Empathy, guilt, shame, they are not exactly the same

You may recall that last week I discussed a conversation I had with colleagues at “Ministry in the Making”. I’m not going to repeat it now. I just want to talk about one aspect of the conversation, something that has been a primary motivation of my ministry. I talk with lots of people, well actually I listen in conversation with lots of people. It is my life. One thing I notice often, is that so many people struggle or have struggled in their lives with feelings of guilt or shame. The feelings of shame are often without cause. It seems to come from some place deep within them. I know that these feelings are often preyed upon with so many places offering easy alternatives. That whatever people feel is wrong with them could be easily cured. There is lots of money to be made. The truth is we are not in need of fixing. Yes there is healing for just about all of us. Most of us wander around with some wounds that need healing, but I do not believe that we are fundamentally flawed. Yes, we do wrong, but we are not wrong at the core of our being. We should feel appropriate guilt for the things we do wrong, but never feel shame, because we feel that we are wrong.

I would like to make a space where people can come without shame and explore these feelings in an open and safe environment and perhaps find a way to heal these feelings. A space where we can come to terms with themselves and put right whatever it is they need to put right in themselves and this world. To come to right relationship if you like. “To forgive ourselves, to forgive one another, to begin again in love.”

I am sure all of us have done things we wish we hadn’t or said things we wish we hadn’t or not acted when perhaps we should have acted. I was talking with a friend this week, out walking our dogs. We both shared about times when we have remained silent when we should have spoken up. We discussed how this made us feel. There was a sense of appropriate guilt, a vital feeling. It comes from this sense of conscience. That seed of the Divine, that believe is there in all of us. A healthy feeling, something we should try to develop, to live from. I feel that empathy grows from this, another vital aspect of our humanity. Empathy and guilt are vital emotions, when they are alive within us. We have them for important and vital reasons. We have them for good reason and they need to be developed if we are to live the good life. They are a response to life. Shame though is something very different. It a purely negative feeling and instead of being a response to life, seems to come from a rejection of life itself. Where it comes from, I am not wholly sure. What I am sure if is how destructive it is.

Guilt is a common feeling for most ministers. We rarely feel that we are doing a good enough job, we wish we could do more. I feel guilt around the suffering of others. Now in its healthy form this manifests as empathy, in its unhealthy form it can manifest as shame. I do wish I could do more when around those suffering, I feel guilt for those suffering and their loved ones. I feel it around family and friends too, particularly old friends. I wish I had more time for them. I feel it too sometimes when in a joyful state, when I feel so much joy at simply being alive. When I see others suffering and struggling, there is a part of me that feels bad. I also experience some survivor’s guilt too, with my fellows in recovery and when I think of friends and loved ones that have died far too soon. I then feel a little bad for feeling guilty about feeling joyful.

It is crazy isn’t it, but oh so very human. I don’t think I’m alone in these feelings. It does suggest I’m not some kind of psychopath, which I am pleased about. No, I’m a human being who experiences the same emotions and feelings as everyone else. Thank God. The feelings come from empathy, which is vital aspect of healthy humanity. The problems can come when such feelings can overwhelm folk. Or they tap into feelings of shame. Shame will lead a person to shrink away from pain, empathy and healthy guilt will often allow a person to be with others in their suffering.

Feelings of guilt come in many forms, helpful and unhelpful. To feel remorseful after saying or doing the wrong thing, is healthy. It compels us to do what we can to put things right. That said if this feeling lingers even after putting right what was wrong, if we dwell and beat ourselves up for unskilful action or word then the feeling is probably coming from another place, from this sense that fundamentally there is something wrong with us. This is shame.

I suspect that the key is where the feeling comes from. Does it come as a result of our actions, thoughts and or words, or lack of them, or is it a feeling that comes from some other place and almost dictates our thoughts, feelings, words and actions and regardless of these things we just feel bad.

Where does this feeling of being wrong come from? Why does it control so many of our lives?

Now in our culture some put it down to our Judea Christian heritage, the core of our culture, even in these secular times. Often folks who grew up in deeply religious homes will argue about who feels the most guilt. Now although the Judeo-Christian tradition seems to be seeped in guilt, the bible both the Hebrew scriptures and the Gospels make no reference to guilt as it is commonly understood. As Mark Belletini points out in “Nothing Gold Can Stay: The Colours of Grief”

“…I confess to being surprised that the word guilt itself, as in the feeling of guilt, is not found any place in either the Jewish or the Christian testaments. Not once. The few times the English word can be found in more antique translations, it refers only to the kind of “guilty” that courts speak about, which is not a feeling so much as a legal category.

I am convinced that families of origin, cultural and ethnic patterns, and categorical realities play a far greater role in how much guilt we feel than does religion. I certainly have known folks raised without religion of any kind – including the “shopping mall spirituality” created by cultus consumerism – who have struggled with guilt as much as anyone raised in a particular denomination of religion, Western or Eastern.”

The feelings of guilt coms from a place within us. When it is in appropriate proportion it is a good thing. It connects us to one another and to life, it keeps us humble and therefore human and saves us from the dangers of destructive hubris. Such guilt is a function of conscience. This is key to my understanding of my faith as a Unitarian, this concept of living revelation that is an aspect of my humanity, if I can tap into it and allow it to lead me. When I do I see this same spark in others too. You see in opening myself to the divine spark within I open myself to that same spark in everyone and everything. This is key to my understanding of religion, my attempts to live my life in the company of others and through which I attempt to shape an ideal that I strive for, but suspect I will never attain. I always fall short of this ideal, in this sense I sin (from sinare which meant to fall short of the mark). This though is not original sin, it is actually more original blessing. I feel guilt, appropriate guilt, because I fall short of the mark, although I do at times feel shame too, in doing so I deny my true nature. I also occasionally fall short in shaming others too, something I strive not to do. I sometimes fail to recognise the divinity in my brothers and sisters, but hey these short comings save me from becoming too pious and separating myself from brothers and sisters.

What is key is to develop this feeling so it can used in good purpose in this world. The key is empathy and bring empathy to life, to act upon this empathy. Active empathy is about opening our whole being to others. We do this not by forcing ourselves upon them, but by allow them to be themselves around us. This is true openness. This is invitation. When I say come as you are m exactly as you are, this is what I mean. When I also say, “but do not expect to leave in exactly the same condition.” This is the purpose of religious experience, that of transformation. This is not to suggest that we are fundamentally wrong, no it is more that we can become who we are wholly and at the same time invite others to do the same. Empathy and particularly active empathy is the key.

Now Shame is something else. Shame is destructive and it keeps us separate from ourselves and one another. Shame is not formed from our actions or inactions, but from some other place in our being. It’s that place that people have tapped into throughout human history. Yes religion has used this, the classic example being the concept of Original Sin, but then so has the secular world. Advertising is the classic example it’s how they sell lifestyles to us and it’s how they get so many of us to feel we have to change who we just to be acceptable. How many people suffer from a sense that there is something fundamentally wrong with them? I know it’s crippled me over the years. Thankfully it does so less and less as I grow faithfully.

When I look at myself in the eye these days what I see is a man who gets things wrong from time to time and I feel appropriate guilt for this. This enables me to act in the world positively. Yes I wish I could do more, but hey I am only human. I feel less shame about my being, but I must confess that I am not completely free of this. There is a part of me that is ok with this. Why? Well because it keeps me grounded, for I know that every single one of us is still living with these feelings. Maybe this too helps with the empathy too.

When you look at yourself in the eye, what do you see? Do you a decent person who makes mistakes? Or do you see someone who is fundamentally wrong to the core.

