The Odyssey: Xenia and the Art of Hospitality

In the last piece we explored Homer’s “The Odyssey” looking specifically at Odysseus’ journey home, his “Nostos”. Today I am exploring another central theme of the epic poem, this being “Xenia” or “Philoxenia”. What in Christopher Nolan’s recent blockbuster film based on “The Odyssey” is referred to as “Zeus’ Law”. “Xenia” has been translated to mean “guest friendship” or “Love of a stranger”.

We will explore Xenia’s parallels with other traditions, an example being hospitality in the Abrahamic ones. We will also explore ways to be both a good host and a good guest. Ways in which we may bring the spirit of Xenia alive in our current time and place.

In ancient Greece the concept of “Xenia” or “guest friendship” was something that a “virtuous person” would be expected to cultivate. It was developed from the ancient’s belief that gods visited humans and thus any guest may well be a god in disguise. One example found in “The Odyssey” is there right at the beginning of the epic, when Athena visits Odysseus’s son, Telemachus. Athena first appeared as Mentes, a family friend, and later as Mentor to encourage the young prince to search for his missing father. When Odysseus finally returns to Ithaca, Athena repeatedly visits him, altering his appearance into an old beggar so he can safely plan his revenge against the arrogant suitors. Another example would be Hermes being sent by Zeus to visit the nymph Calypso on her island to command her to release Odysseus, and later visits Odysseus himself to warn him about the witch.

You can see Xenia thread through “The Odyssey”. Virtually every encounter manifest as a test of it. There good and bad examples of being both a good host and guest. Examples of good hosts would be Nestor, Menelaus, the Phaeacians, as well as the swineherd Eumaeus. They welcome strangers with food, shelter, and gifts before they ask who they are. Their generosity reflects both good character and respect for Zeus Xenios, the protector of guests.

Now bad hosts and bad guests face consequences. The Cyclops Polyphemus rejects Xenia by imprisoning and eating his visitors, while the “Suitors” in Odysseus' palace abuse his hospitality by consuming his food, disrespecting his household, and plotting against his son.

The “Suitors” repeated violations of Xenia ultimately lead to their downfall when Odysseus returns and reclaims his home. Throughout the epic, Homer presents hospitality not as simple politeness, but as one of the foundations of a just and civilized society. It is painting an ideal by which a virtuous person ought to live. The obligation though is not just for the host, but also the guest, the visitor have their obligations too. In “The Odyssey” Xenia acts as the moral bedrock and a crucial testing ground for civilization. Xenia is understood as a sacred duty that holds civilization together.

King Alcinous and Queen Arete (The Phaeacians), portray the Xenia ideal. They welcome Odysseus when he washes ashore broken and nameless, feeding him, bathing him, and offering safe passage home before ever asking his identity. They embody the purest form of spiritual grace and civilized duty. Another example would be Nestor and Peisistratos. Odysseus son Telemachus visits Pylos, where Nestor’s son immediately offers a seat at the feast and ritual hospitality, acting as a mentoring ritual for Telemachus to learn the noble codes of the Greek world. These are the embodiment of perfect examples of Xenia being offered by the host.

Now a classic example of Xenia not being followed would be that of Polyphemus the Cyclops. The “Mythologist Joseph Campbell saw the Cyclops as the ultimate spiritual trap of raw, lawless force and ego. Polyphemus rejects the gods and the sacred laws of Xenia by immediately asking who Odysseus is in a hostile manner and instead of offering a guest-gift, he traps and eats the men. Not what you want from a host.

An example of guests not fulfilling their Xenia obligation would be the suitors in Ithaka. They occupy Odysseus’s home, consume his livestock and abuse his home. Again as Joseph Campbell highlighted “the suitors” represent an archetypal social decay and "xenia gone bad" that demands a violent reckoning.

You can find parallels to Xenia within many of the great religious traditions. Here is an example from Christianity, found in the book of Hebrews chapter 13 v2. 2Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Who is showing hospitality to these strangers in our very midst?”

Showing hospitality and caring for the vulnerable in society is a key aspect of the Judeo - Christian and Islamic traditions. You will find it deeply rooted in the Abrahamic faiths and virtually every other world religion too. Hospitality is an essential spiritual practice. It begins with an open heart and a generosity of spirit. It’s about recognising the good in life and in people, especially those in need. It’s about recognising ourselves in those very same people. It’s about being open and welcoming to all, wherever they have been, wherever they are going and wherever they find themselves now. Tibetan Buddhist monks great the strangers visiting their temples with “Welcome, friend, from what noble spiritual tradition do you come.” The Christian monastic tradition has a long held practise of taking in strangers and offering them sanctuary as if they were Christ, inspired by those very words from Hebrews. In so doing they are following the example of Jesus who mingled with all people, there was no one left outside the city gate, no untouchables. Hospitality to me seems to be the whole concept of “Kin-dom of Love” right here right now.

Sadly, our age has become characterised by distrust, there is a fear of the strange and the stranger. Hospitality is an antidote to this, to quote Joan Chittister “Hospitality is the way we come out of ourselves. It is the first step toward dismantling the barriers of the world. Hospitality is the way we turn a prejudiced world around one heart at a time.” The importance of welcoming the stranger is at the root of all the great faith traditions.

In ancient Greece the concept of “Xenia” or “guest friendship” was cultivated. Xenia came out of the ancients belief that gods visited humans and the fear that a guest may well be a god in disguise. You find similar stories in Middle-Eastern cultures also. One key story from Genesis is to key to the Abrahamic traditions. This story of Abraham’s guests has a moral to teach us all. The guests are revealed to be angels; in fact it is implied strongly that one may well be God himself. They tell the childless and aged Abraham and Sarah that they will have a son. They given the ultimate gift as a reward for showing hospitality to strangers in their land.

Being a gracious host is a primary requirement of Islam. The Qur’an 4. 36-37 reads:

“Be kind to parents.and near kins man, and to orphans, and to the needy, and to the neighbour who is of kin, and to the neighbour who is a stranger, and to the companion at your side, and to the traveller.”

