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"

I am a Universalist, Universalist, Universalist: I Believe in a Hope that Helps

I received a message from a friend the other day asking if her son Luke could speak with me. We have met a couple of times before. He is an interesting young man. This time he wanted to discuss some ideas for an essay he wanted to explore, he is studying theology and philosophy. The essay was on theologian John Hick and his views on who Jesus was. Looking at ideas around God and the incarnation, as well as some 12 spirituality principles around the search for a God or Higher Power of your own understanding, that he wanted to discuss with me. I decided to give it a day to think about as I remembered my time when training for the ministry. It had been a long time since I had read John Hick. He called me on the Saturday afternoon.

It was a wonderful conversation. It stimulated me immensely and got me thinking about my own beliefs and doubts about so many things. How I apply these to my life and how they impact on myself and those I interact with. It was also an opportunity to articulate my own understanding of this our free religious tradition, there are many misconceptions. Luke thought we Unitarians had only been around since the 1960’s. He had done a little research on the internet and I assume he must have discovered something about the formation of the Unitarian Universalists in America, who came together to form one denomination in the 1960’s. I explained that Unitarian thoughts and ideas have been around certainly since the Reformation and actually since the time of Jesus, if not before. I talked about Joseph Priestley. Luke had attended Priestley college in Warrington and studied philosophy and religion but knew nothing of him as a radical minister. I explained it was the same for me. I grew up under his shadow, there is a statue of him in the village of Birstall where we both grew up, but we only knew him as a scientist when we were at school.

Luke wanted to talk about the ideas of John Hick and his views on who Jesus had believed he was. How this seemed to tie in with classic Unitarian thinking. This gave me an opportunity to explain my understanding of this our faith tradition. How it is today and historically of course. I explained that while originally we were none Trinitarians, that we focused on Jesus as a man whose example ought to be followed rather than the unique incarnation of God on earth. I then explained though that actually this isn’t the key principle. The key, as I see it, and this has been the case throughout this traditions history, is where authority lies. That we are none subscribers that we make no statement of faith that folk who worship in our communities must follow, but also that authority for Unitarians lays in their own honest reflection on their own conscience, that it is for each of us to seek our own truth. That we do this in community with others, knowing that more can be gained by coming together. Luke noted that this idea of seeking our own truth was very similar to 12 step philosophy and the beliefs of John Hick, I agreed with him.

What is distinctive of the Unitarian tradition is the idea of authority being in the enlightened conscience. This is distinct from Catholicism where authority is within the church structure, and general Protestantism, where authority lies in the Bible. For Unitarians it lies in the enlightened conscience. Now of course this does require a belief in humanity, that the enlightened conscience can be trusted. I quoted that wonderful nineteenth century Unitarian theologian James Martineau as we chatted.

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.

I had a great conversation with Luke. He told me when he next comes home he would like to come and check out some services. I told him he would be most welcome. He thought I was helping him, when in truth he was helping me a great deal. Thank you.

I had another conversation that weekend with another friend. They are also exploring spirituality but have a fear of community. They would prefer to explore alone as they somewhat concerned about getting sucked into something that they didn’t trust. They have some misgivings about organised religion. They quoted the classic at me saying, “Religion is for people who are afraid to go to Hell whereas spirituality is for people who have already been there.” We talked for some time, and I spoke of my own Unitarian tradition and tried to explain that this view of religion is not entirely accurate. I spoke a little of the need for community and how this enhances one’s personal spirituality and that this can be achieved without dogma. I spoke specifically about Universalism and how they were even known as “The No Hellers”.

Both conversations got me thinking about the free religious tradition I am a part of and also my feelings of faith etc, how I identify my own beliefs. I had recently returned from our annual meetings, which I enjoyed thoroughly. I am also becoming more involved in helping to develop ministers in the future. We will have a student minister with us Janine Sim from September, I have also been invited to participate in “Ministry in the Making” which was created to help support ministers in training and those new to professional ministry. It has been good to reflect on why I am a Unitarian and why I became a Unitarian minister.

