives with our hearts in a holy place. It’s quite simple really , holiness is a life fully lived, a life where we truly pay attention. The holy is not some separate place, the spirit is not separate from the body, “sacred the body”; our physical lives are not in exile from the spiritual. All we have to do to awaken the holy is to truly pay attention to the world and the people around and truly inhabit the space in which we live and breathe and share our being. All we have to do is come to believe that we all walk on holy ground. All we have to do is wholly live our lives. It is interesting to note the word holy is derived from the old English word “Hal” which meant whole. To stand on holy ground it to live our lives wholly. The Promised Land is not out there or up there, it’s not some faraway place it is right here right now. All we have to do to find it, is to pay attention. All we have to do is to feel the ground at our feet. Shake off your shoes.

There is something very powerful about coming together in love, there is something very powerful in opening ourselves up to one another and recognise what connects us what makes us wholly human, this is what it means to be holy. I experience this in worship, I recognise this in the deep encounters I experience with people. I felt it powerfully last Saturday as I opened my heart to my love and loss with others. I have never felt more alive. This is holy work and it allows me to live more lovingly with the people I find myself in the company of. Whenever I do, as I look down at the ground at me feet, I want to shake off my shoes for I recognise that what I find myself in is indeed “Holy Ground”.

We can all bless the space in which we inhabit All we have to do is to open our hearts and connect to the Greater mysteries of life, to the Web of being, to know the spirit of life and love, to experience God. In so doing we begin to connect to the greater realities and mysteries of existence. All we have to do is to pay attention to the life around us and to touch the people we meet in our daily living. In so doing we make the ground at our feet holy.

All we have to do is shake off our shoes, to feel the spirit rise up through our feet, to recognise that all ground is holy ground, that all life is formed of the spirit and recognise the sacredness of each person that we meet, in so doing we will bless all life with our loving presence.

Face to Face

Extract from “Your Many Faces” by Virginia Satir

Life for me is like an ocean, with waves sometimes high, sometimes low, sometimes smooth, sometimes rough; so sometimes I’m high, sometimes I’m smooth, sometimes I’m low and sometimes I’m troubled. To carry the ocean analogy a little further, the current is life and the waves are essential for the movement of the ocean and for all the life that it holds inside. Waves are a natural response to all of the forces in the universe.

I am the same way, my faces are natural consequences of my being a human being, living and growing, and I need to know that storms as well as the beautiful sunshine are part of life. So I take pride in my stormy face, my sunshiney face, and I accept them as natural for the context. I don’t have to put on a happy face when I feel stormy. I can put on a face that belongs with that. And I don’t have to put on a face of doubt when I feel sunshiney inside.

...The face truly is a fascinating place...

As I mentioned in a previous blog I'm on a bit of a health kick at them moment. Going for long daily walks has become one of the many lifestyle changes I have put into place. I got a little ambitious the other day and decided to walk from my home in Altrincham to Lymm and back, following the Trans-Pennine way. It was quite an epic walk to be fair, I believe it took about three and a half hours in total. On the journey I took great delight in watching people as they approached and the many different facial expressions they pulled. I empathised with some, especially the joggers who looked somewhat pained as they ran towards me. No doubt towards the end of my walk I was pulling a similar face. In fact just as I was reaching the end of my journey a friend passed me going in the opposite direction on her bicycle - I hadn’t noticed her coming towards me as I was now focused on getting home, face forward – as she passed she commented “all this walking isn’t good for your health” I then recognised her and blurted out a “hello”, followed by a nod and chuckle of recognition.

There was also another moment a little earlier in the walk when what looked like a wolf’s head suddenly appeared by the side of me. It was one of those dogs that look just like a wolf, it was a moment of fright that took me by surprise and brought images of “An American Werewolf in London” to my mind and the two American tourists David and Jack being savaged as they walked the moors. A little over dramatic I know, but it’s what flashed through me as my fright instinct kicked in. The owner who was running with the dog just called “Don’t worry he’s ok, you just remind him of someone”. It appeared as if the dog just wanted to get a good look at me, face to face. As they ran on I thought to myself I wonder who I remind him of; I wonder what he recognised in me, that he has seen in someone else. 

As I was walking the following story played over in my mind;

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

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

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

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

Again the rabbi answered: "No."

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

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

as I continued walking I thought to myself do I always recognise every face I see as my brother and sister? Well not always it seems, I do view people with suspicion and distrust at times. Don’t we all? My fright mechanism can be sparked off, just as easily as everyone else’s. 

Facial recognition is hard wired into us. Apparently we can recognise a friend or foe, from their facial expression, from quite a distance. I for one am glad I still have a good vision and can pick up many things from distance, so long as I am facing forward and looking. It would seem I’m also good at picking up, almost intuitively, how a person is feeling from their expression. I have often taken one of those on-line quizzes that test your ability to identify emotion from facial expression. Whenever I take them I always seem to score 100%. I think that this dates backs to childhood and learning how to pick this up in the people around me, it was an early developed defence mechanism. There are advantages and disadvantages to this...

