Person Centred Spirituality

I love watching Molly playing with other dogs. She loves to run and chase and wrestle. It doesn’t seem to matter the size of the dog either. When it snowed the other day she must have spent two hours just running and playing. She wore out about a dozen other dogs. They soon gave up, but she just carried on. How she loves to play. She has this ability to bring out the playfulness in other dogs too. I was talking to a woman and her Cavapoo the other day. She said her dog was not very sociable and doesn’t play. Well within a few moments Molly got her running around. She said her dog hadn’t done this for two years, it was only three years old. After a few minutes of joy she put her dog on its lead and walked away. I remember thinking to myself I am not sure that it is the dog that isn’t sociable and playful. It seems that some aspect of this lovely dog was not fully awake, a part that so desperately wants to play with others.

I love watching dogs play. They know intuitively when they are playing. They seem to instantly get in tune with each other. There are these momentary pauses in their wrestling and chasing and then they move into each other again. They are beautifully synchronised and understand one another. They quickly adjust to the size of one another too. They seem to understand each others needs and capacity. They seem beautifully centred on one another. It is a beautiful sight to behold how being in tune with themselves, they are in tune with one another, at least in play. It makes me think that this is a kind of empathy. It also got me thinking that maybe dogs at play is an example of the “Golden Rule of Compassion”; dogs at play seem to be a living example of “do unto the other dog as they would have done to yourself.”

Last Sunday Janine led a child blessing service. It was wonderful to watch her in action. To see how she had created her own service, that fulfilled the needs of the family. I enjoyed how she constructed the service. Afterwards we went for coffee and a chat. We chuckled to ourselves about the elements that she had combined together to create the service. Yes it was her own, but it was influenced by others, including myself. At café nero we were joined by three people who had been at the morning services. One a regular Nick, who had helped with the music during Janine’s service, and the other two had been a couple of times before. They were already there and invited us to join them. Obviously, they wanted to talk about the Unitarian tradition. It was a fascinating conversation as we talked about so many different things. The subject of Universalism came up again. There was a lot of talk about the origins of the Unitarian tradition and our approach to religion. There were many attempts to label things, something I never like as it always seems reductionistic. There were questions about symbols. I talked, but mainly listened. I walked away with a broad grin on my face, went home, got changed and then headed off to the park with Molly. As I watched her play I thought what a beautiful metaphor she is for a free approach to religion and spirituality.

On Monday I was talking with a friend who is studying for a counselling degree. She had been reading Carl Rogers and his view on person centred counselling and the need for deep empathy. It was a lovely conversation and great to hear her so enthused by what she is learning. I love enthusiasm in anything and anyone. She asked me if I had thought about exploring “self actualisation” as a theme. I said I hadn’t, at least not directly. She then started asking questions about counselling, empathy and ministry, suggesting that the work of Carl Rogers seemed to correlate with Unitarian ministry. I think some of his ideas do point towards a person centred spirituality, which to me is the essence of the Unitarian approach to what religion is about. I then thanked her for being one of my Muses for the week, as she had just set my thinking in a direction for this service. How do you like it so far? She liked this.

On his journey towards developing person-centered therapy, Carl Rogers renounced traditional Christianity. Seeing it as imposing judgmental conditions of worth, by the way he viewed all religion this way. Rogers grew up in an extremely conservative Christian family. He had a particular problem with the foundational belief in the doctrine of “Original Sin”, a view I certainly share. The idea that at birth there is something fundamental wrong in humanity, in our nature. This is anti-ethical to Rogers concept of “Unconditional positive regard”

“Unconditional positive regard” is the attitude of complete acceptance and love, whether for yourself or for someone else. When you have unconditional positive regard for someone, nothing they can do could give you a reason to stop seeing them as inherently human and inherently lovable. It does not mean that you accept each and every action taken by the person, but that you accept who they are at a level much deeper than surface behaviour.

I see parallels here with “The Golden Rule of Compassion”, which can be found at the heart of every one of the great faith traditions. It is “Love your neighbour as yourself”, in one form or another. To me this suggest that if we see ourselves and one another as fallen in nature then we cannot love each other and if we can love each other then how can we love God. This seems to be in direct contradiction to the essence of the teachings of Jesus and thus Christianity and every other of the great faith traditions. This is one of the reason why I have never understood “Original Sin” as being in line with Jesus’ teaching. I do not accept that life and humanity is born fallen. I was thinking of this as Janine conducted the “Child blessing” service last Sunday, as she named the child, blessed her life and asked her family and friends to support her in her life. She blessed this beautiful blessing. I reject the concept of original sin, that said I do not deny that we all sin. In the sense that each and every single one of us fall short of our ideal of what we can be. That said despite falling short we should never lose sight that at the core of our being we are inherently lovable. We are formed from love and we are capable of love. Rogers believed that the purpose of psychology is to bring this inherent worth to life, I believe that it is the purpose of communities like ours to bring that alive too and to recognise it in others. In so doing we can begin to bring that love alive through our human being and in so doing we will truly love God with all our hearts, minds and souls.

As you can imagine this all got me thinking and relating to ministry, particularly in our tradition. In many ways the Unitarian approach is very much person centred spirituality. As a minister my role is to meet people where they are and encourage them to seek their own answer to life’s questions, particularly the spiritual nature of life. Surely this is person centred. I was thinking of this as I watched Molly playing with another dog, how in tune with each other they were and how by doing so both were gaining so much, as I watched the dance. Then it came to me what we are about is person centred spirituality, in community. My role is not to tell others what to think and believe, but encourage all of us to seek truth and meaning together and somehow in that dance, something remarkable happens. This does require unconditional positive regard for ourselves and others. We do need to believe that we and others are a blessing, or we will not trust one another, in the way that dogs do as they play.

Coming together with a sense of positive regard for ourselves and others is not a private affair, it is communal spirituality, something that appears to be increasingly lacking in this day and age. Many people report a need for spiritual sustenance but are put off by what is described as organised religion, of any kind, which they see it as detrimental to their own spirituality. I remember a friend once posting the following Meme: “Spiritual people inspire me; whereas religious people scare me.” This is because religion is seen as inhibiting and life constraining, which of course it can be.

Of course, Unitarians claim that we are a free and enquiry religion; that we are free to explore and develop our own personal spirituality in community with others. We, as individual members, of free religious communities, do not think and believe in the same way about many things, but we are bound together in mutual love. We are one faith, but we may not believe in exactly the same way, as that conversation in the coffee shop proved. That said there is love and respect and of course “Unconditional positive regard”. Well at least this is what we aim for. No one achieves this perfectly as none of us are perfectly self-actualised human beings, certainly not me. Maybe one day.

A person centred approach to spirituality and religion, with positive self regard for ourselves and others, recognising each others worth and dignity requires an openness to all that is, life, the universe, everything. It reveals truth and meaning in everything and everywhere and it reveals the divine in all aspects of life. It does not reject. It leads to a reverence for the miracle that is life itself and for one another.

This for me is the purpose of true religion, but it’s no easy task. Forrest Church said that in order to achieve it “We must embrace each day as the miracle it is and fashion our very lives into instruments of praise. This is religious work and it requires religious discipline. We perform that work together weekly in our Sunday liturgy. Once a week we pause and pinch ourselves. We can't take this life for granted. We must receive it as a precious gift, a pearl of great price.”

We need to recognise the oneness, the unity of everything. We are all part of a vast and yet mysterious living system. By recognising this we begin to participate consciously in this vast oneness. The mystics of every faith tradition have proclaimed this divine unity. It is called Nirvana in Buddhism, or the Brahman-Atman synthesis in Hinduism, when Jesus declares “I and the father are one” he is talking of divine oneness. We are all part of the one undivided whole. This is how we love God and our neighbour and ourselves. It is positive regard for everything and that that is at the core of everything.