I celebrate the beautiful diversity of our free tradition. For I know that those who I congregate with do not all believe and disbelieve the same. Within our free religious tradition each congregation is linked through a wider denomination named “The General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches”. There is no ruling body, and no one has authority over anyone else. Each congregation is self-governing and each member of the congregation is free to believe as their conscience dictates. We are closely connected to other similar denominations throughout the world. In America the denomination is called Unitarian Universalists. Which is essentially two denominations that came together as one in the early 1960’s. They each have their own history.

I have over the years read much by many Unitarians and Universalist and have found that I actually seem to connect, spiritually at least, more with Universalist than the Unitarians. So much so that a few years ago I declared myself as a Universalist. A Unitarian friend asked me “What kind of Universalist I was?” I paused and thought for a moment and then I answered “I am a Universalist, Universalist”. I remembered at the time they looked at me as if I were a little mad, this is not the first time this has happened. So, I explained that I was a Universalist in the old sense. I do not believe in hell and damnation. That the God of my limited understanding would never condemn anyone to an eternity in Hell; I do not believe that some are saved and others are unsaved. I believe that God has an intimate love for all, that if there is a hell it is a state of being that can be experienced within life. I talked about the "Prodigal Son" parable, and I also spoke of my belief that this love is always there waiting for us. I also said that I was a universalist in a more modern understanding too in that I see truth in so many other traditions. That none can reveal the whole truth, that they are windows that let some of the light through. I also talked of a belief in the interconnectedness of all life and that all that happens and does not happen matters. That divinity is present within everything, a kind of Universal Love I suppose. So I am a Universalist in three senses at least. That life is diverse and ever evolving. I remembered that beautiful banner I once carried at Manchester Pride “Unitarians Celebrate the Diversity of All Creation”. This is the beauty of life, its diversity.

Today I declare that I am a Universalist, Universalist, Universalist, I believe in a Hope that helps.

I remember a few years ago hearing a joke about the difference between the nineteenth century Unitarians and the Universalist. It is said that the Unitarians believed that humanity was too good to be rejected by God where as the Universalists believed that God was too good to ever reject humanity.

I am a Universalist. I am a "Universalist, Universalist, Universalist!"

I believe in and experience a God of Love who accepts all and rejects none; is present in all life and yet is greater than the entirety of it all. I also believe that there are many ways to understand and experience this Universal Love; it makes no sense to me to think that there can be only one way. Universalism has given me a code of hopefulness that I can live by. It sustains me through the vicissitudes of life and it connects me to the whole of reality.

Universalism speaks to my head, my heart and above all my soul. It has enabled me to observe and fully participate in life, to bear witness to what we do to each other and ourselves. It helps me come to terms with my past and my present and look forward to the future. It helps me connect to the people I have and currently share my life with. It enables me to live fully alive.

Universalism is a hope filled faith, but that does not make it an easy path. It is not about sitting back and waiting to be rescued by the God of love it promotes. Instead it declares that salvation, in this life, can only be achieved by facing up to the suffering present in all our lives and dealing directly with the despair that accompanies it. It's also about bringing hope to those in despair and to truly sing the joy of living.

As one of the founding fathers of Universalism, John Murray, so beautifully put it in the eighteenth century

“You may possess only a small light, but uncover it, let it shine, use it in order to bring more light and understanding to the hearts and minds of men and women. Give them not Hell, but hope and courage. Do not push them deeper into their theological despair, but preach the kindness and everlasting love of God.”

Whenever I feel despair both with myself or with the rest of humanity, which I do from time to time, I try to remember these words by the Universalist preacher John Murray. I feel a deep connection and purpose in life and through life. In so doing I experience the truth that everything matters, every thought, every feeling, every word and every deed. For love is both eternal and universal.