Now all this got me thinking about the word “face”. It seems to have many meanings. Etymologically it comes from the Latin “Facia” and “Facies” meaning appearance, form, figure, countenance. It seems that “Face” literally means “form imposed upon something”. Now from this the many understandings of the word “face” have developed. Think about how many expressions are involved in the word face. Such as:

Face up, face into, facing something, face off, face forward, saving face, the face of, faceache, face to face, the face that launched a thousand ships and many more…

Now each and every face is unique, no too are alike, each speaks of each individual life. Each changes with mood and circumstances too. We have one face and yet each face changes with our every mood. Abraham Joshua Heschel captured this perfectly when he said:

“A human being has not only a body but also a face. A face cannot be grafted or interchanged. A face is a message, a face speaks, often unbeknown to the person. Is not the human face a living mixture of mystery and meaning? We are all able to see it, and are all unable to describe it. Is it not a strange marvel that among so many hundreds of millions of faces, no two faces are alike? And that no face remains quite the same for more than one instant? The most exposed part of the body, it is the least describable, a synonym for an incarnation of uniqueness. Can we look at a face as if it were a commonplace?”

There is power in the face, perhaps even danger too. Many religions recognise this, hence the wearing of the veil, who’s original meaning was to protect those that gaze into the face. This is why veils can be found in holy places too. This brings to mind Exodus chapter 33 and an interchange between Moses and God. It recounts how God lovingly protects Moses from looking into his face, after granting him favour and recognising him. Moses so longed to see God’s face and therefore asked to see it directly “Pray thee, show me thy glory.” Of course he could not, for that would have destroyed him.

There is a real power even in a human face, for after all do we not also bare the image of the divine? To truly look into another’s face can be overpowering, frightening and make us feel a little vulnerable. To look at another face to face is a powerful experience, but also a little scary. You could say that it is truly awful, in the original meaning of the word. As to truly look at another’s face will fill us we awe. As no doubt it would if we looked truly at our own face. Look what happened to Narcissus as he became transfixed by his own reflection.

Remember that etymologically face originally meant “Form imposed upon something”. Interestingly John O’Donohue said that the “Face is an icon of creation”. In Anam Cara he stated that “The human face is an artistic achievement. On such a small surface an incredible variety and intensity of presence can be expressed. This breath of presence overflows the limitation of the physical form. No two faces are exactly the same. There is always a special variation of presence in each one. Each face is a particular intensity of human presence.”

It is the face that reveals the person. It shapes who we are perhaps even shapes our very future. David Whyte in “The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self and Relationship” states that:

“We do not often admit how much the shape of our face can be an invitation to others or a warning to keep away. Our face influences our future by what it invites or disinvites. The way we face the future actually creates our future as much as individual actions along the way.”

He illustrates what he means by telling the story of two guests at a party that he hosted at his home. He stood at his door with his eight year old daughter welcoming guests. He described his daughter as being very shy with strangers and of hiding behind his legs and just waving a hand at the guests as they arrived. This apparently all changed as one guest Satish Kumar, a former Jain monk arrived, a man who had achieved great things through his presence and openness and welcome. Whyte writes that:

“At sixty, his face was so full of life and happiness and welcome and happiness that my daughter ran out spontaneously from behind my legs and held her hands out toward him. I was taken aback by the sudden courage of my hitherto reluctant daughter, but I could see what she was running toward. Satish’s face was an invitation to happiness itself. Seeing him always makes me want to practice the set of my own face as a kind of daily discipline. I only have to see him and I want to be as naturally happy and appreciative as he is, and more importantly he makes me want to show it.”

Whyte then describes another face that was the polar opposite of Satish’s that sent his daughter scurrying once again behind his legs. Whyte writes:

“A man whose face seemed to carry not only past disappointments, but also a sense that it was only a matter of time before it was disappointed again. This man’s face seemed almost hungry for circumstances to betray him.”

Whyte writes that as he observed these two faces together, all night long he could see with absolute clarity that these two faces had radically different futures in store for them. It mattered not what they did or would do, or what would happen to them. He could see it in what they invited or disinvited into their lives. One was open and welcome, while the other was closed off and disappointed. He could see it, because it was written all over their faces.

It really matters how we face life…

The human face is not a common place. Each one is unique and each one reveals how we face life.

And it really matters how we face life. The very shape of our features can be a warning to others to keep away or an invitation, a warm welcome. There is immense power in each of our faces. This power will influence our futures and that of those who we come into contact with. Our face influences the future by what it invites or disinvites into our lives. The way that we face the future actually creates our futures, just as much as our individual actions along the way. In not just about what we do, or do not do, but the spirit in which we face the things that we do.

How are you facing life today?