What's in a name?

An occasional visitor to the area asked me the other day “if I knew Cornelius?”. My answer was no I don’t know anyone by that name. He told me that Cornelius knew me really well. I wracked my brain, surely I would remember someone called Cornelius. He described him and where I knew him from, but still I could not place him. I began to wonder if I was losing my mind. The next day I was talking with the visitor again and Cornelius arrived, he introduced himself to folk, “hi my name is Bernard”. I have known Bernard for many years. Apparently, Cornelius is his middle name, but that was the part that the occasional visitor could remember, not his actual name.

It has had me chuckling to myself ever since, it also got me thinking.

What’s in a name? Names are important it seems. There is a power in naming people, places and things; a power that should never be under estimated. There is a power in naming anything, not just our personal names but our lives, who and what we are.

My older brother was named after our dad and his dad, our grandad. He was named Billy (short for William) at birth. I am told I was to be called David, although my paternal grandfather wanted to name me Harry after his beloved brother who had died as a young boy, my mum didn’t like the name though. We could have been William and Harry, I am glad we are not. In the end I was called Danny, because it went with Billy apparently and David didn’t. My full name is of course Daniel David, although I have never been called this, certainly never within the family. Interestingly my brother renamed himself some 20 odd years ago and is now called Otis Wolstenholme; Wolstenholme being my mum’s maiden name.

Many people do not go by the name on their birth certificates, not just musicians like our Otis. I remember many years ago attempting to visit Molly Clarke at Wythenshawe hospital and being told there was no one by that name there. I had to think quickly and remembered somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind that Molly was not Molly at all, but had another name. Sadly I couldn’t remember it. Her birth name was Enid Mary, she had though always been called Molly.

Naming can be a tricky business. Names describe things, but never fully a person or situation or thing. As Paul Tillich said, “That which reveals, also hides”. I suspect it is true with naming of things. As Justin Sullivan sang “Trouble always begins in the naming of things. Like Gods and desires, lines in the sand.” People change their names for a variety of reasons. Folk adopt stage names. Sometimes in naming things, we close and seal them. I have been known by other names like “Dan Denver” and even “Mr Jolly” (although in truth that was the name of the band, not me) a friend use to call me “Danny Darko”. In the Christian tradition people often take on conformation names. There are many other reasons too. Company’s, political parties, even places and sports teams change their names for a variety reasons, often in an attempt to rebrand something.

As Daniel C. Matt wrote in “God and the Big Bang”

“We need names to navigate through life, but those very names obscure the flowing continuum. Behind each handy name is a teeming reality that resists our neat definitions. If this is true of the names we assign to the hundreds of thousands of things of this world, how much more so with our names for God, for the Oneness of it all.”

It seems we are nothing without a name. Well actually not always it seems. Some of the most memorable characters in cinema history had no name. Such as Clint Eastwood’s character in the Serge Leone’s Spaghetti Western Trilogy, “The Man With No name”, or Sam Elliott’s character in “The Big Lebowski”, who was simply known as “The Stranger”, or Charlie Chaplin’s “The Little Tramp”, he had no name. Or “The Doctor” in Dr Who, Who is not the Dr’s name, Dr Who is the name of the series, he and now she is simply named “The Doctor”, the character though remains unnamed. Or “Fleabag”, in the series by Sophie Waller-Bridge who is not named, she is just known as “Fleabag”.

Most of us have a name though, we are known by our names. When we introduce ourselves we usually say, “hello my name is …” Our names are one way of connecting to others face to face.

We hopefully remember the persons name, although not always. I sometimes find myself wracking my brain trying to remember people’s names. I am not quite as bad as the guy who kept on referring to Bernard as Cornelius, but I am not great.

There can be other types of calling people by one word names that are less than connecting and inviting, they can be quite the opposite. I am not going to name such names here, but I am sure we can all think of some. They are often powerful words used to exclude people and make them feel somehow less than welcome. Such words deny the inherent worth and dignity of people, they reduce them to lesser people, or they try to. I am sure we can all recall such words and name calling.

Everything is know or named after something. Our congregation is a member of the General Assembly of Unitarian of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches. Now many ask “Unitarian! What is that?” Cliff Reid even wrote a marvellous book about it.

Unitarian originally meant “One God” as opposed to the three headed God of the Trinity in mainstream Christianity. These days most Unitarians are not overly concerned about this, the word Unitarian has lost its literal meaning for most of us. As historian Earl Morse Wilber explains: “The word Unitarian means freedom in religious belief and a trust that reason must guide our religious thought and action, and a conviction that tolerance, the cherishing of difference of opinion, is a good thing.”

The be Unitarian to me is about being open and accepting of difference, at its core is a sense of humility that keeps us open to new truths, each of us can only know so much, further understanding is aided by coming together and sharing, by so doing each of us gain so much. Tolerance and love though must also be guiding principles, as others may come to other conclusions and understandings and love, in its many forms is what finally holds us together. Actually I am not sure that tolerance is quite enough, I have come to believe that we need to celebrate difference and not just merely tolerate it.

So we name things, as we understand them, but this is often where the trouble begins, as the naming can create barriers that separate us from one another. This is particularly true when it comes to matters of faith and belief. Our Unitarian tradition gives us complete freedom here. So please remember that when I speak of God, I may not be speaking of the Divine in exactly the same way that you understand. God for me is a very open and inviting word.

