May the Fourth Be With You: May the Love that Moves the Sun and the Other Stars, Be With Us All

May the Fourth be with you, and also with you. I am not being flippant, please do not misunderstand me. May that love that moves and connects all things, “the love that moves the sun and the other stars” as Dante described it, be with us all; may we recognise that this love is with us, in body, mind, heart, spirit and soul; may we recognise that this love is in everyone; may we recognise that this love is in everything; may we live this way, the way of love and if we do, then we will begin to build the land that will bind up broken.

Today, May the fourth, is Star Wars Day. It is a little play on the phrase “May the Force be With You”. Which is also a play on the phrase “May the Lord be with you”. “The Force” of course is at the heart of the “Star Wars” mythos The original Star Wars, which began at Episode IV “A New Hope”, is almost 50 years old. My mum loves to tell the story of us going to see it upon it’s release. I was 5 years old that Christmas 1977. She says I stood up staring at the screen in utter awe for the whole two hours. I did not speak and I did not move. This was probably sometime early in 1978, when it reached our local cinema. Interestingly I do not remember standing in awe, but I do remember my little sister having a similar reaction to E.T. Interestingly no one else remembers this. They say it was me and not her. I do wonder if what I remember is her, or my own experience. Memory can be a trickster. Who knows maybe I had some kind of outer body experience. I do know I was utterly enchanted by the film and the other two in the initial franchise. My brother was too and other science fiction. The other stuff did not have quite the same grip on me as Star Wars did. It wasn’t just the film, it was the spirt at the heart of it got into the soul of me. I felt so powerless as a child and here was a power, a good power as I saw it, that I could be a part of. Interestingly the later films had little or no impact on me. Science fiction in general too, but those first three Star Wars films did, as did the mythos. It was the time and place I suspect, both the films and me.

George Lucas the creator of Star Wars has said that his aim was to awaken something in young people with this film. In a 1999 interview with Time magazine, he reflected on the Star Wars “Mythos” stating:

“I see Star Wars as taking all the issues that religion represents and trying to distil them down into a more modern and easily accessible construct…I put the Force into the movie in order to try to awaken a certain kind of spirituality in young people – more a belief in God than a belief in any particular religious system. I wanted to make it so that young people would begin to ask questions about the mystery.”

Well as a child it certainly had that impact on me. I recall as a child going to church with my dad’s family, upto the age of about 11. Looking round at the images and listening to some of the words, whilst also playing out the “Star Wars” scenario in my heart and mind, including the phrase “May the Lord be with you”, which translated as “May the Force be with you.” Not that I ever discussed this, I never did. This was disappearing by the time that “The Return of the Jedi” came out in 1983 and I headed towards my teenage years. Something that would bubble under the surface, but was not much of a part of my outer life. It was still alive somewhere deep inside of me

George Lucas, in creating Star Wars, wanted to do more than merely entertain. He wanted to introduce young people like myself to spiritual teachings, to the universal mythos. As he said:

“I see ‘Star Wars’ as taking all the issues that religion represents and trying to distill them down into a more modern and accessible construct.” He was hugely influenced by the scholar of mythology Joseph Campbell, who believed that all cultures impart their values to the next generation through archetypal stories. Campbell believed that organised religion attempted the same, although always struggled to keep up with the times, stating that it must “catch up” to the “moral necessities of the here and now.” The struggle goes on.

Joseph Campbell’s book “A Hero of a Thousand Faces” is at the heart of Star Wars. Lucas had written two drafts of the story when he rediscovered this book, he had loved at school. It seems this was the missing piece. In “The New Hope” you can see all the various elements of “The Hero’s Journey”, that Campbell described - the awakening, the resistance to leaving home, supernatural help, leaving home, the training period where the young hero becomes strong, the battle with evil, the temptation to become evil, finding out that evil is part of you, (When Darth Vader tells Luke, “I am your father”), resisting your new training, losing your patience with the wisdom, choosing to fight rather than use the power of the mystery. It goes on and on. You also the archetype’s that Campbell described that “The Hero” meets along the way. “The Father” (Darth Vader), “The Goddess” (Leia), “The Mentor” (Obi Wan,) “The Oracle” (Yoda), “The Trickster” (Han Solo). “Star Wars” spoke to so many as it has continued to do so in the generations that have followed we Generation X’s. Of course I didn’t know any of this at the time, but “Star Wars” or was it “The Force” had me in its grip.

“The Force” was not strong in this little boy who felt so powerless in the world he was alive in, but it was certainly awake. As Obi Wan tells Luke “The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It’s an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.” I responded to this as a little boy as did so many. Yes, ok I couldn’t lift an X-wing out of the swamp of Dagobah, but I did have a sense of something that would protect me. Something I would tap into as I wandered about often as young boy, feeling safe and protected from the world. There were many times during my teenage years when I would go off alone, feeling safe in my little bubble and wander around the towns and cities of West Yorkshire alone, not speaking to anyone, seemingly surrounded by some unknown force. Well at least that’s what it felt like. A force that had awoken as I stood up and stared at that cinema screen early in 1978.

Now many have claimed religious parallels with Lucas’ “Force”, this is not surprising. Many have seen both Buddhism and Taoism at its heart. Lucas has been called a “Buddhist/Methodist”, not that he himself has claimed any particular religion, preferring to describe himself as “spiritual”

Throughout the saga the dark side seems to constantly point to the dangers of attachment, a strongly Buddhist concept. Yoda, the Jedi master, this wise and cryptic creature with an impish quality is clearly based on some kind of Zen Buddhist teacher. Irvin Kirshner who directed “The Empire Strikes Back,” said of Yoda and the second film “I want to introduce some Zen here, because I don’t want the kids to walk away just thinking that everything is a shoot-‘em-up.” There are clearly a great deal of Buddhist teachings and symbolism in Star Wars. There are parallels with Taoism too. “The Force” itself seems similar to the Taoist concept of “chi”, the subtle stream of energy that animates the world.

What I see at the heart of the Star Wars mythos is my understanding of the Kingdom of God or as I have come to call it “Kin-dom of Love”. Earlier we heard the third saying from the none Canonical Gospel “The Gospel of Thomas” and a parallel saying from Luke’s Gospel

Saying 3 “The Gospel of Thomas” “Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."

And from the Gospel of Luke Chapter 17 v 21 King James translation:

“21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.”

