Let it show: Living in the Multitude of Layers and Contradictions

I have always been fascinated by folk, our complexities. No life is two dimensional we contain multitudes of layers that make our human personalities. People constantly surprise me. Truth be told I surprise myself. From a young age I spent most of my time watching and listening while others were off being who they were, expressing themselves. Even now when I am in a group of people I find myself caught up listening to many conversations at once. This can be quite tricky. I know I’m not the only one like this.

Most folk are surprised to hear me say that I spend most of my life silent, not speaking. Even when I am in company my ears are far more engaged than my mouth. This is who I am and yet my public persona is not this and I think people perceive me as someone who has a lot to say. This is not who I am. Maybe it is the paradox of my human being. Then again there are many layers to each one’s humanity, everyone contains multitudes of contradictions.

Our inner and our outer persona do not always align, or at least not to the casual observer. Hannah Arendt observed ““Nothing and nobody exists in this world whose very being does not presuppose a spectator.” For each of us, there is a public persona encasing the private person, an aspirational self, radiating from the real self.

We each have a public face that we show the world and then there is the inner person. We think we know each other, but in many ways we do not. This is often true of public figures who we are given a sanitised view of, but it isn’t their true selves. I have noticed this with footballers when they are interviewed. They give a cliched response often, saying very little, this is probably for fear of being misunderstood. When often what we would like is to see the real person. We rarely get to see the whole of anyone. We all wear masks.

I have been thinking much of my time as a ministry student in Macclesfield. We earlier heard a reading from Rev Michael Dadson who was minister on my first placement. It is a strange thing stepping into an unfamiliar congregation or in Peter’s case congregations. It took me quite some time to find my own voice there, to be myself. To be authentically me, to show anything of me for some time. I do remember this being noted by members of the congregation at the time and that when I began to speak more freely and openly and that they appreciated getting to know me. I learnt that the most personal is the most universal as it allows people to identify. You need to put flesh on the words. I think it was one of the most valuable lessons of ministry. I think that over time the mask did begin to slowly be removed and the person leading was closer to the real person. They got to see the man behind the mask, which I believe they were longing for. Now what is interesting is that I didn’t learn this from Michael as he rarely showed himself in such a way. That said we are not here mimic; we are here to become all that we can be. As Michael himself said in the earlier reading, we are here to let it show.

Masks have been on my mind of late. I was reminded of terrifying children’s character the other day “Noseybonk” or “Mr Noseybonk” from the children’s television series of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s “Jigsaw”. It was a program aimed at primary school children. It was quite strange and “Mr Noseybonk” reminded me of a character from “A Clockwork Orange”. It is not that different from the Alex Droog character played by Malcolm McDowell. I don’t know if the intention was to scare children, but it certainly worked. It seemed that this character did inspire horror. “Noseybonk” inspired the character “Mr Chuckleteeth in the X-Files episode “Familiar. It is thought that this was then the inspiration behind the character “Jigsaw” from the horror movie franchise “Saw”. I am certain that the inner workings that created the children’s education tv program “Jigsaw” would never have dreamed of ending up down that Rabbit hole. Then again seemingly innocent children’s stories were often hiding something beneath the surface.

There are many layers to everything it seems.

It brings to my mind one of my favourite ever poems “The Layers” by Stanley Kunitz. By the way it is one of those opening lines I often misquote.

“The Layers” by Stanley Kunitz

I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.

“Live in the layers, not on the litter.” There is some beautiful wisdom here. There are many layers to explore in this incredible piece written at the end of his long life. I have explored it before. It is the opening though that speaks to me here, the one I often misquote.

I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.


We ought never be afraid to let that show.

We all wear masks that cover up aspects of ourselves and or reveal something we are attempting to portray. How often do we let our whole selves be seen? We are all a ball of complexity, paradox and contradictions. To quote good old Walt Whitman “Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. (I am large, I contain multitudes) This is the real you and me perhaps, there in the contradictions and complexities of our humanity. It is what we have in common I suspect. Yet we show our public faces, we wear our masks.