Howard Thurman described this near perfectly in “Creative Encounter” when he said "It is my belief that in the Presence of God there is neither male nor female, white nor black, Gentile nor Jew, Protestant nor Catholic, Hindu, Buddhist, nor Muslim, but a human spirit stripped to the literal substance of itself before God."

This oneness, this sense of communion can be experienced by everyone, no one is excluded, it transcends all human created differences. What name we give it matters little, whether it be Universal Mind, Great Spirit, God, The Divine. Whether we name it or not we can certainly know it, I am sure we have all felt that oneness at one time or another.

I know from personal experience and from really listening to others that there is a deep human need to be at one with ourselves, reconciled with our neighbours and at home with the universe. It seems to me that our feelings of friendship and empathy are but a faint reminder of this essential oneness. We can all feel that oneness and it is through this oneness that we can truly know ourselves, our true natures. Can we achieve this alone? Does privatised spirituality allow this? How can we be at with all of life, if we cannot engage with one another spiritually?

To be truly religious is to let the sense of the eternal make a difference in our lives. It’s really all about being good neighbours. It’s about how we live with each other. As Thomas Jefferson said “It is in our lives not our words that our religion must be read”. You can be spiritual on your own, of course any one can, but we can only be truly religious requires us to come together. Coming together does not mean you lose who you are though. In many ways you may learn more about who you are, in interacting with others.

Last Tuesday morning , before I began writing this sermon I took Molly to the park once again. It was pouring with rain. There were only one or two other dogs out and about. Molly didn’t have anyone much to play with. She looked around, chased a few birds and squirrels. She was ok, but not like she had been in previous days. For she had to play alone. She was at ease though. She doesn’t suffer what so many humans suffer from, she doesn’t experience self-loathing, she has a healthy self-regard and as such goes out into the world with a sense of joy. That said Molly has known nothing but love in her life. No one has told her or treated like there was something wrong with her, in her nature. She sees most people in this light. If she has met you once she will greet you as an old friend, she likes to say hello to everyone. She has certainly enhanced my life and taught me so much about how to recognise my own worth and dignity and that of my brothers and sisters and attempt to build a community based on person centred spirituality.

To me this is how life should be and certainly what religion should be. It should be person centred, with love at its heart. With positive regard for ourselves, each other, life and God at the heart of it. Then we will truly live by the Golden Rule of Love and we will begin to bring to life the kin-dom of Love right here right now.

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

The Growing Edge of the Serenity Prayer

A friend posted a “Meme” the other day. It was a cartoon illustration of two characters on the end of the year. One is standing looking anxious and the other on their knees gardening. The character standing asks “Why are you so optimistic about the New Year? What do you think it will bring?” while the kneeling character replies “I think it will bring flowers.” The first character then asks “Yeah? How come?” to which the kneeler replies “Because! I’m planting flowers.”

The kneeling character is planting flowers, an act of faith in action I would say.

Life can feel completely out of control at times. It can feel uncertain, like we are being battered around. We can feel powerless over what might happen. This can cause anxiety and lead us to cling more tightly to things. The truth is we do not know for certain what is coming. If the last two years have taught us anything, then surely this is so. That said there is much we can do; there is much that we have a great big say in. While we are not God’s, we cannot control the spheres, we play a role. By planting our own versions of the cartoon characters flowers, we can be pretty sure that we will bring flowers. The seeds we sow make a whole lot of difference in life. Not only for ourselves but for others too. Never think that you are insignificant, that you do not matter. You do, you really do. Please believe that. While we cannot shape the oceans, we can impact on the little bit of space in which we live and breath and share our being. What we do and what we do not really matters, it really does. So go plant some flowers if flowers are what you want 2022 to bring.

Now as anyone who knows me will testify, I am no gardener. That said I do love a good gardening metaphor; gardening is full of metaphors of the things we must do in order to live well. We must prepare the soil and enrich it; we must plant and tend to the seeds; we must weed out whatever it is that stifles the flowers form growing; to enjoy a rich harvest we must give our whole selves to the process without being sure what will come. We cannot guarantee the weather or other influential conditions, but we must give ourselves wholeheartedly. Not only for ourselves, but for others, for such planting and growing is for others to enjoy also.

Isn’t this life. We do what we can and in so doing we create something. That said sometimes even if we give everything there can be a bad harvest. Does this mean we give up? No of course not. There is such joy in planting and sharing and mostly we create something beautiful and wonderful if we give our whole hearts to our endeavours and do so not only for ourselves alone.

We cannot predict the future, but what we do in the present matters, it really does. It is easy to think that everything that we say, do and think has little or no meaning. That how we are has no real impact on the world in which we live. Is this true? Is what we do insignificant?

It is easy to say that we are powerless, but is that entirely true? While we as individuals are not masters of the universe, we are not the Prime Mover, what we do or do not do matters. We each and every one of us leaves an impact of some sort on this world of ours. It matters what we feel, think, say and do or for that matter do not do. It really does matter what we do and what we do not do. No, we are not the ocean, but we are a part of what makes up the seas.

Yes of course we have to accept reality as it is, but that is not the whole answer. It is just an element in the process. It really depends what we do from there.

This brings to mind that wonderful universal prayer “The Serenity Prayer” of which there are many versions. The following short one is probably the best know “God grant we the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference”

The “Serenity Prayer” is one of the great prayers, simple, practical and beautifully universal. It speaks powerfully to the heart and soul of so many people and has been doing so ever since it was first written by Reinhold Niebhur in the 1930’s. I even got into a conversation about it in a remote village in Transylvania when I went on a trip there a few years, an experience that is etched on my heart and soul and will be forever.

One day I visited a small community, a village called Icland - there is no other settlement in the region whose name ends in land, the story goes that it was originally settled by people from Ireland or England – I walked up the hill towards the parish house and settled into a little schoolroom with a few adults and two teenage girls. For some reason I had images of Thomas Hardy or even Dickens in my mind as I walked up to the house and looked at the village. None of the houses had running water, everyone had a well. The minister led a short religious education class and I was deeply moved by the conversation which she translated for me. It was a conversation about struggles with the current economic climate and the importance of letting go of control and not becoming blocked off from God. The words of the serenity prayer came to my mind as we spoke “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference” – if only we could all find that wisdom to know the difference. I mentioned this and then a few moments later one of the women present produce a copy of the prayer from her purse. We then continued with the conversation which was one of the most beautifully moving and connective ones I have ever had. We spoke deep into one another's hearts. I left these people knowing I will probably never see them again, but also knowing that this conversation would be etched on my soul for a long time to come. During the conversation I had felt the presence of the spirit that I call God powerfully. I can picture the woman Elizabeth in my mind’s eye as she talked openly and eloquently of her struggles with life and faith. I can picture her now.

As “The Serenity Prayer” teaches, the key to life is always finding the wisdom to know the difference; the key is discernment. We need to be able to discern, to sift out, what needs to be let go of what needs to be accepted and what needs to change either internally or externally for this to happen.

I love the serenity prayer for many reasons, but primarily because it is humble, honest and open. It is not a petition demanding that the universe conform to our will, instead it is asking for guidance and strength to do our part and to see what our part is, while also accepting the realities of the world in which we live. Finally, it also points to the fact that we need to discover the wisdom to know what our stuff is, what our stuff is not and what is in our power to change.

It is not a passive prayer about simply accepting the status quo, quite the opposite. I see a lot of faith and works in these words. It is a prayer about seeking out what we can do and doing it. “Why are you so optimistic about the New Year? What do you think it will bring?” “I think it will bring flowers.” “Yeah? How come?” “Because! I’m planting flowers.” If no one plants flowers, there will be no flowers.