As we live our lives in this our shared world it is important to remember to widen our views and deepen our experiences, increasing our awareness that all life touches way beyond our horizons, not just directly those that we come into contact with, but with so many others also, often indirectly. In so doing we can welcome the wanderer to find their way back home and we will begin to repair the fragmentations of life and develop deeper intimacy. In so doing may we find our place among the family of things. May we all find ourselves safe and in love and here at home.

I am glad I found a home amongst the Unitarians all those years ago. I am grateful that it led me to this work, which I do imperfectly. I have had the opportunity to reflect much these last couple of years. I have learned so much serving the two communities and to some degree the wider denomination and I look forward to many years of this wonderful privilege. Yes. I am Unitarian minister. I am because I believe in the capacity of the human conscience to seek what is true. I believe in the teachings of Jesus as an example to us all, of what we can all be. I also believe there is a deep truth in so many other traditions. Yes, I am also a Universalist, for I believe in the eternal and universal love of God, that there is that of God in each of us. I also believe that there is so much truth yet to revealed. This cannot be discovered in isolation, we need to come together in love, to congregate. All life is interconnected. I celebrate it in it’s beautiful diversity.

So yes I am proud to be Unitarian minister, but I am equally at ease describing myself as a Universalist, Universalist, Universalist. How about you?

Perhaps that is something to think about over the next few days. How would you articulate your faith if you were to find yourself in similar conversations to me. Have a think about it this week.

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

Love Letters: It matters what we leave behind

“Love letters” by Edward Hays in “Secular Society”

"You and I are meant to be “letters” to the world. People who “read” us receive a message from the Divine Mystery. Now, there’s a delightful vocation – to be a sort of “valentine” from God to a love-hungry world! But if we are to be living, divine letters, “words made flesh,” we, of all people, should keep alive and treat with respect the beautiful custom of letter writing. As we take time to do this, let us remember that such activity is always prayer. Let us remember that it is also prayer to receive and read a letter. Perhaps we could pause at the conclusion of having penned a note to a friend and trace the sign of the cross upon the letter to remind ourselves of this fact. Or we could breathe part of our spirit into the envelope. More than just a puff of breath, we could send along with our message a part of our soul. Since love is invisible, some ritual or sign helps us to remember what it is we are really sending when we send a letter to someone we love."

Huw a member of the Urmston congregation recently asked me if people treat me and act differently towards me since I lost the weight. I thought about it for a moment and said, no I don’t think so, or at least I hope not. After all I am still the same person I always was, it’s just that I now I live in a smaller shell than before.

I’ve been thinking about it a lot since. Do people treat me the same way now that I have transformed myself physically? Have the physical changes altered the way I am in the world? Do we judge people more on their appearance than on their inner being? Does the way we see ourselves affect the way we live with others and live in life?

The more I’ve thought about it the more I have become aware of people treating me differently actually. I’ve also realised that I am acting differently in the world and am once again seeing the world through fresh eyes. I have changed once again, or do I more accurately mean I have woken up once again. I am and will always be the same man in essence. This part of myself never changes the spirit that lays at the core of me. Whatever happens to my physical being, my emotional being and my mental being, this core always remains, although I believe that it just more awakened today. In fact there have been times in my life when that aspect of my being has been fast asleep.

There is no doubt to me that my physical, mental, emotional and spiritual being are interconnected, not one is separate from the rest. Just as all life is connected, nay interconnected. Nothing exists in isolation from anything else. Even the time we exist in now is influenced by all that has ever existed before. Yes we live in this moment right now. But this moment does not exist in isolation we only have this moment because of all that happened before and we are only the people that we are, in this moment, because of all that has existed before. We bring our whole selves alive in this precious moment right now. We do so by not rejecting any aspect of our lives up to now. We do so by allowing our whole being to come alive, to come to flower right here right now. This is what being alive really means. This is what bringing the moment alive really means. It is not enough to passively live in the moment, you’ve got to bring the moment fully alive. In so doing you live the life you are here to live and you play your part in the cosmic co-creation. All that we do and all that we do not do matters. Each moment that we live we leave behind us a legacy, a love letter if you like, that others will pick up on as they too continue on through their lives.