“The Force” speaks powerfully to me of my understanding of panentheism; it speaks of an essence that is somehow more than life and yet it is present in all of life drawing us on but not controlling everything. Some have described this as the “Lure of Divine Love” that never leaves us; we just need to turn to it. The characteristics of which are both male and female and yet way beyond the limits of gender; way beyond the limit of time and space and human conceived constraints. When I think of God I think of a guiding loving hand that holds, guides and sustains and encourages you to be all that you can be. Not only for ourselves though, but to build that “Kin-dom of Love” for all. “The Force” for me is to be used to create good, whilst not being seduced into darkness.

Having said all that I am not sure I like the phrase “The Force” these days and there are elements to the mythos that trouble me too. I will not be putting Jedi, as my religion, on the next census The problem with it and for that matter some contemporary spirituality, as well as old style religion is the language. Words like “Power” and or “Force”, sound like having power over people, places and things and this troubles me. “The Force” needs to be understood as “Love”. At it’s heart it must be about love, certainly this is how I understand the “Kin-dom”, it can’t be about separating people, it has to be universal. Another issue with the “Star Wars” mythos, is the idea that “The Force” is strong in some and weak in others. I suppose you could translate that as faith. “The Force” can be the opposite of this, it could be a power that harms and destroys, as well as creates. It is important to recognise the darkness in life, something that is also in everything, in everyone. Something akin to what Carl Jung called “The Shadow”. “The Shadow” sounds very much like the “Dark Side” of “The Force”.

The spiritual paths that speak to me appear to be counter cultural, they are not really about force and power. They are actually about disarming violence. They are for building something, but not walls, no they are about building bridges, they are about disarming the forces of destruction and chaos, they are about connection not separation. Yes it is about defeating or overcoming darkness, but in so doing not becoming the very thing that is causing destruction. I do believe that is the very essence of the Star Wars mythos; at its heart this is what “The Force” is really about. Or at least his is what this 53 year old man believes now, just like that 5 year old boy did.

I remember as a little boy it was this that really spoke to me. This is what was at the heart of that little boy walking around feeling powerless in a world that utterly bewildered him. It has never left me, although I have lost sight of it for a while. I believe it is open to all of us. It is a beautiful and precious thing and needs to be deeply cared for and nurtured.

So, “May the Fourth be with you” “May the Force be With You” May that love that moves and connects all things, “the love that moves the sun and the other stars” as Dante described it, be with us all. May we recognise that this love is with us, in body, mind, heart, spirit and soul; may we recognise that this love is in everyone; may we recognise that this love is in everything. May we live this way, the way of love and if we do, then we will begin to build the land that will bind up broken.

May the Force be with you.

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

Be right enough to be wrong, for that is the essence of the truth

I was talking with a friend recently about memory and how it changes over time. He told me how strange he found it that when you speak with people who were present at the same event that he was at, how they remember it oh so differently. We talked about how memory is rarely pure. Often it is not always the memory itself but how the story of the memory is remembered. This is often particularly true of cultural memories, that are simply re-telling of communal stories, of which no one still alive was present at. We tell them, but how do we know that they are actually true. I told him what fascinates me is how memories can often be varied due to those experiencing the same situation differently. It is not just that people remember differently, they also experience life differently. How people experience reality can be oh so different, something I am increasingly aware of. I was reminded of this powerfully this week at “Summer School”. It is oh so very important to understand this in order to even attempt to empathise with others, to actually try and walk in their shoes. Humanity truly is a rich diversity. We weave a fascinating tapestry. This is something not merely to accept, or even understand, but to truly celebrate. If we work together we can create something incredibly beautiful. That said if we do not celebrate diversity, or attempt to make others confirm to one or other truth, we create nothing but destruction. I see ever more clearly that people experience reality in such diverse ways. While I accept neuro diversity, I think it is even more than that, something deeper perhaps, something of our souls and spirits. We need to share them with one another in order to understand reality in all its diversity, even then none of us truly even get a glimpse of the whole of the moon.

When a person shares something that is way beyond the bounds of experience to look at them with utter incredulity is a dismissal of their humanity. Again as I have listened intently with people this week I have witnessed a rich diversity in the way that people experience reality. I have found this both beautiful and incredibly moving.

This got me thinking about truth claims about anything; this got me thinking about the nature of truth; this got me thinking about the truths we believe about ourselves, one another, and life in general. There are many things that we hold true, without really questioning. Why do we? It also got me thinking about who we trust for our truth, what are the sources. According to John’s Gospel, Jesus said “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” How do we know what is true though? This is especially true when thinking of memory and how and others remember events we were present at.

“Truth” itself is an interesting word. It comes from a Germanic root which also gives rise to another word “troth” as the vow of old "I pledge thee my troth." A word used as people enter a covenant with one another, as Parker J Palmer put it “a pledge to engage in mutually accountable and transforming relationship...to know in truth is to become betrothed, to engage the known with one's whole self...to know in truth is to be known as well.”

Truth is a pledge made between people, it is relational in nature, a covenant of trust. So, who do we trust, who do we covenant with? What is the “truth”? Truth is not something we claim, it is more about how we live by what we claim. You can’t really hold the truth, but you can live by it.

In recent years a new word came into public consciousness. At the end of 2016 “The Oxford Dictionaries” announced that they had chosen “post-truth” as the word of the year, offering as a definition: “circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” The Oxford Dictionaries' Casper Grathwohl said post-truth could become "one of the defining words of our time".This was in response to a particularly tumultuous time politically, both in the UK and USA, I suspect that things have become more so ever since. Partisanship has grown, with all sides claiming that the others are engaging in Orwellian doublethink and that the organism of the state is working against them.

I am not entirely sure this is such a modern phenomena. There have always been opposing truth claims. When I think back to philosophy at university and claims about human nature, there has never been agreement. Are you with Hobbes in thinking that humanity is basically corrupt and needs authority to curb our destructive natures or are with Rousseau and his belief that we are basically decent but corrupted by society. The arguments about authoritarianism and democracy are not new. The difference today is the volume of these truth claims have been amplified, we seem bombarded by them. Society on the whole seems to shout louder and yet can hear less. Everyone is talking and yet so few seem able to listen.