Another classic example of duty to take care of the stranger is the parable of the “Good Samaritan” You may well recall that a Jewish man lay on the side of the road beaten bloody and dying. As he lay there a Jewish priest and an official of the temple both past him by and ignored him. Then a Samaritan came by, a despised enemy of the Israelites, and he looked after the man and paid for his shelter at a local inn. He welcomed the stranger. To me this is a classic example of Xenia in the Christian tradition.

Many of the great traditions have brought witnesses of light to humanity and they have often shone in the darkest of times. Many of the myths and folk tales talk of the importance of offering hospitality to the stranger. If we welcome the stranger without hope or reward, we will be rewarded way beyond our wildest dreams. This holds true, in my belief, whether or not they have supernatural powers. If we welcome the stranger, we will reap untold rewards. There is nothing new here, this is at the heart of “Xenia”, portrayed in the Odyssey.

It is not just about being a welcoming host though. To practice Xenia is also about being a good guest. At the heart of being a good guest is humility, think of Odysseys when he washes ashore at the Phaeacians. He accepts the help on offer and tells his story, he offers himself he recognises their interconnectedness, it is a grace filled encounter. In so doing he is fulfilling his Xenia, he is being a gracious guest.

It reminds me of the following contemporary piece “The Fine Art of the Good Guest” by Jeffrey Lockwood. It illustrates the importance of being a good guest and gratefully receiving what is on offer. Jeffrey Lockwood is suggesting that we should listen to what the host has to offer by graciously accepting his food or activities, however peculiar they may seem to us. This is Xenia and a wonderful example of it.

Here is Jeffrey’s offering.

“The Fine Art of the Good Guest” by Jeffrey Lockwood

The most important thing that I’ve learned in travelling to more than twenty countries is the art of being a guest. And I’m a particularly fine visitor at the supper table. I’ve consumed live fish in Inner Mongolia, not-quite-coagulated blood sausage on the Tibetan plateau, shredded pig’s ear in China, grilled lamb fat in Uzbekistan, horse steaks in Kazakhstan, vodka made from fermented mare’s milk in Siberia, vegemite in Australia, goat in Brazil, and snails in France. I don’t have an iron stomach, by any means, but I do have the will to be a virtuous visitor.

We are all visitors—even when we are home. Our time in any relationship or place is ultimately limited. We are passing through; nobody stays forever. How might we act if we consider ourselves guests in the lives of friends and family? Being a good guest is rather simple in principle but occasionally challenging in practice.

One begins by demanding nothing more than the bare elements of life and dignity, which every host is more than delighted to exceed. The good guest then simply allows the other person to be a good host—to share his gifts, to play her music, to tell his stories, to show her places, and to serve his foods. Finally, a guest should cultivate and express genuine gratitude. It need not be effusive or exorbitant, only sincere.

We might also think of ourselves as uninvited, but not unwelcome, guests of the planet. And I think the rules for being a good guest of the world are just the same: Ask little, accept what is offered, and give thanks.

I recently visited my mum and enjoyed some “Traditional Fish Chips”, cooked in “Beef Dripping”. I was chatting with a friend who is originally from Oxford and now lives in central Manchester. He told me about a “traditional fish chip shop found on Cross Street in the city. He mentioned sayings on the wall, one being a famous quotation by Milton Friedman stating, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch”. Suggesting there is a price to pay for everything. Personally, I have never found this to be true. I have received generosity and countless free meals throughout my life. I may not have acknowledged it at the time, but looking back so much has been given to me without any expectation of it being returned. I have of course given to others, even if it just my time throughout my life. The giving is not direct, paid back to those who gave to me, but indirect, it is for those in need. This to me is very much the spirit of Xenia.

Poet Philosopher David Whyte has spoken extensively of the abundance of free meals he has been given throughout his life. He says his life has been sustained by unexpected generosity, vulnerability, and the invisible help of strangers at crucial crossroads.

One powerfully and life changing example he often speaks of is when he survived a near fatal bout of dysentery in the Himalayas. He stumbled half dead into the home of Tibetan family he did not know. They took him in and nursed him with local provisions. They asked nothing in return. This was a life changing moment for Whyte, his life was never the same again and led to him feeding and nourishing the world with language and words. He moved from being a good guest to becoming a good host, in so doing he is fulfilling his Xenia.

This is exemplified in his poem “Loaves and Fishes”

“Loaves and Fishes” by David Whyte

This is not
the age of information.

This is not
the age of information.

Forget the news,
and the radio,
and the blurred screen.

This is the time of loaves
and fishes.

People are hungry,
and one good word is bread
for a thousand

Whyte’s philosophy suggests that our lives are not an isolated struggle, but a continuous, primal exchange where "one good word" or a shared meal acts as deep nourishment for the hungry. He views these gifts as reminders that we are fundamentally interconnected and that receiving grace gracefully is part of the conversational nature of life. To me this seems like a modern day embodiment of “Xenia”

“Xenia” begins by recognising that each encounter has divine potential within it. That we need to greet one another in such a way. This mutual reverence is portrayed beautifully in the following story, “The Strangers Gift”.

“The Strangers Gift”

There was once a village that had fallen on very hard times. The villages had once been very happy, and their community had been famous for its hospitality and friendliness, and the warmth with which it welcomed strangers.

But something had gone wrong in the village. People had begun to bicker with one another. Quarrels broke out for no apparent reason. Rivalry sprang up where once there had been friendship and trust. The chief of the village was very sad about this. He knew that the people would never be happy like this, but he could do nothing to restore the old times of harmony and peace. Strangers no longer wanted to visit the village. The people stopped caring for it. The village was falling into ruin.

But it happened that one day a stranger came by. He approached the village like one with a mission, as though he already knew what he would find there. And very soon, he met the village chief. He recognised the sad expression in his eyes, and the two were soon engaged in a serious conversation.