There is nothing new under the sun, including this sermon.

We have always worn masks, ever since the beginning of human society. The masks have depicted the multiple aspects of humanity, the many ‘selves’ that lie within each and every one of us, our multitude, the layers of our lives. In the plays of ancient Greece masks were worn and exchanged by the players to depict each individual’s persona. The word ‘persona” itself is actually derived from per-sonare which meant “to sound through”? It was not only the face of the character that was expressed through the mask, but also the voice was exaggerated too. There is something beautifully powerful in this, it’s a wonderful metaphor for who we are as human beings. In many ways we can be identified as much by our voices as our faces and we can attempt to cover up who we our through our voices too. I know when I find myself I always find my authentic voice.

I was talking with a friend the other day about how much my voice has changed over time, how my speech has altered. I have to some extent lost my accent, not completely I know but to some extent at least. This is no doubt due in part to having to speak publicly and also not living in Yorkshire for nearly 30 years. Now my friend laughed out loud at this as to them I have quite a strong accent, but it is nothing like it used to be. I have not deliberately changed the way I speak but never the less it has happened. It fascinates me how some people seem to pick up accents very easily and yet others hang on to theirs even if they have left their homelands decades before. So much of who we are, our persona is caught up in our voices as well as our facial features. The masks we can wear not only cover our faces, but our voices too. We are no different to the ancient Greeks, there is nothing new under the sun, we are contain our many multitudes.

Masks of course are not only the domain of ancient times either. Many of our modern day heroes wear masks too. In many ways the hero has to wear a mask in order to protect his identity and therefore walk through life anonymously. It seems a hero cannot be a hero twenty four hours a day seven days a week three hundred and sixty five days of the year. The demands and the pressures it seems would be too much. Think about Zoro who has to don his mask in order to fight for his people; think about Batman and Spiderman too who’s greatest fears are to be unmasked. There are numerous other examples too.

Now there is a part of me that just doesn’t like any of this. This idea of hiding who we are or having to be transformed into someone else to become a hero or a completely different personality. There is a loneliness in it that I want to rebel against. Think about it, all those heroes have a loneliness about them. They all have a dark side, they somehow can’t quite connect with everyone else.

As I thought of this those childhood memories came flooding back. It particularly brought one image that has often haunted me, that of the scarecrow, perhaps the epitome of a loneliness in effigy. They are the loneliest of the lonely. I find scarecrows haunting figures. Many towns have scarecrow festivals and I find them all a bit spooky. They bring images of the “Wicker Man” to me.

Now of course usually the scarecrow is depicted as rather lovely semi-human creatures and there was one that I had a deep affection for as a child. That scarecrow was Wurzel Gummage. Like Jigsaw it was first aired in the later 1970’s and early 1980’s. Does anyone remember Wurzel? I loved Wurzel but I know many friends who found him quite scary.

Wurzel like so many other children’s characters desperately wanted to fit in to be a part of life, but never really succeeded. Now while he didn’t wear a mask he did something far more extreme. He would have to painfully remove his head and replace it with another totally different one that completely changed his personality. For poor old Wurzel whatever he did always ended in disaster and he could never be what he tried so hard to be. He was always on the outside looking at the world alone, a scarecrow not a part of human life. He wore a different head for every occasion but that did not help him become what he wanted to be.

How many of us wear masks or put on different heads in our attempts to be accepted? Why do we believe we are not good enough just as we are, exactly as we are in this present moment, warts and all and beauty spots too? Why do we believe we need to act differently around certain people just to fit in. why do we think we need to wear different masks or even heads for different occasions and even change the way that we speak in order to fit in and be accepted? Why can’t accept ourselves and many layers with all our contradictions and complexities.