Truth has always been subjective. We may claim pure rational, but I suspect this is in some way dishonest, emotional and personal belief have always played a part in our truth claims. I suspect that people have also always experienced reality in a variety of ways. There is nothing new in recognising truth as being subjective. Mohandas Gandhi said that “What may appear as truth to one person will often appear as untruth to another person, but that need not worry the seeker, where there is honest effort, it will be realized that what appear to be different truths are like the countless and apparently different leaves of the same tree. Different parts of the same elephant; different leaves on the same tree; different paths up the same mountain; different windows open to the same light; one truth, many manifestations.”

So we may see the same thing and yet still come to a completely different conclusion about this. This maybe because we are approaching the truth differently. We bring our own needs and our own biases, it is vital to recognise this, this though does not mean that the one drawing a different conclusion has bad intent, quite the opposite actually. This is true of people and all life for that matter. It is also important to recognise diversity in experience, how people process reality in diverse ways. This is so beautiful when fully understood, accepted and celebrated. I also feel that this is more than merely neurological, it may be deeper than that, what about soulful or spiritual diversity?

To quote the philosopher of science Karl Popper

“All things living are in search of a better world. Men, animals, plants, even unicellular organisms are constantly active. They are trying to improve their situation, or at least to avoid its deterioration.”

Popper argued that because the identification of error is so central to the problem solving process, therefore its corrective, the truth, is a core component of our quest for betterment. Mistakes are constantly made; all life makes mistakes. No one has absolute foresight, can see what is coming. That said to maintain trust it is vital to admit when one is wrong and to rectify the error. The problem I suspect in modern times is that admitting you are wrong is increasingly considered a weakness rather than a strength. This has caused a truth vacuum in the field of expertise. People do not trust experts as they once did. I suspect one of our greatest troubles of recent times is that people do not trust. Trust, it seems to me comes from having the humility to admit when we make mistakes. We need to be right enough in ourselves to admit when we are wrong.

So often we see our piece of truth as a rock that we must cling to, that is absolute and must not be questioned. This often leads to disputes as people find that in order to hold onto their truth, they must prove the truth claims of others wrong. Such reasoning lacks humility, because the truth is that whatever we believe or disbelieve about truth we never see the whole truth completely, instead we merely glimpse at the truth, or a piece of the truth. Who can honestly say that they know the whole truth and nothing but the truth? I suppose some do, they claim to know the whole truth about everything, an expert at everything. I would be very wary of trusting such folk. Just because someone says it is so, it does not make it true.

This brings to mind this little snippet from Anthony DeMello’s “One Minute Wisdom”

"To a visitor who described himself as a seeker after Truth, the teacher said: “If what you seek is Truth, there is one thing you must have above all else.” “I know,” answered the student, “an overwhelming passion for it.” “No,” said the teacher, “an unremitting readiness to admit you may be wrong.”

To seek the truth, one needs humility and openness and enough self-esteem to see that we are wrong sometimes and of course the capacity to admit to this. If we cannot, we will not be able to see the truth, even when it is right in front of us. It is so easy to become blinded by what we think we know. We need the openness that comes with true humility, it is a truth that will set us free.

It is also vital to remember that people experience the same situation differently. There is a diversity of experience within life. As a wise man once taught me, “To be right, you don’t have to make another wrong.” No you just need to seek the truth, as your experience teaches you, in relationship with the experiences of a diversity of other folk. Not so much people who think alike. I cannot think of anything worse than spending my life in the company of folk who think just like me. What would be the point of that. It sounds like a living hell to me.

It is our responsibility therefore to seek our truth, to bring to life our experiences. What we remember and to share it without apology. We need to do so for our own sanity and for the good of others, they need to receive what is within us.

In the Gospel of Thomas Jesus says, “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

Whilst Lao Tzu wrote in the “Tao Te Ching” “Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.”

You will never bring forth what is within you while ever you are afraid of what is within you. There have been times when I have been afraid to bring forth what is within me and I have witnessed the same fear in others too. After all is not a little less scary to receive our truth from elsewhere rather than to let it come forth from within ourselves.

It can appear safer to accept the truth offered to us, rather than to seek it out ourselves. So often in life we want certainty, absolutes black and white and not a thousand shades of grey. So often we seek the illusion of certainty. This though just closes us in, builds those walls and keeps us closed.

The key to truth seeking is openness, born from uncertainty and humility. Openness is a way that enables us to experience new previously unseen truth; a truth that will set us free. It will allow us to bring forth what is within us and by doing so we might just uncover what will save us from the delusion of what we think we know about ourselves, one another and life itself. The world needs to at least have a chance of experiencing the whole of the elephant, the whole of the moon.

Do we trust ourselves enough to seek out the truth and therefore to bring forth what is within us or would we just rather stick with the safety of what we think we already know of what someone has taught us or told us is the truth.

We can trust what we unearth if we learn how to truly live in the questions of ours and others truth claims. Trust is vital. We have to learn to trust what we discover, what we unearth, whilst not putting a fence around what we see as the truth today; the key is an open attitude whether that’s in finding your own truth or in offering truth to another. Now the challenge of course comes in dwelling in the ambiguity of truth without becoming overwhelmed or paralysed by it; the challenge comes in maintaining a deep commitment to the openness that truth seeking requires and not allowing ourselves to become closed down.

This is not for the faint hearted. This takes courage. This is not the easier path, but it is definitely the one worth taking, for it is the one that will set us up to live in and through truth.

You know its ok to get it wrong to make mistakes. It’s ok to feel lost and confused about life at times. That is so human. There is something both glorious and beautiful in this.

If we want to be a seeker of truth, then above everything else what we need is an unremitting readiness to admit that we may be wrong. Wrong about how we view ourselves, wrong about how we view life, wrong about how we view other people.

The truth is of course is that once we can see we are wrong about something, admit we are wrong about something, do whatever we can to put right what was once wrong, then we are no longer wrong, we are right. The key is to feel right enough in our humanness to be able to admit that we can only ever vision the partial truth and to be open to the truth of others…

The key is in being right enough to be wrong, for that is the essence of the truth…

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

Know Yourself: Become What You Are

 

A while ago I was listening to a talk on identity, how our upbringing shapes who we are, good or bad. It wasn’t the most gripping I have ever heard but about halfway through I heard something that was rather wonderful, which I hope is true, but have been unable to verify. Apparently, there is a tradition amongst some of the Bantu of Southern Africa, where people sneak into the rooms of their children at night, as they sleep, and whisper in their ears, 'Become what you are.'