It matters you know, it really does. For it will affect how you interact with the world and how the world interacts with you.

Let us recognise these feelings within ourselves and begin to understand them in others. Let’s develop active empathy and invite others to do the same. In so doing we will live lives of love and purpose and encourage others to do the same.

I’m going to end this morning with a bit of Mary Oliver, her classic poem “Wild Geese”

“Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

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

It takes love, it takes courage, to open our hearts, to continue to rise: A reflection for Palm Sunday

This last week has been one of those weeks, that has been filled with conversations. Yes, the eyes of my heart have been awakening to the beautiful Spring all around me. Meanwhile the ears of my heart have been opening as I have walked and sat and listened to so many. The conversations have been filled with those blessings and curses that come with “Choosing Life”. I was talking with a friend the other day about a woman I had met when I was a student minister at Macclesfield who she had recently met herself. A little later I got a phone call from another woman I had met during my time in Macclesfield. I had not spoken to her for over 15 years. She had traced me down as she needed to talk about a difficult family situation. She talked and I listened I couldn’t change anything, but I was able to accompany her as she came to her own conclusions. She just needed an ear. A little later I was talking to another friend, who I know baby Eileen through, who I told you about recently about. I was talking a dear friend also named Eileen who had died during Covid, she was friends with both the Macclesfield women. I have been thinking a lot of Eileen recently for many reasons. Her example to me as a person and many the struggles that she had been through in life, yet she remained a woman of faith and dignity. No matter how many times she fell in life, she always seemed to get back up again. No matter what happened, still she would rise.

I received some wonderful gifts from my auntie this week. Some old family photographs and data stick that contained a video shot by my dad’s partner Alan when we were small children. It is something that has brought back so many memories this week, memories that have brought many emotions alive in me. I talked a little about this during the Urmston “Common Search for Meaning” group. Where we shared a wonderful hour and half exploring and sharing about the things and people that have brought solace and comfort to our lives during times of challenge and struggle, fear and disappointment, times when life seemed to have let us down or it seemed too much. It was a beautiful conversation to be a part of.

Yes, the awakening Spring has opened the eyes of my heart this week, but I have also been blessed by so many beautiful conversations too; conversations that have awakened so much in my heart.

Now of course this is nothing new, happens all the time and yet things feel even more alive this spring, it feels like there is something new in the air. I thought this is I have watched the flowers appear and the first cherry blossom too, so beautiful.

One of blessings of my work is that people tell you things, they really tell you things; things that they perhaps cannot tell other people. They open their hearts to you and somehow find the ability to expose their all too real and vulnerable humanity. I’m not just talking about the people I serve, but people I meet in general. Now I say it is a blessing of my work but actually this has happened all my life. People, for whatever reason talk to me.

Now there was a time in my life when this bothered me somewhat, I did not see it as a blessing. I would take on board and absorb the pain of others and it would weigh me down. There was a time when I wished above all things to be freed from this sensitivity, it was too much. I saw it as a serious handicap and one I wished I didn’t have.

Thankfully this is no longer the case. I am as sensitive as I have always been. if not more so. I feel more today than I ever done. The difference is that I no longer carry the burden of the suffering of others around with me. This for me is one of the great gifts of faith and living openly. Life passes through me as I believe it is meant to. It is this, I have come to believe, which allows me to truly be of service to others. I am not a machine though, I have been quite emotional this week.

Most of us carry much pain around with us, many disappointments, so many experiences of betrayal. Yes we all know joy and love and acceptance, but we also know betrayal both by others and of course by ourselves. Stories I have heard again this week.

What I love about the conversations, as hard as they can be at times, is that what I witness in so many people is true courage, as they continue on living and loving despite the many struggles, worries and disappointments. Something we don’t always recognise in ourselves.

What I see in the people I meet and share life with is something I fully recognise in myself. I recognise our full and complex humanity. That we are all made up of many things, we have all fallen short and fallen down many times but still we rise oh still we rise.

Brings to mind this beautiful poem by Maya Angelou, who is sadly no longer with us.

“Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise
I rise
I rise.

Now of course I am not an African American woman, I have not walked in her shoes but I identify, as so many of us can I am sure, despite the struggles and sufferings that happen in our lives and our shared world we continue to rise.

Today “Palm Sunday” marks the beginning of “Holy Week”, regarded as the most important in the whole Christian calendar. It begins with Jesus entering Jerusalem riding on the back of a humble donkey or Colt. He is received by the crowds waving palm branches and shouting “Hosanna, hosanna in the highest heaven” The crowds welcome Jesus who they believe will save them. This though does not happen and just a few days later he is betrayed, rejected, brutalised and killed. The body is killed, the figure dies, but the love that is left behind lives on. It is this love that I believe is true Easter mythos. A love that can live on and once again incarnate in the lives of all people. On Easter morning once more we see the love rise.

There is though more to the Holy week narrative than the concept of universal love. It is not just a mythos about Jesus, it is also about the crowd and all the people around him. People just like you and me. Just like them we can all get caught up in the crowd mentality can we not? We can all identify with the crowd despite the world in which we live being very different today. We share a common humanity with them. We are all formed from the same breath of life, we all have the Divine spark within us; well at least I believe that we do. We are not God’s though, although we can become the light of the world if and when we live in love. We are fully human just like those folk on the side of the street waving their palms grateful for any reason to celebrate. People looking for joy, looking for meaning, looking for love. People who just like us are prone to disappointment, who fail to live up to the very ideals they would like to strive for. People who fall short, get ill, and become bogged down in little and bigger things, finite human beings. People who are looking for hope, to lift them out of their suffering. People looking for someone or something to lead them to better things, to give them another chance to live better lives.

How many times have we fallen short, messed up and wished we could live up to our ideals? Well we can. Earlier I shared a wonderful poem, “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou. I’d like to share with you now some other words by her, words that strike deep into my soul, on forgiveness:

I don't know if I continue, even today, always liking myself. But what I learned to do many years ago was to forgive myself. It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes – it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, ‘well, if I’d known better I’d have done better,’ that’s all. So you say to people who you think you may have injured, ‘I’m sorry,’ and then you say to yourself, ‘I’m sorry.’ If we all hold on to the mistake, we can’t see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can’t see what we’re capable of being. You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one’s own self. I think that young men and women are so caught by the way they see themselves. Now mind you, when a larger society sees them as unattractive, as threats, as too black or too white, or too poor, or too fat or too thin, or too sexual or too asexual, that’s rough. But you can overcome that. The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself. If we don’t have that we never grow, we never learn, and sure as hell we should never teach.”

This is so key I believe, this sense of forgiveness and wholeness this sense that we are ok, they are so essential if we wish to keep on rising. We all fall down at times, we all give in at times what we need is a sense of true forgiveness to come if we want to start over again.

What I sense so often when I listen to people is that they are not just wanting to unburden themselves but are looking for a real sense of forgiveness and acceptance to be able to start again, to be redeemed from all those things that hold them back from being the loving people we are all capable of being.

Here lays the essence of the story of Palm Sunday and the week that follows that leads to the new beginning that is Easter. We can begin again we can start anew, we can forgive and be forgiven for our very human mistakes and shortcomings, for our betrayals of love however it manifests in this our imperfect world. It means that we will get things wrong sometimes, lots of times, but that, if we pay attention, maybe next time, we’ll do better. If we work at it, we can see our own glory in the mirror; we can begin to see what we’re capable of being; we can begin to recognise that we truly are children of love; we can begin again in love. No matter how many times we fall we can rise again.