It never works you know, it only leads to loneliness and emptiness. Why? You may well ask, well because deep down inside we know it’s not who we really are. It means we just stand there as scarecrows staring at the world as it passes us by or we just sit there staring at the world giving our running commentaries and criticism without ever participating.

I believe that authenticity is at the core of the spiritual life. In fact I would say that the purpose of the spiritual life is to truly become real and to let go of the masks that we think allow us fit in and become acceptable to the world around us. It’s not about what we show to the world outside of us but how we live from our hearts and souls. It’s not about showing this stage character that we think the world wants to see but to be ourselves wholly and fully. To be who we truly are and to let it show.

The purpose of the spiritual life is to become who we truly are. It is to remove the masks so that we can truly connect to life and to one another and see each other as we truly are, warts and all and beauty spots too. The spiritual life is about connecting to all that is, all that has been and all that will ever be so that time becomes thick and deep and therefore rich in meaning. In so doing we are able to truly serve our world and the people about us and therefore incarnate God’s love here and now and bring about the commonwealth of love in our very lives.

It’s about removing the masks that shield and separate us and seeing one another face to face and speaking our truth in love.

Let’s truly live in the many layers of our lives, let it truly show, the many multitudes that make up our humanity and in so doing we will encourage others to so also.

We are here to let it show.

Amen

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

Making Time for Active Empathy

I have a friend who is a therapist. She has recently been creating videos about the work she offers, particularly those who have been involved in difficult and or abusive relationships. She posted a video on seven traits of Narcissism. One trait being a lack of empathy. It got me thinking about empathy and how vital it is to human flourishing and relationships.

Empathy has been in the public consciousness in recent months. It has come under a certain amount of criticism, which personally I have found hard to fathom. There is even a phrase amongst some sections of Evangelical Christianity. The phrase being “The Sin of Empathy”. In their view of their faith “empathy” can blur what they see as right and wrong, that empathy leads to people feeling with others, rather than correcting them and empathy leads to manipulation. It is view not held by most Christians, but is one that has grown in prominence in recent years. I have heard others talk of problems with empathy too. That it can be exploited and some see it as a danger to civilisation itself. I wonder if what is being discussed is actually empathy.

So what exactly is empathy? To empathise with another is an attempt to walk in another shoes, to feel what they are feeling, to understand things from their perspective. This is not easy by the way and no one should ever pretend it is. It takes effort and is a conscious decisions that is made and practised. To empathise with another, is not necessarily to act as a result of this, but to feel with them. It is not the same as sympathy which is less intimate and a more detached response. We express sympathy for a persons situation, perhaps following a bereavement, but we may not necessarily empathise with them. Compassion is sometimes confused with empathy. Compassion though is a response to empathy or sympathy and is a desire to act in order to ease another’s suffering.

I believe that empathy is the key to true human flourishing, but it is a real challenge. At its heart is the recognition that we are all born from the same flesh and have the same spirit running through us. That everything in life is interconnected. Echoed in those words of Jesus, what you do to the least of them you do to me; echoed by the great mystic Meister Eckhart “What happens to another happens to you”. Recognised by the Buddha who advised us to “See yourself in others, then whom can you hurt?” Empathy is an orientation of the spirit. I believe that it is key to reaching our highest human potential and the key to civilisation. It is the lack of empathy in seeing others as different that is a threat to human flourishing. As Hannah Arendt observed “The death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture falling into barbarism”. I think at the heart of human brutality is the failure to recognise the common humanity of another. At the heart of this is a lack of empathy. If we have no empathy we cannot live with compassion and or mercy.

I would like to share with you a short poem by the wonderful farmer poet Wendell Berry “If we have no compassion”

“If we have no compassion,” by Wendell Berry

If we have become a people incapable of thought,
then the brute-thought
of mere power and mere greed
will think for us.

If we have become incapable
of denying ourselves anything,
then all that we have
will be taken from us.

If we have no compassion,
we will suffer alone, we will suffer
alone the destruction of ourselves.

these are merely the laws of this world
as known to Shakespeare, as known to Milton.

