There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it

“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”
So said Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Edith Wharton

I was chatting with a man at the gym on Tuesday morning. I always see him there and his wife. I also see them walking round town together. We always say hi, but rarely talk. He is a quiet man, who seems at peace with the world. I assume that they are both retired. He told me he was waiting for his wife to finish her class. He said he often found himself patiently waiting. Telling me that this is not something he had as a younger man. That waiting patiently was a gift of growing older. A blessing of the lessening of testosterone. He also talked about how life is very like coming to the gym, just sticking at things day by day and over time improvement comes. This though takes patience and discipline. It is not a passive activity, but one that does require patient waiting for results. Patience seems a rare commodity in this our time and space. We want results and we want them now.

I walked away thinking to myself that he had just written this sermon for me. He had awakened my homilectic consciousness. Well, this lovely calm patient man and the wisdom of Edith Wharton.
“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”

He was a candle that morning and hopefully this devotion becomes a mirror that reflects his light.

Advent is a time of waiting, a time of preparation. A time set aside to wait for the “coming” of Love in human form symbolised in the birth of the Christ child. A promise of what love can become if we let it grow and nurture in our hearts and lives. For every new life is the gift of promise and possibility. A gift of possibility that can be reborn in each of our lives if we allow it to be. The Christ Child is known as “The Light of the World. Although interestingly Jesus himself said, in his opening sermon, in Matthews Gospel, the “Sermon on the Mount” Matthew Ch 5 vv 14-16

14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that[b] they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

The light of the world is in each and everyone of us. This waiting season is about nurturing this light within each and everyone of us and bringing it to light when the moment of magic comes. Our world needs it. We all need it.

“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”

The season of Advent invites us to embrace the spiritual discipline of waiting. We cannot rush through this season, we must experience it all, before the moment of magic. We must first sing the carols, light the candles and open the doors of the calendars. We must select our gifts for our loved ones and we must prepare ourselves for the year to come. We must experience the whole of this season if we are to give birth to the love that is at the core of it all; if we are to grow this love in the mangers of our own hearts and to give birth to and both experience and share it in our world. A world that needs love and hope as much as at any time in our history.

Advent is a season of preparation and it cannot be rushed. It requires patience. We cannot wish the days away, we cannot wish the winter away. We have to wait patiently, but not passively. We must be careful not to confuse waiting and patience with passivity. The man in the gym certainly was not doing so.

What is it that we are waiting for though? Well, it is a new Hope, a fresh Hope, it’s that old forgotten word “respair” born in the despair of our lives, in the mangers of our own hearts.

The world needs the light that is in everything, in each of us.
“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”
One of my favourite human beings and the first Unitarian I ever met wrote the following piece. It speaks powerfully to me about God, spirit, humanity and the purpose of living spiritually alive. It is titled “Incarnation” The author is Peter Sampson. He is certainly a candle and hope that this piece will be a mirror that reflects his light. He wrote, beginning with a quotation from the great nineteenth century theologian James Martineau:

Incarnation

The incarnation is true not of Christ exclusively but of Man universally and God everlastingly. He bends into the human to dwell there and humanity is the susceptible organ of the divine.

James Martineau (1805-1900)

Peter continues:

“James Martineau’s distinctly Unitarian ‘take’ on the transformation of God into our human – all too human – flesh and blood has been a constant inspiration to me.

Our responsibility for our own lives and necessarily, for the lives of our brothers and sisters throughout the world lays upon us all a duty which cannot be dodged; our humanity is defined by how we serve and care for the needs of the human family. You can’t have faith without works and working for the good of all inspires our faith in God-given life.

It is a small comfort to me to be told that God died for our sins. I see every one of us missing the mark in our lives and whenever a fellow-creature is harmed we must pray for forgiveness for ourselves. We are all culpable but if we are to serve human progress we have to say ‘sorry’ from the bottom of our heart and move on.

When we look around us we tend to focus on what’s going wrong: suffering – often caused by human ignorance – waste, devastation, degradation, contempt, the whole sorry spectacle of “Man’s in humanity to Man”. I see this as a betrayal of our God-given humanity, a trivialisation of our God-endowed divinity.

Resorting to armaments and inflexible war-talk of politicians, shouting at those we don’t agree with and throwing our weight about if we don’t get our own way – I want to say “Come off it! Who do you think you are? There is that of God in every person, in every creature on the planet.”

Amen Peter, Amen.

I am so glad I met Peter. A man who has lived his faith all of his life. A message we all need to hear at this and all times. Why can we not see that we are all formed from the same flesh and have the same spirit at the heart of each and every one of us? Why do we see some as some how different, as lesser human? How often in recent weeks have we seen human beings described as vermin? It is a sorry spectacle indeed.

It would be easy to despair, but what good would that do. We must refuse to fall into dehumanising hatred and shed some light. Give birth to what is in us and spread it.
“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”

We must become that light, or at least reflect it. This is true religion, this is living spiritually alive. It is our task, I believe, to rekindle that loving flame within each and every one of us. It is our task to become the Immanuel's, the ones that the world has been waiting for. Not to wait for some figure to come and rescue humanity, but to become those people ourselves, to let love incarnate within us and through us. To bear witness to the fact that God is already with us, in our hearts and souls and to bring that love to life. We must become the Immanuel’s, the ones we have all been waiting for.