This week begins in glory and celebration, before moving onto to betrayal, denial, torture and brutal death. Love and compassion is destroyed by the end of it, only to rise again and far more powerfully than ever before.

For love will always rise again.

Still Love will rise, still love will rise, still love will rise

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

Salvation here and now: It’s not about being saved from life, but to be saved by life, in life, for life

I have a friend named Neil. We have known each other for twenty years now. I think it is fair to say when we first met we didn’t see eye to eye, we had lived very different lives. We got to know one another though because we suffered from a common problem. This though is not what led to us becoming friends. That just happened over time. We have been on a spiritual journey along side one another, some of that time we have been very close and others not so much, there have been many parallels and crossings over. We were members at Cross Street chapel together. These days Neil has returned to his Catholic faith; yes he is Catholic, but he is certainly one with an open mind, heart, spirit and soul.

I conducted Neil’s wedding to Rosemary at Dunham Road, I think it was the second wedding I ever conducted. I did not introduce them to each other, although I did meet her before he did. When I was a student minister at King Edward Street Chapel, the home of Macclesfield Unitarians, Rosemary was attending. They met not long after I left there and realised that they had a common acquaintance in me, it is a small world. Rosemary has her health troubles and Neil has been a loving and devoted husband throughout this time, she has even survived his terrible jokes and puns. Neil retired many years and since then returned to education, a few years ago he completed his History PHD on the Irish in Manchester.

Like I said earlier at different times Neil and I have drifted apart and then reconnected. We have reconnected in the last couple of years and he has been a good supportive friend to me, during a few personally difficult times. We see each other, along with other friends most Fridays. We met last Friday and he told me that he was meeting his brother a little later. This was wonderful to hear as I know that they had fallen out a few years ago, they had had their differences about life and the world, the kind of things that seem to cause so much division in society these days. Neil though wanted to make things right, his brother had been his best man at his wedding. So, Neil plucked up the courage to contact his brother’s son and offered the hand of friendship, between two brothers. That afternoon his brother Ged, had agreed to meet him.

A little later I saw them having coffee together. I cannot begin to tell you how much seeing the beaming smile of Ged’s face meant to me. It was so wonderful seeing two brothers reconciled with each other. Neil told me later “When I met him I hugged him and said ‘I love you Ged’. After that it was as it should be with brothers.” It touched my heart. I had already seen two men levelling their pride earlier that day and reconciling with one another and then there was Neil and Ged. If only the rest of the world could behave that way. One thing I am grateful for in life is that I have never fallen out with any of my siblings, nore they me, despite the many troubles and fallings out there have been and still are in our large and complicated family. This includes all the half siblings and step siblings and ex step siblings too. There have been tough times, but we have all vowed never to let these things destroy our relationships with each other. I hope we keep it that way.

Neil and Ged reminded of a verse from chapter 5 in Matthews Gospel, from the “Sermon on the Mount”, which for me is the essence of the teachings of Jesus, something regardless of whether you are a Christian or not seem as good a code as any to live by. I know that Gandhi, a Hindu, believed so. The verse is as follows:

23 So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. 25

It is no use proclaiming faith etc, showing your piety, if your human relationships are a mess. Unhealthy pride can be destructive in human relationships. So often it is the levelling of pride that leads to reconciliation. It takes faith and love and courage to build the bridges of reconciliation, it takes someone to make the first move to bring healing for their relationship but also the wider relationship. You see if two people are in conflict, it is not only those two individuals who are damaged by it, all who are connected to them are damaged too. Reconciliation can bring healing to so many. I see this every day, just as I see the damage done by disputes and resentment.

In life there are many things that separate we human beings, often our beliefs and disbeliefs. Whether these be religious or anti-religious, political, social, cultural, we separate ourselves through them and yet we are all human. We all love and we all grieve when we lose those we love. To quote Eugene Ionesco “Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together.” We are united by a common humanity, united by our shared hopes and despairs. We are each of us unique and complete as ourselves and yet we only truly know ourselves through our relationships with one another and with life. To quote Mark Nepo “It is a great paradox of being that each of us is born complete and yet we need contact with life in order to be whole. Somehow we need each other to know that completeness, though we are never finished in that journey.” I know how precious my relationship with others is to my well-being.

We are living in ever more dividing and divisive times. We do not see ourselves as one people. This is dangerous. Not only to ourselves but to our shared humanity. By separating ourselves we will never know wholeness, we will never truly be all that we can be. No one is an island. We need to be at one not only with ourselves, but with all of life and whatever it is we believe is at the core of all life, to truly become completely ourselves, to touch perfection. Perfection means completeness. This is what salvation means by the way. To quote Forrest Church. “What I'm talking about…is salvation. The Latin root, salve, means health. The Teutonic cognates, health, hale, whole, and holy, all share the same root. Being an agnostic about the afterlife, I look for salvation here—not to be saved from life, but to be saved by life, in life, for life.

Such salvation has three dimensions: Integrity, or individual wholeness, comes when we make peace with ourselves; reconciliation, or shared wholeness, comes when we make peace with our neighbors, especially with our loved ones; redemption, in the largest sense, comes when we make peace with life and death, with being itself, with God.”

When we experience this wholeness we are as close as we will ever be to perfection, to completeness, although only for a moment as our lives go on. We begin to truly live our lives. Life is the greatest gift of all, the ultimate Grace. So choose life.

This brings me back to “The Sermon on the Mount”, this time verse 48 of the 5th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, the final verse of that chapter. “Therefore be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect.” This is heaven on earth, this is the Kingdom of Love right here right now. This is the purpose of the spiritual life, this is the religion of love, of true communal spirituality. This is what it means to live in perfect love Perfection is not flawlessness as we often think it is. Quite the opposite perfect love is sincere, it’s about showing our cracks, our flaws, our scars, showing who we truly are. The Latin root of perfection is “perfectus” which meant “completeness”, or wholeness, health in mind body and spirit, wholeness with self, others, life and God.

This is the purpose of spiritual community; this is the purpose of our free religious faith.

But how do we become whole, complete, perfect? How do we become at one with ourselves, one another, life, with God? Well it begins by being truly present in what we are doing; it begins by not being caught up in worry and fear, our own and others. It’s about not going into things hard, but rather by softly melting into what we are doing, by being who we are in what we are doing, by almost not focusing too hard, by looking through soft eyes. By being natural, who we are, by becoming what we are doing.

We are never truly whole complete unless we are at one with ourselves, one another, life and whatever it is that we believe is the power that permeates all life. We can never truly become ourselves alone. This is why true community is so vital to the spiritual life. We need right relationship to become wholly who we are. To me this is the purpose of what we do as a community, what we are doing here today. Yes, it’s about becoming who we truly are, but this cannot be done in isolation. This is the purpose of free religion. It allows the birth of the true spirit in each of us, but no one can completely give birth to themself, by them self. To repeat those words of Mark Nepo: “It is a great paradox of being that each of us is born complete and yet we need contact with life in order to be whole. Somehow we need each other to know that completeness, though we are never finished in that journey.”

This begins with reconciliation. By putting things right with our relationships with ourselves, our God, those important people in our lives, in our families and our communities and of course putting things right in our relationships with life.

This is salvation here and now. It’s not about being saved from life, but to be saved by life, in life, for life.

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

Come as you are, come find home here, come find acceptance, come find shelter”

Mothering Sunday, Mother’s Day, whatever its actual true origins, and they are many varied and complicated, is at its heart about coming home to a deep, accepting and nurturing love. This may not be with our biological mothers, but it will be somewhere in some state, I hope you find that place of acceptance, love and rest.