When we cease from human thought,
a low and effective cunning
stirs in the most inhuman minds.

Back to “Empathy”. Etymologically speaking the word “Empathy” comes from an ancient Greek word “Empatheia” from “em” meaning “In” and “pathos” meaning feeling. From this came the nineteenth century German word “Einfuhling”, from which we got the word Empathy.

Now while empathy has been at the heart of human civilisation, the word is actually quite new. It only began to be used at the beginning of the twentieth century. Interestingly it originated in the appreciation of art, where it was used to describe the imaginative activity of projecting yourself into a work of art as an effort to understand why we are moved by such creativity. The word has it’s Genesis in the work of German doctor Wilhelm Wundt who almost by accident gave birth to psychology and the philosopher Theodor Lipps. Lipps originated what was then considered a radical idea, that the power of art was not so much in the work itself but in the viewer actively engaging in it. The power is in “The Creative Interchange”

In “You Must Change Your Life: The Story of Rainer Maria Rilke and Auguste Rodin” Rachel Corbett explained how this developed.

“The moment a viewer recognizes a painting as beautiful, it transforms from an object into a work of art. The act of looking, then, becomes a creative process, and the viewer becomes the artist.”

…She continued…

“Lipps found a name for his theory in an 1873 dissertation by a German aesthetics student named Robert Vischer. When people project their emotions, ideas or memories onto objects they enact a process that Vischer called einfühlung, literally “feeling into.” The British psychologist Edward Titchener translated the word into English as “empathy” in 1909, deriving it from the Greek empatheia, or “in pathos.” For Vischer, einfühlung revealed why a work of art caused an observer to unconsciously “move in and with the forms.” He dubbed this bodily mimesis “muscular empathy,” a concept that resonated with Lipps, who once attended a dance recital and felt himself “striving and performing” with the dancers. He also linked this idea to other somatosensory imitations, like yawns and laughter.”

Isn’t it so true how yawning and laughing can be infectious. When we laugh and or yawn together we are feeling with each other. Empathy is to feel with another. It is to recognise ourself in the other and the other in ourselves. This can be difficult and painful at times. It takes effort. I would say it is a moral and spiritual practice. It can be taught and learnt and developed.

I recently went to prison. It was only as a visitors sharing my experience of with a group of inmates who themselves are trying to find recovery. In them I saw myself and I saw myself in them. I empathise with them deeply. I was humbled and moved by the whole experience. I saw deep care for one another. How they were supporting one another in what is as challenging an environment as you could live in. I felt deeply with them, I empathised.

“Empathy” is taught in Danish schools. Since 1993 it has been part of their “National Curriculum” It is named “Klassens time”, during which children can seek advice from peers, learn empathy, conflict resolution as well as strengthen their relationships and sense of community.

“Klassens time” is a step by step program. Students are shown cards that feature children experiencing different emotions, such as sadness, anger, and happiness. They are asked to not just identify the emotion, but to explain what it means to them. They learn how to interpret others’ emotions and how they make them feel. They are not taught to judge the emotions, just to recognise and respect them.

In an essay in “The Atlantic” Jessica Alexander, author of “The Danish Way of Parenting” explains why in “Klassen time” children of different strengths and weakness are mixed together. She wrote: “The goal is for the students to see that everyone has positive qualities and to support each other in their efforts reach the next level,” Adding further that: “The math whiz may be terrible at soccer, and vice versa. This system fosters collaboration, teamwork, and respect.”

Maybe we could all learn something from the Danish education system. It will certainly helps see we are all one and another. That we are all formed from the same flash and have the same spirit flowing through us. It will allow us to thrive and be who we are whilst also understanding that others have similar needs. Not to become clones and all alike, but to truly be all that we can be.

Empathy is not easy, it takes effort. It can seem too much at times, especially in this our modern age. A time when we are bombarded by fear of the other. Where there are voices decrying empathy and suggesting it might be a problem, or at least that there is an “empathy exploit” which maybe leading to what Gad Saad has described as “civilisational suicidal empathy”.

