A Blizzard of Blossom: Beauty Awakens the Soul to Act

I was watching the cherry blossom falling the other day. It was blowing in the wind around the wind telephone, designed to connect the living with those at the other side of the breath of life. There is a message on the telephone quoting Bob Dylan, “the answer is blowing in the wind”. I saw pink snowing blowing so beautifully around the gardens, while Molly was zooming around, sniffing all the new life. It looked so beautiful, it awakened the heart of my mind and got me thinking about the things we see, in our ordinary lives, when we lift up our eyes, our vision, when we live in hope, not expectation or optimism. When we are inspired by beauty. When my eyes are open and my mind isn't trapped in some disappointment from the past, my own or that done by others, or when I am not blinded by some fear of what might or might not be. When the eyes of eyes are awake I feel so alive and I have vision. I see what is so easy to miss.

As I watched it all I was reminded of this lovely poem “Vision” by May Thielgaard Watts

"Vision" by May Thielgaard Watts

To-day there have been lovely things
I never saw before;
Sunlight through a jar of marmalade;
A blue gate;
A rainbow
In soapsuds on dishwater;
Candlelight on butter;
The crinkled smile of a little girl
Who had new shoes with tassels;
A chickadee on a thorn-apple;
Empurpled mud under a willow,
Where white geese slept;
White ruffled curtains sifting moonlight
On the scrubbed kitchen floor;
The under side of a white-oak leaf;
Ruts in the road at sunset;
An egg yolk in a blue bowl.
My love kissed my eyes last night.

What a beautiful poem, isn't it lovely. When we live in heart, in courage, in love, we can see these signs of hope everywhere. It comes in the little things, that I think of and share upon awakening each morning. Such beauty compels me to act. It is vital to keep our senses open, despite our fears and worries, despite what troubles us. We must keep our senses open, in order to see things. In order to blessed by beauty and to act from it.

“Beauty awakens the soul to act”, said Dante. Well this is exactly what happened to the local poet and friend of the congregations Oliver James Lomax the other day, as he sat in the chapel gardens and wrote the poem which follows. He said he was looking at one of the Cherry Blossom trees in the chapel garden, and noticed “a blizzard of blossom falling from it, dancing in the low wind, it looked like it was almost shedding its memory. It transported me back to the day my Nan passed away from vascular dementia, there was a blossom tree just like it outside the Palliative Care Ward, also rather joyously, there was also a small boy trying to catch Pokemon in the corridor as I left her for the last time. This poem sits between those two images, a moment that brought a little peace and hope to my grief.”

Here’s the poem. I am sorry you can’t hear it in Oliver’s voice:

“To The Boy Catching Pokémon On The Palliative Care Ward” by Oliver James Lomax

The day nan died
the blossom tree was a blizzard

of gentle data
a white drift of unkept names

shifting like a small god
in the hospital garden.

Mine is, a god of flux
today he is a boy

catching Pokémon in the corridor
his hand consecrates the air

drawing a circle in time
where nothing consents to remain.

I watch from the threshold
of what has already gone,

how often will I
cast into the invisible?

For that glamour and strength
for the colour of her being,

drag the unseen closer
as if it might answer.

The blossom keeps falling
into itself, onto itself

a paper rain blinding the page
where the light

I’m trying to capture and name
cannot remain.

Beauty awakened Oliver’s soul to act and he shared this poem as a result of the awakening.

I just love how the beauty of the falling blossom, blowing up in the wind like a pink blizzard, took Oliver back to a time in his life and awakened something in him, something that brought healing to his soul, but also inspired his soul to act and write there and then. By the end of the day he sent me his poem. His poem inspired the service this devotion is based on, as did so many other things and people. The beauty in many forms inspired our souls to act. The answer was most certainly blowing in the wind that day.

I was awakened by beauty that day. I found myself engaged in several rather beautiful conversations. One was with the beautifully pregnant Rose our choir leader. She told me that she and her husband often see me walking around with Molly. It is an image that makes them both smile. Sometimes stopping to talk, but often just passing by, as I spend my days “farting around” as Kurt Vonneghut described it. It was a beautiful evening singing that night, as we prepare for a concert. I had another beautiful conversation with Alex the Flower man who was concerned about a mutual friend. I passed on his concern and the friend was grateful for this. I had several delightful conversations with people going through their ordinary lives that day. It reminded me of the following beautiful words of Walt Whitman:

“I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,

To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing,
Laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm
Ever so lightly around his or her neck for a moment,
What is this
Then?
I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as in a sea.”