Just think of the people that have influenced you in your lives. People who are no longer physically with you, but who are still impacting on you today. Even when they are gone, something beautiful remains.

It matters how we live in the world. It matters how we see the world and think about the world and feel about the world. This is influenced by how we have lived in this world. It’s not just something that comes to us in isolation and it is influenced by how we see and experience ourselves.

Who do we think we are? What do we believe about ourselves? What do we see when we gaze at ourselves in the mirror, in the glass, in the water? Do we see ourselves with loving eyes, or with the eyes that despise? For how we see ourselves will influence how we see life and see others. You see we all do live by the “Golden Rule” we do in fact love or hate our neighbour as we love or hate ourselves. I just that one day we can all live by the Golden Rule of compassion and not of loathing or indifference.

My dad once shared a story with me, just weeks before he died. It’s one of those things that has stayed with me all these years and has only truly begun to make sense to me these last few years. Now whether it actually happened in his life, or not, doesn’t matter. I have come across versions of this story in my reading. What matters is the universal mythos in the tale. This is the story:

He recounted a tale when he was once at Appleby Horse Fair, a place he loved; where he was probably at his happiest. He was talking to me about faith and God. It was during a time of my life when I was a man of little or no faith; I certainly had no belief in God. He recounted that he saw a priest staring down into the water from a bridge. He asked the priest what he was doing and the priest told him that he was staring into God’s eyes. My dad looked into the water and said he could only see himself and the priest. At which point the priest replied that this is where God dwells within you, within me and within everything.

Whenever I remember this moment, that has stayed with me ever since, even in my darkest hours, my nihilistic despair, the memory would come alive deep within me. Its real meaning only really made sense many years later. What I do know is that whenever I looked into the water or into the glass, whatever I saw looking back at me was reflected in how I saw life and lived in the world. It impacted on how I lived in whatever moment, whatever place and whatever people I found myself in the company of.

When I look at life today and when I look deeply, compassionately into the eyes of others I can see something of the Divine present there, sometimes awake and sometimes fast asleep. Most of the time though, somewhere in between.

The very first Unitarian I ever met was Peter Sampson. I met him as I passed through the threshold of Cross Street Chapel all those years ago. He taught me so much about what it means to live as a human being. He is also a talented poet and hymn writer. He wrote the following piece for a collection of named "Heart and Mind" It speaks powerfully to me,

“Incarnation” by Peter Sampson

'"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)

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.

Peter's piece begins with the following quote by the great 19th century Unitarian James Martineau who stated that:'

"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."

Could this be true? Is humanity the susceptible organ of the divine?

I do believe that there is that of God in everyone, but that is not all that we are. Yes we have the potential to do incredible things we humans and I do believe that God lives through our lives. But that is not all that we are, we are also capable of incredible hatred, destruction and evil. I believe that both these potentials lay within each of us. It is important that I recognise this when I look at another and when I look at myself. When I look at another person I must recognise myself within them. This sometimes fills me with absolute bliss and on other occasions it fills me with nothing but agony. Humanity is a mysterious duality indeed.

Abraham Joshua Heschel said the following of man...

“Man is a duality of mysterious grandeur and pompous aridity, a vision of God and a mountain of dust. It is because of his being dust that his iniquities may be forgiven, it is because of his being an image that his righteousness is expected.”