“Oh come, oh Immanuel”

It is so easy to sink into despair and say, there is no hope for humanity, but is this true? I don’t think so, but it is up to us. There is no point just waiting passively for something to happen, it is we who must become the savours of our world and it begins in our own hearts and minds, in our lives, in our own families and in our own communities and then it may begin to spread throughout the whole world. It is our task to bring the spirit of love alive in our lives and in our times and places. It is our task to become the Immanuel’s, that the world has been waiting for.

…We must become the light of the world…

“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”

This is what we are here waiting for. To be a light to others who may be struggling in their own dark times. We can light the way.

So let’s prepare ourselves for the moment of magic yet to come, even if it comes later this season. Let’s nurture the love within us and prepare to give birth to it in our hearts and lives. Let’s not wish these dark cold days away. There is a beautiful gift in them if we allow ourselves to fully experience them. We need to experience each and every sensation of this season. We need to not fear the dark, we need to know it and fully embrace it. And when the time comes to once again give birth to the new light.

Next spring may well be the most beautiful we have ever known.

“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”

“Oh come, oh Immanuel”

Below is a video devotion based in the material in this "Blogspot"

Advent: Let Us Celebrate Those Who Have Lit the Flame With

We are entering the season of Advent. We are awaiting the birth of new light and life in this time of darkness. There does seem to be much darkness around, we need light, we need hope. I think sometimes the mistake we make is that we look for these in big things, in extraordinary things, including people. I have discovered that the extra ordinary is usually found in the most ordinary, the humble, in the little things, that mean perhaps almost everything. It often comes in small acts of loving kindness.

For the last 12 months I have engaged in simple daily practice of sharing the little things that my heart. I Have shared it on social media first thing every day. It has brought much light into my life, during sometimes challenging times and it has done the same for others too. I am going to continue.

Albert Schweitzer said “At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lit the flame within us”.

There are many people who have lit the flame in me. During a recent “Common Search for Meaning” group at Urmston I was reminded a simple act of loving kindness that was offered to me at time of utter despair. I was broken by grief, the most broken I have been and ended up in the company of Alan Myerscough and Wynne Semester, who were both at Cross Street Chapel at the time, as was I. I will never forget their loving kindness that day. I particularly remember Wynne sitting me down and warming soup for me on the hob, insisting I ate it while she sat with me. She could not change what had happened and could do nothing to take away my pain, she could though lovingly support me, sit with me and feed, she offered comfort in the truest sense of the word. She recognised my pain and she offered me comfort. To me this true love, spiritual love, incarnated in human form. It has inspired my faith and my ministry. It was an Immanuel moment, for it reminded me that God is with us.

Maybe this something we can think about this Advent, think of your Immanuel moments, those folk who have lit the flame within you, when everywhere has been darkness.

There is a story of a Hasidic rabbi, renowned for his piety. He was unexpectedly confronted one day by one of his devoted youthful disciples. In a burst of feeling, the young disciple exclaimed, “My master, I love you!” The ancient teacher looked up from his books and asked his fervent disciple, “Do you know what hurts me, my son?”

The young man was puzzled. Composing himself, he stuttered, “I don’t understand your question, Rabbi. I am trying to tell you how much you mean to me, and you confuse me with irrelevant questions.”

“My questions is neither confusing nor irrelevant,” rejoined the rabbi, “For if you do not know what hurts me, how can you truly love me.”

There are many who have rekindle the spark in me over the years. I hope that I done so in lives of others too. Alan and Wynne certainly did that day. They recognised my pain and offered me true comfort. They incarnated love through their being. They loved me.


It has been through experiencing the light once more coming on and witnessing it in the lives of others that keeps the fire of hope burning deep within me. We human beings are capable of incredible acts of love and compassion. I see this every day in my personal interactions and I also see it on a global level in the way that we do respond to the horrors and crisis that we witness in our lives both locally and globally. We humans are capable of such goodness.

The key is to believe and to bring that belief to fruition that we are capable of deep caring as well as destructive aggression; that we are just as capable of good as we are of evil. By the way I mean all of us, not just some of us. I do believe that we are formed from Divine love and that we have that Divine spark that created the beginning of all life within us; that we are all formed from that Original Goodness; that we all have that same stardust within us. Our problem is that we have forgotten this and or rejected it. When we do this we turn from a love for all life into a rejection and hatred of life itself. To me this is where the darkness, the evil in life comes from. From rejecting life and the love from which we are all formed.

…By failing to recognise that we are the light of the world…

It is our task, I believe, to rekindle that loving flame within each and every one of us. It is our task to become the Immanuel, the ones that the world has been waiting for. Not to wait for some figure to come and rescue humanity, but to become those people ourselves, to let love incarnate within us and through us. To bear witness to the fact that God is already with us, in our hearts and souls and to bring that love to life. We must become the Immauels, the ones we have all been waiting for.

It is so easy to sink into despair and say, there is no hope for humanity, but is this true? I don’t think so, but it is up to us. There is no point just waiting for something to happen, it is we who must become the savours of our world and it begins in our own hearts and minds, in our own families and in our own communities and hopefully the whole world. It is our task to bring the spirit of love alive in our lives and in our times and places. It is our task to become the Immanuel’s.

…We must become the light of the world…

We can build temples of hope in all our hearts, in spite of the despair that we see within our own lives and those all around us. We can bring love alive once more. We can light the flame within us and rekindle the flame in those who need it the most, who feel close to giving up, who feel consumed by despair. We can become the blessing that our world has been waiting for.