To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, Laughing flesh is certainly enough to awaken my soul. All this beauty whether natural or human has awakened my soul to act in more loving and open ways and thus pour out my own love on the world in which I live and breathe and move and have my being. It is a powerful antidote to the ugliness and violence that is going on in this our shared world too. Those forces that separate person from person and fails to recognise our shared humanity. It is easy to get caught up in the Hobbesian nightmare. The truth is that this world is both beautiful and ugly. The problem comes from when we fail to see and be moved by beauty and become overwhelmed by the ugly destructiveness that is part of life. Our souls will be inspired to act by something, better it be beauty.

On Tuesday morning Nick posted a video a blizzard of Cherry Blossom blowing up in the wind and it and all that I had experienced in the last couple of days inspired me to begin to write. I found myself caught up in the “Creative Interchange”. It reminded me of some wisdom from Matthew Fox:

“The universe is in the habit of making beauty. There are flowers and songs, snowflakes and smiles, acts of great courage, laughter between friends, a job well done, the smell of fresh baked bread. Beauty is everywhere”

I had enjoyed the smell of fresh baked goods that morning as I walked into Altrincham. It reminded me of Molly and her sniffing all the new life this spring. Her nose seems more alive as each day passes, it energises her. As J. Ruth Gendler claims “Beauty is an energy, not an image, and that energy can go anywhere; that energy takes on an image, a form, many images, many forms.” Beauty energises and awakens the soul to act; beauty awakens the soul of me in so many indescribable ways and it compels me to act in such a way as to pour out that beauty within on to all I engage with.



Beauty inspired Oliver to write the other day while sitting in the garden; it inspired him to give back to the world, despite experiencing current suffering and being taken back to a place of pain, grief and guilt. The beauty of the blossom blizzard inspired his soul to act.

Beauty manifests itself in so many ways in the world in which we live and breathe and move. It awakens all our senses and thus feeds and nourishes our souls; it awakens our souls and it fills our hearts to overflowing. We not only drink from the well of beauty, we also fill it too. Beauty truly is about the heart, about filling the heart to overflowing. In "Beauty: The Invisible Embrace" John O’Donohue wrote:

"The heart is the place where beauty arrives; here is where it can be felt, recognized and shared. If there was no heart, beauty could never reach us. Through the heart, beauty can pervade every cell of the body and fill us. To use a word that feels like it sounds: this is the thrill of beauty through us. Perhaps this is why we sometimes feel the absence of beauty in our lives; we have allowed the prism to become dull and darkened; though the light is near, it cannot enter to have its inlay of beauty diffused. Sometimes absence is merely arrested appearance. Compassion and attention keep the prism clear so that beauty may illuminate our life. Prayer of course is the supreme way we lift our limited selves towards the light, and ask it to shine into us. "

Beauty not only awakens the soul, but also fills the heart to overflowing, it certainly compels me to pour my heart out on the world in loving ways. In fact perhaps true beauty, certainly in a human sense, is to act morally. As John O’Donohue has pointed out Plato believed that Love was born of beauty and that it tapped into our basic human drive and desire for Good, that it was not a private or self-indulgent act of pleasure and that “the ability to love beauty has created all the good things that exist for gods and men’. He quotes Pseudo Dionysius the Aeropagite who said, "For beauty is the cause of harmony, of sympathy, of community. Beauty unites all things and is the source of all things. It is the great creating cause which bestirs the world and holds all things in existence by the longing inside them to have beauty. And there it is ahead of all as…the Beloved…toward which all things move, since it is the longing for beauty which actually brings them into being."

It is beauty that awakens our souls and inspires us to act lovingly in the world, to pour out our love on the world. How do we do this you may well ask? Well, I believe it begins with our neighbour the very people we interact with on a daily basis. As it has with me once again these last few days

It brings to my mind a passage from Matthew’s Gospel (Ch 26 vv 6-13). It is a much debated primarily because it has been used by some as a justification for tolerating poverty. I believe that to focus on this is to fail to recognise the central message of Matthews Gospel, the abundant blessing of love.