It is an incredible thing to be human, we are fascinating creatures. Even the word human itself interests me. It is formed from the same root as humility, possibly humanity’s greatest attribute. It is also closely related to humus (not to be confused with hummus) and exhume. The root for all of these words is “hum” which originally referred to the earth or dirt. Our earliest forbears perceived that we humans originated from the soil – you would think that this would keep us grounded, but seemingly not - this is made clear in the second creation story found in Genesis II which reads “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” The ancient Hebrew word for Adam is closely related to the word “toadamah” which means soil or earth. There are other ancient creation stories too which associate the origin of humankind with soil or the ground. Such as the Sumerian myth of Marduk who created people by killing Qingu and mixing his blood with clay. Or the Greek myths of Decallion and Pyrrha who by throwing rocks over their shoulders created man and woman.

We are indeed a mysterious duality we humans. Yes formed from dust but with the spirit of the Divine breathed into our very being.

We need to remember this when we look into one another’s eyes and when we look into our own eyes. For how we see ourselves and how we see one another will impact on how we live in the world and that really matters. We need to look a little deeper than the surface too, for that will change. Beauty is more than skin deep, our real beauty and true essence lays way beneath the surface of our skin; it is way deeper than our thinking minds and our feeling emotions. It is in our essence, our spirit our souls. This never changes, it remains the same it’s just that it awakens and goes to sleep at different times and stages of our lives.

How awake and alive we are in the world in this moment really matters too. For how we live will impact on those around us too and will impact on how they live in the world, for no one and no-thing lives in isolation.

In every moment of our lives we are creating and leaving a legacy for those who share this time and those who follow in this beautiful co-creation that is life. Each moment we leave behind us letters that those who follow will then pick up and read and be influenced. So let us ensure that the letters we leave behind are letters of love and not of indifference, letters of Hope and not of Despair.

I’m going to end this little chip of a "blogspot" with this beautiful extract from Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”:

I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least,
Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.
Why should I wish to see God better than this day?
I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then,
In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass,
I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign'd
by God's name,
And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe'er I go,
Others will punctually come for ever and ever.

Breadth and Depth

Last Saturday was a first for Dunham Road Unitarian Chapel Altrincham, as we conducted our first same-sex marriage. In fact it was a first for the whole of Trafford as it was the first to be conducted in a religious building in the Borough. I attended the do afterwards and as is always the case many people wanted to discuss the service and as well as ask questions about the Unitarian faith tradition. Of all the things that were said to me my favourite had to be “I am not a church going, but I really liked that service”. I was also involved in many other conversations with a variety of people as we ate and listened to the speeches. It’s amazing what people tell you about themselves their own faith or lack of faith, their frustrations with previous wedding service that they had attended, whether religious or secular ones held in hotels etc. What touched me the most though was that people were able to connect with what they were witnessing on a deep, deep level whether they were “religious” or not. The service was deeply religious, in a very real sense and yet it was able to touch those hard to reach places of folk regardless of what they believed, or not. The service had both breadth and real depth. I left feeling that I had done my job and done it well.

We say all are welcome here, come as you exactly as you are, but do not expect to leave in exactly the same condition…That was certainly achieved…I offer thanks and praise for this…

For me in many ways this is what lies at the core of the free religious tradition I serve. This coming together as we are, exactly as we but not expecting to always stay exactly where we are or as we are. There is a real openness and humility in this, which I believe are essential requirements for the corporate transformative experience that ought to lay at the core of a free religious tradition.

People constantly ask me what a Unitarian is, they are always trying to pin me and our tradition down. For some this is curiosity and for others I suspect it is in an attempt to be critical, to pick holes. By the way there are many holes and personally I’m very pleased about this. I would hate to feel I am a part of something that looked at itself and believed that it was the perfect embodiment of anything. I do not believe that anything in life is perfect and therefore must be incomplete. I’m aware every week that I am an imperfect minister, but one I also know is growing.

One criticism that people often make of the tradition I serve is that it is seen as being too broad and as a result shallow. They say yes there is plenty of width, but no real depth. That anything goes, we accept people uncritically. Do you know what there may well be some truth in that, but it’s a truth that I see in a positive light and not a negative one. I certainly want to welcome people exactly as they are, warts and all and beauty spots too. I want to welcome their whole selves, even if I’m uncomfortable with some aspects of them. To me this is not shallow at all, actually I believe that it encourages depth. To me this is real depth and not some shallow imposed depth. That said regardless of what I believe many do still see the Unitarian tradition as wishy washy, shallow, and empty.

