To all epiphanies great and small

“Where shall I look for Enlightenment?” the disciple asked.
“Here,” the elder said.
“When will it happen?” the disciple asked.
“It is happening right now,” the elder answered.
“Then why don’t I experience it?” the disciple persisted.
“Because you do not look,” the elder said.
“But what should I look for?” the disciple continued.
“Nothing. Just look,” the elder said.
“But at what?” the disciple asked again.
“At anything your eyes alight upon,” the elder answered.
“But must I look in a special kind of way?” the disciple went on.
“No. The ordinary way will do,” the elder said.
“But don’t I always look the ordinary way?” the disciple said.
“No, you don’t,” the elder said.
“But why ever not?” the disciple asked.
“Because to look you must be here. You’re mostly somewhere else,” the elder said.

“Where shall I look for Enlightenment?” by Joan Chittister

Saturday marked the end of Christmas, it was the 12th Day of Christmas, you all know the song. Have we all managed to take down our decorations etc?. Yesterday , at least in the western church, was the feast day of “Epiphany”. The day when it is said that the wise men arrived to visit the Christ child.

“Epiphany” is an interesting word. It comes from the Greek meaning “to appear” or “to be made manifest”. In the western church Epiphany signifies the day that Jesus was shown to be the divine Christ; the day that divinity was revealed to the wise men as they had completed their journey following that wondrous star; a journey which had taken 12 days, as they had travelled afar, or so the ancient story says. They brought gifts as they paid homage.

I was given a wonderful gift during the “Watch Night Service”, just after midnight, at the turning of the year. I was given an ancient Roman coin that represents Janus (January), a beautiful ancient Roman tradition. I was given so much last Christmas season and I love the meaning of the coin as I looked back in gratitude and forward in Hope. There were many changes last year, there were some “Epiphany” moments too.

Now of course “Epiphany” has taken on a more universal meaning in more recent centuries. Today when someone proclaims that they have had an epiphany they are usually claiming that they have experienced a sudden awakening to a new truth. These sudden awakenings generally do not occur in special settings. In fact what is usually significant is that they occur in a seemingly ordinary way. Like the Christ child in a lowly stable.

During my time serving you wonderful folk I’ve had many myself. I have had several early in the morning as I walked out my front door and heard bird songs. Those little birds speak a language that I now understand. They occur as I travel around, magic moments found in ordinary ones. I have experienced several spots of time moments when a new deeper truth has suddenly come to me. It comes in the ordinary things, in the unexpected things and when it comes it is beautiful. I know that many of you had similar experiences too. I know this because you have shared them with me. What a wonderful gift. Thank you! We can all experience Epiphanies; we can all experience moments when we glimpse the essential nature of things in ways that change the course of life dramatically and powerfully for the better; we can all experience moments of sudden discovery and or revelation when things seem to seamlessly fall in place and a new clarity is gained.

“Epiphanies” come in the ordinary moments of life, in its flow. It beings to mind the following from Shakespear’s Julius Caesar Act 4 scene 3. Here Brutus speaks:

There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

Words suggesting we must flow with life, that this is where the power is. If we do so we can make each moment precious, we can bring them to life. That each moment can become momentous and perhaps life changing. The key is to awaken to the ordinary moments and perhaps see them as potentially transformative. Not to live passively in them, but to bring them alive.

It also requires us to look back, before facing forward, like Janus, from which January comes. I did that once again this Christmas time as I spent time with loved ones. There was one magic moment that occurred at my aunties at the old farm. My auntie talked of her son and how an old relative had heard him talking while working and how much he sounded like his uncle Billy her brother and my dad. It brought back a moment years ago when she had shown me an old video when we were children and I heard my dad’s voice, it was my voice. At the time I couldn’t watch it, it was too upsetting. This time I watched it again and it transported me back to so many memories, so many of life’s magic moments. It was an epiphany moment as it awakened something in me, that has once again brought new life. I had similar experiences the next day at my mums as she hosted a little family gathering and we talked and shared together, magic moments we enjoyed sharing. These felt like epiphany moments, or they were as I drove back in the terrible weather on the M62 with Molly by my side and tears rolling down my face. An epiphany is a moment when you suddenly feel that you understand, or suddenly become conscious of, something that is important to you. It can be in the nature of a sudden and profound religious or spiritual experience, or it can be less dramatic. They often come to me in the car, but also when out walking. I enjoyed two wonderful walks with Molly and a couple of dear friends on both Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. As we walked and talked, I could feel I was aware of something new, something I was becoming conscious of in my being. Thank you.