6 Now while Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper,* 7a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment, and she poured it on his head as he sat at the table. 8But when the disciples saw it, they were angry and said, ‘Why this waste? 9For this ointment could have been sold for a large sum, and the money given to the poor.’10But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, ‘Why do you trouble the woman? She has performed a good service for me. 11For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. 12By pouring this ointment on my body she has prepared me for burial. 13Truly I tell you, wherever this good news* is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.’

The power in this story is in its recognition of abundant love. The woman loves and cares for Jesus. She anoints him with oil because she loves him dearly. It truly is an act of loving, nay gracious abandonment. This is in complete contrast to the grumpy disciples who are definitely of the glass half empty brigade. At least they are consistent though as they appear this way throughout the Gospels. The woman though is overflowing with love and wants to anoint those she loves with this. This is beauty in action. This is a soul awakened by beauty and inspired to act lovingly. Her heart is over flowing with love and she wants to pour out this love onto Jesus who will soon no longer be with her or the disciples.

Just as Oliver’s poem did; just as Nick’s video did; just as Rose’s conversation did; just as Alex asking about a friend did; just as Molly sniffing around as the pink blossom blew did; just as we all can do. We can all pour out this attentive love on one another and all life. We can offer care and attention to each and everyone around us. In so doing we will help create beauty all around us. All we need to do is pay attention open our hearts to beauty and act from it.

This brings to mind the following little anecdote by William McNamara:

“I once lived near a mansion where only one of the many gardeners employed had succeeded with every one of the roses. I asked him the secret of his success. He told me that the other gardeners treated all the roses not unwisely, but too generally. They treated them all in precisely the same way; whereas he himself watched each rosebush separately, and followed out for each plant its special need for soil, manure, sun, air, water, support and shelter.”

Beauty is all around us. We are surrounded by it. If we open ourselves to it, it will fill our hearts, awaken our souls and lead us to act lovingly and morally. This is beauty in action. If we create beauty with our own hands we will touch each individual soul we meet and they will grow and flower to their own full potential. We are here to enjoy the beauty that we are surrounded by and to pour out the beauty that lays within us and thus bring it to fruition in the world around us.

As Desmond Tutu has said:

“We were made to enjoy music, to enjoy beautiful sunsets, to enjoy looking at the billows of a sea and to be thrilled with a rose that is bedecked with dew…Human beings are actually created for the transcendent, for the sublime, for the beautiful, for the truthful…and all of us are given the task of trying to make this world a little more hospitable to these beautiful things.”

Let beauty awake for beauty's sake. Awake from slumber and awake from dreams. Let beauty awake from deep within us, Let beauty pour from us and be lavished upon our world.

May we be caught up in the blizzard of beauty, may we be blown in such a wind.

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

Let Beauty Awake

“A Modest Love” by Sir Edward Dyer

The lowest trees have tops, the ant her gall,
The fly her spleen, the little sparks their heat;
The slender hairs cast shadows, though but small,
And bees have stings, although they be not great;
Seas have their source, and so have shallow springs;
And love is love, in beggars as in kings.

Where rivers smoothest run, deep are the fords;
The dial stirs, yet none perceives it move;
The firmest faith is in the fewest words;
The turtles cannot sing, and yet they love:
True hearts have eyes and ears, no tongues to speak;
They hear and see, and sigh, and then they break.

I suspect that this poem by sir Edward Dyer maybe one of the most beautiful in the English language. He must have known and recognised the beauty present in life. He must have been touched deeply by life, to recognise the beauty of the most humblest aspects of life. To be touched by beauty is to be fully alive. This is how love feels...

The great American poet Walt Whitman also recognised beauty in the ordinary, particularly the people in whose company he found himself. I feel it too when I am awake and alive to life. I have felt it intensly and powerfully all of this year. Time has felt very thick these last few weeks. I have been around much suffering and pain, but also deep, deep love and joy. I have felt alive and touched deeply by the beauty of life.

I have felt closer to the people around me than I have ever done before. To quote Whitman, from

“The Body Electric”:

“I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing,
Laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm
Ever so lightly around his or her neck for a moment
What is this
Then?
I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as in a sea.”