Planting those flowers brings some other wisdom to my mind Howard Thurman’s concept of “The Growing Edge” here he describes it:

“The Growing Edge” by Howard Thurman

“Look well to the growing edge. All around us worlds are dying and new worlds are being born; all around us life is dying and life is being born. The fruit ripens on the tree, the roots are silently at work in the darkness of the earth against a time when there shall be new leaves, fresh blossoms, green fruit.

Such is the growing edge. It is the extra breath from the exhausted lung, the one more thing to try when all else has failed, the upward reach of life when weariness closes in upon all endeavor. This is the basis of hope in moments of despair, the incentive to carry on when times are out of joint and men and women have lost their reason, the source of confidence when worlds crash and dreams whiten into ash. Such is the growing edge incarnate. Look well to the growing edge.”

The call to “look well to the growing edge” is the call of courage, of hope, rather than fear and despair, despite the very real troubles present in life. Yes, it does seem, to quote Howard Thurman, that the “times are out of joint and (people) have lost their reason” while “worlds crash and dreams whiten into ash.” That said instead of descending into despair, lets plant some flowers, as a commitment to life and living and in so doing we will “Look well to the growing edge!” This “the basis of hope in moments of despair, the incentive to carry on”. Let’s carry on.

Carrying on is not hopeless idealism by the way; Thurman certainly was not some hopeless idealist. He was a black man born into a culture of white supremacy, just one generation from his grandmother’s experience of enslavement. He knew from experience, real lived experience, that new life is born even in the midst of horror. It is easy, it is lazy, it is cowardly to indulge in cynicism and fatalism and to claim that we are powerless in the midst of life, to give up and not plant flowers. This is not life, if it was nothing would ever have changed. The growing edge is about accepting reality as it is and then doing what you can with you have, it is about planting the seeds of hope.

Yes, we need to accept reality as it is right here, right now. That said we also need to find the courage to plant our flowers, to live on the growing edge, to discover the wisdom to know the difference and to do what is not only in our power, but what is our responsibility to ourselves, humanity, to life.

So, I am going to end this devotion with a question. What is your growing edge? What is it that you want to grow? What is yours to bring to life in this our shared world? What is your responsibility?

Whatever it is will not come to fruition instantly. It is not a sudden quick fix. It will grow slowly, almost imperceptibly, but it will grow all the same. Rather like the plants and flowers grow, that require patient care and attention, but they will only grow if we plant them and do our part in nurturing them.

So you may well ask:

“Why are you so optimistic about the New Year? What do you think it will bring?” “I think it will bring flowers.” “Yeah? How come?” “Because! I’m planting flowers.”

Below is a video devotion based

 on the material in this "blogspot"

Living on the Growing Edge

New Years Eve was a strange one this year. Not very surprising I know. We could not mark and celebrate as we would normally, so we had to adapt. I hosted the “Watch Night Service” as 2020 crossed over into 2021. The service was enjoyed by folk in person and on Zoom. The evening had begun on Zoom with our weekly poetry night “Consolation, Sorrow and Joy” I then kept the Zoom open until midnight. It was perhaps not the smartest move on my part, as I was only wearing a shirt and jacket and it was a cold night sitting for six hours in the chapel. A few people did log on to say hello and have a chat. Sue arrived at about 10.30pm and we enjoyed some lovely food together that she had lovingly prepared. That night as I crossed the threshold, in that inbetween space, that liminal space, I enjoyed my time alone waiting and reflecting on what had been and what was yet to come. I felt like I was on the edge of something, not just time and space but life, it felt like the growing edge of everything, of life.

The time alone in the chapel allowed me to reflect on the year that had passed and the year that we are all stepping into. These will be difficult days ahead for us all and we need to prepare ourselves to live through it. It is no point just clinging on and hoping for the day after Covid, we need to live now and live the best way that we can. Yes of course we need to plan for the future, but we cannot stop living while we do so. We have this time now and we must not stop living. These were the thoughts I was reflecting on as I sat there on the edge of the year, the living edge, the growing edge, wondering what we were all stepping into.

Earlier that evening, during the poetry night, I had decided to break protocol and share a short piece of prose, “The Growing Edge” by Howard Thurman.. Earlier that day I read a beautiful reflection via Facebook on the piece by Parker J Palmer posted for the New Year. Parker J Palmer along with Carrie Newcomer whose poem we read earlier host a wonderful online resource titled “The Growing Edge” which I highly recommend to you all.

The Growing Edge

That evening as I sat alone I could feel “The Growing Edge” was stirring in me. As I sat there that night I thought I might include Howard Thurman’s words in the service. So I printed it and a few other pieces off and had them in reserve along with the script I had prepared. I had a full reading desk that night, they were almost hanging off that ever growing edge.

From about 11.30pm folk began to arrive for the service, Sue greeted them as we followed all the usual Covid secure procedures. There was not the usual number but about a dozen of us joined together on that “Growing Edge” of the old and new year, while others joined us on Zoom. An old friend was present. He was in particular good spirits as his daughter had given birth the day before. I had heard of a couple other new births in the last few days, it has been suggested that they should be called “Lockdown” babies. Who knows, babies are born constantly. It was lovely to see the obvious joy on my fiends face, especially considering the fact that he had only reconciled with his daughter some 18 months earlier after a big family fall out. It was a beautiful reminder that life does go on despite all the real loss that we are all experiencing. Yes, loss by the death of loved ones but also loss of the things we would normally do in our lives. As we live through another necessary lockdown this is something, that we are all experiencing again. We are in the middle of a long, difficult winter. That said life goes on, it will always go on. We are living in and through this it is of no use to anyone to just live for the day when the pandemic will be over, to completely hibernate. We cannot live this way; we have to find ways to live in these times of challenge. Yes, plan for life in the future, but we still must live fully alive in this day, as difficult as it is. Me must of course stay physically distant, as much as possible, but that does not me that we shut down who we are. What is required is adjustment in how we live; what is required is adaptation.

Here are the words I shared, “The Growing Edge” by Howard Thurman

“All around us life is dying and life is being born. The fruit ripens on the tree, the roots are silently at work in the darkness of the earth against a time when there shall be new leaves, fresh blossoms, green fruit. Such is the growing edge!

This is the basis of hope in moments of despair, the incentive to carry on when times are out of joint and dreams whiten into ash. The birth of the child—life’s most dramatic answer to death—this is the growing edge incarnate. Look well to the growing edge!”

That night as I shared the “Watch Night” service I looked into my friend eyes, you could only see his eyes because of the mask. I am noticing peoples eyes more and more these days. As I looked into the joy and deep emotion in his eyes the line from Thurman came to me:  “The birth of a child—life’s most dramatic answer to death—this is the growing edge incarnate.” As I did, I knew then that I had to share the words of Thurman in the service. I certainly needed to remember that in this year that has known so much loss on so many levels, that new life is forever being born again. It is so vital to remember this at this time of lockdown. We need to keep on creating life, I do not mean babies necessarily, but in every area of existence, even in this time when we are restricted by what we can do. We need to create and build not only for the future but in the present too. Yes, we cannot mix physically but we can create ways to help one another and of course ourselves. So, let us look well to the growing edge, for this is life.

By the way, we are always living on “The Growing Edge”, this is the way of life. I had an interesting Zoom conversation with a member of the chapel who is also a regular in the poetry group on New Years Eve. It was suggested that perhaps we should rename it as “Consolation, Sorrow and Joy” seemed a little negative sounding as we have such fun in the group. Certainly, we do, but we do share all kinds of poetry some recognising the sorrows of life, some offering consolation and others uttely joy filled and of course some that are simply chuffing hilarious.  There is a lot of joy shared, even in difficult times. We could change the name and if a better one comes up then I am certainly open to it. Do you have any ideas?