It is a view I don’t share. I think the problem is a lack of empathy. We need to develop empathy in its truest sense, to feel with another, to understand one another better. To value each other as we are, to enable one another to thrive as individuals and society as a whole.

There is a need for “Active Empathy”, the type being taught in Danish schools. Something that I believe that free religious communities such as ours ought to be about. Active empathy is about opening our whole being to others. We do this not by forcing ourselves upon them, but by allowing them to be themselves around us. This is true openness. This is invitation. When I say come as you are, exactly as you are, this is what I mean; when I say, “but do not expect to leave in exactly the same condition,” this is what I mean. 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.

Of course this begs the question, how do we bring this about?

Well, I was reminded this week of the work of Karen Armstrong and her book “12 Steps to a Compassionate Life”. It came to me after I returned from prison. In it she offers a meditative practise as a starting point. It begins by imagining Confucius’ “Concentric Circles of Compassion”, beginning within ourselves and then moving out in ever widening circles until it touches the whole world.

The meditation suggests that we turn our attention to three individuals that we know. The three being an acquaintance we are not too closely connected to; someone we hold dear to our hearts; someone to whom we bear a grudge or hold resentment against. Armstrong suggests that we bring each one to our mind, to picture them and to name them. To bring to mind their good points; to look into their hearts and see their pain and to desire for each of them to be free of their pain and finally to resolve to help them in any way that we can; to wish for them whatever it is we desire for ourselves; to live by the Golden Rule. The purpose of the meditation is to develop upeksha ‘equanimity, which will allow us to relate to people with equanimity. Of course this is difficult to practice, but if stuck with, over a period of time, results are sure to follow.

Through developing empathy we will truly be able to practise compassion in our daily lives. Practise does indeed make perfect. Well maybe not perfect, but better. Opera singers have to train for years, as do dancers and even ministers for that matter, doctors are not made overnight and neither are decent spin bowlers. All these crafts take time, dedication and consistent effort. It is worth it though.

Through the practise of empathy we can live truly connected lives and we will no longer feel that sense of separation and aloneness that so many people seem to suffer from. Through practise we can grow into what Schweitzer described as a "spiritual relationship with the Universe" and we will develop reverence for all life, including our own.

Empathy is a choice, a decision and I believe it is vital to human flourishing. It doesn’t just happen. It is a choice we make to pay attention, to extend ourselves beyond the confines of our singular selves. Empathy is an intention. It is intention to create something better not only for ourselves and current neighbours, but for those who will follow when we are long gone.

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

I Didn’t Understand a Single Word That Man Said

Pronunciation can be tricky. We learn to speak by listening to others. We repeat what we hear. This is probably why both accents and dialect are to some degree disappearing. We hear so many different types of speech today than we did in the past. As a minister of religion it is vitally important that people can understand what I am saying, that I can articulate. Now of course it is not just the words I say that need to heard and understood, more importantly it is meaning beneath the words that mean the most. Now I know sometimes this does not happen. From time to time people have repeated back to me things they have heard me say, which have been almost the exact opposite of what I meant. Not very often thankfully.

I and others have had a little fun with mine and others troubles with pronunciation recently. It began a couple of Sunday’s ago with Derek’s troubles with “phenomenom”. A word no matter how hard he tried he could not say. Afterwards I offered him a tip, one I have suggested to others, that if you are struggling with this word then you may find help from the Muppets. You may remember the song “manam mana”. I got over my struggles with phenomenon by saying over and over again “Manam mana” and hey presto I could say phenomena. By the time I got to Altrincham I thought I would give Penny some help as she was delivering the same reading as Derek. It was a mistake I think I put her off and I am sorry for that. Sometimes all of us can get too worried about coming across perfectly when what actually matters the most is authenticity and the meaning between what we say.