Mothering Sunday, Mother’s Day is enshrined in this image of returning home, and this sense of belonging to something more than ourselves. Whether that is actually of children returning to the family home having been working away or of people returning to the mother church. Either way it’s about returning home to a place of safety; it is about returning home to a place of renewal, of re-birth, not only for ourselves but for others too; it is about returning to a place of love and total acceptance of who we are, exactly as we, no matter what we have done or where we have been, we are accepted with open loving arms.

A place of safety, a constant a home, is vital for anyone to build a life. This often comes to mind when I see images of displaced people, of refugees, people who have no home, who are fleeing their homeland, how terrifying this must be. How frightening to be crossing the water or a foreign land just to find safety. In recent times such people have often been vilified and distrusted, how this must feel I cannot imagine. Thankfully this does not seem to be happening with the refugees from the Ukraine, but it certainly has been in the not too distant past. They are the same people as we are, born under the same sun, living on the same earth.

Welcoming the stranger, welcoming the visitor, welcoming the dispossessed is at the core of every spiritual tradition that I know of and yet so often we reject the stranger. By the way the stranger is sometimes people who have become estranged from our lives and even aspects of our own being that we have become estranged from. For me at the core of the love we call mother is this welcome of all, whoever you are, wherever you have been, come home, come home again soon. You are welcome here as you are, exactly as you are in this moment. This is certainly at the core of my understanding of faith, it is certainly the faith I try to live and practice. It sounds simple, but it certainly isn’t easy, far from it.

This brings to mind those wonderful words, I love so much, by Rumi

“Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving. It doesn't matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times. Come, yet again , come , come.”

When we return home to “mother” we are a returning to a place of total acceptance. This is the community I believe in. This is the church I dream of. This is how the “Kin-dom of God”, the “Commonwealth of Love” is meant to be like. It is the prodigal son or daughter returning to the loving arms of the “Mother Community” totally accepted as they are ready to begin again in love.

This brings to mind some beautiful words of prayer, a redemptive prayer I first heard many years ago.

"We forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love."

For remaining silent when a single voice would have made a difference
We forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love.
For each time that our fears have made us rigid and inaccessible
We forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love.
For each time that we have struck out in anger without just cause
We forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love.
For each time that our greed has blinded us to the needs of others
We forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love.
For the selfishness which sets us apart and alone
We forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love.
For falling short of the admonitions of the spirit
We forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love.
For losing sight of our unity
We forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love.
For these and for so many acts both evident and subtle which have fuelled the illusion of separateness
We forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love

When I think of Motherhood and or the Mother Church, I think of returning to a place of sustenance of nurture where one feels that they can recharge and renew in safety. A place where you are accepted wholly as you are. From here you can begin again in love, you can if you like be born again, be given birth to once again.

Columbian author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, wrote in, “Love in the Time of Cholera”, “…human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but…life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.”

Our lives often take different directions at times. We turn down a new pathway, again and again and again. Often, we will go down blind alleys, again and again and again. Often, we repeat the same mistakes again and again and again. We do not always learn from our mistakes. This is so very human and even if we have made those mistakes a thousand times, we can always begin again in love, we can always return home to a place of acceptance.

This brings to my mind the wonderful poem “Autobiography in Five Short Chapters” by Portia Nelson

1. I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost … I am hopeless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

2. I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I’m in the same place.
But it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

3. I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in … it’s a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

4. I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

5. I walk down another street.

We can begin again a thousand times if need be. We can turn down a new path, or we can return home to the very beginning. It is ok.

It is a curious phrase to turn, or to turn again or even to return. Did you know that to turn or to re-turn was the original meaning of the religious word “conversion”. Conversion is rooted in the Latin word “convertere”, which meant to turn around to transform.

Now for a long time I use to think that if a person had been converted that this was the end of a process. Thankfully I no longer live under this delusion. Today when I think of conversion, I think of it as the beginning of something of the start of a journey. Today I see conversion as an ongoing process, not a once or perhaps twice in lifetime experience. We can begin again even if we have broken our vows and made same mistakes a thousand times. We can begin again in love. We can turn again; we can return to a place of re-birth. Look at “Mother Earth”, at “Mother Nature” she recycles, she returns, she begins again and again and again.

Herein, I believe, lays the association with Mothering Sunday and this idea of returning to the Mother Church. I believe that is the purpose of communities such as serve, Unitarian congregations. A place that welcomes the traveller home, to the loving arms of mother. A place of total acceptance, wherever they have been. Not merely tolerance, as I don’t think that that is enough. No, a place of acceptance, where you can come as you are, exactly as you are in this moment. A place of loving nurture where you can either continue or if need be, begin again in love, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times.

The purpose of a free religious community is to nurture one another’s spirit. Its purpose is to nurture that love that is present deep within the souls of everyone. To nurture and develop these qualities in each other is not just the responsibility of our mother’s, we all have nurturing qualities, and we can all help to bring out the best in one another.

We can all offer one another unconditional love. We say that all are welcome here. This though must be an active quality, rather than merely words. To love each other unconditionally is to love as a mother love’s her only child. This of course is easier said than done. For those of us who have been hurt by those who were supposed to love us to offer love unconditionally is not easy. Therefore, before we can offer that love to others, we must first of all become reconciled with our own pain and our own suffering. This is one of the purposes of a church that is free, to offer a safe secure space where one can come to terms with themselves and their lives. Security and protection are both nurturing qualities of motherhood. They are also qualities which a free religious community needs to help develop in those who come, so that they will feel safe enough to develop their souls. To be who they are and to become who they are, not just to come as they are. It is the purpose of beloved community to create an environment that is secure enough to enable each of us to explore and in a safe and secure environment.

A free community needs to nourish and feed each and all. This requires us to give and not just take from what we find here. For our souls to be fed we need to give of ourselves wholeheartedly. We need to develop both sensitivity and understanding towards one another. We can also learn from the wisdom of others, from those who have walked these paths before us.

Perhaps the greatest quality that we need to develop is humour, one the most wonderful qualities of motherhood. Humour helps us to deal with life’s trials and tribulations. It also helps us to explore those most difficult and testing issues that as a spiritually vibrant community we need to explore. Humour is something I feel as a community we are very good at sharing. I have experienced a great deal of humour and warmth from the folk I serve.

So, on this day set aside to honour Mother’s let’s remember those who have offered us the unconditional and wholly accepting love of the mother ideal. Those who have offered their unquestioning love to us, even when we have broken our vows a thousand times, those who have offered their nurturing heart and encouraged us to begin again in love. Let us also though commit to living this way ourselves to offer this love to all that we meet. To not just tolerate the people, we meet as they are, but to love them and accept them, even if they have broken their vows a thousand times. Let’s offer to them the nurturing hand of love and to do so with real humour. Let us all begin again in love.

Below is a video devotion based

 on the material in this "blogspot"

Lessons from Stan and Ollie: Betrayal Forgiveness, Friendship and Love

It’s funny the things that you grow up with and love, the things that you remember. It’s always the heartwarming things or the distressingly painful ones, that stay with you. For some reason a couple of cultural ones from my mum and former step dad have been floating around in my consciousness. The first is a Drifters Album of my mum’s “Saturday Night at the Movies”. I have over the last year spent many Friday nights at the movies and just like the Drifters sang

“Saturday night at the movies

Who cares what picture you see

When you're hugging with your baby

Last row in the balcony?”

I have enjoyed some wonderful films and some less so, and shared some heart filling experiences.