This brings to mind a story my brother loves to tell of he and his wife being driven around Dallas in a taxi and the driver pointing to a church and saying “That church is a Unitarian Universalist church and those folks can believe whatever they like”, my brother recounts that this was said in an utterly bemused tone. My brother’s response was oh yes “My brother is a Unitarian”. I think for the first time in his entire life the taxi driver went silent.

By the way as a kind of counter to this thought I have heard many Unitarians say "We so not beleive waht we like, we believe what me must."

I also remember seeing an episode of the cartoon series “The Simpsons” in which the church pastor Rev Lovejoy offers the Simpson children a bowl of Unitarian ice cream. When one of the children replies that the bowl is empty his response is that this is the point. The bowl is empty. He is saying there is nothing in it. It is an empty vessel which will not feed or sustain you.

Now I don’t believe and have certainly not found this to be true, but it is certainly how others view the Unitarian faith. Why is this? Well I believe it is because we find it hard to articulate exactly what our faith is about. We can say what it isn’t far more easily, but find it hard to say what we are really about. I know I find it a challenge from time to time. In fact there has been times when I have done all I can to avoid the question.

There are those within the Unitarian tradition who say the same thing by the way, claiming that we need a clear coherent message, so that we can market ourselves better. The problem of course is that no two people can agree entirely as to what that might be.

Now while there are a variety of views as to what it is to be a Unitarian there does seem to be two distinct themes that emerge and re-emerge as to the direction we ought to be taking in articulating what we are about and the way we should move forward in order to grow. The call seems to be either a return to our roots, a more Biblically based Unitariansism and the other to do away with the past completely as if it never happened and to embrace an almost secular kind of religion, an oxymoron if ever I’ve heard one. I have heard this described as the ABC approach. I remember hearing this phrase quite frequently a while back and asked someone what they meant by it. They said ABC, anything but Christianity. The ABC approach is one that says we embrace anything, well anything but Christianity.

My own personal view is that neither of these two approaches necessarily breed depth as opposed to width, they can both easily become shallow. I believe there is a real depth the Unitarian heritage, in where we have come from and I believe it points to an openness that comes from our natural humility that grows from our traditions faithful uncertainty.

You see I think that real the depth of the Unitarian tradition doesn’t come from becoming tied by our roots or by the rejection of it completely. Instead it comes from our approach. This I believe is found in that simple statement “Come as you are, exactly as you are, but not expect to leave in exactly the same condition”. I believe it comes from the humility and openness that is at the core of this approach.

At the core of the Unitarian approach is the principle of none subscription to imposed creeds and dogmas. We claim that the seat of authority lays in the enlightened conscience of the individual and not an external authority? When I first heard this sentiment expressed and first came into contact with the ideas of the Great Nineteenth century Unitarian theologian James Martineau it spoke to me right down deep in the marrow of my soul. The “Seat of Authority” rejects all external authority in matters of faith whether of Church or scripture. It set Unitarians apart in the nineteenth century from mainstream Christianity. Now of course our tradition has broadened and has widened since this time, but I do think that today it is this that gives the Unitarian tradition its depth. For me this is the essence of the tradition. To me this is our unique selling point, to use marketing jargon for a moment. I believe that there is both breadth and depth in this approach.

I believe that the Unitarian tradition is both broad and deep. This is because it encourages people to include all that they are, all their experiences, all that has brought them to place they find themselves at this moment in time. I believe it is a mistake to reject any aspect of our experiences. There is always a temptation to reject the past, both personal and collective, but it is what has made us who we are today. We need to embrace it and see it fully for what it is, warts and all and beauty spots too. We need to share these experiences with one another in order to bring depth to our kaleidoscope of experiences. For no two experiences are exactly alike.