“Become what you are.” I thought to myself how wonderful it must be to have that song singing in your soul as you grew and developed. It got me thinking about who or what I am? Who or what I have been and who or what I might yet become? Throughout our lives we never stop becoming or maybe un-becoming. I try not to be too un-becoming these days.

It got me thinking about who are we, what are we? What shapes us? Is it our environment? Our ancestry? Our culture? How do we become who or what we are? Is there someone or something whispering in all our ears “Become what you are.”

No doubt our upbringings have an influence. We learn how to be social animals by copying the elders in our lives. Our early lives are like a great big game of follow my leader. Do you remember playing it when you were a child? In many ways our whole culture is based upon this, that to be successful we have to look and be a certain way. Just think about the whole advertising industry that is driven by this sense of dissatisfaction because we are not living up to what we’re supposed to be. This is supposedly a good thing, that by seeing what is wrong with us we will somehow become better. We are visually bombarded and our ears are blasted by this ideal of what we ought to be. All of us follow to some degree or another, even if we are not consciously aware of doing so. If only someone or something was whispering in our ears, as we slept at night “Become what you are.” Never mind who you are. Perhaps some of things we follow are not truly who or what we are. Sometimes to stop following unhelpful patterns takes all the courage we can muster.

“Become what you are.”

To “become what you are, requires us to know what we are. For centuries philosophers having been telling us to “Know Thyself”. Socrates learned the motto from the ancient oracle at Delphi. Of course it is suggested that for the ancient Greeks to “Know Thyself” is to know that you are mortal, you are not a God. The greatest danger for the ancient Greeks, was of “Hubris”; the danger that of believing that you are a God, immortal and to forget that you are a mortal human.

Meanwhile in China, the sage Lao Tze said that "He who knows others is wise, but he who knows himself is enlightened." Rabbi Zusya told his followers that on the Day of Judgment, he expected the following inquiry. not "Why were you not like Moses?" but rather, "Why were you not more like Zusya?" In the Gospel of Thomas one of the sayings of Jesus was "When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty ...."

Yes it is vital for us to know ourselves.

Discovering who you truly are is found in many of the great stories, fairy tales and fables. Just think of the ugly duckling that becomes a beautiful swan. The begger who is actually a prince, the rejected step sister who is the one who wins the princes heart. You see discovering who you truly are is like uncovering an unsuspected treasure something you didn't know you had that bestows value and meaning on the rest of life, and which you possessed all along. The great stories describe going out on adventures that always lead the journier to return home with treasure to share. You see the treasure was always there deep within all along, the secret is to uncover the treasure. These are not painless journeys. To truly know ourselves can seem like the hardest journey of them all. That said it is not just knowing ourselves, we have to live our authentic lives, not only for ourselves but for the good of society as a whole. To live our finite lives, as a part of the infinite whole.

“Become what you are”

What though if being who we are is unacceptable? In the past gay people were considered unacceptable. Even when it was no longer illegal, it was still difficult for many people to come to terms with who they were, due to fear of rejection. This has led to a great deal of pain for so many over the years. Gender identity is the next frontier. Can we as a society accept people as they are and thus allow them to accept who they are themselves. Hiding any aspect of our humanity is always destructive. As the worship leader of the communities I serve when I say come as you are, exactly as you are, I mean it, I really do, although I do add, “but do not expect to leave in exactly the same condition”, I mean that too. I hope everyone who comes to the communities I serve feels accepted, wanted, needed and loved as they are, exactly as they. This is true love, perfect love, love without condition.

It is important to feel that we are accepted in order to truly accept others.

To know yourself is a vital aspect of the spiritual life. Why some may ask? Well because the more that we know ourselves and just as importantly are able to accept ourselves, then the easier it will be to see the truth about life and to accept one another. Conversely, the less we know ourselves and are able to accept who we truly are the more distorted our perceptions of life and others will be and the less likely we will be to accept one another.

As I stated earlier, this is not merely a concern of the new age, but the ancient sages too. There is great wisdom in Lao Tze saying “Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.” Self-knowledge takes us beyond mere information into that elusive thing called wisdom, wisdom that can never be attained, no matter how intelligent we may be, if we remain ignorant about ourselves.

Jesus was touching on a similar theme to Lao Tze when he said, “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?” Only by becoming aware of and dealing with our own shortcomings, he was saying, will we be able to see clearly enough to be helpful to others. In other words: know yourself.

To know yourself is to accept yourself warts and all and beauty spots too.

When we become aware of the “log” in our own eye we won’t make the mistake of going around trying to “fix” other people. Rather, we will relate to them with the compassion that comes from having faced our own struggles honestly, without such compassion healing can never happen.

Hence the line, I like to say “but do not expect to leave in exactly the same condition.”

Knowing ourselves also opens the door to our freedom. When we are ignorant of the belief systems, assumptions and behavioral patterns that are operating within us, we remain in captivity to them, unable to make wise decisions for ourselves, unable to overcome the self-limitations that may have been instilled in us, unable to recognize when we are being manipulated by those who may consciously or unconsciously seek to activate our fear and prejudice for their own purposes.

The more we come to know ourselves the more we will be able to invite healing and transformation into our lives, to embody compassion, to face our challenges as opportunities for growth, and to experience life as a meaningful adventure.

By the way it’s never too late. Actually I suspect that it’s probably only later in  life that we finally get to know ourselves. A wonderful example of this can be found in the following poem “Now I become myself” by May Sarton

 

“Now I Become Myself” by May Sarton

Now I become myself. It's taken
Time, many years and places;
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people's faces,
Run madly, as if Time were there,
Terribly old, crying a warning,
"Hurry, you will be dead before—"
(What? Before you reach the morning?
Or the end of the poem is clear?
Or love safe in the walled city?)
Now to stand still, to be here,
Feel my own weight and density!
The black shadow on the paper
Is my hand; the shadow of a word
As thought shapes the shaper
Falls heavy on the page, is heard.
All fuses now, falls into place
From wish to action, word to silence,
My work, my love, my time, my face
Gathered into one intense
Gesture of growing like a plant.
As slowly as the ripening fruit
Fertile, detached, and always spent,
Falls but does not exhaust the root,
So all the poem is, can give,
Grows in me to become the song,
Made so and rooted by love.
Now there is time and Time is young.
O, in this single hour I live
All of myself and do not move.
I, the pursued, who madly ran,
Stand still, stand still, and stop the sun!