…We can become the light of the world

Below is a video devotion based 

on the material in this "Blogspot"

May we become the light we have all been waiting for

I was walking through Altrincham the other morning. I was feeling good; feeling more settled as I feeling more at home, back in the chapel house. It has been a difficult few months; it has been a difficult couple of years for all of us.

Altrincham was busy that Saturday morning, the town was bursting with life. It was a challenge to weave my way through the burgeoning crowd. I found myself caught up in what appeared to be a bit of bottle neck and I soon understood why. There in front of me was a very old man, looking like he was being held up and walked down the street by what was obviously two young adult granddaughters. They were carefully and lovingly guiding his every step. His face was an absolute picture, I do not believe I have ever seen a happier one. The whole image light up my heart and soul. A light shining bright in this time of darkness. Don’t we all need our hearts and souls lighting at this time; don’t we all need to bear witness to hope coming to life in human form. Well, there it was, a little light shining bright, in a time of darkness.

We all need to see our Immanuel’s, the promise made to humanity of the coming of love, in human form, in a time of darkness. Immanuel means that God is still with us. Well, there it was shining bright on the streets of Altrincham, love come alive in human form. If we look for it, we will find it; if we live from it, it will come alive in our lives for others to see.

Advent is the time of waiting, of preparation for the light to come alive, to be born again. Well, it can do so in the manger of our hearts, in our frail human lives. We don’t need to wait for something to come at some time in the future. Instead, we need to prepare for it in our lives and give birth to it for all to see. Not just in the manger in an ordinary stable, but in our homes, in our families, on our streets, in our communities. Let us become the gifts we have all been waiting for. Our world needs it right now. Don’t we all need to see a little Hope. Let us become that Hope, the Immanuels we have all been waiting for. May we see in one another’s lives that God is still with us.

So let us become the light, but at the same time we do not need to either fear or decry the darkness. In this time of darkness, it is important to not only look for light, but we must also learn to love the dark. The Divine is there present in the dark, just as much as the light. If it were not, then the dark winters would be even harder than they are.

Christmas and Advent is a season of Joy, but what if we do not feel so joyful, does this mean we are not welcome, of course not. When we say come as you are, exactly, as you are, we mean that. We say bring your whole selves and we mean that. If God is still with us, then the Divine is present in the darkness too. Please do not hide any aspect of yourself, for it is welcome here.

Sometimes we are too quick to turn on the lights and not acknowledge the dark. This can be shocking and overwhelming. There are times we must let our eyes get use to the darkness in order to see what the dark has to teach us about ourselves and one another. Sometimes we need to befriend the dark, to bring us closer to one another and therefore connect to the light of love in all our lives. In so doing we can become the Immauels we have all been waiting for. Immanuel means that God is with us. With us in the darkness as well as the light. The darkness was there before there was light. In the darkness and love of our mother’s wombs, love was present. Just as it is present in the seeds that are planted in the dark earth that will sprout to life in the light of spring. We need not fear the dark and wait passively for the light to come, we must first befriend the dark and then become the light we have all been waiting for. Oh come, oh come Immanuel.

I have shared the following, “It is better to light one candle than curse the darkness”, with you before. It is an old Chinese proverb and has become the motto of Amnesty International. As we enter into the Advent season, I would like us to hold these words in our hearts. We live in cynical times, and it is easy to get caught up in negative thinking, to only see the troubles in life. The truth is there is much hope around us and within us, it’s just that we rarely focus light on it. This hope can be born again in manger of our hearts.

This Advent season I would like us think of ways in which we can bring a little light into the dark places of our world. Not so much the big things, but the little things. It is amazing how little things affect the lives of others in small and simple ways. Like the old man and his two granddaughters I witnessed the other morning, how they opened and awakened my heart and soul.

This Advent season I am asking us to become candles and lanterns, to bring some light into our world. To do what we can. To me this is living religiously; to me this is the essence of true religion. It’s not just about what we think, or feel, or believe or reject, it is a way of being; it is an orientation of the heart. It’s about spirit coming to life; it’s about spirit incarnating in our human form.

My hope is that we can be blessings to our world; that we can bring glad tidings of comfort and joy to our world. Our world needs it we all need it.

My request to you this Advent season is that do what we can to become blessings to all that we meet, to bring love alive in our lives. Let us also open ourselves up to the blessings this season offers to us, from one another and from all life, for that same spirit is present in everything. That spirit links us to the wholeness of life and the wholeness of eternity. It links us from our souls to the universal, to the eternal, soul.

O come, o come Immanuel. Immanuel means that God is still with us, may we recognise this in the love that is always with us. In both the darkness and the light. Let that love shine. Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

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

Becoming The Gift We Have All Been Waiting For

We are now fully into the Advent Season, the days that lead to Christmas Day. These are the days of waiting of preparation. The music is playing, we can hear all the familiar songs in every shop as we no doubt begin the process of selecting presents for our loved ones.

Have you done all your shopping yet? I’ve not even begun. I will soon, but not just yet. I’ve got too much to do.