We have seen quite a variety of films and recently went to see something that takes both of us back to our childhoods, as well as our parents and grandparents childhoods. By the way it also links to my nieces and nephews as I know my brother's children share in this love, a love for “Laurel and Hardy”. Sue and I recently went to see “Stan and Ollie”. It was truly wonderful. Now I do have a tenuous family link to Stan Laurel. A lady known as auntie Nancy, she was actually my mum’s husband’s Godmother,  her mother was Stan Laurel’s cousin. She helped with the research on the book “Laurel before Hardy” about Stan’s early life, some of which was spent in my home town of Batley. and I know that my mum helped Stan’s daughter Lois do some family research a few years ago, she helped her solve a family mystery. My mum is a family history detective, an expert genealogist.

The film got me in all the places one would hope it could. It was funny and beautifully moving and enabled me to connect heart to heart with so many people I have known and loved, it brought back some beautiful memories. It was a true love story, a very human story too and funny with it. It is a love story in so many ways, a story about philia love. The ancient Greeks saw this kind of love, that between friends, as one of the highest, certainly higher than Eros.

Now the film is not your classic biopic. It focuses on a tour they both made to Britain when they had fallen on hard times and were both not in the best of health. Ollie was seriously ill with a heart condition. It was an attempt to relaunch their film careers, which never happened. It beautifully portrayed their loving partnership and how they struggled on. There is obviously a deep love between them, the wives are brilliant too. There is an interesting aspect to film that caught my attention. It looked at betrayal. Stan felt betrayed by Ollie as he had made a film “Zenobia” with another actor in 1939, this was due to them having separate contacts and Stan being out of contract at the time. Stan believed that this was what put them in the predicament they were in during the 1950's, struggling playing small venues in Britain. During the tour resentment rises to the surface: “I loved us,” Stan claims. “But you never loved me,” replies Ollie. Stan, the brains and the workaholic, loved the double act, but for Ollie life is more about real people and real relationships.

There is a scene later in the film where they have an almighty public fall out, although those present thought that they were acting. A few days later Ollie has a heart attack and is told he can no longer perform. Despite this being the end of their working dreams the two men make up as the love they have for each other is stronger than the resentment they feel. Stan is about to go on stage with another character but finds he cannot do so and then Ollie decides he can’t break up the partnership and they go together to Ireland to a heroes welcome. They both return to America and Ollie dies within three years, Stan lives a few years longer continuing to write material for Laurel and Hardy until the day he died.

It is a beautiful and moving story about friendship, about love. The love for one another and the power of that love to touch hearts when things work together. It’s also a story about betrayal and forgiveness too. How love is the most important and powerful emotion there is.

I loved the film, it touched my heart deeply and connected me to so many deep memories. It helped me to re-feel so much love for the people I have loved and still love in my life, many no longer here. Many who at some point I have let down and even betrayed and who have done the same to me and those I love too. It is a beautiful human story about the power of love, family and community, past, present and future. I laughed and I cried and felt so alive.

I think the key component for long term relationships, of any kind, is love and the capacity to forgive. For the truth is that if you spend enough time with anybody, no matter how deep the love they will at some point or another let you down, even betray you in some way or another, as you will them. They may not mean to, but they will all the same. I have heard it said that when you meet someone, if you want to develop a deep bond its best to get the disappointment out of the way quickly and move on, because it is going to come sooner or later.

The forgiveness and the healing that comes is about the power of the relationship, it is never an individual act. It is about something greater than merely ourselves. For Stan and Ollie is was about their partnership and what it gave to them and so many other people, this was greater than their individual resentments and disappointments. There is so much more power in reconciliation than resentment. It builds bridges, it builds community, it certainly beats walls and separation.

This brings to mind a wonderful story in Jack Kornfield’s “The Art of Forgiveness, Loving kindness, and Peace”. He writes:

"In the Babemba tribe of South Africa, when a person acts irresponsibly or unjustly, he is placed in the center of the village, alone and unfettered. All work ceases, and every man, woman and child in the village gathers in a large circle around the accused individual. Then each person in the tribe speaks to the accused, one at a time, each recalling the good things the person in the center of the circle has done in his lifetime. Every incident, every experience that can be recalled with any detail and accuracy, is recounted. All his positive attributes, good deeds, strengths, and kindnesses are recited carefully and at length. This tribal ceremony often lasts for several days. At the end, the tribal circle is broken, a joyous celebration takes place, and the person is symbolically and literally welcomed back into the tribe."

For the Babemba it seems that healing and reconciliation is far more important than individual wrong doing.

Wow can you imagine what things could be like if we all lived this way. Sadly though, too often, we live with resentment and seek revenge. Too often folk want pay back. An eye for an eye, which as Gandhi pointed out, leaves everyone blind. Now interestingly even an eye for an eye doesn’t mean exactly what we might think. When Hammarubi came up with this code is was actually an attempt to limit punishment and revenge. He wasn’t so much recommending that we take and eye for an eye, instead he was suggesting take that much, but no more. Then came a more radical idea. If you are injured do not seek revenge, instead offer forgiveness. Just think of the prayer that Jesus taught “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” A radical idea even now, but an acknowledgement of our shared humanity, because in the end we all let someone down at some point and forgiveness is about connection, it’s about building bridges, not those walls of separation. It’s about seeing the other as ourselves and not as someone separate and or different.

No one person is truly a single separate human being, we are who we are in community, we are part of one family, the human one. This brings to mind Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu’s thoughts on the African term “Ubuntu”. He said:

" 'We say a person is a person through other persons. We don't come fully formed into the world. We learn how to think, how to walk, how to speak, how to behave, indeed how to be human from other human beings. We need other human beings in order to be human. We are made for togetherness, we are made for family, for fellowship, to exist in a tender network of interdependence.”

Tutu devoted his life to reconciliation, having grown up under the horrors of Apartheid, a system that saw some people as being less than others, due to the colour of their skin.

This speaks powerfully of Jesus teachings on love, perfectly exemplified in forgiveness. Put simply in the Golden Rule of Compassion, the basic teaching of virtually every religious tradition that has ever existed. He said 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength . . . (and) you shall love your neighbor as yourself' (Mk. 12:30-31).

Sounds simple hey, well yes but it aint easy. I know that. The truth is though it is vital. Our world so desperately needs more love, needs more bridges and reconciliation and less walls of separation.

There is a love that can come to life in this world; a love that is in all of us; a love that so desperately needs our bodily experience to live and breath through. It comes to life when we begin to see that we are not so different; that we are all made form the same stuff; that we all need, community and companionship. A simple love that is so wonderfully exemplified in the charming humour of Stan and Ollie, two every men, two seeming losers, but ones that had an ability to tap into something simple and beautiful in each and every one of us. A love that lives on long after they have gone and a love that connects so many generations. When I think of Stan and Ollie I think of both of my grandfather’s and I also think of my niece Scarlett and so many other people I love and have loved deeply, people who I have let down and who have let me down too. As I think of them I laugh and I cry, I live and one day I know we will all die. That said I also know that when we die, the love that we shared will live on,beyond our bodily mortality.

The Spiritual Life is Like a Flower

The spiritual life is like a flower. These are words that came to me during my morning meditation last week. They came to me as I sat in the silence with others in the early hours of a cold April morning. Where they came from, well none of us knows, but I’m grateful that they did.

Now you may well ask, how is the spiritual life like a flower? It is a reasonable question to ask. Well in the following paragraphs I will attempt to explore this thoughts and feelings.