To know thyself, to be who  and what we truly are, who we were born to be, is no easy task. Sarton wrote this poem when she was 83 years old. It would seem that it took her a long time to truly know herself and become who she really was.

It is no easy task to know yourself to be who and what we truly are, to live openly, to live whole and holy lives. To “find our path of authentic service in the world.” You see we learn by following others from the day we are born. We learn to be like those others we are surrounded by, who made us who we are, rather than becoming who we truly are. It takes a long time to let go of the stabilisers of others and become wholly ourselves. For May Sarton it only really began after the death of her parents during middle age, actually about the age I am now. 

This is the key of course. This is what it means to live holy lives. This is how we become a holy, an authentic presence in the world. This is how we serve the world by our presence, and you know what it is never too late. It can begin right here right now. May Sarton was 83 years old when she wrote “Now I become myself”. Maybe, we only truly become our true selves at the end of our physical being. That said we need to begin somewhere and the only place to begin is right here right now. Right here, right now is the only place we can not only know ourselves, but truly be ourselves and to offer our unique gift to life.

Can it be so?

Let us make it so.

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

Questions about life, before, during and after: An Easter reflection

I had a rare opportunity a couple of Sunday’s back of being present at Dunham Road as people began to arrive. This was because we could not conduct worship at Urmston as the town was cut off due to the Manchester Marathon. As I stood at the entrance of the chapel I found myself chatting with Martin and Carolyn. Carolyn was sharing her thoughts on an interesting talk she had heard that week given by a Hindu woman discussing her traditions perspective and understanding of reincarnation. Martin and myself listened with interest and I remember saying something like "I’m not sure what I believe about such things." We made the usual, probably inappropriate, jokes of hoping we don’t come back as a slug or something similar. I then went and led worship, interestingly we were exploring the subject of “What you give your heart to.” A little later I was thinking about the conversation and remembered a similar one I had only a few weeks earlier with a woman called Elaine. Elaine is very important in Sue’s life. She is someone who guides her spiritually and has led a women’s circle that Sue has participated in these last 12 months. Sue had asked me if I minded having my astrological chart "done" by Elaine. I agreed to, although part of me felt a little unsure about it. I gave my birth details, the time, date and place and then went to meet Elaine for the results. I enjoyed both a wonderful and fascinating conversation with Elaine, during which she asked me if I believed in past lives. I said “I just don’t know. I am truly agnostic about past lives and even what happens to us after we die. I said I suspect that some aspect of us lives on but in what form I have no clue, I have to declare myself as truly agnostic about these things, as I have no knowledge. That said I am open minded, open hearted and my spirit is certainly open to the possibility, but that I prefer to think about one life at a time. That’s more than enough for me. Whatever happens to us when we die it cannot be any stranger than this life, which day by day seems to be way beyond my imaginings. It’s funny I do not feel agnostic about a relationship with a Power Greater than myself in this life, I call myself a “Universal Theist”, but what happened before and after this life I can offer very little I am afraid. Although day by day, as I live more spiritually alive I find myself believing ever more in the possibility.

We humans often ask the question, what happens to us when we die, but how many of us ask what happens before we are even born? That may well be a far more interesting question.

Having professed my agnosticism about the afterlife I am now going to contradict myself as I believe strongly that loves lives on in the lives of those we have touched, even after our physical lives end. I know this from personal experience. So perhaps there is some formed idea here. They are part of us in spirit in some way, sometimes I can feel that powerfully. As the song goes, “The ghosts are part of us.” Forrest Church put it so beautifully when he said: “The greatest of all truths is that love never dies, that every act of love that we perform in this life is carried on into another life and passed on into another life, so that centuries from now the love carries, and that is the work of religion. The opposite of love is not death. It is fear. Fear is what armors our hearts. If our hearts are armored, they’ll never be broken, and I have seen so many people get hurt in love and then try to protect themselves against it, and when they protect themselves against love, they protect themselves against the only thing that is worth living for.”

I would add to that that the purpose of religion is to bring that love to life and to share it with our world. This is the work of transformation. This to me is the true message of Easter.

There are many layers to the “Easter Mythos”, that if we allow it to can touch all of us. In order to be touched by the magic of Easter you do not have to believe in the actual bodily resurrection of Jesus, you can believe in Easter without having to accept that this actually happened. In fact perhaps it loses some of its power if we focus purely on this. What is clear to me is that Easter is about the Power of Love that grew from that empty tomb. Whatever we may think about bodily resurrection, something definitely lived on beyond the physical death of Jesus. While his body may no longer have remained in the empty tomb, some beautiful aspect of his life certainly remained. Love was born again, even after the body was killed.

I believe it is the same with every life and the love that life leave behinds, something beautiful always remain.

This brings to mind those beautiful words often shared at funerals by that famous author “Unknown”

“Something Beautiful Remains” – Unknown

The tide recedes but leaves behind
bright seashells on the sand.
The sun goes down, but gentle
warmth still lingers on the land.
The music stops, and yet it echoes
on in sweet refrains.....
For every joy that passes,
something beautiful remains.

Every life leaves its mark. Every life impacts in some way. We should never think that we are insignificant, that we do not matter. We impact on everyone and everything around us. Everything that we do and everything that do not do matters. There are those who I have known and who have loved me, who have been gone many years, who are still impacting on my life. Of their lives, something beautiful remains.

Easter is a reminder to me that even after death something beautiful remains. It is an acknowledgement of life’s sacredness. It is a reaffirmation of life that not even death can end. Easter for me is about birth and re-birth, again and again and again…

But what about “Resurrection”? What can that mean? Well “Resurrection” for me is about bringing to life the love that was born again on Easter morning. I have come to believe that this is truly our religious task. I believe that this is what it means to bring to life the “Kingdom of Heaven” that is constantly spoken of in the Biblical accounts. What I have come to call the “Kin-dom” of Love”, for all are equal in such a Commonwealth. To live in such a way of being is to recognise the oneness of all life.