The poetry night speaks so powerfully to me of the “Growing Edge”, for during that time we experience all aspects of it. To quote Parker J Palmer while reflecting on a conversation that he Carrie Newcomer had following the death of a dear friend and the news of another’s pregnancy:

“That afternoon, we talked about the way death and life, grief and joy, dance nonstop with each other around the world, day and night. It might not be a friend who dies; it might be a hope, or a work, or a relationship. It might not be a baby en route to being born; it might be a vision, an opportunity to learn or serve, or a small nudge towards who-knows-what.

To see life steadily and see it whole, we must find ways to hold the paradox of life-in-death and death-in-life. We can’t live lives of meaning and purpose if we succumb to the horrors of “apocalypse now” or fly off into the Aquarian fantasy of a day when “peace will guide the planets and love will steer the stars.””

It is not just at the new year, or in the midst of a pandemic, but all days that we need to look to “The Growing Edge”. It is about living in and through hope. “The Growing Edge” seems like the perfect antidote to fatalism and cynicism, there is much we can do to bring hope, when hope is hard to find.

I wonder what your “Growing Edge” is, I wonder where you find it. Maybe this is the time to discover what can be done and I don’t just mean somewhere over the rainbow, when the pandemic is over, but right now. The seeds can be planted in the here and now, even if it is perhaps difficult to find. It is found only in the muck of life and there is plenty of that around at the moment. We don’t have to wait for the end of the rainbow, for the spring or the summer we can living on the “Growing Edge” now. We have the time as we have to be at home to prepare ourselves to begin planting those seeds, nurturing them, and help them grow. To quote Margaret Atwood “In the spring, at the end of the day, you shall smell like dirt.”. I suspect that if we live on the “Growing Edge”, even in the midst of winter we can live as though it were the spring or summer time. It will not be easy, but it can be done.

Life forever invites us to grow into new challenges, new adventures, new opportunities to learn and to serve. Maybe this is the time to look within ourselves and our world. Maybe we need to begin to live on the growing edge. If we do, we might find that we can help carry ourselves and one another through this difficult winter and as we do so bring new life to fruition.

Yes, we are living with deep restrictions and my word we need to be, for the good of all. That said it does not mean that we must completely hibernate, to stop living. We cannot live for that day, somewhere over the rainbow, after the pandemic, for that is not living and we don’t know when that magical day might come.

So instead let us live on the “Growing Edge”, for this is life. All around us life is dying and life is being born. So, let us live and look to the “Growing Edge”, for this is life and life goes on.

Floella and Mr Rogers: Heroes and Inspirations

A few years ago I was invited to Parliament to participate and speak at a “Men’s Health Forum”. It was hosted by Baroness Floella Benjamin. Floella is perhaps the most genuinely wonderful human being I have ever met. The other Friday Christine Anstey, a member at Dunham Road Altrincham, sent me text message telling me that Floella was appearing on “Desert Island Discs”. I listened to her wonderful life story and enjoyed her song choices. What was clear was the deep love and care within her, exemplified by her life. She spoke of her struggles as a black immigrant growing up the 1950’s and 60’s and how she worked hard to develop her career. She has been a campaigner for so many groups of people. She also spoke about being appointed the chancellor of the University of Exeter and how instead of shaking hands with graduates she breaks tradition and hugs every single one. As someone who has received one of those hugs, I have never known a more loving one. Floella is one of those special people who lives by and through love and I believe is a wonderful example of what we can be if we live this way.

Now Floella came to fame as a children’s tv presenter on “Playschool”. Well that very evening after listening to her on “Desert Island Discs” Sue and myself watched a wonderful film “A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood.” It tells the story of cynical journalist going to interview the much loved American children’s television icon Fred Rogers. It is a beautiful film about reconciliation and transformation, as the cynical journalist Lloyd Vogel, who is a new father struggling with his demons, is transformed by the presence and love exemplified in the life of Rogers. Vogel reconciles with his own father who is dying and who abandoned him and sister during their childhood and not long before their mother died. At one point in the film it is suggested that Rogers could be seen as some kind of saint. Roger’s wife Joanne, who like Floella is a hugger, disputes this and says if he was a saint then no one could aspire to live a life like him. I would imagine that both Floella and Joanne must be struggling with being unable to hug folk at this time, but I am sure that they will adjust being the women that they are.

While speaking with Vogel Roger’s exposed his own vulnerability, he spoke of his own challenges as a parent of two sons. Despite the claims of not being a saint it must have been be challenging to be the child of such a person, just as it must have been to be the child of Floella too. They are both icons of millions of children’s lives, so loved. Well it would appear that Floella’s son struggled at times with her fame and because of this she withdrew from presenting and put her energies into other areas. I suspect that she would not have been made a life peer if she had remained a television presenter, but you never know.

Trying to live up to any ideal is never easy, that though should not mean that we shouldn’t attempt to rise to all that we capable of becoming. Although it is important to always remember that even the greatest examples were always human, they had feet of clay. Remember nobody is perfect, we must always be somebodies.

I have had many heroes in my life, people who inspired me. As a young boy they were mainly sporting ones and musicians too. My current sporting hero is probably Marcello Bielsa, “El Loco” or the “Bucket Man”, the current manager of Leeds United, who has brought the club back to the Premier League. That said my heroes today tend to be more of a spiritual nature. Like David Whyte who has inspired me to live on the frontier between the self and the other, upper and lower case. I love the way that he speaks of the “conversational nature of reality”, or Mary Oliver’s cry of the wild geese crying out that I we do not have to be good, perfect, to know that we are loved as we are, that we just have to let the soft animal of our bodies love what they love, we just have to let our vulnerable bodies, no matter how broken, love what they love. Or Rainer Maria Rilke and his urging for patience “with everything unresolved in my heart” that instead of desperately seeking answers to all the questions all I need to do is to “to love the questions themselves.” It is a beautiful lesson in humility and oh so helps me to love the limits of my humanity and to remember that of others too, when we all fall short. It is utter vanity to think I will ever get a full answer to the spiritual questions I ask and seek. That said I know that by engaging in the courageous conversation I will experience something far more than I could even begin to imagine. All that I have to do is to live on the frontier and to live my way into, if not an answer, a new experience. Viktor Frankl’s call to find meaning by living meaningfully has enriched my experience if life. It still blows my mind that whenever I turn in faith to life that meaning continues to emerge, even when experiencing extreme suffering. No one can avoid suffering, but we do not need to know despair, meaning emerges if and when we embrace life and one another. I no longer seek a particular purpose or meaning in something instead I have discovered that by living at the frontier of life that I come alive and I learned a while ago that this is what the world needs, “people who have come alive,” at least according to Howard Thurman.

On Saturday I was out walking the dog by the canal. I passed a man I often see. We pause and talk for a little. We mostly talk about football. He asked me waht I thought about Marcus Rashford and what he is doing "for the kids". I told him I thought it was wonderful to see a young man doing what he could to help those who are struggling at this timer, that he uis wonderful example, that it was great to see a footballing hero using weaht he has to help others. he agreed and then said "I cannot imagine George Best would have done something similar"/ I laughed and agreed. 

So these are some of my heroes, I wonder who yours have been, either from your childhoods or now. Who are the people who have or who still inspire you? Do you see them as humans or as saints? Perhaps this is something to ponder and perhaps continue to aspire to in this time of struggle and need.

 Heroes tend to be ordinary folk, they are not saints, thus we can all aspire to be like them. They are not superheroes. There is no Superman or woman, something that Christopher Reeve himself discovered later in life. He said:

“When the first Superman movie came out I was frequently asked, "What is a hero?" My answer was that a hero is someone who commits a courageous action without considering the consequences...