As I look back at my life, I can bear witness to many moments of illumination or as I prefer see them as moments of awakening. You see every moment of our lives can become such moments if we would learn to seek them and learn to bring them alive in our lives and in the lives of others. We just need to be alive and awake to these possibilities.

William Wordsworth in his poem “Prelude” described such moments as “spots of time”. Wordsworth wrote:

“There are in our existence spots of time,
That with distinct pre-eminence retain
A renovating virtue, whence–depressed
By false opinion and contentious thought,
Or aught of heavier or more deadly weight,
In trivial occupations, and the round
Of ordinary intercourse–our minds
Are nourished and invisibly repaired;
A virtue, by which pleasure is enhanced,
That penetrates, enables us to mount,
When high, more high, and lifts us up when fallen.”

William Wordsworth, The Prelude (Book XI, ls 258-278)

“Spots of time” are, epiphanies, those moments when life not only feeds but truly nourishes us on a deep, deep level, deeper than the marrow of our bones; moments when the common becomes uncommon,; moments when the veils we create ourselves seem to slip away; moments when we seemingly see beyond the ordinary; moments when we experience reality on a deeper level.

These moments can happen anywhere. For Wordsworth these “spots of time” occurred primarily in nature. We all experience them in different ways, in different states and in different settings. Those moments when time seemingly stands still; those moments that touch us at the core of our being; those moments that transform our lives; those magic moments. Time seemingly becomes compressed or concentrated in these moments when the senses become heightened, when life seemingly has a deeper meaning. Moments when life becomes denser and deeper. These are not necessarily supernatural moments by the way; no, they are firmly grounded in reality. In these moments time appears to be slowing down, although obviously it does not. Time does not so much stop as become compressed, the moment becomes concentrated. There just seems to be more of life in that moment, but it lasts just as long. Maybe the moment is deeper, not longer. Time is time after all. It is what they call “Cairos Time”, not “Chronos Time”.

When I look back at my life I can think of those moments when deep powerful meaning has emerged seemingly out of nothingness and all of life has felt connected. I felt it once again walking with Molly and friends on both New Year’s day and Christmas Day.

These moments though are not just to be kept for me, they are to change us for the good of all. That has been my experience at least, as they have always come after difficult times. They have always shown me ways to better love the world.

I am sure if we look back we will find that we have all of us experienced such moments in our lives, moments that we carry with us, throughout our lives. Moments when time has seemingly stood still, moments that have changed us or as I prefer to see it woken us up or woken something up within us. I feel certain in saying that we have all know epiphanies great and small.

The question is though, what can we do with them? And can we “bring them alive in others”? I believe so. I also believe it is our task to do so. This is where the meaning comes in life, it certainly has in mine..

So, this is what I’d like you to do. This is your homework as we step into a New Year. I as you to look back through your lives and recall such moments, magic moments, spots of time. Those epiphanies great and small. Moments that have stayed with you. Perhaps you could look for a pattern in moments that either woke you up and or put you to sleep and perhaps think of ways in which you can bring these moments alive in others.

So lets pay homage to all Epiphanies great and small as we step forward into another year of life.

Amen

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

New Years Day

Happy New Year. 

Today is the first of January, the beginning of a new year, New Years Day.It is a day on which traditionally we are meant to pause and evaluate our lives, the state of our own being, and perhaps the state of the world in which we live. A day when we are meant to assess what can be done better and also perhaps what needs to change, what needs to be let go of. Perhaps today, more than any other day, we are meant to practice discernment, to sift through our lives, like prospectors panning for gold, we are meant to separate what is of use and what is not. We are meant to sort the wheat from the chaff. In so doing we may well find the most precious gem stones of our lives.