The village chief told the stranger about his feelings of despair, and his fears that soon the village would disintergarate. The stranger told the village chief that he might know a way to redeem the lost village, and restore it to a real community again.

“Tell me the secret,” The village chief begged the stranger.

“The secret is very simple,” the stranger said, by way of reply.

“The fact is, one of the villagers is actually the Messiah”

The village chief could hardly believe what he was hearing, yet the stranger had an air of authority about him that was irrefutable.

The stranger left, but the village chief couldn’t resist telling his closest friend what the stranger had told him. Soon the rumour ran through the village like wildfire.

“One of us is the Messiah! Can you believe it, somewhere, hidden among our number, the messiah is living.!”

Now deep down, the villagers were a godly folk who wanted things to be right in their community. The thought that the Messiah himself might be living among them, incognito, made them see things very differently. Could it be the baker? They wondered. Or the postman? Or the old lady who breeds chickens and sells eggs? Perhaps its old granny Riley, whom the children were in the habit of taunting because of her scarred old face. The speculation went on and on.

But the strange thing was that, after the stranger’s visit, things were never the same again. People began to treat each other with reverence. They lived like people who had a common purpose, and who were seeking for something very precious together, never quite knowing whether the treasure was actually right in front of them.

Before long, visitors began to come to the village, just to be part of the happy, holy atmosphere that prevailed there. The stranger never came back. He didn’t need to.

The stranger brought the greatest gift that the people of the village could have wished for, he taught them how to learn to revere one another. That the divine was in some sense in all of them and that if they cared and nurtured one another, as it did. Now of course he tricked them into this in some sense, but would they have listened if he’s just told them to do this?

But then isn’t that how the great stories work. They tell us one thing which often leads to something far more wonderful than could ever have imagined. Something that is found throughout “The Odyssey”.

“The Odyssey” is an ancient tale. It may seem far away and far fetched, but there at the heart is a universal message teaching how we should be with another. That we ought o treat each other as if we were Divine, with love honour and respect, to welcome the stranger as a friend, we just don’t yet know.

May we see in the face of our neighbour, who we do not know, the divine light that is in all things. May we both give and receive Xenia in all that we feel, all that we think, all that we say and all that we do.

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

Somebody To Lean On

"Lean on me" Bill Withers

Where do you turn in times of trouble, who or what do you lean on? I turn to people of course I do but for me the most important place I turn in times of trouble is God. These last twelve months I have turned, turned and turned again in difficult times. By turning to that infinite source that is never not there I am then better able to be of service to others. Something I have been able to do so in some pretty dark days these last 12 months, something I have been able to do these last few years.

I have been physically very ill these last two weeks and I have to say that prayer has helped immensely as I have had to just lay down and come to terms with the being completely incapacitated by illness. I have been deeply moved by the offers of help from so many people. It is good to know that you are loved. I have let people help me too. Perhaps this is the greatest gift you can give a person. For if I have learnt anything in life I have learnt that in that space when we give and receive, when we help one another, the Love that is God once again incarnates in life.

I am also grateful for those souls who have helped me in so many ways at different stages in my life. I have been guided during the darker times in my life. I have also been helped by people I have never even met by people who died even before I was born as everyone has. Those who passed on what they knew and helped those in their time and place that have impacted on we who live today. I noticed last week that 24th January was the 44th anniversary of Bill Wilson’s death. He died nine months before I was even born. He was one of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous and the legacy that he has left behind have brought new life to millions of the lost and hopeless. That simple message of love and service that transformed his life and millions of others including me.

I have been carried in so many ways by so many people, often without noticing it. I offer eternal thanks and praise for this.

This brings to mind one of my favourite stories. Ir goes by the name "Heaven and Hell" or sometimes "Chopsticks"...

What are the differences between Heaven and Hell?, a young Zen monk asked an aged Buddhist priest who was renowned for his wisdom.

“There are no material difference,” replied the old monk.

“None at all?” asked the puzzled young monk.

“That’s right. Both Heaven and Hell have a spacious hall with a big pot in the centre in which noodles are boiled, giving off a delicious scent,” said the old priest. “The size of the huge pan, the number of people sitting around the pot and the bowl of sauce placed in front of each diner are the same in both places.”

“The odd thing is that each diner is given a pair of meter-long chopsticks and must use them to eat the noodles.”

“To eat the noodles, you must hold the chopsticks properly at their ends,” the old monk told the young Zen monk.

“In the case of Hell’s kitchen, people are always hungry because no matter how hard they try, they can’t get the noodles into their mouths,” said the old priest.

“But isn’t it the same for the people in Heaven? The junior monk inquired.

“No. They can eat because they each feed the person sitting opposite them at the table. That’s the difference between Heaven and Hell,” explained the old monk.


I love this story, one of my all-time favourites. I have come across several other versions of it from other traditions too. There is an almost identical version that is told from a Jewish perspective. In this tale the chopsticks are replaced with spoons.

In the story Heaven and Hell appear exactly the same and yet they are experienced oh so differently. In Hell all go hungry because everyone tries to feed themselves only, they are purely self reliant. And yet in heaven they attempt to feed one another and are therefore fed in abundance. To me this is as much about the relationships as the food going into one another’s mouths. I believe that we all possess an innate need to serve one another that if we do not do this part of our natural humanity withers away and dies off. By not serving one another we starve our souls.

I think that one of the greatest delusions of the modern era is the myth of self reliance, this idea that as individuals we have all that we need and that we do not need one another. Jeffrey Lockwood in his meditation “to ask is to give” claims that:

“...One of the great blessings of travel is to be put in a position of asking help from others, to be genuinely needful of strangers. Our illusion of self-reliance evaporates as the unexpected and unfamiliar merge into vulnerability. We offer the gift of authentic need, the opportunity for deep trust. We express to another person the most humanizing cross-cultural phrase: “Please help me.”...In our society, self-sufficiency is heralded as a virtue, and chronic dependence on others can be degrading. But never being asked to help another person is isolating, even dehumanizing. In a culture that exalts autonomy, asking for help may be one of the greatest gifts we offer. So much of life has become a calculation of costs and benefits; to ask assistance is to create the opportunity for unconditional giving in raw, spiritual defiance of economic rationality. We become mutually indebted without expectation of repayment. Each person in the relationship becomes a giver and receiver. Each one becomes more human. Each one has something to be thankful for.”