In the four years I have served the beautiful people at Dunham Road Unitarian Chapel Altrincham and Queens Road Unitarian Free Church Urmston I have discovered that one of the greatest gifts of this work I have been blessed with is that people tell you things, they share their experiences. All kinds of people tell me where they have been, what an honour to be blessed with such conversations, they are precious beyond measure, pearls of great price.

I believe there is real breadth and depth in the free religious tradition I have chosen (or did it choose me?), and that this is to be found in the personal experiences of those within our communities and those who came before them. The past should never be rejected as it can reveal so much to we who live today. To find the real depth in life you need to listen to the whole of life, you must let it speak, past, present and future. You must learn to listen to all the voices, for they are voices just like your own. You must be open to all the stories of life both ancient and modern and those of prophesy too, for they have so much to teach. You must be open to all experiences that are available to you. How can this be done? Well it begins with humility, this is the very key to openness, I believe.

Once again I say to you and I say it to myself too…”Come as you are, exactly as you are, but do not expect to leave in exactly the same condition”…For I believe that in these simple words you will know both the breadth and the depth of life...a breadth and depth found in the beautiful free religious tradition I am blessed to serve.

Humour and Humanity

A monk was speaking with Nasrudin. He said, “I have achieved an incredible level of dis-attachment from myself – so much so that I only think of others, and never of myself.”

“Well, I reached a more advanced state than that,” replied Nasrudin.

“How so?” asked the Monk.

“Well,” replied Nasrudin “I am so objective that I can actually look at another person as if he were me, and by doing so, I can think of myself!”

Oh Nasrudin the wise fool, the holy fool. I’ve been chuckling along to this one all week.

There is real wisdom here. Yes it may initially sound like the ultimate in self centredness, but there is more here. When we look at another person do we see them as we see ourselves, or do we see the stranger and does this spell danger?

In my last blog  I recounted a story my father told me of staring into the water and being told that when he gazed at himself he was also gazing into the eyes of God. The priest who explained this to him was telling him that the Divine dwells within him, as it dwells in everyone. These thoughts echo words from the great 19^th century Unitarian James Martineau who stated that:

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.

Could this be true? Is humanity the susceptible organ of the divine?

I do believe that there is that of God in everyone, but that is not all that we are. Yes we have the potential to do incredible things we humans and I do believe that God lives through our lives. But that is not all that we are, we are also capable of incredible hatred, destruction and evil. I believe that both these potentials lay within each of us. It is important that I recognise this when I look at another and when I look at myself. When I look at another person I must recognise myself within them. This sometimes fills me with absolute bliss and on other occasions it fills me with nothing but agony. Humanity is a myserious duality indeed.

Abraham Joshua Heschel said the following of man...

“Man is a duality of mysterious grandeur and pompous aridity, a vision of God and a mountain of dust. It is because of his being dust that his iniquities may be forgiven, it is because of his being an image that his righteousness is expected.”

It is an incredible thing to be human, we are fascinating creatures. Even the word human itself interests me. It is formed from the same root as humility, possibly humanity’s greatest attribute. It is also closely related to humus (not to be confused with hummus) and exhume. The root for all of these words is “hum” which originally referred to the earth or dirt. Our earliest forbears perceived that we humans originated from the soil – you would think that this would keep us grounded, but seemingly not - this is made clear in the second creation story found in Genesis II which reads “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” The ancient Hebrew word for Adam is closely related to the word “toadamah” which means soil or earth. There are other ancient creation stories too which associate the origin of humankind with soil or the ground. Such as the Sumerian myth of Marduk who created people by killing Qingu and mixing his blood with clay. Or the Greek myths of Decallion and Pyrrha who by throwing rocks over their shoulders created man and woman.

Now while each of us is formed from the same substance we are also all unique. We all have our own unique characteristics. We each of us have our own personalities, our own finger prints, our own DNA, our own faces.