To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, Laughing flesh is certainly enough to awaken me to life, to bring me alive, to truly animate my being, to awaken the soul of me. Such beauty makes one feel alive and thus to feel a part of life and act in life in ever more loving and open ways and thus pour out my own love on the world in which I live and breathe and move and have my being.

Matthew Fox claims that “The universe is in the habit of making beauty. There are flowers and songs, snowflakes and smiles, acts of great courage, laughter between friends, a job well done, the smell of fresh baked bread. Beauty is everywhere”

J. Ruth Gendler once claimed "Beauty doesn't mind questions and she is fond of riddles. Beauty will dance with anyone who is brave enough to ask her.” She later described beauty as being like water “ordinary and essential, as well as extraordinary and magnificent. That it takes many forms and permeates our whole environment.

She writes:

"Writing about beauty feels like drinking water out of the cup of my hand from a clear spring. As I bring this water to my mouth, so much spills away. The water tastes delicious; the freshness and purity startle me. I have been drinking water that was mediocre for so long. I have forgotten how good water can taste. Like water, beauty is ordinary and essential, as well as extraordinary and magnificent. That it covers everywhere, gathers and concentrates. “Beauty rinses our eyes. Sometimes beauty moves us to tears. We bathe in, drink the presence of beauty.”

She claims that “Beauty is an energy, not an image, and that energy can go anywhere; that energy takes on an image, a form, many images, many forms.”

Beauty awakens one fully to life, beauty makes you feel alive and thus a part of life and so act in more loving ways. Beauty awakens the soul of me in so many indescribable ways and it compels me to act in such a way as to pour out that beauty within on to all I engage with.

Beauty manifests itself in so many ways in the world in which we live and breathe and move. It awakens all our senses and thus feeds and nourishes our souls; it awakens our souls and it fills our hearts to overflowing. We not only drink from the well of beauty, we also fill it too. Beauty truly is about the heart, about filling the heart to overflowing. In "Beauty: The Invisible Embrace" John O’Donohue wrote

"The heart is the place where beauty arrives; here is where it can be felt, recognized and shared. If there was no heart, beauty could never reach us. Through the heart, beauty can pervade every cell of the body and fill us. To use a word that feels like it sounds: this is the thrill of beauty through us. Perhaps this is why we sometimes feel the absence of beauty in our lives; we have allowed the prism to become dull and darkened; though the light is near, it cannot enter to have its inlay of beauty diffused. Sometimes absence is merely arrested appearance. Compassion and attention keep the prism clear so that beauty may illuminate our life. Prayer of course is the supreme way we lift our limited selves towards the light, and ask it to shine into us. "

We feel alive in the presence of beauty, it awakens the soul and fills the heart to overflowing, it certainly compels me to pour my heart out on the world in loving ways. In fact perhaps true beauty, certainly in a human sense, is to act morally. As John O’Donohue has pointed out Plato believed that Love was born of beauty and that it tapped into our basic human drive and desire for Good, that it was not a private or self-indulgent act of pleasure and that “the ability to love beauty has created all the good things that exist for gods and men’. He quotes Pseudo Dionysius the Aeropagite who said, "For beauty is the cause of harmony, of sympathy, of community. Beauty unites all things and is the source of all things. It is the great creating cause which bestirs the world and holds all things in existence by the longing inside them to have beauty. And there it is ahead of all as…the Beloved…toward which all things move, since it is the longing for beauty which actually brings them into being."

We feel alive in the presence of beauty, it awakens our souls and inspires us to act lovingly in the world to pour out our love on the world. How do we do this you may well ask? Well I believe it begins with our neighbour the very people we interact with on a daily basis.

Matthew’s Gospel (Ch 26 vv 6-13) is a much debated passage, primarily because it has been used by some as a justification for tolerating poverty. I believe that to focus on this is to fail to recognise the central message of Matthews Gospel, the abundant blessing of love.

The power in this story is in its recognition of abundant love. The woman loves and cares for Jesus. She anoints him with oil because she loves him dearly. It truly is an act of loving, nay gracious abandonment. This is in complete contrast to the grumpy disciples who are definitely of the glass half empty brigade. At least they are consistent though as they appear this way throughout the Gospels. The woman though is overflowing with love and wants to anoint those she loves with this. This is beauty in action, bringing us to life, making us feel alive. This is a soul awakened by beauty and inspired to act lovingly. Her heart is over flowing with love and she wants to pour out this love onto Jesus who will soon no longer be with her or the disciples.