There are several slightly different accounts in the Gospels of Jesus feeding crowds of people. Now there is a real danger of losing the meaning behind these tales by engaging in winding arguments about their factual accuracy; to get hung up on a debate as to whether or not Jesus could feed the thousands of people present with just a few fish and loaves. Is this really what these stories are about? I do not think so. To get hung up on the factual accuracy is to miss the whole point of the teaching behind the story. Mythological tales are not about fact they are about revealing deeper universal truths.

There is a line in one account from Mark’s gospel (Ch 8 vv 1-9) where we hear the words “They ate and were filled”. During a conversation I had with Rev Brian Jackson a sadly recently deceased Methodist minister, this account really came to life. He explained that the story is really about the encounter that goes on between the disciples and the crowd that by feeding them face to face they are serving them, they are ministering to them. Yes the crowd’s physical hunger is met, while at the same time everyone’s spiritual hunger is met. Seemingly everyone ate and everyone was filled, abundantly, to overflowing.

"From you I receive to you I give, together we share and from this we live."

It is not always easy asking for help and not always because of pride. In order to sincerely ask for help we have to trust who or what's hands we are putting our lives in.

I recently came across the following extract taken from “Telling Secrets” by Frederick Buechner

“Trust”

I remember sitting parked by the roadside once, terribly depressed and afraid about my daughter's illness and what was going on in our family, when out of nowhere a car came along down the highway with a license plate that bore on it the one word out of all the words in the dictionary that I needed most to see exactly then. The word was TRUST. What do you call a moment like that? Something to laugh off as the kind of joke life plays on us every once in a while? The word of God? I am willing to believe that maybe it was something of both, but for me it was an epiphany. The owner of the car turned out to be, as I'd suspected, a trust officer in a bank, and not long ago, having read an account I wrote of the incident somewhere, he found out where I lived and one afternoon brought me the license plate itself, which sits propped up on a bookshelf in my house to this day. It is rusty around the edges and a little battered, and it is also as holy a relic as I have ever seen.

...what a beautiful story...

I passed it on to a friend of mine and in reply she sent me the following message...

"Wow!! My mum & sister often see licence plates in the states too, in the traffic or on cars just cruising along in front of them & only yday my sister sent me this......! & this is the license plate they see often."



The name that they see is "Alf", the name of her brother who sadly died...it is no surprise to me that this is the sign they see most often...

“Trust” an interesting word. In whom or what do we trust? What does it mean to trust? I believe that trust is about the heart, more than the head. In many ways it is a matter of faith. James Fowler taught that faith is really about what we trust, pointing out that the word “credo” which one normally translates as “I believe” really means “I trust”. He claims that belief is of the mind but faith and trust is of the heart. Claiming that "Trust" is about passion it’s about embracing life whole heartedly. It’s about awe and humility. It’s an active thing too. It is a way of being and living and breathing and doing. In some ways it resembles hope in that it is something that with give birth to through our own hearts. We gain trust, because we trust wholeheartedly.

Ernest Hemingway said, “The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.” We become more trusting by living in a trusting way. It’s about having faith in life and ourselves. That said it does not mean that everything will work out as we want it to just because we trust. Sometimes it won’t.

Trust grows like faith if we live with it in our hearts. It grows through trial and error, by reaching out; like love and hope and anything else that really matters. We develop trust by simply trusting. It takes real courage to trust. And of course to have courage is to live whole heartedly.

Trust is not the expectation that everything will work out as we want it too. Trust is more about how we are in any given situation, how we behave in any given situation. Trust is not just about expecting things to work out immediately but that things will come good someday.

Steve Jobs the creature of Apple, who died a couple of years ago said, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” Trust is a risk; it is a reaching out without knowing what will come next.

Trust is about something more than ourselves of course. Trust is about relying on more than just our own resources; trust is about learning to rely on the whole of life. It is about leaning on others at times and allowing them to lean on you. It is about more than self. It’s about opening ourselves to one another and to that greater reality that permeates all life. To put it another way. It’s about letting go and letting God.

So in who or what do you trust? In times of trouble who or what do you lean on? Do you trust? Can others trust in you? Something to ponder perhaps...

I’m going to end with a few thoughts by Gunilla Norris titled “Flying with equals” taken from "Journeying in Place: Reflections from a country Garden"

I get a rush of hopeful feeling when I hear geese honking. I have never completely understood why. At first I thought it was because they had the freedom of the skyways . . . something high and romantic . . . something in contrast to my earthbound existence. But lately I have learned more about geese through an article a friend brought to share. This new information has fleshed out that spontaneous inner feeling of mine.

What I learned is that of all the creatures that I can see in this landscape, the geese best represent the communion of saints. They depend on one another. The lead goose does the most work, but when it is tired, it falls back and another takes its place. To be able to rely on others is a deep trust that does not come easy.

The geese fly in the wake of one another’s wings. They literally get a lift from one another. I want to be with others this way. Geese tell me that it is, indeed, possible to fly with equals.

The high honking I hear when I stand on the ground and look up is the sound of encouragement the geese make to keep on flying. It is a loud and happy sound in my ears. I want to honk with others on the journey.

Catching falling leaves

(This blog was first published during autumn 2012)

I am someone who attempts to practise what they preach. Yes of course I do not do this perfectly but I do at least try.

In recent blogs I have spoken several times that spiritual development requires an increased sensitivity to life and that one way of achieving this is to listen, to really listen to people as they speak. This takes discipline. Well actually it takes more than that, it takes obedience. To increase my sensitivity to life, requires me to be obedient to life itself. This is no easy task.