Abraham Joshua Heschel said the following about “A Face”

“A human being has not only a body but also a face. A face cannot be grafted or interchanged. A face is a message, a face speaks, often unbeknown to the person. Is not the human face a living mixture of mystery and meaning? We are all able to see it, and are all unable to describe it. Is it not a strange marvel that among so many hundreds of millions of faces, no two faces are alike? And that no face remains quite the same for more than one instant? The most exposed part of the body, it is the least describable, a synonym for an incarnation of uniqueness. Can we look at a face as if it were a commonplace?”

“Can we look at a face as if it were a commonplace?”

I’ve never been a good liar, never had a poker face. There are advantages and disadvantages to this. My face hides nothing. A person can tell exactly how I am feeling by looking at my face. I was recently asked by someone if I was comedian (The man had obviously never heard any of my jokes). I said no to which the man said “Well you have a comedians face.” I’m not sure what he meant by this, but I took it as a compliment. I know I have a very descriptive face.

Now going back to etymology and the word human. It has often been incorrectly believed that the word humour also shares its root with humanity and humility. Now it would be great if it was, but alas this is not true.

Humour is actually derived from a medieval medical term for fluids of the human body. It is has its roots in the ‘old’ French word ‘humor’, derived from the Latin ‘umere’. Physicians of the day believed that we had four different types of internal fluids that they called ‘humors’ and it was these that determined our physical and mental health. Therefore if a person became ill it was believed that their humors were out of balance. I do so love etymology, language has had such a fascinating journey.

This though doesn’t sound particularly funny though does it?

I do so wish that humour, humility, humus and humanity were etymologically linked. Why? Well because in so many ways one of humanities greatest attributes is our sense of humour. It helps us deal with the pain and suffering that accompany life.

It is so very difficult to take yourself too seriously when you are laughing at yourself. There was a period in my life when I lost the ability to laugh. It was a sure sign that I had got lost in myself, had begun to reject life. These days I laugh often, thank God.

We humans, we creatures formed from the earth, cannot live without humour, just as a plant cannot grow from the soil without the essential ingredient of water.

John O’Donohue said that:

“There’s something really subversive in laughter and in the smile on the human face. It’s lovely and infectious to be in the company of someone who can smile deeply.

I think a smile comes from the soul. And I also love its transitive kind of nature—that if you’re in the presence of someone who has a happiness and a laughter about them, it’ll affect you and it’ll call that out in you as well.

Your body relaxes completely when you’re having fun. I think one of the things that religion has often prevented us from doing is having really great fun. To be here, in a way—despite the sadness and difficulty and awkwardness of individual identity—is to be permanently invited to the festival of great laughter."

Please click on the link below to see John speaking of laughter

John O'Donohue on the Power of Laughter

Laughter has a Divine quality about it. It comes from a person who is fully alive; it enables our growth and our full expression. It comes from that eternal spirit that is a part of our common humanity.

Now this all brings me back to that image in the water, of seeing the divine looking back at us through our own eyes. The Sufi mystic Hafiz wrote that “God wants to see more love and playfulness in your eyes for that is your greatest witness to Him.” God wants to see it in our eyes, looking back at us in the water.

I believe that every day is a day when we can bear witness to a power greater than ourselves. We do this when we love one another, when we are glad to see each other, when we play, when we are light-hearted, when we can laugh at ourselves, when we live with exuberance and enthusiasm, when we grow from dust and become truly animated and live life. When we do this we see God in one another and we see it in our own reflection. We do not need to seek God, for God is already dwelling amongst us in each of our hearts. We just need to bring that power to life. We know God’s blessings in our interactions with one another, when we bless one another through love and laughter. The way we look at one another, face to face has the power to make God’s presence known on earth, right here right now.

It is our task to bring this to life, to allow God to incarnate through our lives; it is our task to let it show in our laughter, our playfulness and our love for life.

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.