This is something we can all do we can all pour out this attentive love on one another and all life. We can offer care and attention to each and everyone around us. In so doing we will help create beauty all around us. It brings to mind the following little anecdote by William McNamara:

“I once lived near a mansion where only one of the many gardeners employed had succeeded with every one of the roses. I asked him the secret of his success. He told me that the other gardeners treated all the roses not unwisely, but too generally. They treated them all in precisely the same way; whereas he himself watched each rosebush separately, and followed out for each plant its special need for soil, manure, sun, air, water, support and shelter.”

To act beautifully is to pay attention to the individual needs all around us

Beauty is all around us. We are surrounded by it. If we open ourselves to it, it will fill our hearts, awaken our souls and lead us to act lovingly and morally. In so doing we feel truly alive. This is beauty in action. If we create beauty with our own hands we will touch each individual soul we meet and they will grow and flower to their own full potential. We are here to enjoy the beauty that we are surrounded by and to pour out the beauty that lays within us and thus bring it to fruition in the world around us. We are here to live our lives fully alive.

As Desmond Tutu has said:

“We were made to enjoy music, to enjoy beautiful sunsets, to enjoy looking at the billows of a sea and to be thrilled with a rose that is bedecked with dew…Human beings are actually created for the transcendent, for the sublime, for the beautiful, for the truthful…and all of us are given the task of trying to make this world a little more hospitable to these beautiful things.”

Let beauty awake for beauty's sake. Awake from slumber and awake from dreams. Let beauty awake from deep within us, Let beauty pour from us and be lavished upon our world.

Let beauty awaken us to life, fully, abundantly.

...Let beauty awake for beauty's sake...

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.”

“Beauty awakens the soul to act”

I recently received a new blessing. Through the post came a new book, by David Whyte “CONSOLATIONS: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words.”. It truly is wonderful. Below is the reflection on "Beauty", from it.

"The harvest of presence, the evanescent moment of seeing or hearing on the outside what already lives far inside us; the eyes, the ears or the imagination suddenly become a bridge between the here and the there, between then and now, between the inside and the outside; beauty is the conversation between what we think is happening outside in the world and what is just about to occur far inside us.

Beauty is an achieved state of both deep attention and self-forgetting; the self forgetting of seeing, hearing, smelling or touching that erases our separation, our distance, our fear of the other. Beauty invites us, through entrancement, to that fearful, frontier between what we think makes us; and what we think makes the world. Beauty is almost always found in symmetries: the symmetries seen out in creation, the wings of the moth, the airy sky and the solid earth, the restful, focused eyes of a loving face in which we see our own self reflected: the symmetry also, therefore, of bringing together inner and outer recognitions, the far horizon of otherness seen in that face joined to the deep inner horizon of our own being. Beauty is an inner and an outer complexion living in one face.

Beauty especially occurs in the meeting of time with the timeless; the passing moment framed by what has happened and what is about to occur, the scattering of the first spring apple blossom, the turning, spiraling flight of a curled leaf in the falling light; the smoothing of white sun-filled sheets by careful hands setting them to air on a line, the broad expanse of cotton filled by the breeze only for a moment, the sheets sailing on into dryness, billowing toward a future that is always beckoning, always just beyond us. Beauty is the harvest of presence."

...It got me thinking about "Beauty". The rest of this "blogspot" is a reflection on beauty, inspired by wiser and holier fools than I...

Now as if by chance, or not, the very same day that the book arrived a friend of mine posted a “meme” on social media which read “Beauty awakens the soul to act”, it is a quote by Dante. It struck me powerfully and got me thinking and feeling. I opened my new book and the first subject I happened upon was the piece above on "beauty". I've have been contemplating the word ever since as I have witnessed, and remembered the beauty of nature as life has been delighting in its own being once again.

My soul has reawakened has engaged with and appreciated the beauty of nature whether by night or day. I remembered the Passover moon that moved me over the Easter weekend and of course the cherry blossom that delighted my eyes and heart and so beautifully moved me to engage with so many friends recently. I also contemplated the beauty of the many people I have come to know and the joy of watching and listening to them as they have just simply gone about their daily business, as they were just simply being themselves. As I have watched the people around me I have constantly been reminded of the following words by Walt Whitman.