Gifts of course come in many forms. Not all are wrapped in paper and tied up in ribbons. Some come in other forms, some wrapped in flesh, human flesh. I remember at primary school once being asked what was my favourite Christmas present had been, to which my answer was “Our Natalie”, my youngest sister had just been born a few days before Christmas. Her life has proved to be a wonderful blessing, even if she is a little too well named. Our Natalie never stops nattering. That said she is a gift beyond gifts.

When I look back at my life I have known some wonderful gifts in human form. Some of whom I have known for only a short time and others all my life. I’ve been thinking of these folk quite a lot these last few days. While I may not carry those people with me physically, their love is tied up in my heart. I do not forget these things, in fact in many ways my life is an act of remembrance of the love they gave, and certainly my ministry is.

Last week an old friend, someone who I have begun to see a little of once again in recent times, reminded me of a book I had given him as a gift 12 Christmases ago. He told me he had been re-reading it in recent weeks and reminded me of an inscription I had written in it, some simple words of gratitude, simply for being himself. He told me that reading it had led him on a path of spiritual discovery and wanted to thank me for it. I could have wept, I would have wept if I had not being in company. Now while this boy does cry, he rarely does so in the company of others, I am always the minister.

The conversation brought to mind another gift of a blessing that a dear friend gave me 11 months later, on the day my heart was broken, as I lost the most precious gift that ever entered my life, my friend Claire’s son Ethan, my Immanuel. The one who showed to me that God is indeed with us.

The day Ethan died I was utterly broken. I was alone with nowhere to go and ended up with friends from the Cross Street congregation, three in particular Alan Myerscough, Wynne Semeter and Peter Sampson. John Midgley had already come to the hospital and ministered to us as best he could. I will never forget what John gave that day, even though I have since learnt that he felt he let me down, nothing could be further from the truth. What I remember the most though about that day is a simple bowl of soup that Wynne warmed for me, sat me down and made me eat. It didn’t change anything about the hell I was in but the love warmed me physically, emotionally and spiritually. I felt God was with me, expressed in human form, incarnated in those around me. I also remember how much others were friends to me in the coming months, particularly my friend Derek.

The Christmas that followed was a hard for so many people, but in so many ways it was beautiful. A beautiful example of people coming together in love, a glimpse of the kingdom of love that I believe is at the core of the true Christmas message. It is certainly the message I read in Matthews Gospel, to me this is what it means to follow that yonder star the wise men from the east were seeking. I pay homage to those gifts of divine love that I have known in human form, that have blessed my life and shown to me that God is with us indeed.

Christmas is a time of celebration, of family and others coming together once again in love. It is a time when everything is heightened and illuminated. This can be difficult for some people, particularly Christmas Day. For some people who are not feeling so joyous, Christmas can actually increase those feelings of isolation and loss. As we sit round the Christmas dinner table we may notice not so much the ones that are there, but the ones who are not there. Often those we have lost due to death’s dark shadow, but also those who are not there due irreconcilable differences. I notice the empty chairs around my own family’s table. I always have done. I fully feel the joy of the day, but also its sadness.

Yes Christmas can be hard for some people. We need to remember this as we engage in our joy. And if we really want to bring the love at the centre of the season to life, we ought to perhaps think of ways in which we can bring a bit of love into their lives. One simple act of love can change a person’s life for ever. It certainly has mine.

There is a tradition that has developed in recent years that has begun to recognise that Christmas has its shadow side as well as its light. Many places of worship now conduct what are called “Blue Christmas” services. They are held at this time of the year for those who have lost a loved one during the year, or who are remembering losses from previous years.

Grief can sting more sharply at this time of the year because such feelings stand in contrast to what is the ideal of this Christmas season, namely, a time of the fullness of the heart, a time when one is united to all that one loves.

Christmas is about the heart, the ties of the heart, the loves of the heart, the dreams of the heart, the yearnings and longings of the heart. At Christmas we are called to concentrate on the heart; we are called to concentrate on what the heart wants, what it needs, and how it calls us to live. This is not easy if your heart is broken by grief.

By the way grief may not be the loss of person to death, it may be the end of a relationship, or the loss of livelihood and or health.

Sometimes the light of Christmas can illuminate this suffering in our hearts and lives. This can make the lives of some appear more dark and dreary as we are burdened with the memory of too many failures, too many defeats, too much sorrow. Sometimes loneliness, fear, selfishness, discouragement, and resentment turn the bells of Christmas into bitter mockery.

We need to remember this in this season of the heart. Such people need to gift at the heart of this season more than others.

So what can we do?

Well we can give the greatest gift of the season, we can give our heart. How do we do this by giving just a little bit of time and attention to someone who really needs it. In so doing we will truly begin to sanctify this season by giving one another perhaps the greatest present of them all, our true presence. A pearl of great price, a gift beyond material value. The most priceless commodity of them all.

Do you know what we can all bring the spirit of Christmas alive in our hearts and lives. It’s quite simple really, it is not even difficult. Anyone of us can do it. All it requires us to do is to open our hearts, to become the gift that we have all been waiting for. How do we begin? Well again that is quite simple too. All that we have to do is look all around us, in our own families and our own communities. You don’t need to look above to find the star to follow, you just need to look around, find the need around you and invite those suffering around you into your hearts and lives. Unwrap the greatest gift you have been given, your own heart. Become a memory that may change someone’s life forever. You have that power within you. Go use it.