The first thing that comes to my heart and mind is that the spiritual life is about opening up, as a flower opens up. That to live spiritually is to open up and to continue opening up day after day, season after season and year after year. Just as the flower opens up to the light, so do we. How many times do we open up and reach for the morning light? Well an infinite number of times it would seem.

That said we not only open many times we close down and shrivel up many times too. We seemingly close in, shrivel up and fade away many times in our lives only to rise and open once again in a new spring time. The spiritual life is about opening up and closing back in before opening once again, over and over and over again...

The dance goes on…We dance together over and over again, in the garden of delights, the garden of life…

We are all of us like flowers in the garden of life. Each unique and yet similar. Each with something to offer if we grow and flower and be all that were born to be. Yes a flower looks beautiful when it stands alone. It has its own beauty and own unique qualities but it only truly becomes all that it is when it grows together with other flowers in the garden. It only truly becomes all that it is when it shares all that it is with all the other flowers in the garden of life.

It is the same with us and our lives. Yes we are all uniquely beautiful and we all have our own qualities but we only truly express them and experience them when we come together in love and share them with others, encouraging them to do likewise. The spiritual life is never truly experienced or expressed alone. These things only really come alive in company and communion with others. Each of us have something uniquely beautiful to offer one another, things that only truly flower when we share them with each other.

The spiritual life is not only like a flower, but like a flower garden…The spiritual life comes alive in the garden of life…The garden of delights…

The spiritual life is not experienced alone, it does not exist alone. It only comes alive when we share it with others. No one life is an island. We cannot thrive or survive alone. We are interconnected, much like life in a garden is interconnected.

Margaret Silf captured this thought near perfectly in “The Way of Wisdom”. She wrote:

"We belong, not merely to the created order of things, but in a great web of relationship, and interconnectedness, in which every particle is intimately interwoven with every other, and in which, in some mysterious way, each particle holds and reflects something of the totality. This makes a huge difference to the way we live. Every choice we make, every response we offer, every reaction we reveal has an effect on that web of being. We are made for relationship. The Wisdom of creation insists on it. No single creature can disengage from the dance of creation without jeopardizing the eternal beauty of that dance. We are indeed created to be 'we'. To opt for merely being 'I' is to opt out of the creative process itself. It is only in interrelationship that we have our being and our meaning."

In my eyes the beauty of this interconnectedness is portrayed near perfectly in the observation of flowers growing together with all that makes up the nature of a garden. Our lives and all life is like those flowers in the garden.

You see nothing in life is separate, everything is interconnected. If we damage one aspect of life we damage all life, just as if we begin to heal one aspect of life we begin to heal all life. Or to paraphrase Jesus “What you do to the least of them, you do to me.” Everything is interconnected, nothing lives separately from all life and I believe that is all connected by a Great Universal thread from which all life exists. I call this thread God.

True reverential spiritual living, an awareness of the sacred in everything helps us to recognise the importance of everything. It helps us see that everything matters. Every thought, every feeling, every word and every deed. It helps us recognise the intrinsic value of our own lives too. It reveals how we see life and how we live in life impacts on everything, including our own souls, our own beings. I am recognising this more and more as I live and breathe and enjoy my own being and that in which I live and breathe and share my being. In recent months as I have simply enjoyed walking round where I live I have felt more connected to the people and the nature that I pass and interact with. As my reverence and love for life has grown, so has my love for my own being too. This has helped to heal me in so many ways. It has allowed me to thrive and live and dance in the garden of life.

By observing flowers in a garden we can see clearly the interdependence of all life…The life in which we live and breathe and share our being…

Flowers can become and expression of spiritual practice. Below are two observations that show how flowers can help us to develop and grow spiritually.

Tom Cowan suggest a way to develop forgiveness and healing through flowers. He says:

“Buy a special vase and name it your "Forgiveness Vase." Whenever someone offends or insults you, buy or pick some flowers and place them in the vase. Every day that the flowers are still fresh, say a prayer of forgiveness for the person who hurt you. When the flowers have died, let your own desire for revenge die with them.”

By Tom Cowan in "The Way of the Saints"

Jose Hobday made this rather lovely observation about flowers, stating…

“Every time I saw the flower, I could see it giving its life for me and I could imagine my prayer being carried to God. That was true even when I was elsewhere and was just thinking about the flower. Either way, I had a strong sense my prayer was being heard. My flower and I were in union.

Sometimes it took a few days, sometimes a couple of weeks. When the flower finally died, I would take it outside, say good-bye to it, and thank it for giving its life for me and for delivering my prayer. Then I would bury it so it would have a chance at a new life, and I always hoped it would come back as an even nicer flower.

Taken from "Stories of Awe and Abundance" by Jose Hobday

So the next time you get a cut flower, imagine that it is carrying a prayer for you and for all those in whom you share this life, those others who live in this beautiful garden of life, the garden of delights.

The spiritual life is like a flower. I do not know where that thought came from, what its source was, who or what planted the seed and allowed it to nurture and grow, but I am glad that it came to me in the silence, that I shared with others that cold April morning. I have my thoughts on its origins as I am sure you who read this little "blogspot" do too, but none of us really know and I’m pretty sure none of us ever will. I don’t think that it matters really. The key is, I have come to believe, that I accept this gift, nurture and love it and allow it grow and of course share it with others so that we can all grow together in the garden of life, the garden of delights.

I will end with this prayer poem by June Cotner.

"I believe in Gaia the Mother All-tender,
Earth Spirit, maker of gardens,
and in her sons and daughters,
the trees and plants of four seasons.
I believe in the white lilies
and red ranunculus of summer,
and in their seeds.
I believe in the pears and apples of autumn,
the pumpkins, the blue-gray squashes
that nourish our bodies with their meat,
our spirits with their beauty.
I believe in the holly of winter
whose needling leaves and red berries
unite the green of Gaia to the blood of Christ.
I believe in the crocus and tulips of spring
whose petals open like sacred chalices
from which all may drink the joy of the garden."

Amen

If Only

In “Love and Death: My Journey through the Valley of the Shadow”, a book written while he knew that he was dying, Forrest Church wrote,

“The only way to reconcile yourself, make peace with yourself, make peace with your neighbor, make peace with God, find salvation, is to break through and love — to forgive and to love. You don’t change the person you forgive. You change your own heart. So anything that you can do to reconcile also means that at the end of your life, when you’re given a few months to live, you can look back without regret.

The two saddest words in the English language are “if only,” and they ring with the most poignancy at a time that a person gets word that he or she has a terminal illness: “If only I had stopped drinking; if only I had dared to change careers when I could; if only I had reconciled with my father when I had a chance.”

I agree with Forrest. I believe that “If Only” are the saddest two words in the English language. I would add also that they are loneliest too. How many of us live with this sense of regret for the things we have done, or just as painfully failed to do? How many of us live in isolation from people we have known and loved in our lives because of our pride? How many of us have let past wrongs done, or perceived to have been done, stop us living the loving and connected lives we are capable of?

So why do we find it so hard to seek and give forgiveness? Why is reconciliation so challenging? Why does pride hold us in this sense of regret? Why are so many of us visited in the darkest night with the ghosts that whisper “If Only”

Well because it is not easy. It requires us to rise above and beyond our small selves to a larger way of being. As Sara Moores Campbell has claimed. “There is incredible power in forgiveness. But forgiveness is not rational. One can seldom find a reason to forgive or be forgiven. Forgiveness is often undeserved. It may require a dimension of justice (penance, in traditional terms), but not always, for what it holds sacred is not fairness, but self-respect and community. Forgiveness does not wipe away guilt, but invites reconciliation. And it is as important to be able to forgive as it is to be forgiven.”