“I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing,
Laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm
Ever so lightly around his or her neck for a moment,
What is this
Then?
I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as in a sea.”

To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, Laughing flesh is certainly enough to awaken my soul. All this beauty whether natural or human has awakened my soul to act in more loving and open ways and thus pour out my own love on the world in which I live and breathe and move and have my being.

In “Notes on the Need for Beauty: An Intimate Look at An Essential Quality” J. Ruth Gendler wrote:

"Beauty doesn't mind questions and she is fond of riddles. Beauty will dance with anyone who is brave enough to ask her. When I first wrote these words twenty-five years ago, I had only begun to imagine how we could invite beauty into our lives. I had no idea how deeply they would lead me into an exploration of beauty.

"Writing about beauty feels like drinking water out of the cup of my hand from a clear spring. As I bring this water to my mouth, so much spills away. The water tastes delicious; the freshness and purity startle me. I have been drinking water that was mediocre for so long. I have forgotten how good water can taste. Like water, beauty is ordinary and essential, as well as extraordinary and magnificent.

"Beauty, like water, takes many forms and permeates our environment. Just as water travels across the world and pools in everything from our cells to underground streams to magnificent storms, beauty also travels, gathers, concentrates. It is beautiful to look at and listen to the way the world changes with rain, to trace the path of the river by foot or from an airplane window, to talk at the ocean's edge, swim under the waterfall. Beauty rinses our eyes. Sometimes beauty moves us to tears. We bathe in, drink the presence of beauty.

"Slowly I have come to savor the beauty of the unknown, the unnameable, the contradictions and paradoxes. Beauty is simple and complex, obvious and elusive, superficial and profound, spontaneous and achieved with great effort, impossible to define and essential to articulate. Beauty is allied with the radiance of fire, body and soul, vision and music, movement and stillness, the daily cycles of night and day.

"Beauty refuses to yield to analysis, refuses to be perfection. Beauty moves within and around us, rearranging our moods, taking us home. Beauty is always moving and beauty is very still, the light in the dark, the dark in the light, the subtlest shades of pale white and blue, the richest tones of indigo and black and deep brown, the brightest reds and oranges and golds. We find beauty at the intersections, the edges, the center of so many experiences. Although we keep trying to talk about beauty as inner or outer, that language is too static, trying to fix beauty in a single location. Beauty is an energy, not an image, and that energy can go anywhere; that energy takes on an image, a form, many images, many forms.”

...Just beautiful...She captures beauty, so beautifully...

Oh yes indeed beauty awakens the soul of me in so many indescribable ways and it compels me to act in such a way as to pour out that beauty within on to all I engage with.

Beauty manifests itself in so many ways in the world in which we live and breathe and move. It awakens all our senses and thus feeds and nourishes our souls; it awakens our souls and it fills our hearts to overflowing. We not only drink from the well of beauty, we also fill it too. Beauty truly is about the heart, about filling the heart to overflowing. In "Beauty: The Invisible Embrace" John O’Donohue  wrote 

"The heart is the place where beauty arrives; here is where it can be felt, recognized and shared. If there was no heart, beauty could never reach us. Through the heart, beauty can pervade every cell of the body and fill us. To use a word that feels like it sounds: this is the thrill of beauty through us. Perhaps this is why we sometimes feel the absence of beauty in our lives; we have allowed the prism to become dull and darkened; though the light is near, it cannot enter to have its inlay of beauty diffused. Sometimes absence is merely arrested appearance. Compassion and attention keep the prism clear so that beauty may illuminate our life. Prayer of course is the supreme way we lift our limited selves towards the light, and ask it to shine into us. "

Beauty not only awakens the soul, but also fills the heart to overflowing, it certainly compels me to pour my heart out on the world in loving ways.