I have got frustrated with myself at times, because I have been unable to articulate myself perfectly. One word I regularly struggle with is the word “regularly”, it just seems to get stuck on my tongue. I shared about this on Facebook and received some interesting response. I am not the only one who regularly struggles to pronounce “regularly”. Others shared words that they struggled with. Several folk struggle with “phenomena” or “phenomenon”. Other words included “Music”, “behavioural”, “statistics”, “disorientated”, “immediately”, “meteorological”, “Tsunami”, “Ibuprofen”, “Cardigan”, “Abominable”, “Hilariously”, “Enthusiasm and so many more. Apparently Benedict Cumberbatch can’t say penguin, but then who can say Benedict Cumberbatch. I remember the former Leeds United manager Marcelo Bielsa struggled with Ipswich and Leicester and Americans famously struggle with Worcestershire Sause. Now you have just heard me struggle with a few of them.

It was fun and connective to share these common struggles. It is especially difficult if English is not your first language. Not that pronunciation is the most important thing. What matters the most is at the heart of what we say, the meaning beneath the words we say and use. That said it does help if people can understand what you are saying. Sadly accents and dialect can at times get in the way. I have been humbled on a couple of occasions when speaking publicly. Thankfully I was able to laugh about it later. One time was when I was in Transylvania and had delivered a sermon that was translated into Hungarian. There was a TV company there filming for a local news channel. After the service they interviewed Carolyn Jones, who speaks clearly and without an accent. Afterwards she asked if they would like to speak to me, to which they replied “Oh no I didn’t understand a word that man said.” Another time was when I was asked to deliver a workshop and talk in the West Midlands. I read the poem “The Layers” by Stanley Kunitz. Afterwards one or two people didn’t quite understand what I meant as they heard me saying “lair” and not “layer”, they thought I was suggesting that they live in the “lair” of a lion and not the “layers” of life. This is purely about accents. “lay-er” where come from is pronounced “lare” as in “make sure you where plenty of lares today, as it is perishing cold outside.

Now all joking aside. Yes people don’t always understand every word, as it is not always articulated correctly. What is worse though is when someone doesn’t get the heart or meaning behind what is said. Or worse than that they are hurt by words spoken; that the heart and soul does not reach their heart and soul.

Tuesday evening saw the American presidential debate. Two people offering visions for America. It was pretty clear to me what was at the heart and soul of the two and their vision. I hope it has the appropriate impact on those who will vote in the future.

Words matter and the language we use matters too. They can be used creatively or destructively. Minister’s of religion are often referred to as minister’s of the word. This comes from a Greek word that occurs more than 300 times in the New Testament alone. The word is “Logos”. Now traditional trinitarian Christians would see Logos as meaning Jesus Christ, the classic example being in John 1 v 1 and the following line “In the beginning was the word and word was with God and the word was God.”. I don’t believe this is the case. Logos is used in a variety of ways, throughout the Bible. They follow two basic lines of thought though. One is mind and the products of the mind, such as reason, logic is related to logos. The other is an expression of that reason as a word, like a command. Here are some of the examples:

Account, appearance, book, command, conversation, eloquence, flattery, grievance, heard, instruction, matter, message, ministry, news, proposal, question, reason, reasonable, reply, report, rule, rumor, said, say, saying, sentence, speaker, speaking, speech, stories, story, talk, talking, teaching, testimony, thing, things, this, truths, what, why, word and words.

There is something Divine and creative in the way we use words; when spoken in the right way they can be Divine in activity, they do at least if they are spoken with loving and creative extent. The Sufi’s see an association with Divine creative power and words spoken from the Beloved’s lips. So, when you speak such words in love you are part of the Divine creativity. Here is an example from Sana’i

The souls of all the lovers
are mobilized before Your lips;
With You, they are all and everything:
devoid of Your lips, they are nothing.