No it is not easy, but it is vital. Not only for ourselves but for the greater good also. Forgiveness is about reconciliation it is about bringing wholeness and healing to all. This is why, in my experience, failing to offer forgiveness and failing to atone for our own wrongs and mistakes makes reconciliation impossible and I have come to believe that it is this that breeds a sense of isolation and loneliness, deep within us. It is not by chance that atonement can be broken down to at-one-ment. For it is such acts that bring about oneness in life.

I recently spent a few days away with a group of people exploring the subject of forgiveness. We were together in a beautiful and loving setting and it was an open environment in which we all talked about our struggles with forgiveness of others and of ourselves. I believe that we all gained a great deal from our time together and I hope it renewed us in our efforts to reconcile ourselves with our pasts and those we have shared our lives with, so as to live better lives in the future. One thing that came strongly out of the weekend was this sense that forgiveness is not about forgetting. Yes it is about healing and reconciliation, but not about simply abandoning the past and passively letting go. In fact if anything real forgiveness is a true act of remembrance. It is about growing from the past and becoming increasingly whole people.

Again as Sara Moores Campbell said, “No, we do not forgive and forget. But when we invite the power of forgiveness, we release ourselves from some of the destructive hold the past has on us. Our hatred, our anger, our need to feel wronged – those will destroy us, whether a relationship is reconciled or not.”

Our varied struggles with forgiveness showed how difficult it was to truly reconcile ourselves with our pasts, with ourselves and with those we have shared and share our lives with. Forgiveness is not easy. It is easy to say perhaps “I forgive you”, but those are just words, it is far from easy to truly mean them though. We cannot just simply will ourselves into it and it certainly isn’t an overnight matter. The key, as in all things, is to be open to it. Here lays its power and its love. Here lays the key to be freed from that aching loneliness of regret and the ghosts of “If Only”. Not only for ourselves but for the good of all. I have come to believe that all our lives depend upon it

Again to quote Sara Moores Campbell,

“…we cannot just will ourselves to enter into forgiveness, either as givers or receivers. We can know it is right and that we want to do it and still not be able to.

We can, however, be open and receptive to the power of forgiveness, which, like any gift of the spirit, isn’t of our own making. Its power is rooted in love. The Greek word for this kind of love is agape as “Love seeking to create community.” This kind of love is human, but is also the grace of transcendent power that lifts us out of ourselves. It transforms and heals; and even when we are separated by time or space or death, it reconciles us to ourselves and to Life. For its power abides not just between us but within us. If we invite the power of agape to heal our personal wounds and give us the gift of forgiveness, we would give our world a better chance of survival.”

At one point during the weekend we discussed the limits of forgiveness and whether there were any. A friend said that he didn’t know how he would react if someone did anything to his son and many people agreed with him and then I shared an example of this and the power forgiveness. I recounted my dear friend Claire’s reaction to witnessing her son being killed in front of her on a crossing. The driver did not stop at the crossing and took Ethan’s life. A power from within or beyond her compelled her to forgive him there and then. I know from watching her piece her life back together since that if she hadn’t have done so there and then she could not have survived herself or if she had she would have lived with an aching bitterness for the rest of her life. Not that the last nine years have been easy, she has been to hell and back many times, but that power, the power of love, has held her through it all and I believe that it was that same power that compelled her to forgive the driver of the car that day on the side of the road. A love that passeth all rational understanding, but one that can hold and sustain us through whatever happens in life, if we would let it have its way and bring it to life in our being.

Forgiveness is a true act of Love, in the purest Agapeic sense of the word. It is an act of the heart, it takes real courage, Remember that courage comes from the French word for heart “Coeur” In the Hindu sacred poem “The Bhagavad Gita” you hear this reflected “If you want to see the brave, look at those who can forgive, If you want to see the heroic, look at those who can love in return for hatred.” You see it reflected in the dying words of Jesus on the cross “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” This same loving courage was expressed in the way that both Martin Luther King and Gandhi led their movements of non-violent resistance. These were powerful loving soul forces that inspired healing and reconciliation taken up by the likes of Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu in South Africa and “The Truth and Reconciliation Hearings” that took place there following the end of Apartheid. It can be the same with our individuals lives and our individual hearts. At some level I think we all need to reconcile ourselves with someone or something, even if it is just our own pasts.

This is why I have come to believe that forgiving is not about forgetting at all. In fact what it is really about is remembering. Actually it is more than that, forgiveness is an act of remembrance. It is about bringing the memory alive and creating something from the past. Reconciliation is not just something that occurs between us, but also within us. In each of our hearts and minds and souls. If we can make something from our past hurts we can create meaning from even the hardest moments of our lives and bring a new wholeness and openness to our lives. In so doing we won’t live out our lives with that aching lonely feeling of regret and be visited by the ghosts of “If Only”. In so doing we will leave something to pass on to those who follow and our lives will have truly proved worth dying for, by the love we have left behind.

Below is the full version of Sara Moores Campbell's reflection on "Forgiveness" quoted above

“Forgiveness” by Sara Moores Campbell, from “Into the Wilderness”

There is incredible power in forgiveness. But forgiveness is not rational. One can seldom find a reason to forgive or be forgiven. Forgiveness is often undeserved. It may require a dimension of justice (penance, in traditional terms), but not always, for what it holds sacred is not fairness, but self-respect and community. Forgiveness does not wipe away guilt, but invites reconciliation. And it is as important to be able to forgive as it is to be forgiven.

No, we do not forgive and forget. But when we invite the power of forgiveness, we release ourselves from some of the destructive hold the past has on us. Our hatred, our anger, our need to feel wronged – those will destroy us, whether a relationship is reconciled or not.

But we cannot just will ourselves to enter into forgiveness, either as givers or receivers. We can know it is right and that we want to do it and still not be able to.

We can, however, be open and receptive to the power of forgiveness, which, like any gift of the spirit, isn’t of our own making. Its power is rooted in love. The Greek word for this kind of love is agape as “Love seeking to create community.” This kind of love is human, but is also the grace of transcendent power that lifts us out of ourselves. It transforms and heals; and even when we are separated by time or space or death, it reconciles us to ourselves and to Life. For its power abides not just between us but within us. If we invite the power of agape to heal our personal wounds and give us the gift of forgiveness, we would give our world a better chance of survival.

We Are Formed From Love: A Palm Sunday Reflection

Last Sunday I led the evening service at Dukinfield Old Chapel, it is the last time I will do so as their services will soon be moving to the afternoon. During the sermon one of the many things I talked about was something I had done, a mistake I had made that had hurt someone and how it still, to some degree, makes me wince when I think of it. Now it was only for a few brief seconds in the address that I mentioned this and yet as the congregation were leaving one of those in attendance reminded me that we are all human and we all make mistakes and that we should forgive ourselves for our all too human mistakes. As she spoke I smiled, just another reminder that often it is the congregations I serve, however irregularly, that minister to me and not the other way round. I have lost count of the times that people have said things to me that have touched that deep place, in the marrow of my soul.

As I was driving home that evening I became enchanted by the powerfully dramatic sky. It was electric, there was definitely something in the air that evening. I could smell it, I could taste it, so powerful, so alive. As I drove back to Altrincham I felt myself deeply touched and moved by the whole evening and as I did I felt a sensation wash all over me as I thought of forgiveness and our common humanity. I can usually forgive others, but sometimes I find it difficult to forgive myself for my all too human mistakes, especially if what I have said or done, or failed to say or do has let down and or hurt someone I care deeply about.