Matthew Fox claims that “The universe is in the habit of making beauty. There are flowers and songs, snowflakes and smiles, acts of great courage, laughter between friends, a job well done, the smell of fresh baked bread. Beauty is everywhere”

It is beauty that awakens our souls and compels us to act in loving ways. In fact perhaps true beauty, certainly in a human sense, is to act morally. As John O’Donohue has pointed out Plato believed that Love was born of beauty and that it tapped into our basic human drive and desire for Good, that it was not a private or self-indulgent act of pleasure and that “the ability to love beauty has created all the good things that exist for gods and men’. He quotes Pseudo Dionysius the Aeropagite who said, "For beauty is the cause of harmony, of sympathy, of community. Beauty unites all things and is the source of all things. It is the great creating cause which bestirs the world and holds all things in existence by the longing inside them to have beauty. And there it is ahead of all as…the Beloved…toward which all things move, since it is the longing for beauty which actually brings them into being."

It is beauty that awakens our souls and inspires us to act lovingly in the world and thus inspires us to pour out our love on the world. How do we do this you may well ask? Well I believe it begins with our neighbour the very people we interact with on a daily basis.

Below is a passage from Matthew’s Gospel (Ch 26 vv 6-13). It is a much debated primarily because it has been used by some as a justification for tolerating poverty. I believe that to focus on this is to fail to recognise the central message of Matthews Gospel, the abundant blessing of love.

6 Now while Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper,* 7a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment, and she poured it on his head as he sat at the table. 8But when the disciples saw it, they were angry and said, ‘Why this waste? 9For this ointment could have been sold for a large sum, and the money given to the poor.’10But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, ‘Why do you trouble the woman? She has performed a good service for me. 11For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. 12By pouring this ointment on my body she has prepared me for burial. 13Truly I tell you, wherever this good news* is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.’

The power in this story is in its recognition of abundant love. The woman loves and cares for Jesus. She anoints him with oil because she loves him dearly. It truly is an act of loving, nay gracious abandonment. This is in complete contrast to the grumpy disciples who are definitely of the  glass half empty brigade. At least they are consistent though as they appear this way throughout the Gospels. The woman though is overflowing with love and wants to anoint those she loves with this. This is beauty in action. This is a soul awakened by beauty and inspired to act lovingly. Her heart is over flowing with love and she wants to pour out this love onto Jesus who will soon no longer be with her or the disciples.

This is something we can all do we can all pour out this attentive love on one another and all life. We can offer care and attention to each and everyone around us. In so doing we will help create beauty all around us. It brings to mind the following little anecdote by William McNamara:

“I once lived near a mansion where only one of the many gardeners employed had succeeded with every one of the roses. I asked him the secret of his success. He told me that the other gardeners treated all the roses not unwisely, but too generally. They treated them all in precisely the same way; whereas he himself watched each rosebush separately, and followed out for each plant its special need for soil, manure, sun, air, water, support and shelter.”

Beauty is all around us. We are surrounded by it. If we open ourselves to it, it will fill our hearts, awaken our souls and lead us to act lovingly and morally. This is beauty in action. If we create beauty with our own hands we will touch each individual soul we meet and they will grow and flower to their own full potential. We are here to enjoy the beauty that we are surrounded by and to pour out the beauty that lays within us and thus bring it to fruition in the world around us.

As Desmond Tutu has said:

“We were made to enjoy music, to enjoy beautiful sunsets, to enjoy looking at the billows of a sea and to be thrilled with a rose that is bedecked with dew…Human beings are actually created for the transcendent, for the sublime, for the beautiful, for the truthful…and all all of us are given the task of trying to make this world a little more hospitable to these beautiful things.”

Let beauty awake for beauty's sake. Awake from slumber and awake from dreams. Let beauty awake from deep within us, Let beauty pour from us and be lavished upon our world.

Courage: We can be heroes every day

One thing about the modern multi-media age is that it throws up instant heroes. People can do a heroic act in some part of the world and if it is caught on film or the person is filmed shortly afterwards within hours it can have gone viral and people all over the world soon get know of their heroic deed. Well such a thing happened last week.

I'm sure you heard about  Charles Ramsey?

He became famous by responding to screams he heard coming from a home in his neighbourhood. He thought it was a domestic dispute and broke into the home to free three women who were held captive there. The three women turned out to be Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight. They had been missing for ten years and were presumed dead. They had in fact been held prisoner in the Cleveland home that Ramsey had rescued them from. Ramsey did not consider himself a hero and said he was only doing what any right minded citizen would do and certainly did not feel he ought to rewarded for his actions and any rewards ought to be given to the three women. Nevertheless he has become a modern day hero and has been held up to acclaim all over the world. He has become a modern day hero, if only for one day.