 ...Now my definition is completely different. I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.”

Well this one time superman certainly exhibited great courage in the last few years of his life, following the accident that left him a paraplegic. I don’t know if you know this but he became a Unitarian later in life.

Anyone can be a hero; we all possess those qualities within us. All we need to do is uncover those virtues within each and every one of us. We have all had to overcome many obstacles of varying shapes and sizes, no life is without problems. Further, we can all do little wonderful and caring things that can change our world a little bit at a time. It begins by recognising that we are special unique wonderful and needed just as we are, something I know that both Fred Rogers and Floella Benjamin have tried to teach so many children and adults throughout and through their lives. Well we can do the same.

It is going to be a long winter for all of us. We will need sources of light to help us through these difficult times. Maybe by reflecting on our inspirations it will help us aspire to be the best that can be and in so doing we might just bring some light to those in need, if from a physical distance.

So let’s bring to life the love within each and everyone of us, let’s bring that spirit to life and thus become the hero, the inspiration that we have all been searching for.

Deep Is Your Treasure

At a recent “Living the Questions” Adie Tindall led an excellent conversation on how art speaks to us. Art does have a way to reach those parts of ourselves, deep in our hearts, that other media perhaps cannot, maybe this is why we value it so much. So many of us treasure such works of art and artists too. During the conversation John Poskitt told of a limited edition copy of a piece of Bob Dylan’s art that cost him a lot of money and that he was paying for in instalments. John is a great lover of the arts.

Art had been in the news earlier that day. A work of art by “Banksy had sold for almost £10,000,000. It eclipsed anything else he had produced in the past by more than five fold. As someone pointed out whoever was behind “Banksy’s” promotion was a genius. He had after all begun as a gifted graffiti artist. Now no doubt the piece had gone up in value due to its subject. It goes by the title “Devolved Government” and is an image of a Parliament of Chimpanzee’s arguing in the “House of Commons”. I don’t believe it would have raised such a price a few months earlier. I wonder what raised the value so much?

Now as talented as “Banksy” is, and regardless of his mystique and clever promotional work, and regardless of the satire of the piece, how the heck can a painting be worth £10,000,000. It just seems obscene to me. Although it is not just painting’s and other art treasures that seem valued way beyond reason. Football is another example. I love football, but surely no footballer is worth £200,000,000. It seems ridiculous but this is the market value for the best of the best.

Now I am sure there are things that we all value above anything else in life, that we treasure beyond measure. I wonder what it is that you treasure the most? What is beyond value in your life, your pearl of great price, that you would sell all that you have for. Is there anything or anyone that you treasure so much that you would give everything for. Something to ponder perhaps. Some folk devote their whole lives to these things that they treasure the most

The great stories of human history speak of heroes going on epic journeys in search of great treasures. “Mythos”, from a variety of cultures, tell tales of questing for such treasure whether they be material objects or perhaps attempts to reach a certain goal or to manifest a dream. Think of the Arthurian legends, particularly the quest for the Holy Grail. Think of the biblical accounts, Moses and the Israelites, or Jesus's journey into the wilderness for forty days and forty nights, a journey of sacrifice and transformation. Or perhaps the Native American initiation tradition of Vision Quests. Such journeys often included climbs to the summit of mountains, like the climb to the summit of Parnassus, the ancient mount of the Muse. While watching the rugby the other morning I noticed the symbol depicting Mount Fuji with the Red Sun rising behind it. The Japanese people consider Mount Fuji, to be the point of contact between heaven and the underworld. Perhaps the ultimate journey, the final one.

Many of these great adventures described mythical themes depicting great feats such as climbing a mountain, or going off in solitude into the desert, or perhaps going into the heart of a forest forever searching, seeking, and questing. Until it is time to return home with treasure to share.

It’s not just the great heroes that go on such quests, ordinary people do too. Increasingly people are going on Pilgrimage. It’s nothing new by the way. All the great religious faiths have a tradition of pilgrimage within them. What is interesting though is that there seems to be a growing need to seek pilgrimage in our time and space, in these secular times. I even attended a Unitarian pilgrimage recently, as I led worship at the triannual “Rivington Pilgrimage”. I have to be honest though and say that it isn’t a true pilgrimage as we didn’t really walk very far. Although for some of us it was a journey just getting to Rivington due to the severe flooding. Several folk could not get there and had to return home in the end. And of course there was the amazing trip earlier this year to Israel and the magic that Sue and I shared by the Sea of Galilee. The whole trip was life transforming on so many levels. A deep and beautiful treasure of the heart.

I know several people who have walked the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route. The Camino is a path to the shrine of Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain. Since medieval times, people have made the pilgrimage to the cathedral there. And pilgrimage is of course central to Islam, where, every believer is called to make at least one pilgrimage to Mecca in his or her lifetime.

At the core of these calls to pilgrimage is a universal human longing for growth, for becoming more than we were by going father than we ever dared. Now in these physical pilgrimages these longings manifests themselves in walking and somehow in this walk transformation occurs. The destination of such pilgrimages is a new horizon, the one we glimpse from a distant and are drawn to. Like the sun rising behind Mount Fuji.

Now while such physical pilgrimages can be beautifully transformative I have discovered another for more important pilgrimage. This is the pilgrimage to the heart. Not a physical journey but a deeply arduous one. A journey not only to the heart, but of truly awakening the heart, the true frontier of humanity. I suspect that most of the ancient pilgrimages were really about this. The stories were certainly journeys of transformation.

I suspect that this is our greatest treasure of all, our hearts. The Talmud says, 'God wants the heart.' All life stems from and through the heart. In ancient times is was believed that the heart was the center of human intelligence and the seat of the soul. According to Augustine of Hippo the heart was a metaphor for our deepest and truest selves, believing that union with God could only be achieved through it.

It is through the heart that we begin to connect to our truest and deepest selves. And through connecting to our deepest selves and thus awakening our hearts we begin to act in loving meaningful ways in the world. We will not act with compassion without our hearts. We will not act with true reason without the heart. In fact reason can be deadly without compassion, without being led by the heart. This is the true pilgrimage, the journey to the heart. As Howard Thurman once said 'the longest journey is between the heart and the head.' Thurman, the great mystic, theologian and educator was critical of the tendency in the modern age to separate the heart from the intellect. You see it is not only the body that is nourished through the heart but

our whole humanity. This is why it is so vital to take care of not only our physical heart but the heart of our spirit too and this requires an inner pilgrimage, that of silence.

Silence has become an important and treasured aspect of Unitarian worship. I spend time in communal silence several times a week. It enables me to reach that treasure at the core of myself and others too, it is vital to my life as food, water and exercise. We shared a special moment in silence last Sunday at Dunham Road. Some thirty or more human hearts and perhaps twenty dogs all sharing in reverential silence together for several minutes in the middle of the “Blessing of the Animals” service. You could feel a deep power at work in this pure silence, so deep I could almost hear our hearts beating. It was one of the most beautiful silences I have ever shared. Although when I think of it I have shared many such moments with strangers and friends throughout this year. It has been the year of the heart. Last Sunday I was not the only one to feel it either. Several people commented to me afterwards just how special the experience was. 50 hearts beating as one, is there a greater treasure in life. It was a beautiful spiritual journey to share together as we entered the caves of our hearts and helped awaken something beautiful within each and every one of us.

We each of have a great treasure within us, a treasure that needs to nurtured and cared for and brought to life. It’s a treasure that the world needs us to share with it. We need to take care of this priceless treasure and live from it. And if we do we may just begin to bring alive that love that is Divine. To bring the Kin-dom of love alive that dwells within in each and everyone of us, in everything.