On this day, as we sift through our lives, we may note the size of our waistlines or other measures of our physical well-being? We may well assess our bank balances, how expensive has Christmas been this year? We may well take a look at our wardrobes. Perhaps we will look at the state of our relationships, with lovers and spouses, with families and with friends. We may also look at the state of our employment.

This time of year is often one when people commit to make changes. I know my gym will be over populated this week, no doubt groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Slimming World and other organisations I know intimately, will have much higher attendance rates over the next few weeks. I also know that by February things will have returned back to their normal rate.

Yes this time of year, for so many of us, is a time of assessment, a time when people often feel dissatisfied with aspects of their lives and as a result commit to change, believing that if they change certain aspects of their lives, their troubles will come to an end and everything will suddenly magically be different.

For better or for worse today is a day of measurement; today is a day where we assess where we have been and perhaps where we are going. In Ancient Rome it was the day of worship of the God Janus, the God with two faces, one looking into the future and the other into the past. The God of gateways, of thresholds of the space of change. Today is meant to be the one when we make decisions about what needs to change. The truth is though, that it is a day just like any other day and every day, just like every in moment, everything changes and yet somehow everything stays the same.

Life has taught me many lessons One of the most important being that the only thing permanent in life is change. “Nothing ever lasts for ever” as Echo and the Bunnymen once sang. Life is impermanent. We are all guests in life. We cannot cling to anything. Whatever we are feeling or experiencing right now, “This too shall pass”.

Impermanence is the beauty and the energy of life. Life is forever changing and transforming and turning into something new. Nothing ever stays exactly the same and nothing is ever repeated in exactly the same way again. This was wonderfully expressed by the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus some 2,500 years ago. Who said, among many other things, “Everything flows, nothing stands still.” “No one ever steps into the same river twice.” And “Nothing endures but change.” He was saying that the only constant in life was and is change, that life was constantly in flux and that everything is impermanent.

So often in life we try to cling to things, to hold on to things to maintain things exactly as they are. This seems to be going against life and the nature of things. Nothing stays exactly as it is in its current nature, everything changes from moment to moment and to resist this is to resist life. Yes everything changes but life goes on.

The mistake we often make is to try to cling onto things, whatever that might be, in fear. In so doing we fail to experience life itself. We resist the beauty and the power of life.

 As I look back at the year, that has passed, so much seems different and yet if truth be told much is still the same. Much has changed in regard to my own experiences of my personal life. 2016 may well, on a personal level, have been the greatest of my life. If you had told me what was to come at the beginning of last year I would not have believed you. I’m not talking about my personal awards and achievements either, what I’m really talking about is my own experience of my own physical being and how this has opened me up to new and exciting experiences I would never have dreamed possible. I have been set free from so many shame filled chains that for so many years had bound me. So personally speaking 2016 was one of unimagined wonder. I could not be more grateful. I also know if I continue the way I have lived for the last 13 or more years that greater personal freedom will come. Many years ago I learnt the power of living by faith and hope and love and I will continue to do so; I will continue to follow this simple and beautiful way of living.

That is not to say that 2016 was all beautiful and wonderful. As I look around at the world in which I live I witness much that disturbs me. Division and fear does seem to be on the increase as does instability. The political landscape has changed these last 12 months and has left an increasing sense of fear for many of us. And yet as I walk around the town in which I live everyday, life is much the same. People are much the same as they have always been. Yes everything changes and yet somehow everything still seems much the same. People are the same as they have always, let us not become victims of our own bad dreams.

Life is constantly changing, nothing ever stays exactly the same and no moment is exactly like any other. We all experience these moments differently too; we each bring our pasts with us into each moment and this always impacts on the present.