This actually brings me back to astrological thinking and Elaine’s charts. She suggested to me that I had lived many lives. and that that I was at a stage of real potential right now, if I was willing to take it. This got me thinking of Joseph Campbell and his views of mythos. He wrote of Easter: “It is very much the longing to be born anew the way nature is. All these elements fit together. Easter is calculated as the Sunday that follows the first full moon after the vernal equinox. It is evidence of a concern centuries before Christ to coordinate the lunar and solar calendars. What we have to recognize is that these celestial bodies represented to the ancients two different modes of eternal life, one engaged in the field of time, like throwing off death, as the moon it’s shadow, to be born again; the other, disengaged and eternal. The dating of Easter according to both lunar and solar calendars suggests that life, like the life that is reborn in the moon and eternal in the sun, finally is one.”

This got me thinking of Easter as a metaphor for bringing about this oneness of all life. That what Jesus was trying to teach humanity about  was oneness, about harmony. Isn’t this what the “Kin-dom of Love” is?

This brings to mind the following passage from the Gospel of Thomas, one of the many that was not included in the Bible:

Jesus said to them:

When you make the two one,
and when you make the inner as the outer
and the outer as the inner
and the above as the below,
and when you make the male and the female
into a single one
. . . then shall you enter [the Kingdom]

Now of course many believe that the Kingdom is the place that we go to when we die, if chosen. I do not believe that this is what Jesus was speaking of in the Gospels. Remember he said (in the Canonical Gospels) that the “kingdom is within you” or that it is “at hand” (here now). I believe that he was teaching that the key is to bring “The King-dom” alive within ourselves and to share that with our world, therefore building the beloved community of love. I have come to believe that this is the love that is born again as the stone was rolled away and seemingly found to be empty, because from that emptiness love was once again, born again.

From nothing comes everything; from Despair is born Hope.

We all have this day, we all have this time, what shall we do with it? The key I believe is to fully live it. To bring forth what is within us. To incarnate love in our lives is to become fully alive. The second century philosopher Irenaeus said “The glory of God is the human person fully alive.” This to me is the word becoming flesh and dwelling amongst us, this is the divine love fully alive. This is truly bringing forth the kingdom that is within us. If you want to know the divine presence in life, then all you have to do is to find the courage to live fully alive and then to bless the world with your very presence and thus inspire others to do the same. And thus enjoy the kingdom of God, the kin-dom of love right now.

It’s time to bring the kin-dom of love to life. It is time to begin living this one wonderful life we have been given…

This is the Love that is born again on Easter morning. This is what grows from the emptiness of the tomb when the stone is rolled away…From nothing to everything…From Despair, Hope is born again…

Now I would like to end with these words of blessing by David Whyte.

“Easter Blessing”

The blessing of the morning light to you,
may it find you even in your invisible
appearances, may you be seen to have risen
from some other place you know and have known
in the darkness and that that carries all you need.
May you see what is hidden in you
as a place of hospitality and shadowed shelter,
may that hidden darkness be your gift to give,
may you hold that shadow to the light
and the silence of that shelter to the word of the light,
may you join all of your previous disappearances
with this new appearance, this new morning,
this being seen again, new now, and newly alive.

David Whyte: Easter Morning 2015
In Memoriam John O’Donohue

The Essence of the Truth

“Guarding the Rock of Truth” taken from "The Truth in 60 Seconds: 99 Tales to Set Your Clock By" by Art Lester

The Guardian of the Rock of Truth was entertaining his grandson on the mountain top. After several millennia he felt the need of a little company, and it wouldn’t hurt the lad to learn a few things about what grandpa did all day. They sat and watched as various humans below attempted to scale the mountain where the large Rock gleamed in the sunlight. They watched them as they got side-tracked or discouraged. Sometimes people actually fell in their attempts.

“Why do you need to guard the Rock, Grandpa?” asked the boy.

“Because the truth is dangerous to humans.”

“Why is that?”

“I’ll explain another time,” said the Guardian. He was looking closely at a human who was getting very near the summit. They watched as a man scaled the last few feet of the climb and stood unsteadily blinking in the sun.

The Guardian walked over and stood between the ragged and exhausted man and the Rock. “I’m afraid you can’t go any further,” he said.

“But I want the truth,” complained the man.

“Sorry. Out of the question,” said the Guardian.

He turned back toward his grandson, and the man dashed forward. In a second he had picked up a small piece of the Rock and jumped back onto the trail. The Guardian watched him head down with a sigh.

“Another poor fellow,” he said.

“But, Grandpa, he looked happy!” said the boy.

They looked down at the man. He was holding the tiny piece of the Rock of Truth over his head, a look of ecstasy on his face. Far below him they could see a crowd of cheering people who watched as the man made his way down the mountain. The Guardian clucked his tongue and shook his head sadly.

“Are you afraid he will fall, Grandpa? Is that why it’s bad for him to have a piece of the truth?

“No.” answered the old man.

“Is it because it will make him ill?”

“No,” said the Guardian.

“Then why?” asked the boy impatiently.

"Because now he will take that small piece of truth and start another religion.” The Guardian said.

"A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing…You can wear a crown, it doesn’t make you king, beware the trinkets that we bring"…"For all that glitters is not gold"…Beware the dangers of shiney things…perhaps the most dangerous being the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth…Or perhaps the delusion that you believe that you hold the whole truth in your hands...

The Buddha reputedly said “Three things cannot be long hidden, the sun, the moon and the truth”. Now while these things are not long hidden we never see the whole of them from where we stand "whole of the moon", despite what the “Waterboys” sang, the whole of the sun and certainly not the whole of the truth.

None of us know the whole truth, we can only get a glimpse of it and even the small aspect that we get to glimpse upon we do not see directly. Any bit of the light we gaze upon is refracted…As Paul said in his famous words on love we only see into the glass dimly. No one sees the whole truth…It is important to remember this and it ought to breed humility…

People can be very funny!!!

I recently posted a comment on facebook, it was meant for my more theologically inclined friends. It read “Has anyone else ever noticed that when ever you type "panentheism" into Word it wants to correct it to pantheism...They are not the same and one is not a mispelling of the other...”

...The responses I received were hilarious, mainly from people who just made jokes about the terms, which they'd never heard of...