Now you may not like the sound of this. Obedience is a word that probably sounds too passive to the 21st century ear. This is certainly true in the modern understanding of the word. Today when we hear the word obedience or obedient we think of yielding to the authority of another, which does indeed sound unhealthy and potentially exploitative. 

The problem stems from our current understanding of the word. Obedience is one of those words that has changed in meaning over time. If you look at the etymology of the word it comes from the Latin audere, which means to listen. Actually it is more than that; it means to listen and to understand. Words like audio and audit are also formed from the same root.

Obedient originally meant to listen and to hear what is being said. As I have said many times before you give no greater service to a person than to listen to them and to hear what is being said. It is the same with life by the way. To truly understand life you have listen to it with all your heart, with the sense of your senses. If you do you truly live; you are truly alive.

I recently spent a week catching up with family and friends. During this time I made a real effort to listen and to hear what was being said by the people I spent time with. I made a conscious effort to be obedient to what they were saying. Now of course this was painful at times as I bore witness to the joy and suffering of those I love. Thankfully these days I am able to remain obedient to this. I do not turn away.

I heard many tales, one of which could only be told at this time of the year. This was story of a friend walking in the park with his grandchildren. They were enjoying the autumn leaves together, the colours, the rustling under their feet, when suddenly the children shouted out, “let’s play the catching leaf game”. 

My friend had never even heard of it before, let alone played it. The game goes something like this; you look at the trees and watch for when the leaves begin to fall. As you see one falling you attempt to catch the leaf before it hits the ground. This is apparently no easy task, although it doesn’t sound too challenging. After all it’s just a leaf, it has no mind of its own and gravity should surely bring it down safely into your hands. Well apparently not. It seems that there are other forces at work, namely the wind. My friend said it was virtually impossible to catch the leaves as they fell because they would constantly be blown off course by sudden and unpredictable gusts of wind.

Isn’t life like this, beautiful but unpredictable. The leaves rarely fall directly into our hands. How often are they blown off course just as we are about to catch them.

The wind is a powerful, an ungovernable, beast. It pays no attention to our wants and needs and desires. Once again we have seen this power in the last few days. We have witnessed the devastating effects of the wind as Hurricane Sandy swept across the Caribbean and the east coast of America, with devastating effect. Many homes and livelihoods have been destroyed and many lives have been lost.  It even brought the presidential election to temporary hold. We are very fortunate in Britain that we do not suffer from the extreme weather that many people in other parts of the world have to contend with. although it has to be said we do complain about it a lot!

The wind truly is an ungovernable beast that cannot be tamed. The same can be said for all of life, which will always remain unpredictable. All of us can at times be swept away by the vicissitudes of life, with little or no warning. A bit like the dandelions I wrote of in a previous blog we have to learn to not only except this but learn to love these vicissitudes as part of the joy of living. The key is to learn not take these troubles personally. If the weather is one thing, it is democratic. When it rains in Manchester, it rains on everyone.

How though can we not only learn to accept and love life, but to also not take it personally? Well, it begins by becoming obedient to life itself, to accept life as it truly is. What is required is the ability to listen and to really hear life and to learn to dance in those winds as they gust in and through us. The key is to be in harmony with life itself and to truly understand that we are all in this together. Oh and to learn to play or at least remember how we use to play when we were children. It might be an idea, while there are still leaves on the trees, to go out and try and catch them as they are falling.

Jeffrey Lockwood in his beautiful meditation “Go Fly a Kite” wrote:

“To be sane, embrace the wind. But to be joyous, fly a kite. Dance between caprice and control. The wind pulls the fragile sail upward and the flyer plays out the string. Left to the turbulence, the kite will be dashed to the ground or swept over the horizon. Left on the ground, the kite is moribund, stagnant. But between sky and earth is enchantment.

We are kites, buffeted by the vicissitudes of the spirit, the squalls of fortune, the breezes of intuition, and the glorious gusts of chance encounters. And we are stabilized by a tail - the solidity of the mind, the bedrock of reason, the granite of science. If our tail is too heavy, we never leave the ground. If it is too light, we spin crazily.

The people in our lives - family, lovers, friends, community - are the braided strands, a kite string that sustains the dynamic tension between heaven and earth. They are a lifeline that allows us to be uplifted, to see farther, to live more fully. And the higher we fly, the stronger our string must be. For when our connection becomes worn and frayed it can snap, and we will come tumbling back to earth, landing far from where we left, with nobody to repair our breaks or mend our tears.

And so rejoice in the wind - but attend to your string.”

Rejoice in the wind – but attend to your string. How on earth do we do that?

The key it would seem is the string itself. It is this that sustains us that enables us not only to live, even with all the vicissitudes of life, but to fully enjoy the experience. Our families, our loved ones and our communities are part of that string, but they are not all of it. We each of us have things that hold and sustain us when the winds of life blow, or when they don’t blow. It is strange but I often find that I am at my best in the middle of a crisis, or a storm. Sometimes the hardest days for me are when all is calm and quiet and still. Sometimes that is when the real trouble visits. I know that I am not unique in this.

It is spiritual practise and primarily prayer that holds me and sustains me, it is this that keeps my string in good health. I often pause to pray and connect to life many times throughout the day. I am obedient to this practise. It enables me to listen to and to truly hear life, with the ears of my heart. When I live this way I am more able to speak the language of the heart and to attempt to practise what I preach.

Every Tuesday morning I attend a meditation group. This little group has been vital to maintaining the string that allows me to fully live.  This Tuesday as I went to collect the milk I looked up the sky just as it was becoming light. At the same time the week before it was still dark, I recognised this as a blessing from the clocks going back. The sky that morning had some beautiful pink tinges to it. I also noticed a flock of Canada geese flying past, migrating for the winter. I thought to myself what a beautiful blessing. I also noted some sadness too as I wondered to myself, maybe the beauty of the sky at that moment was in some way related to the horrors brought by hurricane Sandy on  the other side of the Atlantic. These thoughts may of course be nonsense and I am sure that any scientists reading this blog can correct me on this.