I know I am not alone in this. I have heard similar things from friends and loved ones these last few days. I have heard those who mean much to me giving themselves a hard time about their oh so very human imperfections.

Today “Palm Sunday” marks the beginning of the holiest of holy weeks in the Christian calendar. Today is the beginning of “Holy Week”. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about Christianity and what it means to me. I know several Unitarian congregations have been holding courses during Lent asking what Easter means to them. I myself have been attending the Lent Breakfast courses hosted by Churches Together in Urmston and lead one session exploring “Jesus Our Teacher”. It got me thinking about what Christianity means to me? There is so much that does speak to me, but then again there is much in other traditions too, both ancient, modern and post-modern that speaks to me too. I am a Universalist in every sense of the word. That said at this time of year I feel compelled to look at Jesus, his teachings as well as his passion and death and how that can bring meaning to my life and I hope the lives of those I minister to.

Central to Christianity is this concept of love incarnating in human form. Now it seems clear that this occurred in the life of Jesus as it is told in the Gospels. My main argument with traditional Christian orthodoxy is the view that this occurred only in one form and at one point in human history. This I find impossible to accept. I only have to look at my life and I know I have experienced this love in the lives of so many other people. I can think of several people who through their love and example have not only changed my life, but truly saved it. I have seen the word become flesh and dwell amongst us many times in my life, I have become aware of it again only this week. I believe that we all have the capacity to become channels of the divine in this life. We can all incarnate love in our very being. Sadly all too often we fail to do so; all too often we fall short and we betray one another. This aspect of our humanity becomes all too clear in the narrative of Holy week.

On Palm Sunday Jesus enters Jerusalem riding on the back of a humble donkey and is received by the crowds waving palm branches and shouting “Hosanna, hosanna in the highest heaven” The crowds welcome Jesus who they believe will save him. This though does not happen and just a few days later he is betrayed, rejected, brutalised and killed. The body is killed, the figure dies, but the love that is left behind lives on. It is this love that I believe is the true Easter story; a love that can live on and once again incarnate in the lives of all people.

The Palm Sunday narrative is not just about Jesus it is also about the crowd and all the people around him. People just like you and me. We can all get caught up in the crowd mentality can we not? I did myself in a meeting I attended recently. I went along with something I wasn’t wholly in agreement with. I didn’t have the energy or inclination to voice my objections at that moment. I was new to the group and felt I’d already said more than I ought too. That said I probably should have spoken up and may well live to regret not doing so. Although I must ensure that I do not give myself too hard a time about this.

Now while the world we live in today is very different to that experienced by the crowd on Palm Sunday, this should not mean we cannot identify with the people there. We share a common humanity with them; we are all formed from the same breath of life; we all have the Divine spark within us; well at least I believe that we do. We are not God’s. We are fully human just like those folk on the side of the street waving their palms grateful for any reason to celebrate. People are always looking for something to celebrate, doesn’t seem to matter what this is. I can certainly see myself in them. And just like them we all fall short, we get bogged down in little and bigger things; just like them we are finite creatures; just like them we are looking for hope, to lift us out of suffering, to take us to better things; just like them we are looking for someone or something to lead us to better things, to give us another chance to live better lives.

How many times have we fallen short, messed up and wished we could live up to our ideals? Well we can. Or at least we can if we forgive ourselves for the all too human mistakes we all make.

I was recently sent the following words by Maya Angelou on forgiveness, words that strike deep into my soul:

“I don’t know if I continue, even today, always liking myself. But what I learned to do many years ago was to forgive myself. It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes – it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, ‘well, if I’d known better I’d have done better,’ that’s all. So you say to people who you think you may have injured, ‘I’m sorry,’ and then you say to yourself, ‘I’m sorry.’ If we all hold on to the mistake, we can’t see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can’t see what we’re capable of being. You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one’s own self. I think that young men and women are so caught by the way they see themselves. Now mind you, when a larger society sees them as unattractive, as threats, as too black or too white, or too poor, or too fat or too thin, or too sexual or too asexual, that’s rough. But you can overcome that. The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself. If we don’t have that we never grow, we never learn, and sure as hell we should never teach.”

Words as a minister it is vital I take heed of...

So what is that holds us back? What is that stops us being the loving people that we can be?

When I listen to some people what I witness is this need to find forgiveness to start all over again, they are looking for someone or something to redeem them, to set them free. Isn’t that what those people who waved those palms on that day were celebrating “The redeemer who would set them free”. I wonder what that might mean for we who live today?

Well maybe it's about learning to forgive ourselves for those mistakes we make. Maybe its about truly learning to love ourselves "warts and all" and beauty spots too of course; maybe It's about learning to live by the ultimate commandment; maybe it's about being set free to love our neighbours as we love ourselves. We need to learn to love ourselves; we need to see clearly our own glory in the mirror looking back at us; we need to learn to see what we are capable of being.

I believe that we all keep the "Golden Rule", the commandment to "love our neighbour as we love ourselves. The problem is of course that so few of us truly love ourselves. I know I don't always love myself. Sometimes when I look back at that man in the mirror I do not feel love for him. I wish this were not the case, but some days it is.

Just like those citizens of Jerusalem in the story we too can feel love starved; we too can find ourselves seeking someone to redeem us and set us free from our perceived loveless state; we too can find ourselves seeking someone who we will see us as more than we see ourselves who we believe can give us the love we so desperately seek; we too can believe that if someone can love us that we too can then be acceptable. Why do we find it so hard to see that we are children born from love? Why is that so hard to accept? Why do we find this so hard to believe?

Maybe the problem for some of us is that we measure ourselves against perfection, this image of Jesus.

It is very difficult to measure ourselves against Jesus, especially if we see him as the one and only incarnation of Divine Love on earth, as God. How can that help us? How can we learn to live the life he spoke of if we cannot live up to who he was, because he was something that we can never be.

I suspect that by seeing Jesus as different from us leads to us not seeing that same divine breath within ourselves.We need to be able to see that we are all children of love, we need to be able see our own glory in the mirror, to me this is vital if we are to live the lives that we are capable of living and become the people we are capable of becoming. I believe that by doing so we can become lights to others and thus inspire them to do the same. It is vital that we see that spirit that was so clearly in Jesus in one another, especially that person looking back at us in the mirror.

By doing so we can begin to recognise that we are children of love, children of worth and children of value, who stumble and fall from time to time. We sometimes fail and even betray all that is loving and beautiful in our lives. We should not despair at this though. If we recognise what we are made of we can once again rise like the spring does from winter and like love did from the empty Easter cave. We too, can begin again in love, but only if we truly accept that we are children of love, formed from that same breath of love that forms all life.

Here lays the essence of the story of Palm Sunday and the week that follows that leads to the new beginning that is Easter. We can begin again we can start anew, we can forgive and be forgiven for our very human mistakes and shortcomings, for our betrayals of love however it manifests in this our imperfect world. It means that we will get things wrong sometimes, lots of times, but that, if we pay attention, maybe next time, we’ll do better. The Palm Sunday story means that, if we work at it, we can see our own glory in the mirror; it means we can see what we’re capable of being; it means we can recognise that we truly are children of love; it means that we can begin again in love.

Blessed are those who come in the name of the Lord. Blessed are those who come in the name of redemption. Blessed are those who come in the name of forgiveness. And Blessed are those who come in the name of love.

May we be the blessed ones and may we bring those blessing into life…in all that we feel, all that we think, all that we say and all that we do.