Now I’m not going to talk about their differences here, they are vastly so by the way, although one does seem not to be recognised by Microsoft. No the reason I mention this is that I was recently sent a questionnaire by a friend who was asking me for my views on God and Love amongst others things for her thesis titled “Models of God and the Meaning of Love”. The word panentheism had come up in my attempt to describe my own beliefs, as I attempted to share my experiences and my truth. I found the exercise both useful and deeply moving as I recalled and attempted to put into words experiences that are beyond the limits of my language and seemingly way beyond the limits of Microsoft spell checker, or this "Blog" by the way. Google blog keeps on wanting to correct "Panentheism" to "Pantheism" too. I was merely trying to attempt to share my truth from my experiences, my own understanding of the little aspect of the light I have glimpsed upon and only dimly…my partial truth…my imperfect truth...

I was also recently asked a question by another friend about faith, I think she was trying to work me out. She thanked me for my truth but I could tell it made her a little uncomfortable as it didn’t fit into her own model it would seem. I was also asked by someone at the gym, who I’ve been chatting to in recent weeks, “What I was doing later today” to which I replied “Mainly working, got a lot a of visiting today”. They then asked “Oh what do you do?” to which I replied “I’m a minister”. They then asked, with that slightly shocked look that people often give me when they discover what I do, “Oh are you very religious?” To which I replied, “Well it depends what you mean by religious?” We then had a very interesting conversation about matters of faith etc, in which they did most of the talking and I listened and shared a little of my truth. We then carried on with our workouts and I smiled to myself as I thought about the truth I’d just heard.

Truth is an interesting concept, especially in matters of faith, belief and disbelief. So often people see it as a rock that must be clung to, that is absolute and must not be questioned. It can often lead to argument as people find that in order to hold on to their truth they must disprove the truth claims of another that differs from their own. Such reasoning lacks humility, because the truth is that whatever we believe or disbelieve about truth we never see the whole truth completely, instead we merely glimpse through the glass dimly or maybe get a hold of only a tiny piece of the truth. Who can honestly say that they know the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Well I suppose some can say it and even believe it, but that doesn’t make it true. Whether that is a person in the gym or coffee shop or the leader of an institution or nation.

This brings to mind this little snippet from Anthony DeMello’s “One Minute Wisdom”

"To a visitor who described himself as a seeker after Truth, the teacher said: “If what you seek is Truth, there is one thing you must have above all else.” “I know,” answered the student, “an overwhelming passion for it.” “No,” said the teacher, “an unremitting readiness to admit you may be wrong.”

To seek the truth one needs humility and openness and enough self-esteem to see that we are wrong sometimes and of course the capacity to admit to this. If we cannot, we will not be able to see the truth, even when it is right in front of us. It is so easy to become blinded by what we think we know. We need the openness that comes with true humility, it’s a truth that will set us free.

According to the Gospel of Thomas Jesus said, “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

Whilst Lao Tzu wrote in the “Tao Te Ching”

“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.”

You will never bring forth what is within you while ever you are afraid of what is within you. There have been times when I have been afraid to bring forth what is within me and I have witnessed the same fear in others too. After all isn't it a little less scary to receive our truth from elsewhere rather than to let it come forth from within ourselves?

It can appear safer to accept the truth offered to us, rather than to seek it out ourselves. So often in life we want certainty, absolutes black and white and not a thousand shades of grey. So often we seek the illusion of certainty. This though just closes us in, builds those walls and keeps us cut of from what life offers to us.

The key to truth seeking is openness, born from uncertainty and humility. Openness is a way that enables us to experience new previously unseen truth; a truth that will set us free. It will allow us to bring forth what is within us and by doing so we might just uncover what will save us from the delusion of what we think we know about ourselves, one another and life itself. It will build bridges between the walls we build around ourselves.

There’s an ancient Chinese proverb that goes something like this: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime” I suspect it’s the same with truth. Is it better to be given something that will feed us for a short time or is it better to be given a way that will enable us to keep on feeding ourselves and one another? Do we want to be given a fish that will fill our bellies for now or do we want to be given a method that will keep on feeding us; a method that will enable us to seek the truth that will set us free and continue to set us free?

Do we trust ourselves enough to seek out the truth and therefore to bring forth what is within us or would just rather stick with the safety of what we think we already know of what someone has taught us or told us is the truth.

In John’s Gospel Jesus said “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” when I first read DeMello’s wisdom shared earlier in the "blogspot" these words immediately sprang to mind. What I have discovered is that we are only truly set free by living in the truth. Not by accepting the truth we are given but by fishing for the truth and by seeing that some of the fish that we catch are of no use at least today and throwing them back. As DeMello taught if you want to be a seeker of truth then above everything else what you need is an unremitting readiness to admit that you may be wrong. Remember we only get a partial glimpse of the truth. Can we even trust this? Can we trust our own eyes?

Well we can trust what we unearth if we learn how to truly live in the questions of ours and others truth claims. Trust is vital. We have to learn to trust what we discover, what we unearth, what we catch, whilst not putting a fence around what we see as the truth today; the key is an open attitude whether that’s in finding your own truth or in offering truth to another. Now the challenge of course comes in dwelling in the ambiguity of truth without becoming overwhelmed or paralysed by it; the challenge comes in maintaining a deep commitment to the openness that truth seeking requires and not allowing yourself to become closed down.

This is not for the faint hearted. This takes courage. This is not the easier path, but it is definitely the one worth taking, for it is the one that will set us up to live in and through truth.

You know its ok to get it wrong to make mistakes. It’s ok to feel lost and confused about life at times. That is so human. There is something both glorious and beautiful in this.

If we want to be a seeker of truth then above everything else what we need is an unremitting readiness to admit that we may be wrong. .

The truth is of course. Once you can see you are wrong about something, admit you are wrong about something, do whatever you can to put right what was once wrong, then you are no longer wrong, you are right. The key is to feel right enough in your humanness to be able to admit that you can only ever vision the partial truth and to be open to the truth of others…

The key is in being right enough to be wrong...For that is essence of the truth...

The Impermanence of Truth

"To a visitor who described himself as a seeker after Truth, the teacher said: “If what you seek is Truth, there is one thing you must have above all else.” “I know,” answered the student, “an overwhelming passion for it.” “No,” said the teacher, “an unremitting readiness to admit you may be wrong.”

Anthony de Mello

To seek the truth one needs humility and openness and enough self-esteem to see that we are wrong sometimes and of course the capacity to admit to this. If we cannot, we will not be able to see the truth, even when it is right in front of us. It is so easy to become blinded by what we think we know. We need the openness that comes with true humility, it’s a truth that will set us free.