It matters how we speak what we create with our lips. Our words will become our actions and they certainly speak of our intent. The relationship between and action in an honourable existence is what Hannah Arendt examined throughout her book “The Human Condition” (published in 1958). She wrote:

“With word and deed we insert ourselves into the human world, and this insertion is like a second birth, in which we confirm and take upon ourselves the naked fact of our original physical appearance. This insertion is not forced upon us by necessity, like labor, and it is not prompted by utility, like work. It may be stimulated by the presence of others whose company we may wish to join, but it is never conditioned by them; its impulse springs from the beginning which came into the world when we were born and to which we respond by beginning something new on our own initiative. To act, in its most general sense, means to take an initiative, to begin (as the Greek word archein, “to begin,” “to lead,” and eventually “to rule,” indicates), to set something into motion (which is the original meaning of the Latin agere).”

We create or destroy life through our words and actions, Our meaning, our purpose our love and hate are shown through them. Hopefully this comes through, this is articulated, what is at the heart and soul, even if at times our words and actions can be clumsy, even if we stumble through our words and deeds from time to time. What really matters is our intent, what is our meaning our true logos.

The language we use says a lot about our meaning both personally and culturally. Those who study language learn a great deal about humanity by the way we use words and the emotions those words carry with them. They speak of the meaning as a “Frame”. That these frames are mental structures that shape the way we view the world. The way we see the world affects how we act in the world. Now of course we cannot see these frames they exist at all almost unconscious level. Certain words and language fire us up, they activate an aspect of our brain, almost unconsciously.

What matter is our intent, the meaning beneath what we say. How we articulate that matters. I hope I am making sense today. I hope you can understand my meaning, the meaning in my words, my Logos.

I am reminded here of a joke I once heard about a preacher.

There car had broken down after the Sunday service. Come Monday morning, the Reverend managed to drive the vehicle to the town’s one garage for repairs. “I hope you’ll go easy on the cost,” he told the mechanic. “After all, I’m just a poor preacher.” “I know,” came the reply. “I heard you preach yesterday.”

I hope there is value in the words I preach, even if it is not articulated perfectly.

The ability to speak publicly is a vital tool of ministry, so if a minister loses their voice or ability to speak their effectiveness would be seriously compromised. Well just this did happen to one of the two father’s of British Unitarianism, Joseph Priestley. For many years Dr Priestley struggled with a stammer.

I have a personal affection for Priestley, which has nothing much to do with his actual achievements. No, I have affection for Priestley because he comes from Birstall, in West Yorkshire, where I grew up and he attended Batley Grammar School, where I went. There the comparisons end I’m afraid. I have never been a leading radical, politically and I have never been particularly scientifically minded. That said thankfully I have never suffered from a stammer. I wonder sometimes what Priestley’s accent would have been like. No doubt very different to a man from Birstall these days (B’still as a local would pronounce it)

Joseph Priestley struggled with a stammer for years. It must have been terribly difficult to preach with such an impediment. He did overcome it as it did not affect his later career. That said it did cause him much distress although, as he said, it saved him from being “seduced by the love of popular applause as a preacher”.

My tradition lays great emphasis on the word and the preaching of it. Ok today we may not place authority at the door of scripture, this has been replaced by the conscience of the individual. That said the preached word, articulated correctly is still central to our worship.

Is this though the most important element?

Many people can speak well and articulately. I myself have had some training, but I know I will never be perfect and absolutely clear. I do not wish to be. I need to remain true to who I am, to speak my truth in love and in a language that hopefully others will understand.

To truly minister people need to hear what my heart and soul has to say. I need to speak the language of the heart, but not from someone else’s book of life and experiences. No! These experiences must come from my own; otherwise how can I expect others to relate to what I have to say.

I hope that by continually speaking my truth in love I am able to encourage others to do likewise and that they in turn continue to speak their truth in love. I trust you can understand my intent, my meaning, my logos. I hope that by sharing my truth in love I encourage you to do the same. To me this is the purpose of worship to help you speak and act your truth in love. To me this is what this is all about.

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