The world awaits us, let's take that great journey together.

One Small Step: Watching With Awe and Reverence

Fifty years ago today, the 21st of July 1969, it is estimated that some 530 million people, throughout the world were glued, to black and white tv’s waiting with “bated breath” as Neil Armstrong became “The First Man” to step foot on the moon. As he did he uttered the immortal words “That’s one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind,”

Those words are perhaps some of the best known in human history. The grammar pedants amongst us have questioned why he said “one small step for man” as apposed to the grammatically correct “one small step for a man”. There are many theories as to what he actually meant to say. I for one like the fact that it suggests that everyone was taking that step. It was not his step alone, although it was his foot that felt the dust beneath it. He was certainly humbled by the experience saying “It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.”

He was in that moment disconnected from the earth and the people there and yet knew he was taking that step for all the people that shared that beautifully blue planet that from the moon he could cover with his thumb. This deeply humbled him as he stood there is utter awe.

Awe does that to you. Whenever I have stood having been touched by life or witnessed a human being in their beautiful magnificence or horror filled destructiveness, awe has filled my being. Awe makes you aware of a reality far greater than yourself; awe is the true experience of our smallness our apparent insignificance in the presence of the immensity of it all. And yet, small as we are, we all play a vital role in life. We never know what our thoughts, words and deeds can bring about. Each step is a small step and yet it may just become a giant leap for humanity. Do we ever truly see our own human potential and that of our brothers and sisters? Do we revere our human capacity? Do we recognise, in each other, those words from the 8th Psalm v 8 quoted by Paul in his letter to the Hebrews Ch2 v 7 '. . . you have made him a little lower than the angels, and have crowned him with glory and honour!'

Marilynne Robinson captured the meaning of awe, reverence and humility, those feelings that Armstrong felt walking on the moon, in the following quotation:

" '. . . our capacity for awe is the lens through which creation passes. . . . So reverence should be thought of as prior to belief. It is the human predisposition, perhaps as universal among us as any other, to sense the grandeur of the event we call being, to consider the heavens, to ponder the cunning of a hand.

. . . reverence is the great corrective to the tendency of belief to warp, contract, harden. This is true, I think, because reverence is a kind of awe, and awe is a kind of humility.'

Last Sunday, like probably half of the country and many millions around the world, I found myself caught up in the awe and wonder of sport. I could hardly breath, I watched with bated breath the World Cup Cricket Final, while checking my phone to see the score of the Wimbledon Tennis Mens Singles Final. Millions more were just as caught up in this as I was. I have never seen anything quite like that game between England and New Zealand, the tension, the skill, the fighting qualities, the luck and tiny margin between success and failure. Perhaps the greatest thing was the capacity of the players to remain focused on the task at hand as they were cheered on by the awe filled supporters. It was incredible. How many times in my life has sport caught me up like this, usually it has ultimately led to disappointment, dating right back the 1976 Montreal Olympics when I was just four years old. My mother woke me at midnight to watch Brendon Foster race, which I did with excitement and bated breath and wept inconsolably as he came in third.

There have been a lifetime of disappointments and the occasional success ever since. It’s the same for most of us. The New Zealand cricketers and their supporters must be feeling this deeply.

I had experienced an incredible sense of awe and reverence earlier that day. I missed the first innings of the cricket. I only finished work as England began their run chase. I had conducted the two Sunday services and then at 2pm I conducted a child blessing. I love such services, they truly connect me to the core of my spiritual beliefs. I chatted several times about this during the morning services and also with others over the days before the service about what I believe the “blessing” as I call it means. It is not a washing away of sin, nor is it proclamation of faith. Then again it is not merely a naming ceremony. Yes the child is named and I ask the parents, God parents and those in attendance to make promises to the child and all children, as well as to life itself. I touch the child on its forehead, lips and hands symbolising its thoughts, words and deeds. The service recognizes the sacredness and uniqueness of its life and water connects the child to all life. The service always fills me with awe and reverence.

Awe and reverence are intense feelings at times. I am going through a time of increased sensitivity this year. I felt a deeper sense of reverence and awe last week when in the company of another who was beginning to open himself up for the first times in his life. I felt it in the presence of others when I have connected deeply with them, beautifully transcendent moments. I felt it on several occasions during my recent trip to Israel, moments that will stay with me forever. Moments that have opened my heart, my mind and my soul and given me an increased sense of responsibility for life, the earth that sustains life and those I share this world with. I have awoken to a deeper love within me, these last few months. It has increased a deeper sense of reverence within me. This can be deeply painful at times. The longer I live, the more I realise that most of our troubles are related to this inability to recognize that true divinity in one another. What do you see when you look at the other? Does it instill in you a true sense of awe and reverence? Does it bring alive that love within you?

It matters how we see one another for it will impact on how we live and this really matters. We can inspire one another to fulfill our potential and truly serve life, to take those small steps that may well become giant leaps for humanity. Do we encourage one another, or do we discourage each other?

This raises a question for me. How do we encourage, inspire, each other to take those small steps? How do we bless each other with our presence? How do we fill our children’s hearts with the courage to be all that they were born to be and their spirits with faith in love and life? Well I believe it begins by allowing them to witness what it is that makes us come alive. Howard Thurman said “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and do it. For what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

That is so true. This is what the world needs more than anything, people who come alive, this is how we inspire and thus encourage, by our simple example. Last weekend in my simple interactions with ordinary people and through some of the things I saw on the tv I found myself being inspired by others in their joy and in their courage to face their very real struggles. Last weekend blew my heart open and I felt that spirit in me coming alive. I see and witness so many people in my life who dedicate themselves to helping others to find what is already within them, I find it beautifully inspiring.

It brought to mind a rather beautiful mantra I once heard. It goes by the title “It’s time somebody told you”:

“It’s time somebody told you that you are lovely, good and real; that your beauty can make hearts stand still. It’s time somebody told you how much they love and need you, how much your spirit helped set them free, how your eyes shine full of light. It’s time somebody told you.”

Who are the people who have inspired you? Who planted the seeds of love or who nurtured those seeds and enabled them to grow and flower? Who have been your inspirations in your lives? Who are the people who have encouraged you to come alive? To take that small step that might just change the world.

Every journey begins with one small step. Now whether that step is literal or figurative does not seem to matter. Any journey whether it be of mind, body or the spirit begins with one small step. None of us remember our first small steps in life, but I guarantee you that they were etched permanently on the hearts and minds of those who witnessed them, who our lives were dependent upon, our first supporters and cheerleaders.

Our journeys will not lead to us stepping on the moon and even if they do, they will not be the first steps there. That does not make our steps any the less significant, for each step matters; every step matters, for it impacts in some way or another. Everything matters. What we believe about ourselves and each other matters. How we live in the world matters. How we act towards each other matters. Whether we encourage or discourage matters. It matters profoundly.

I believe that living with awe and deep reverence for life is the key for making our lives truly matter. For without it we will not see one another with reverence, they just won’t matter to us. It matters how we see one another and what we pass on to the children, as they take those first steps into life. For our example will help develop in them love and compassion for each other and the courage to greet each new day with awe and reverence for life itself. And thus they will begin to make a difference in the world. Awe and reverence will ground them in something greater themselves, even if that is just the ground at their feet. So that even when times are difficult, they can continue to put one foot in front of the other, and thus keep on taking those small steps that one day may well become a giant leap forward for the whole of humankind.

So let’s continue taking those small steps together, lets bless the world with our thoughts, words and deeds in awe and reverence for life.

I’m going to end this "blogspot" with some words of blessing by John O'Donohue...