Like most folk I can be a stubborn bugger at times; I am more like my granddad than I care to admit at times. I’m better than I used to be but there are still times when I find it hard to admit that I am wrong. And yet when I can I find it so liberating, it sets me free to a new freedom and a new truth.

The truth is that the great thing about being wrong is that as soon as you are able to admit that you are wrong about something you are no longer wrong, you are right once more. Sadly so many of us find it difficult to see when we are wrong, me included. Why on earth is this?

I agree with DeMello's claim that a truth seeker needs “an unremitting readiness to admit you may be wrong.”

Although he and I could be wrong about this.

I believe that this applies as much to people as ideas about life. I know I have been wrong about many people in my life. So much so that I try not to judge people by my first impressions these days. I say I try, but it isn’t so easy.

At the beginning of this blogspot is a clip from the film “The Philadelphia Story”. If you watch it you will hear the following words uttered by Katherine Hepburn.

“The time to make up your mind about other people is never!”

I find something so beautifully faithful in these simple words. They say a leopard cannot change its spots, but I’m not convinced by this. I see people change all the time. I’ve seen much of my view of life alter over the years and as a result it would not behove me to think the same of others.

Life is fluid and so are people, nothing ever really stays exactly the same. I suspect that it is the same with truth. My truth today is not exactly as it was a few years ago. How about yours? Do you see things today exactly as you always have, or have some things changed?

I have for some time been fascinated by the Buddhist concept of “Dukkha”. Now "Dukkha is one of those words that is hard to explain in English. It is often translated as suffering, that "all life is suffering". Now I am not convinced that this is an entirely accurate translation, in the sense that suffering is understood in the west. I believe it is trying to teach that suffering is a part of life, that nothing ever lasts for ever. That nothing stays exactly as it in its current state. Impermanence is central to the Buddhist path; the path to enlightenment is to accept that nothing ever lasts forever. This speaks powerfully to me, especially when I think about truth. I have certainly noticed, over the years, the impermanence of truth.

So many problems in life seemingly come from our struggle against impermanence. How often do we try to grab for the seeming safety of absolutes, for certainty, instead of opening up to the freedom that comes with accepting that nothing is permanent, including how we see life and one another.

Accepting impermanence helps in the search for truth; it helps us to see the freedom that comes with changing our point of view about things. If you think about it if nothing ever stays the same then surely our point of view ought to be ever changing too. Life is always teaching us something new if we would but stay open up to it.

It’s a good thing to feel like a beginner in life, to feel lost and confused about everything, at times. It does not mean we aren’t making progress it’s just that we are taking shape, forming and re-forming over and over again. There is a false security in certainty that can end up enslaving us.

I have heard it said that God works on us like a skilled carpenter. Once God has worked on one side of us and polished it up, God immediately turns us over and begins working on the other side. I suspect it’s the same with life, once we sort things out in one area, we quickly become aware of something in another that needs improvement. By something in us changing everything else seems to come into another light and appears different. It’s the same with the world around us and the people in our lives too…nothing is permanent, nothing ever stays the same.

That’s why “The time to make up your mind about other people is never!” People change, nothing and no one stays exactly the same for ever. Nothing is permanent, the leopard is capable of changing his spots. Or at least from time to time, those spots appear to get re-arranged...

Nothing ever last forever...

In the Gospel of Thomas Jesus says, “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

These words have been singing a song in the ears of my heart for some time, there is real wisdom here. There have been times in my life when I have been afraid to bring forth what is within me and I have witnessed the same fear in others too. After all isn't it a little less scary  to receive our truth from elsewhere rather than to let it come forth from within ourselves:?

The key is openness, this I believe is the method for truth seeking and spiritual growth. It does not necessarily offer absolute truths, instead it shows a way that enables us to experience truth; a truth that will set us free. It will allow us to bring forth what is within us and by doing so we might just uncover what will save us from the delusion of what we think we know about ourselves, one another and life itself.

There is an ancient Chinese proverb that goes something like this: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime” I suspect it’s the same with truth. Is it better to be given something that will feed us for a short time or is it better to be given a way that will enable us to keep on feeding ourselves and one another? Do we want to be given a fish that will fill our bellies for now or do we want to be given a method that will keep on feeding us; a method that will enable us to seek the truth that will set us free and continue to set us free?

Do we trust ourselves enough to seek out the truth and therefore to bring forth what is within us and allow this to keep on saving us from the delusion of permanence, that things will stay the same if we will them too? Or would we just rather stick with the safety of what we think we already know?

In John’s Gospel Jesus said “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” when I first read the piece of wisdom by DeMello at the beginning of this blogspot these words immediately sprang to mind. What I have discovered is that we are only truly set free by living in the truth. Not by accepting the truth we are given but by fishing for the truth and by seeing that some of the fish that we catch are of no use at least today and throwing them back. As DeMello taught if you want to be a seeker of truth then above everything else what you need is an unremitting readiness to admit that you may be wrong. Remember nothing is permanent especially not the truth. We cannot keep on living on the fish we caught in the past, we cannot live off them today.

The key I believe comes from trusting what we unearth, what we catch, whilst not putting a fence around what we see as the truth today; the key is an open attitude whether that’s in finding our own truth or in offering truth to another. Now the challenge of course comes in dwelling in the ambiguity of truth without becoming overwhelmed or paralysed by it; the challenge comes in maintaining a deep commitment to the  openness that truth seeking requires and not allowing ourselves to become closed down by what we think we know.

This is not for the faint hearted. This takes courage. This is not the easier path, but it is definitely the one worth taking, for it is the one that will set us free to dance the impermanence dance.

You know its ok to get it wrong to make mistakes. It’s ok to feel lost and confused about life at times. That is so human. There is something both glorious and beautiful in this.

If we want to be a seeker of truth then above everything else what we need is an unremitting readiness to admit that we may be wrong; wrong about how we view ourselves; wrong about how we view life; wrong about how we view other people.

This is a truth that can set us free, if we learn to live in the impermanence of what we think we know.

As Katherine Hepburn said in “The Philadelphia Story”

“The time to make up your mind about other people is never!”

I suspect that this applies to everything, especially truth. For the time to permanently make up our minds about truth is never.

If we keep on living faithfully, casting that fishing line of truth, it will continue to set us free.