This will be my focus this season, I invite you to come and join with me,  in this giving of our true presence, the ultimate present. To open our hearts to those around us. To pay attention to those close at hand. To bring the heart of Christmas alive, to incarnate love in our own lives. To become one another’s Immanuel’s, to show that God is indeed with us.

It really is that simple. We can bring the spirit of the season alive once again. We can bring Christmas alive in the presence of each and every day. We can become the greatest gift that anyone could wish for.

We no longer have to wish it could be Christmas every day, we can make it Christmas every day. By simply blessing each day with our presence, by giving our whole hearts to those who really need it.

Becoming the Light

It is not difficult to look at the world in despair and cry out “There is no hope for humanity”. It is easy to say “what is the point? Darkness always overcomes it all.” It is easy to cry out “there is something deeply flawed in human nature that evil always seems to prevail.” It is so easy to accept those words from the Book of Common Prayer” “That there is no health in us.” It is easy to give up on it all and say “It is all going to rack and ruin”

I’ve done it myself. In fact it would be fair to say that for many years of my adult life I did just this. I gave up on life and I gave up on humanity. I allowed the light in my own being and in life itself to go out. I gave in. That was the easy way, the heartless way if truth be told. I had lost the courage to live and the courage to love and had become consumed by despair.

But thank God it did not stay that way. From that place of hopelessness, from that place of despair Hope somehow took root once again, light took hold in the dark cold places within my being. I have seen this happen in the lives of many others since. Light can prevail, if we let it. It is not easy though. To live in hope in some ways is the harder way. It takes love and it takes courage…To live in the way of love and life takes heart…

Now of course sometimes the light is lit by another. As Albert Schweitzer said “At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lit the flame within us”.

There are many who have rekindle the spark in me over the years. I hope that I done so in lives of others too.

It has been through experiencing the light once more coming on and witnessing it in the lives of others that keeps the fire of hope burning deep within me. We human beings are capable of incredible acts of love and compassion. I see this every day in my personal interactions and I also see it on a global level in the way that we do respond to the horrors and crisis that we witness in our lives both locally and globally. We humans are capable of such goodness.

The key is to believe and to bring that belief to fruition that we are capable of deep caring as well as destructive aggression; that we are just as capable of good as we are of evil. By the way I mean all of us, not just some of us. I do believe that we are formed from Divine love and that we have that Divine spark that created the beginning of all life within us; that we are all formed from that Original Goodness; that we all have that same stardust within us. Our problem is that we have forgotten this and or rejected it. When we do this we turn from a love for all life into a rejection and hatred of life itself. To me this is where the darkness, the evil in life comes from. From rejecting life and the love from which we are all formed.

…The darkness grows when we fail to recognise that we are the light of the world…

It is our task, I believe, to rekindle that loving flame within each and every one of us. It is our task to become the Immanuel's, the ones that the world has been waiting for. Not to wait for some figure to come and rescue humanity, but to become those people ourselves, to let love incarnate within us and through us. To bear witness to the fact that God is already with us, in our hearts and souls and to bring that love to life. We must become the Immanuel’s, the ones we have all been waiting for.

It is so easy to sink into despair and say, there is no hope for humanity, but is this true? I don’t think so, but it is up to us. There is no point just waiting for something to happen, it is we who must become the savours of our world and it begins in our own hearts and minds, in our own families and in our own communities and then it may begin to spread throughout the whole world. It is our task to bring the spirit of love alive in our lives and in our times and places. It is our task to become the Immanuel’s.

…We must become the light of the world…

We can build temples of hope in all our hearts, in spite of the despair that we see within our own lives and those all around us. We can bring love alive once more. We can light the flame within us and rekindle the flame in those who need it the most, who feel close to giving up, who feel consumed by despair. We can become the blessing that our world has been waiting for.

…We can become the light of the world…

Amen

Advent of Hope

Today is Advent Sunday. This evening at the two congregations I serve we will be holding candle light services to celebrate the coming of the light in this time of darkness. During the service I will offer a time for all present to light a flame of thanks for someone who has brought the light of hope into our lives...to offer a prayer of thanks for their Immanuel...we will also share a time for quiet reflection to focus on hope for the future, either for ourselves, our loved ones, for humanity or for the whole of life, for what ever our hearts desire...

The word Advent is derived from "adventus", which means coming. It is a period of expectation, of anticipation; it is a time for waiting; it is a time for preparation. But what is that we are waiting for?

The Christian tradition teaches that two thousand years ago angels brought news that a child would be born, and that he would save humankind. The prophets predicted his arrival. They also predicted the humble shepherds and the wise sages travelling from afar following that wondrous star, so brilliant and yet so far away. They travelled in wonder and anticipation, but the journey took time. It took them quite some time to arrive at their physical destination as well as their spiritual realisation that the hope of humanity rested in the infinite potential of a newborn child.

Advent is a reminder that the hope for all of humanity is renewed every night a child is born. For as Sophia Lyon Fah’s said “Every night a child is born, is a holy night.” Every night is a holy night. Every moment is holy, if we are prepared to receive it this way.

Advent this holy time is an invitation to be the traveller as well as the child, to be the prophet as well as the promise. This season of Advent is a period that we are given to journey inwardly and to prepare ourselves for the blessings of hope and the possibilities of miracle.

The period of waiting will soon be over, for the light is about to come.

Advent "adventus", it means “coming”.

The hope of humanity is coming, with the birth of an ordinary child.

The promise of the light is coming, in the longest darkest night.