Not that it matters too much to me whether it is true or not. What is important is that at the moment I was able to connect to all of life. Not just within me and around me, but in other parts of the world too. The moment increased my sensitivity to life itself; the moment made me obedient to life itself. It allowed me to dance in the joy of the moment and fully appreciate the gift that is life itself, while also acknowledging the suffering in other parts of the world. Life is truly awry.

"By breath, by blood, by body, by spirit...we are all one..."

Fellowship: Creating Sacred Space

Below is a link to a talk I delivered at R.E. Summer held at the Nightingale Centre at Great Hucklow in Derbyshire. It includes a short period of devotional worship at the beginning before the talk itself begins. Below the link is the full transcript of the talk.

http://www.hucklowsummerschool.org.uk/audio/ThemeTalk_DannyCrosby_22August2012.mp

Light Chalice

Welcome to this sacred space...here love dwells...you are most welcome

May we be reminded here of our highest aspirations, and be inspired to bring our gifts of love and service to the altar of humanity.

May we know once again that we are not isolated beings but connected, in mystery and miracle, to the universe, to this sacred space, to each other and to God.

Let us begin our worship in the spirit of Love.

Hymn 24 “Come sing a song with me”

Prayer

I invite you now to join together in a time of prayer...

Oh Great Mystery, help us to experience you here in our lives.
Help us to see you as you blow 
through the branches of the great trees.
Help us to feel you as you gust through our fields and streets.
Help us to taste you on the breath of those we hold most dear.

(silence)

Be with us when we are afraid to delve within,
when we cannot face ourselves in the glass,
when we are paralysed by our guilt and our shame.

Sustain us as we open the windows to our hearts,
and stand before our world, exposed . . . but ready.

(silence)

God of love, open our eyes.
Help us to discover that we are not
who we thought that we were . . .
that we need not fear our natures.

(silence)

What lies at the centre of our being,
and all creation, is love.

(silence)

Love. . .unconditional. . .love...everlasting. . .love....love

Amen

Story

Once upon a time...long long ago...in Japan, a woman prayed that God would show her the difference between heaven and hell. She wanted to know whether there were fires in hell, and whether the people in heaven sat around on clouds all day playing harps. She didn’t fancy going to either place if that was all they had to offer.

She prayed so hard that God decided to answer her prayer, and he sent an angel to give her a guided tour of both places...angels are good like that...first she went to hell. It wasn’t hot at all; in fact it looked quite pleasant. There were long tables laden with food of all kinds – cooked meats, vegetables, fruit, delicious pies, and exotic desserts. “This can’t be hell,” she thought. Then she looked at the people. They were sitting some distance from the tables, and they were all miserable – emaciated, pale, angry. Each of them had chopsticks fastened to their hands, but the chopsticks were about three feet long and no matter how hard they tried, the people just couldn’t get the food into their own mouths. They were groaning with hunger, and frustration, and anger. “I’ve seen enough of this,” said the woman. “Show me heaven...May I see heaven now?”

The angel took the woman to heaven. They didn’t have far to go. It was just next door. It was almost the same as hell. There were the same kind of tables, the same kind of food, and here too, the people were sitting a little distance away from the tables with three-foot long chopsticks fastened to their hands. But these people seemed happy. They were rosy cheeked, and looked well fed. They were smiling and chatting merrily to each other. They couldn’t put the food into their mouths either, but they had discovered how to be fed and happy: they were feeding each other.

Hymn 200 “What does the Lord require?”

Theme Talk

Every Sunday Morning before beginning worship at Dunham Road I like to look up at the ceiling above me. Have any of you been to Dunham Road Chapel? It is so beautiful. There is so much that you can feast your eyes on, without anything being in your face. Before I begin leading worship I like to look up and offer a prayer; a prayer to remind me of why I am there; a prayer to remind me of what I believe the purpose of worship is; a prayer to remind me of what spiritual community is about; a prayer to remind me of what the purpose of religion truly is. As I look up I feel like I am standing beneath the hull of a great ship. Yes ok it’s one turned upside down. I’m cool with that as I’m someone who is always searching for the un-commonsense as opposed to the commonsense that I am told I should be seeking. Commonsense is so overrated, where as un-commonsense is so rarely absorbed. I hope in some sense that this talk will reveal some un-commonsense to you this morning. Why?  Because I reckon it’s only through un-commonsense that the Great Mystery truly reveals itself. 

When I look up at the ceiling I feel Like I’m dangling down towards the bottom of a great ship and when I then look up at the congregation I feel like we are all in this ship together. We are sailing in this ship together. We do not sail the ship alone. We are fellows in the same ship; we are journeying in a fellowship. I do not see it as an Ark though, more a cruise ship really, maybe it could be called a love boat. It is a fellowship of love, a fellowship of the spirit even. Each week we journey together. Ok I may well steer the ship, but I am not the navigator. After our weekly adventure, on our love boat, we go back out into the world, we go our separate ways and hopefully carry that spirit into our daily lives and into our world; to attempt to share some of this uncommon sense in our own little worlds. We go our separate ways, but are united in that spirit of love we have shared in our time together.

For the next half an hour or so I am going to attempt to steer you through a journey that will explore these concepts of the fellowship of love, of the fellowship of the sprit and hopefully when you leave you can perhaps carry what you have heard into your lives and let it live and breathe through you in your daily activities.

Earlier I shared with you the story “Heaven and Hell”. I first came across it in Bill Darlison’s book “The Shortest Distance”. It’s a great tale don’t you reckon? I have come across several other versions of it from other traditions too. There is an almost identical version that is told from a Jewish perspective. In this tale the chopsticks are replaced with spoons.