“A BLESSING”

May you awaken to the mystery of being here and enter the quiet immensity of your own presence.
May you have joy and peace in the temple of your senses.
May you receive great encouragement when new frontiers beckon.
May you respond to the call of your gift and find the courage to follow its path.
May the flame of anger free you from falsity.
May warmth of heart keep your presence aflame and may anxiety never linger about you.
May your outer dignity mirror an inner dignity of soul.
May you take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention.
May you be consoled in the secret symmetry of your soul.
May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder.

John O’Donohue

The Incredible Hulk

As a young lad growing up the 1970’s and 1980’s I loved the superheroes I used to see on American television programs. We had only three rv channeks to choose from back then, so we all watch the same things and we would act it our at gme and in the playground at school, My favourite was the Incredible Hulk, the version played by Bill Bixby and Lou Faringo. I was the younger brother and often felt physically weak, in a family of giants, so I would dream of being big and strong like the Hulk. My older brother used to call me the Incredible Sulk. He would wind me up until eventually I would explode, but I could not win. I indetified with the gis sdaness, loneliness and frustration.

There were many memorable lines and themes in “The Incredible Hulk”, one of the classics being “Mr McGee don’t make me angry, you wouldn’t like me when I am angry.” It had two memorable theme tunes too, the opening one and the one that closed it each week, a beautiful piano piece titled “The Lonely Man”. A sad and poignant piece of music that would bring a tear to the hardest of hearts.

I was talking with a dear friend the other day, we are the same age, and she mentioned the theme tune. Sge described Dr David Banner, the Hulk in human form, as a lonely wounded man wandering on. Each week he walks away from a situation alone, unsure of how he really feels, alone with no one to share his life with, for who could accept someone with the monster, buried but not so deeply inside of him. So on he wanders, a vagabond, but one who does good deeds though; he cries out against injustice and goes green with anger at bullies and he stands up and defends the weak, but still he is alone in the world, a feral creature.

My friend continued…”Maybe he is ok with that. Being useful and knowing we have helped goes along way but we have our own pots too, we can’t fill them by giving love out all the time, we have to be courageous enough to let it in too.”

She really made me listen. I remember thinking anyone can be a hero and do heroic acts, but courage requires us to live with a vulnerable heart. The wanderer, never stays long enough, in the company of anyone, to live with their hearts cracked open. This maybe ok for superheroes, but we humans need courage, we need heart. Doing good is a wonderful thing, but courage requires letting others love you too.

Dr David Banner set out seeking a cure for what ailed him, carrying his wounds with him, his lost wife who he did not have the strength to save and the monster within him that he cannot control. He wants to be incognito, but that is difficult when he keeps on transforming into a giant green monster who smashes everything up. As I was thinking of this I remembered other similar tv shows I loved as a child, such as the A-Team and The Fugitive. People in exile going about their business, on the run and doing good for others. Such characters brought healing to others, they help solve their troubles, they stand up for injustice, but they do not know healing themselves. They don’t form roots, or community, they journey on alone, vagabonds and fugitives, forever rolling stones.

This is an ancient story, the human cannon is full of such tales. This is the “Wounded Healer” Mythos. A universal tale that runs through human history. Like Chiron, they can bring healing and solve the troubles of others, but they cannot heal themselves and they continue walking on, or in Chiron’s case limping on. They don’t stay anywhere long enough to let healing come to them. so they journet on, forever seeking, all alone.

Heroes are easy, the stories are everywhere and every hero is flawed, cracked and wounded. They can be found in every single human tradition. They have existed ever since we began telling stories around the camp fire. Ancient Greek and Roman mythology spoke of Aneaus, Hercules, Odysseus and Theseus. The Hebrew Scriptures describe the heroic deeds of David, Joseph, Moses and Samson. Similar stories can be found in every culture. They describe heroic figures who stood up for righteousness and made a difference in their time and place. They were journeyers, but how many of them stood still for very long? How many formed roots?

The stories we tell today are full of heroic characters too. We only need look at the recent remaking of the comic strip super heroes such as Spiderman, Batman, The X-Men, The Avengers or Star Wars, Harry Potter, Dr Who, the Lord of the Rings, James Bond, Indiana Jones, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. These are modern day heroes, but they are no different in character to the heroes of ancient times.

The heroes of ancient times were endowed with great strength and were often descendants of the gods; while the modern day heroes tend to be superhuman mutations. Both the ancient and modern seem beyond the reach of mere mortals.

But do we really need heroes? Maybe we should not bemoan the fact, as “The Stranglers” sang, that there are “no more heroes anymore”. I’m not convinced. What we need are people of courage. We need humans, mortal humans who have the courage to live fully alive in life. Ordinary folk like us. Fools like us. People who have the courage to know themselves, to be true to their humanity..

The ancient Greeks believed that the ultimate aim for a person of virtue was to know themselves. “The unexamined life is not worth living.” And other aphorism have been heard throughout time, or to quote Shakespeare “to thine own self be true” Now “Know thyself” has been understood in many ways but ultimately to know oneself is to know that you are mortal and live in such a way, fully a part of mortal life. We are not God’s we are mortals, we bleed, we wound and we can bring healing to one another if we can find the courage to live with one another with hearts cracked open.

Know yourself, know that you are mortal.

I remember sometime back I was visiting “Our Mandy” She was out, so while I waited, I chatted with her husband, my brother in-law and my niece. In the middle of the conversation my niece Aimee asked what the difference between heroism and courage was? Dave struggled to answer and I thought about it for a short while and then said something like “heroism is a single act, a momentary thing that a person does on the spur of the moment without really thinking about the consequences, it is also something that is recognised by others; whereas courage seems a quiet consistent ordinary activity that almost goes unnoticed and is rarely glorified. It's about sticking at something despite the presence of real fear. Courage is something that materialises in the ordinary.”

Courage is about life, the ordinary life, real life, it’s about living fully alive. It has nothing to do with heroism and certainly not super heroes. Courage is the very essence of our mortal being, it is our daily bread. Anais Nin once said “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” Courage is about living by heart, fully alive. I’m sure we can all think of moments when our own lives have either expanded or shrunk in proportion to our courage, when we have felt more or less alive. Courage formed from the French “Cuer” meaning heart. To have courage is to have strength of heart. Courage is a consistent and sustaining love, it is a spiritual energy that sustains us in sickness and in health in loss or disappointment. It is this that brings healing not only to ourselves but those we share this life with and ultimately our world, but it is a two way street. Courage is as much about receiving as giving love.

As Howard Thurman said:

“...There is a quiet courage that comes from an inner spring of confidence in the meaning and significance of life. Such courage is an underground river, flowing far beneath the shifting events of one's experience, keeping alive a thousand little springs of action. It has neither trumpets to announce it nor crowds to applaud; it is best seen in the lives of men and women who do their work from day to day without hurry and without fever. It is the patient waiting of the humble person whose integrity keeps his spirit sweet and his heart strong. Wherever one encounters it, a lift is given to life and vast reassurance invades the being. To walk with such a person in the daily round is to keep company with the angels"

Courage is a way of living and breathing it’s about living openly and vulnerably in the world. It’s about walking with and not walking away from. It is this that brings healing not only to others, but also ourselves. It is courage that allows us to stay open to life, to give love, but also to accept it. There is no power relationship in love, something we ministers need to remember. It is courage that is formed in the heart; it is courage that is the ultimate act of faith; it is courage that keeps us open to life so that we can walk on together. As the song goes, “It’s not where you run, but who you run with.”

Yes we can all be heroes, we can perform heroic acts, we can all be heroes even if it is just for one day. Courage though is something more, something deeper, something that comes from the heart, from that place deep within each of us. It’s about walking side by side with others in and through love. It’s about loving and living our mortal lives, with hearts wide open giving and receiving healing love.