Something wonderful is coming.

Now is the time to prepare for it....

When I think of Advent what really comes to my mind is hope...hope that is yet to come...this time, the darkest of the year is a time of preparation...it is a time to prepare us for the light that will soon come from this the deepest darkest time of the year...

John Taylor says, “we human creatures, in spite of all that has happened to us and been done by us, are still hopeful. Something new, something vital, something promising, is always coming, and we are always expecting. Advent is a time of anticipation and as long as we expect, as long as we hope, someone will light a candle against the prevailing darkness – and neither the winds of hate nor the gales of evil will extinguish it.”

This is the time of darkness, but it is also a time of hope of waiting for the new light that is soon to come. I suspect that we are all waiting for something, I wonder what it is that you the reader are waiting for. Maybe some dream for the future, something you've always wanted to try, but were too afraid to. Or maybe it's a wish for a loved one, someone in your family or the wider community. Maybe it's a wish for the whole of humanity. Advent is a time to form these wishes in the minds of our hearts and to prepare ourselves for them.

Advent is about the hope that emerges from the darkness of winter. Over the coming weeks I would like you who reads this to think about hope, I’d like you to envision it. I would like you to develop hope in your soul, to long for it. Hope you see is really about longing. There is always something that we could, perhaps should, be striving for. There are always improvements to be made. I’d like you to join with me and others and to attempt to develop this in the coming weeks and then to perhaps commit to it in the New Year. What are you waiting for, what does your heart desire, if not for yourselves, then for someone else? For what do you long?

You may think that everything is perfect. Well if that is so, then we do not need hope; the perfect life does not need hope. But are we perfect? Do we live in a perfect society? I know that I am far from perfect. This is why I need hope. I need hope because it draws me out of myself and enables me to engage with others. Don’t we all need to be drawn out of ourselves. Don’t we all need to fully engage with each other and all of life for that matter.

So I would like you the reader to hope, I would like you to long, but I would also ask you to wait. I would like you to wait, at least until the turning of the year before you engage with what it is you desire either for yourself or for someone else. For now, in this advent season, I would like you to wait. I would like you to contemplate and yearn for what it is that you would like, for what it is that you desire to change. If you do you will be ready to engage with whatever it is that needs to be done in order to bring about the change that you have begun to envision.

Now is the time to prepare...now is the time to envision...now is the time to wait...now is the time to wait in anticipation... 

The Light of Hope: Which Wolf Wins?

I can only imagine what it must be like to experience utter darkness. I was only a baby during the power cuts of the early 1970’s and therefore have no memory of them. And like most folk of my generation I have seen the images and been told the stories of the war time blackouts, but still I cannot really imagine what it must have been like walking those dark streets. The lights did go out in my home for a short time last year and I have to say I found it very difficult negotiating my way around the house, without anything to guide my way.

It’s pretty scary trying to find your way in the dark. No one likes to feel helpless, hopeless sightless. When we stumble around “in a land of darkness” we cannot protect ourselves and just end up stumbling around our own homes stubbing our toes or falling over furniture. That said it is not only material darkness that can cause us problems, we can also get lost in those metaphorical dark forests of life. This can be terrifying. The book of life is full of stories describing children getting lost in the woods. Those fairy tales explore universal themes that everyone can relate to. After all don't we all feel lost and or confused at times.

When we fall into one of life’s black holes we can lose all hope. In this pit we can begin to compromise the very values that we are trying to live by. In this darkness we can lose our dreams and our goals we can forget the path we are on and why we have chosen it. We can also lose sight of our security and supportive community as we search in the dark unaware of the many pitfalls. Sometimes we drive people away with our fear or perhaps they just walk away because they cannot stand our pain.

Perhaps there is another way; perhaps there is a way out. Even in the deepest darkness light can be found; the light of hope, which can show us a new way. This light cannot be resisted it is constantly revealing itself as life continues its re-birth. Isn't this what the season of Advent is all about, the preparation for the coming of the light.

Children bring that light into so many people’s lives. And of course it is the image of a child on which Advent and Christmas rest. The coming of Immanuel the child sent to rescue the people of Israel from their darkness.

I don’t accept this stories uniqueness; I do not believe that this is once in humanity’s life span thing. Sophia Lyon Fahs is so right when she says “Every Night a Child is Born is a Holy Night.” The potential of every child brings hope; no one can remain completely lost if they can just glimpse this hope. There is that of God in each and every one of us. We all have the potential for great things, if we just nurture that loving compassion within us; we just need a little bit of hope and a sprinkling of faith to show us the way; we just need appropriate nurture. We know this from our own lives and we know it from the lives of those that have walked in the light before us. Even in our darkest hours there is a hidden strength that can be found, often from an unexpected source. All that we have to do is to let that light shine in and through us. Advent is a time of anticipation and as long as we hope, someone will light a candle against the prevailing darkness "and neither the winds of hate nor the gales of evil will extinguish it.” This light is universal and it is eternal.

The light of Universalism continues to speak powerfully to me. The concept of one light and many windows that my great hero Forrest Church spoke so beautifully about, keeps me humble and therefore open. I accept that I will never know the absolute truth about everything or even anything and that this enables me to experience life in a way I could never have imagined. The one light of God or truth is reflected through a variety of windows, which none of us can see directly or perfectly.