In the story Heaven and Hell appear exactly the same and yet they are experienced oh so differently. In Hell all go hungry because everyone tries to feed themselves only, they are purely self reliant. And yet in heaven they attempt to feed one another and are therefore fed in abundance. To me this is as much about the relationships as the food going into one another’s mouths. I believe that we all possess an innate need to serve one another that if we do not do this part of our natural humanity withers away and dies off. By not serving one another we starve our souls.

I think that one of the greatest delusions of the modern era is the myth of self reliance, this idea that as individuals we have all that we need and that we do not need one another. Jeffrey Lockwood in his meditation “to ask is to give” claims that:

“...One of the great blessings of travel is to be put in a position of asking help from others, to be genuinely needful of strangers. Our illusion of self-reliance evaporates as the unexpected and unfamiliar merge into vulnerability. We offer the gift of authentic need, the opportunity for deep trust. We express to another person the most humanizing cross-cultural phrase: “Please help me.”...In our society, self-sufficiency is heralded as a virtue, and chronic dependence on others can be degrading. But never being asked to help another person is isolating, even dehumanizing. In a culture that exalts autonomy, asking for help may be one of the greatest gifts we offer. So much of life has become a calculation of costs and benefits; to ask assistance is to create the opportunity for unconditional giving in raw, spiritual defiance of economic rationality. We become mutually indebted without expectation of repayment. Each person in the relationship becomes a giver and receiver. Each one becomes more human. Each one has something to be thankful for.”

There are several slightly different accounts in the Gospels of Jesus feeding crowds of people. Now there is a real danger of losing the meaning behind these tales by engaging in winding arguments about their factual accuracy; to get hung up on a debate as to whether or not Jesus could feed the thousands of people present with just a few fish and loaves. Is this really what these stories are about? I do not think so. To get hung up on the factual accuracy is to miss the whole point of the teaching behind the story. Mythological tales are not about fact they are about revealing deeper universal truths.

There is a line in one account from Mark’s gospel (Ch 8 vv 1-9) where we hear the words “They ate and were filled”.

In this account Jesus had spent three days with the people he feeds. He had not invited them to join him and therefore was certainly not obliged to feed them. I am sure that the crowd were not expecting to be fed by the meagre amount that the disciples brought, which was meant for them only. But what happens? Well Jesus recognises the crowds hunger and the fact that they have travelled a great distance to be with him, he expresses compassion for all of them. He asks the crowd to sit down and to share a meal with him. He then instructs the disciples to serve the people personally. The crowd eat and are filled. Not because their bodies were filled to the brim, but because their hunger was met in the most important way possible. What occurs is a true human encounter between the disciples and the crowd; the people are served face to face and are therefore truly loved and cared for. They had not only been physically fed they had been personally served and therefore their humanity recognised, each individuals hunger mattered.

From you I receive to you I give, together we share and from this we live.

  

We all thirst and hunger even in our seemingly materially abundant lives. We cannot feed this hunger in isolation in self reliance it is only fed in that relationship that occurs as we feed one another. This is fellowship to me. Fellowship is what occurs in the relationship between the two. In this relationship, in this space, we can know the Love of God.

We all hunger for purpose and meaning. As Viktor Frankl pointed out we are driven by a will to find meaning and purpose. I would go further and suggest that we are also driven to find companionship in our increasingly isolated and isolating culture. We need to serve one another, or our souls will starve. I have discovered and I keep on discovering that our deepest pangs are not satisfied by the food that is laid on the table but in the relationship that occurs as we feed one another and as we drink from one another’s cup. This is fellowship.

William Wordsworth once 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.”

“Spots of time” are moments in our lives that have the potential to change us forever. 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 “spots of time” are sacred moments that are made holy by their mysterious ability to nourish us and perhaps even repair us in body, mind, heart and soul. These moments are so special because they seem so rare. I suspect that they are a kind of grace; they seemingly come to us, from a place somewhere beyond ourselves.

Karen Armstrong believes that we can create these “spots of time” in each other’s lives. That small acts of kindness when we serve, feed, nourish one another can be spots that have the potential to change people’s lives forever. Can you recall “spots of time” in your own lives, those moments that lifted you up when once again you had fallen.

I wonder if we could break off into pairs for a few minutes and perhaps think and then share with each other moments in our lives, “spots of time” when someone has done something for you, or given you a moment of their time from their heart that has perhaps changed you, transformed you...a time when they have enjoyed true fellowship with you. After we have perhaps shared with one another we could come back together and perhaps if we would like to we could share with all who are here...

Sharing time for 5mins

I have served the good folk of Altrincham and Urmston for two years now. I feel that we have got to know one another quite well during this time. From the outset I made it a priority of mine to spend time talking, but above all else listening, to them. During the worship we have shared I have encouraged openness by allowing them to get to know me. Leading worship for me is about communicating the language of the heart. An address should never be a lecture that merely feeds the intellect. I hope to God this is not a lecture. This may well have been a challenge for some folk, but was a deliberate decision on my part in an attempt to give those present permission to be open with me. It was an attempt to feed one another; it was an attempt to develop fellowship. I have spent time with everyone connected with both congregations, visiting them in their own homes and talking with them about many things. This has been a real treasure to me, personally. We have some real gems hidden away in our congregations. I cannot begin to express how deeply moved I have been by what people have shared with me. Virtually every conversation has been littered with moving stories of love, of pain, of grief and of faith. I have heard some of the most incredible tales of personal spiritual experience, something I have a deep interest in. I have rarely left someone’s home without feeling that my life has been enhanced by the time we have just shared. I have felt welcomed into the lives of the people within both communities and for that I am profoundly grateful. They have fed me as I have fed them; they have given to me as I have given to them. We have truly enjoyed fellowship together, in this deepening relationship.

“Listen with the ear of your heart”, has become one of my mantras. It comes from “The Rule of Benedict” a set of ancient principles for monastic orders. The foundation of the rule is listening, deep attentive listening. It begins, “listen carefully, my child, to the instructions...and attend to them with the ear of your heart “.