Heroes 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.

The stories we tell today are full of heroic characters. We only need look at the recent remaking of the comic strip super heroes such as Spiderman, Batman, The X-Men, 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. Even momentary acts of heroism seem to be outside the scope of ordinary people. Charles Ramsay has become a modern day hero because he did something outside of the norm and also reacted to what he did in such a humble and almost startled way.

So is the song true, can we all be heroes just for one day?

I was recently chatting with my brother law. 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. Where as 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. As I see it courage is something that materialises in the ordinary.”

I recently came across the following, it speaks beautifully and powerfully to me about the everyday characteristics of courage:

 "The Art of facing Things" By Mark Nepo

"What people have forgotten is what every salmon knows.  Salmon have much to teach us about the art of facing things.  In swimming up waterfalls, these remarkable creatures seem to defy gravity.  It is an amazing thing to behold.  A closer look reveals a wisdom for all beings who want to thrive.

What the salmon somehow know, is how to turn their underside—from centre to tail—into the powerful current coming at them, which hits them squarely, and the impact then launches them out and further out and up the waterfall; to which their reaction is, again, to turn their underside back into the powerful current that, of course, again hits them squarely; and this successive impact launches them further out and up the waterfall.  Their leaning into what they face, bounces them further and further along their unlikely journey.

From a distance, it seems magical, as if these mighty fish are flying, conquering their element.  In actuality, they are deeply at one with their element, vibrantly and thoroughly engaged in a compelling dance of turning-toward-and-being-hit-squarely that moves them through water and air to the very source of their nature.

In terms useful to the life of the spirit, the salmon are constantly faithful in exposing their underside to the current coming at them.  Mysteriously, it is the physics of this courage that enables them to move through life, as they know it, so directly.  We can learn from this very active paradox; for we, too, must be as faithful to living in the open if we are to stay real in the face of our daily experience.  In order not to be swept away by what the day brings, we too, must find a way to lean into the forces that hit us so squarely.

The salmon offer us a way to face truth without shutting down.  They show us how leaning into our experience, though we don’t like the hit, moves us on.  Time and again, though we’d rather turn away, it is the impact of being revealed, through our willingness to be vulnerable; that enables us to experience both mystery and grace”

Courage in many ways is the essence of life, maybe it is our daily bread. Anais Nin once said “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” I think that there is something very powerful in these nine simple words. I’m sure we can all think of moments when our own lives have either expanded or shrunk in proportion to our courage. Courage itself comes from the French root “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.

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to the size and inclusiveness of our vision and our heart; life shrinks or expands in service of high and noble ideals that allows life to evolve to a higher plain. It is not just about risking everything and overcoming fear, that may well be bravery or even heroism, but I'm not sure it's courage. Many people risk and sacrifice their lives but not always in the service of love and life, they do so in a destructive way that is against life. Such people are fearless, but I’m not sure that they are courageous.

So how do we know if what we are doing is expanding or shrinking life?

Well during the 3^rd century the theologian Origin came up with a two part test to determine whether a person was interpreting scripture rightly. I think that we can expand this same test and apply it to how we live our lives in 21^st century Britain. Origin’s formula claims that our course of action must always meet two criteria it must be both useful to us and at the same time worthy of God.

This to me seems to be the essence of courage it must be useful to humanity and at the same time worthy of God. To have courage is to have strength of heart and to live from our hearts in our ordinary everyday activities.

Howard Thurman said the following on "Courage"

"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 is about bringing this attitude of Origin’s into life itself, it needs to be useful to us and worthy of God. We can bring this attitude into any situation, even the most difficult. It is not just present in the middle of a crisis when all is going wrong it is also there living and breathing as life returns to normal at the end of a crisis as we start to rebuild life when the storms have blown away. Courage comes in those ordinary acts of love as we walk slowly through life. It is courage that allows us to learn that even when life has betrayed us, love is still present. 

It is courage that allows us to stay open to life even when the storms are really blowing. 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 live in ways that are useful to everyone and worthy of God.

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 is something that has to be useful to life and worthy of God.

I’d like to end this little chip of a blog 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.”