Universalism’s message of hope, of the everlasting love of God, also speaks to me. It brings Psalm 139 powerfully to the fore of my thinking, nothing and no one is beyond the reach of this eternal love. The dark and the light are both the same to this eternal love. We cannot escape it completely; we cannot flee from the range and reach of this eternal and universal love.

It is so easy to look at our world and just despair and give in and say we are doomed and lost in our own darkness. It is so easy to see life this way. Is this true though are we lost in despair? Is there no hope?

Tom Owen-Towle’s “The Gospel of Universalism: Hope, Courage and the Love of God” has helped me to understand that hope and despair share the same root, that they are joined together like Siamese twins. In the French language they share the same linguistic root; hope (espair) and despair (desespair).

To live in hope, to live in faith that we all have that light etched into our DNA, is not to deny life’s difficulties and pain. Instead it is to see the realities of who and what we are and what our true potential can be, if we just nurture it correctly. All we have to do is let that light shine that is there within us all. This sounds simple, but it is far from easy. It requires consistent effort to allow that natural compassion to grow, develop and nurture. We have to do it though because otherwise the other parts of ourselves take over and we turn with indifference from life. The opposite of hope is not despair, it is indifference.

I have written many times about the work of Karen Armstrong, the Charter for Compassion and her book “12 Steps to a Compassionate Life”. Her central theme is this concept of nurturing our compassionate natures; that this nurture of compassion is a universal theme central to all the great religious traditions throughout human history. This is a message of hope and it is an eternal and universal theme.

Hope springs eternal all we have to do is to begin to let our little lights shine. Isn't this what Advent is all about, the illumination of hope.

I will end this little chip of a blog with a story I have shared here before. I do love the tale and I believe it is worth repeating.

One winter’s evening whilst gathered round a blazing camp fire, an old Sioux Indian chief told his grandson about the inner struggle that goes on inside people.

“You see” said the old man, “this inner struggle is like two wolves fighting each other. One is evil, full of anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, deceit, false pride, superiority, and ego”.

“The other one,” he continued, poking the fire with a stick so that the fire crackled, sending the flames clawing at the night sky, “is good, full of joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith”.

For a few minutes his grandson pondered his grandfather’s words and then asked, “So which wolf wins, grandfather?”

“Well”, said the wise old chief, his lined face breaking into a wry smile, “The one you feed!”

Who is your Immanuel? Who is your “God is with us"?

Immanuel means "God is with us"

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Who is your Immanuel? Who is your “God is with us”, the one you were promised, the one you have been waiting for?

For the ancient prophet Isaiah, he was a boy soon to be born who would guide the people of Judah back to peace and harmony with God. He would bring hope for victory and greatness in the tribe. He would be a gift from God to his chosen people.

Who is your Immanuel, your “God is with us”?

For Christians, he is Jesus of Nazareth. The baby in the Christmas story who grew to be a remarkable teacher among the Jewish people; whose ideas about love, forgiveness, and justice changed the world forever.

Who is your Immanuel, your “God is with us”?

Perhaps your Immanuel is a political leader, standing for the rights of the oppressed—a Martin Luther King or a Gandhi. Perhaps in their work with people you feel God is with us.

Who is your Immanuel, your “God is with us”?

Perhaps your Immanuel is an artist, bringing transcendence to the human spirit and lifting our hopes and dreams into the light—a J.S. Bach, a Picasso, a William Shakespeare. Perhaps in the presence of great beauty and creativity you feel God is with us.

Who is your Immanuel, your “God is with us”?

Perhaps it is a child. Created from our bodies, the child who is filled with the potential to do every great thing. Your promise from God that the world has hope for justice and beauty. For in the presence of a child we too can feel that God is with us all.

Who is your Immanuel, your “God is with us”?

Slightly adapted from words by Sarah Movius Schurr 

We are about to enter the season of Advent, beginning this Sunday 27th November. It got me thinking about the following words spoken in the 19th century by James Martineau

The incarnation is true not of Christ exclusively but of Man universally and God everlastingly. He bends into the human to dwell there and humanity is the susceptible organ of the divine.

This distinctly Unitarian view of the Incarnation speaks powerfully to me. Unitarians have tended to see Jesus as a man worthy of following, rather than as the unique manifestation of the Divine. Cliff Reed hits the mark perfectly when he states.

While Jesus was, like all people, a unique individual, he was not other than human. He was our brother in every sense, sharing the same human lineage as us. And thus when we speak of him as a child of god, as incarnate divinity, as vessel of god's promise to humankind, we speak of him as embodiment, as symbol of what is true of every human baby.

The ministry of Jesus, and those who have walked the same path, was indeed an enfleshment of creative power, supremely that of love, which can re-make human beings by revealing to them their roots in a divine creation, their reclaimable goodness and wholeness, their oneness with the glorious universe.

Cliff Reed

The classic Unitarian position has always been that Jesus was and still is a man worthy of following but not of worshipping as the one and only incarnation of the Divine.

The theologian John Hick argues that Jesus did not know that he was himself God incarnate; that the idea of the incarnation ought to be seen as a powerful metaphorical image; that Jesus ought to only be viewed as the embodiment of God because God's love was manifested through his life. He was not literally God's son though in the sense that he was not the creation of a miraculous birth fathered by God in the Holy Spirit. He highlights that the phrase "son of God" was a common Hebrew metaphor and was given to those who exhibited Godly attributes on earth. Therefore it is not surprising that someone who was considered as righteous as Jesus would have been given this title, although it was not meant in a literal sense.