I see this as a key component of fellowship, listening to one another “with the ear of our hearts” and of course to speak the language of the heart. If we do we may just begin to hear that uncommon sense spoken by that “Great Mystery”

A man approached Nasrudin and asked him, “how does one become wise?”. To which Nasrudin replied: “listen attentively to wise people when they speak. And when someone is listening to you, listening attentively to what you are saying!”

Ah Mulla Nasrudin, the wise fool. The “Holy Fool”. He spoke a lot of un-commonsense.

Ernest Hemingway once said "When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen."

Listening is about invitation. It is about inviting the other into our lives; it is about ‘making place for the other’. This is not always easy to do especially when engaging in conversation.

How many of us can really say that we listen to one another? When we begin to converse do we take time to truly listen to what the other person is saying? Or are we merely waiting for our turn to make our point? When we engage with one another are we really attempting to make space for them or is it all about us? Is it about our need to be heard? Are we in fact engaging with others in the hope that they will agree with us?

In “Forgotten Art of Deep Listening” Kay Lindahl asks us to:

“Think of the difference it would make if each of us felt really listened to when we spoke. Imagine the time it would save to be heard the first time around, instead of having to repeat ourselves over and over again. Envision a conversation in which each person is listened to with respect, even those whose views are different from ours. This is all possible in conversations of the heart, when we practice the sacred art of listening. It takes intention and commitment. We need to slow down to expand our awareness of the possibilities of deep listening. The simple act of listening to each other can transform all of our relationships. Indeed, it can transform the world, as we practice being the change we wish to see in the world.”

By listening we can begin to transform the world; by listening we begin to practise being the change we wish to see in the world.

About nine years ago I met a man in Oldham who changed my life, actually he saved my life. He taught me many things one of which was how to listen. This began with practising noticing when I wasn’t listening, when others were speaking. He taught me to observe when my mind wandered off or to notice when I was listening how much of my time was spent on working out what “brilliant” response I was going to make, in an attempt to refute what the other person was saying. He taught me that when we are listening to another we are extending ourselves to that person, we are giving them a gift; a gift that we can both share in. In making space for the other, we create a sacred space, we make space for God and we get a taste of heaven.

He taught me that when we listen to another we truly give of ourselves. Whereas when we only appear to be listening and are in fact judging or comparing ourselves to them we are in actual fact judging ourselves. He taught me that if we learn to listen to others, without judgement, we can begin to learn to accept them for who they truly are. By doing so we are learning to love them; by doing so we give them the dignity to be themselves; by doing so we dignify ourselves; by doing so we create a sacred space in that relationship between one another.

Now of course not all the great sages come from Oldham. Those of ancient times taught similar lessons to this ordinary man.

Karen Armstrong has highlighted that human dialogue has tended “...to be aggressive, a tradition we inherited from the ancient Greeks.” If we look at our world today we tend to debate competitively, whether we are public figures or just talking in the playground, the pub or through social media. Often when we are engaging in conversation we are trying to trip one another up, or prove one another wrong. How many of us can say that we are truly listening to one another?

Since ancient times the great sages have offered solutions to this competitive and aggressive way of communicating, but I’m not sure they have ever won out.

As Armstrong has highlighted:

“The Socratic dialogue was a spiritual exercise designed to produce a profound psychological change in the participants - and because its purpose was that everybody should understand the depth of his ignorance, there was no way that anybody could win.” The key as Plato highlighted “...is to ‘make place for the other’ in his mind and to listen intently and sympathetically to the ideas of his partners in dialogue...” Can you imagine this happening during Prime Minister’s Question Time today?

Other great sages such as the Buddha and Confucius conducted discussions in a similar manner. Confucius always developed his ideas in conversation. He did this because he felt that to achieve ‘maturity’ required this kind of friendly interaction. The Buddha taught his monks to converse kindly and courteously with one another. His lay disciple King Pasenadi of Kosla observed the contrast between his Royal Courts and the Buddha’s communities. In the courts everybody seemed to be looking out for themselves and they were always quarrelsome. Where as he observed that the monks were “...living together as uncontentiously as milk with water and looking at one another with kind eyes...smiling, courteous, sincerely happy...their minds remaining as gentle as wild dear.” They listened to one another, they served one another and they showed reverence to one another.

Listening is about making space for the other, it is an invitation; an invitation to create true spiritual intimacy. Listening is one way to release ourselves from the treadmill of own ego centric little worlds. It can release us from hell.

Listening is a loving practise and as such it requires discipline, it requires spirit and it requires devotion. It begins by being aware, mindful, of when we do not listen and re-committing to listening once again. It is one step towards living more empathically, more compassionately with one another. This is not an overnight matter. As Karen Armstrong herself says “...the attempt to become a compassionate human being is a lifelong project. It is not achieved in an hour or a day - or even in twelve steps. It is a struggle that will last until our dying hour.”

It begins with listening, by attempting to be the change we want to be. By truly listening, ‘with the ears of our hearts’ we can turn away from judgement toward empathy and understanding, we can truly invite the other into our lives.

We do not journey alone, we sail the ship of life together. I hope this little boat trip that we have shared together this morning as opened you up to the concept of fellowship, of the fellowship of the spirit. I hope that in some way it is has shown how vital it is that we invite the other into our lives, how we need one another and how vital it is that we truly give of ourselves to others and let others truly give of themselves to us. Let’s feed one another from each other’s hearts in our thoughts words and deeds.

It all begins by listening with the ears of our hearts. By doing so we may just begin to understand that un-common sense that is spoken through all of life, but so rarely heard.

Amen

Blessing

I would like to end with a short blessing

Go now in peace. 
Deeply regard each other. 
Truly listen to each other. 
Speak what each of you must speak. 
Be ready in any moment to disarm your own heart, 
and always live as if a realm of love had begun.

And may the blessings of God be with us in all that we feel, all that we think, all that we say and all that we do.