That said despite the changing nature of our material lives there are things that do seem permanent, that do not change. There are some things that hold us and sustain us despite the constant changing nature of life. The last thirteen years of my life has proven this to me, there have been three unchanging things that have held and sustained me and kept me open to life despite its uncertainty. Things that have held me even during some deeply painful experiences. The three are faith, hope and love.

It was Paul of Tarsus, in the 13th Chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians who named these three that have held me and led me these last thirteen years. I have seen many others held by them too, through many storms in their lives. There is something eternal about them, something universal and they were at work long before he wrote about them. We can rely upon these three, but only if we nurture and strengthen them. We can depend upon these three faith, hope and love. But what do these three mean?

Faith is about trusting in life itself; it is about living as openly and honestly as possible; it is about accepting that there is pain in life, but that there is also so much joy; it is realising that the mere fact that we exist at all is life’s greatest gift. This allows us to sing the joy of living, in all its mystery. It is also about seeing that we are all in this together, that we all live in the one lifeboat. We need to connect as much as possible to the boat of life in which we share. We need to ensure that our lifelines are secure and not worn or frayed at the edges. This is something we need to hold onto and not let go of. Why, you may well ask? Well because it sustains us through the vicissitudes of life. Life does not offer much certainty, but we need not despair at this, or at least not stay in despair.

Hope is the second of those eternal, universal truths. Hope is rooted in despair; it grows from the same place. To live in hope is to believe that if we live with conviction and compassion that we can effect positive change in our world, even if we ourselves do not get see to see its full fruition. Hope is about planting those seeds when and where ever we can.

To live with hope is to live with the attitude that the future is genuinely open. The God of my understanding works with us and guides us but leaves life open, it is not pre-ordained. “The Lure of Divine Love” draws us out of ourselves, but it also allows life to develop freely. I accept that the past does have power, I have a strong sense of history, this is very important. That said I do not believe that the past defines the future, not everything is inevitable. The future is unwritten.

Life is definitely a journey worth taking, even during its toughest moments. Yes we all despair at times and we all live with uncertainty, but the beacon of hope is always there. The writer of the book of proverbs reminds us “Where there is no vision (no hope) the people perish.” Hope is a vital lifeline it both holds and sustains us. It is an eternal and universal principle and one that also requires nurture.

What about love? How can it sustain us? By the way I am not talking of romance here, I am talking of spiritual love. Spiritual love is that power that connects us to our true selves, one another, the life we share and whatever it is that connects all life. What I myself call God; that power that is greater than all and yet present in each. It is love that powers the lifeboat, that puts wind in its sails. Love is about caring deeply and passionately about life itself. This of course requires attention; it is a life line that requires nurture. Love reminds me that we do not live for ourselves alone or by ourselves alone. “no man is an island” or as Kurt Vonnegut once put it “one human being is no human being”. The universal and eternal truth is that we need the love, the care, the companionship of others in order to fully experience what it is to be alive. By ourselves we are never fully alive.

If we live by these three faith, hope and love we will know what it means to truly live and experience the joy of living, even in the dark days.

Today, New Year’s Day, is a day of new beginnings; today is a day when if we want to commit to anything perhaps we ought to commit to beginning again in love.

New Years Day is a time for new beginnings, a time for hope of what might be and a time to reflect on what has been before us. And yet it is just a day, much like any other day really. The sun has risen, as it has always risen and in a few hours time it will set, as it has always set.

So let’s look forward with new eyes, with fresh eyes. Let’s look back and commit to learn from our pasts. Let’s learn to live with increased faith, hope and love.

Whatever this year brings us, let us resolve to build lives of faith, hope and love.

 Let’s begin again this day and every day in love.

I will end with some words of beginning by Edward Searl

Always there is a beginning —
a new day,
a new month,
a new season,
a new year.

Forever the old passes away 
and newness emerges
from the richness that was.

Nothing is ever lost
in the many changes
time brings.

What was, in some way,
will be,
though changed in form.

Know this:
This moment is a beginning;
and your lives,
individually and together,
are full of richness, of freshness,
of hope and of promise.

From “We Pledge Our Hearts” by Edward Searl