According to Hick, metaphorically speaking, Jesus incarnated God in three ways. The first being that he was living out God's will, therefore God was living through him in this world; the second being that by living out God's will he was displaying the perfect example of how a human being ought to live and was therefore incarnating God; thirdly in the way that his life was perfect agape, it was purely self giving love. In other words Jesus' finite life reflected perfectly God's infinite love, but he was not literally God in the flesh.

Experience has revealed to me that all life can be an extension of this Divine Love. More and more I see the incarnation manifested in all existence.

Process theology and the concept of the ‘lure’ of divine love has suggested this idea for quite some time. Jesus is the word made flesh in that within his life the divine action manifested itself completely. Christ is the expression of the word, within him is the genuine union of divine activity and human activity. He did not literally come down from heaven, this is pure metaphor. To quote  Norman Pittenger Jesus, “...was never a god; he was always regarded as the manifestation in act of the one and only God.” This would suggest that what occurred in Jesus could occur in all human life.

The former Dominican priest Matthew Fox appears to develop this idea further in what he describes as the "Cosmic Christ". He claims that through the Cosmic Christ is the “I am” in every creature, therefore that all life can become the incarnation. He believes that the purpose of the incarnation in Jesus is to reveal the immanence of the Cosmic Christ and that as we grow into who we really are and as our compassion is developed the divine “I am” takes flesh once more. As Fox states “We grow into compassion and in doing so the divine “I am” takes on flesh once again. Since god alone is the compassionate One, as we grow into compassion we also grow into our own divinity.”

So we humans and all life are potentially expressions of the divine and if we express that divine quality within ourselves we can then hopefully inspire others to do likewise

In recent years I believe that I have witnessed and dare I say experienced what I call Divine love. I experienced it the first day I walked into Cross Street Chapel Manchester and was greeted by Peter Sampson. I know it sounds like nothing, but it felt very special. I experienced as I connected to that short lunchtime service led by John Midgley. This feeling, dare I say experience, developed over the next few months as I became part of the community there. This grew as I listened and worship and shared and most of all sung. I fell in love with singing once again there. Every time I sing I experience life in a way I don't during anything else that I do. I always liked to sing, but I experience it differently today.

I first knew this magical mystical feeling when I experienced pure human love manifested in a unique life. I experienced it through knowing Claire and Ethan. Ethan, especially Ethan, showed me that loves is real and exists in every human heart. By just being a part of his short life I began to see that I had once been like him. I saw in him what exists in every human child and all life. I began to experience what Matthew Fox has described as the Cosmic Christ. “That that connects all life.”

Reverend David Doel captures what I mean perfectly when he states that, “The Christ Child stands for the Hope of the World and represents the great miracle of human birth. In every child God comes down to earth. In every child the 'promise' of God is repeated. Every mother is Mary the mother of God and every child is nurtured by the Holy Spirit - that mysterious, creative and healing essence we call Life. The Christ Child is the symbol of our human potentiality; like the oak in the acorn."

The tragedy of my life was that I lost sight of this. Somehow, over the years, I became disconnected from life and became addicted to alcohol and fear and virtually lost my humanity. What I was able to finally, see, accept and connect to in my own life was "That Great reality deep down within every man woman and child." That the book Alcoholics Anonymous describes.

I again experienced that incredible manifestation of divine love on the day, the weeks and months that followed November the 2nd 2006, All Souls Day, the day that Ethan was killed. I will never forget the way that people came together within the community to hold the family and I will always remember how the people in my own community held and supported me. Not that what all these wonderful people did for me would have been enough if that Great reality, that I had rediscovered, had not already begun to flower. The old me would not, could not have survived that tragedy.

I am a great believer in miracles I see them all the time in my everyday interactions with everyday people. I have learnt to appreciate and value every interaction and every moment of existence. Every breath is a Divine gift, if I am only able to see it that way. Every single human being has the capacity for great things, if they would only get in touch with that great reality deep down within themselves. That said we are all also capable of great destruction and evil, every single one of us. It is as important that we remember that too.

None of this is cast in stone though; I simply cannot believe that. I am NOT convinced that anything is pre-destined and pre-determined. I believe that life and existence is truly open and that all human beings are responsible for their own lives and this spinning planet that we all share. The very characteristic of the universe is one of process and change and the agent of this has to be free will. The Divine mystery does not control everything instead what it offers us is the persuasive lure of love, if we could only see that.

All we need to do is to tap into that great reality deep down within us as so many wonderful human examples have done over the years. If we can't see this within ourselves then hopefully we can see it within other human lives or nature itself and be inspired by the beauty of creation, always remembering that we are all made of the same stuff.

If life has taught me anything it is that in order to live to our full potential we humans need to be connected to that that is buried deep within us and that that is circling all around us. To live successfully and happily in this world all we have to do is to first of all find and then maintain that connection and to simply live our lives.

We don’t need to build boundaries to survive, I say pull them all down. We don’t need to work and develop our self esteem, because we already have it in bucket loads. We just have to live honestly and truthfully and that natural self esteem that we are made of will just shine out of us. Hopefully by doing so we will shine some light onto the lives of others and they will be inspired to do likewise. If we do human life is bound to improve for all.