It’s not so much about journeying on alone, running from or running to, it’s about walking side by side, it’s about being rooted in reality…You see courage is about sending down roots into reality and being alive to our finite lives, an element of the interconnected whole.

I will end with the following words on courage by J. Ruth Gendler.

“Courage has roots. She sleeps on a futon on the floor and lives close to the ground. Courage looks you straight in the eye. She is not impressed with power trippers, and she knows first aid. Courage is not afraid to weep, and she is not afraid to pray, even when she is not sure who she is praying to. When courage walks, it is clear that she has made the journey from loneliness to solitude. The people who told me she is stern were not lying; they just forgot to mention that she is also kind.”

Inspire Wholeheartedness

Last Saturday I was invited, as a guest of honour, to present an award at the “Slimming World Oscars” at the Birmingham International Conference Centre (ICC). It was a lavish occasion celebrating the work of Slimming World consultants and other employees. It was a wonderful night celebrating love, community and transformation. Slimming World inspires, empowers and encourages people to live happy and healthy lives, at its core is community and love. They truly encourage, because they bring the heart alive. They bring to life heart and spirit because they inspire and encourage. So it was wonderful to celebrate those who work so hard to make the communities possible. I had a ball.

It was a day of contrast though, because I also bore witness to another group of people, who were also gathered in the centre of Birmingham, they though were not encouraging and inspiring love, quite the opposite, they were only inspiring hate. I had arrived early and as a result decided to walk down to the nearby library, as it is such a beautiful and fascinating building. As I arrived I heard what sounded like a football crowed. Then I saw them. It was obviously a far right group waving their flags and shouting their hatred. There must have been about 150 of them from all around the country and I heard later from other parts of Europe. I observed their drunken aggression, intoxicated by alcohol and hatred of life. I asked the police officers present and some of the photographers and others present who they were. They were “Britain’s First”. I watched, I bore witness in silence, as they sang their songs of intimidation and I observed their faces. I remember feeling sickened by the sight of young children, even babies in prams among the crowd. I wondered what would happen to those children being brought up in such a way. I thought about much of the hatred and the violence we have witnessed these last 12 months from haters of life and fanatics and I thought about the children who they indoctrinate and inspire or maybe it’s more accurate to say dispirit and discourage, destroy loving spirit and heart. I thought about the people blown up in Manchester attending a concert, the people in London just enjoying a night out, the people breaking fast as a part of Ramadan outside Finsbury Park mosque. I thought about Jo Cox murdered by a fanatic who cried out “Britains First” when he murdered her. That weekend she and her message of unity and love was being celebrated throughout the country, her children had unveiled a plaque in Parliament with her simple message “There is more that unites us than divides us”. A message of love and community which I know will overpower those who hate life. I remembered that despite the real suffering and pain spread by those who have been overcome by hate throughout our world. I also remembered that there are far more encourages of love and inspirers of spirit in this world, it’s just that they tend to be quieter and not aggressive. I thought about this as I enjoyed the wonderful joy filled evening in Birmingham and as I observed the people enjoying music at Glastonbury and those remembering Jo Cox up and down the land. I also observed this carefully in the ordinary interactions with people and the loving conversations I have had this week. They have lifted my spirit and filled my heart. I found it deeply encouraging and inspiring. I will not become discouraged and or dispirited by those who have lost the love for life.

How do we encourage one another how do we inspire one another in these challenging times? How do we fill our children’s hearts with love and their spirits with faith in love and life? Well I believe it begins by allowing them to witness what it is that makes us come alive. Howard Thurman said  “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and do it. For what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

That is so true. This is what the world needs more than anything, people who come alive, this is how we inspire and thus encourage, by our simple example. This is what I love about the conversations that I have with people. Yes they often tell me about their pain, but also their joy. I am constantly amazed by the conversations I have with people. Even complete strangers tell me amazing things. I don’t ask them to, they just seem to open up to me and tell me beautiful love filled things about their passions and joys, it happened all last weekend. It blew my heart open and I felt that spirit in me coming alive. I see and witness so many people in my life who dedicate themselves to helping others to find what is already within them, I find it beautifully inspiring.

It brought to mind a rather beautiful mantra I once heard. It goes by the title “It’s time somebody told you”:

“It’s time somebody told you that you are lovely, good and real; that your beauty can make hearts stand still. It’s time somebody told you how much they love and need you, how much your spirit helped set them free, how your eyes shine full of light. It’s time somebody told you.”

I remember singing a version of these words in a “Singing Meditation”. I wonder how many of us really believe such words, how we can resist these feelings. Certainly the haters and destroyers of life do not. The truth is that we all need this kind of love and encouragement. I know I do from time to time. I remember a while ago, after attending an old friends 40^th birthday party, another old mutual friend saying to me, after we had had another one of those fascinating conversations I love to experience, I remember them saying “Keep up the good work”. I had a similar conversation at the Slimming World Oscars. I got talking to man, he did most of the talking, I found out he was a recently retired senior police officer and he talked about how he gets lit up by the passion in others, he said he wasn’t religious himself but felt it was vital the work that religious communities do and as I left he too said “Keep up the good work” This kind of encouragement is important, it fills mt heart and it enlivened my spirit.

I strongly believe that the purpose of free religious communities is to encourage and inspire one another and the world in which we live. To encourage and inspire is to fill one another’s hearts and enliven one another’s spirits and bring that alive in those we meet and to somehow bring healing to a world in which there are those who want to tear it apart. It is the task pf free religious communities to be a part of the healing and the not the destruction of the world.

These last few days I have spent some time thinking of those who have filled my heart and enlivened my spirit.

Who are the people who have inspired you? Who planted the seeds of love or who nurtured those seeds and enabled them to grow and flower? Who have been your inspirations in your lives? Who are the people who have encouraged you to come alive?

The truth is that we all inspire or dispirit one another, we all encourage or discourage one another. No one lives a neutral life.

But what does it mean to be an inspiration? You may well ask. Well the word inspiration is an interesting one, as so many are. We have, as is our way,  reduced its meaning in power. It’s another one of those words that we have attempted to tame. Why do we always reduce the meaning of things in our attempt to gain control of them? Why don't we attempt to raise ourselves up to them instead. 

Today inspiration means someone or something that gives you an idea for doing something, but originally it meant “immediate influence of God or a god”. It comes from the old French word “inspiriacion” meaning “inhaling in or breathing in from the Latin “inspirare” meaning to blow into or breath upon so as to excite or inflame. This is the meaning in the following verse from Genesis Chapter 2 “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” It really meant to infuse or animate to affect to rouse to guide to put life into the human soul. It meant something much more profoundly powerful in the past that it does today.

That said I believe that we can and do inspire in this way and in so doing we can bring the kingdom to life in our own hearts and lives. We can ignite that divine spark.

I believe that this is what Albert Schweitzer meant when he said:

“Sometimes our light goes out but is blown again into flame by an encounter with another human being. Each of us owes the deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this inner light.”

Those who rekindle the light are the inspirers amongst us.

I strongly believe that it is our task, our religious imperative, to enliven the spirit within us, to truly come alive, our world needs it. And as we do to breath out that loving spirit and encourage love within one another.

It is our religious task to both breath in and breath out inspiration, to bring to life that seed of love at the core of our being. To shine as we are meant to shine and to not be afraid to be all that you are meant to be. For as Thurman said, “what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

And how do we do this? Well by simply living the life we love, by simply doing so we inspire those we meet to do the same and all life benefits and in so doing we might just bring the kingdom alive, right here right now. Actually there is no might about it we do bring the kin-dom of love alive within us and in so doing we shine a little bit of light on all those we share our lives with. In so doing we inspire and we encourage others to bring love and life alive.