I love the way that Forrest Church addressed this in “The Cathedral of the World: A Universalist Thelogy”

“God language can tie people into knots, of course. In part, that is because ‘God’ is not God's name. Referring to the highest power we can imagine, ‘God’ is our name for that which is greater than all and yet present in each. For some the highest imaginable power will be a petty and angry tribal baron ensconced high above the clouds on a golden throne, visiting punishment on all who don't believe in him. But for others, the highest power is love, goodness, justice, or the spirit of life itself. Each of us projects our limited experience on a cosmic screen in letters as big as our minds can fashion. For those whose vision is constricted (illiberal, narrow-minded people), this can have horrific consequences. But others respond to the munificence of creation with broad imagination and sympathy. Answering to the highest and best within and beyond themselves, they draw lessons and fathom meaning so redemptive that surely it touches the divine.”

It can be difficult to speak of the Divine in any sense that keeps us open, trouble always begins in the naming of things. This brings to mind good old Moses in Exodus. The book depicts him fleeing Egypt to escape the consequences of killing a slave driver. He takes up the quiet life of a shepherd. One day he finds himself alone in the mountains, when a bush burst into flames. A voice tells him to shake off his shoes for he stands on holy ground, he realises he is in the presence of God. God had seen the sufferings of the Israelites and told Moses to go to Egypt and plead with the Pharaoh to let the Israelites go. Moses wondered why the Israelites would follow him, of all people, and so he asked for a sign, a name that would give him credibility with them. God responded, “I AM WHO I AM.” Here God has no name.

We are known by our names, everything is known by its name, but here God has no name, like the mysterious stranger in “The Big Lebowski”. This God is beyond limit and definition, beyond being named, beyond our limited understanding. We cannot confine God by our limited minds.

We can though find ourselves in a holy place, on holy ground and thus know the presence of the divine love. How do we do this, by blessing life with our holy presence, by being open to all that life is. In so doing we will surely know the love that is divine. We will surely be known by our true names.

So, what’s in a name? Well maybe this is something to think about as we enjoy this summer. Why are you called by your name? What other names, nouns and pro-nouns describe who you are? What does it mean to you to be a member of this congregation? What does it mean in a wider context? How do you live out who and what you are? How can we live as if all ground was holy ground? How do we bless one another and life with our holy presence?

What’s in a name indeed.

Below is a video devotion based 

on the material in this "blogspot"

Advent: In a Dark Time the Eyes Begin to See

Twice a week I sit in shared meditation, in the dark, with friends. The silence is lit by three simple candles. One of the things I love about the time, early in the morning, is that during the weeks of November and December we begin in darkness, as the silence ends we remain in the dark and then as we share where we are personally at spiritually the sun rises and the day begins. At the end of the hour our space is fully lit by sunlit. I love this time and space as we move from darkness, to half-light, to full light. It is a gentle transition from one spiritual space into another, without physically moving.

There is another time in the week when I do something similar, only it ends very differently. There is not the same transition from darkness into light. As the time ends the lights are switched on and I find the transition from darkness to light, a little shocking. There is no in-between space as we move suddenly from darkness into bright, shocking neon light.

We are approaching the darkest time of the year as we head towards the Winter Solstice, closely followed by the coming of the light that is Christmas. Today is Advent Sunday, the day that marks the beginning of the days leading to the coming of the new light, that is Christmas.

Advent is a time for 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.

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 have to adjust ourselves to the coming light. If it was to come all at once, it would be too much for us. Let us not wish away the darkness of winter and look forward too desperately to the future, for what is yet to come. Let us adjust to the limited light we have been given, just enough to take the next step.

We impatient people, we who live by neon light and instant gratification do not like the dark and certainly know little about patience, about waiting. If you don’t believe me just watch yourself the next time your computer freezes when you’re trying to watch a clip on YouTube. We want it all and we want it now. We also want it all in bright lights, with bells on. We certainly don’t want to have to go through the hardships to take us there.

Yes Advent is about the coming of the light, but not something sudden and dazzling, more a journey from darkness into natural light. This is the classic spiritual journey. This is the beauty of the holy month of December. I experience this powerfully in that dark silky silence of early morning, when the frosty winds make all moan. I revere this dark, cold, humbling time that leads to the coming of the light. I have noticed these last few years that if I don’t rush and push my way through this time, If I allow myself to savour it, something shifts deep within me if I allow myself to truly embrace the darkness. Somewhere between Solstice and New Year, probably on Christmas Day, some new light comes into my vision, but not suddenly. Like most good things in life, slowly it rises. It is coming. This is Advent, the coming of the new light. If we allow it to it will work its magic and something new will grow within each and every one of us.

We are afraid of the dark though aren’t we. We want to rush through these weeks and force the light, we people born in neon times. We impatient and expectant folk. The truth is though that in order for us to truly appreciate the light we must first know the dark. Brings to mind those beautiful words from Isaiah chapter 9 verse 2 “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness-on them light shines.”

Now of course the very same light shines on us all, it’s just that we don’t always notice it. We only really notice it when we are in the deep darkness. I saw a beautiful example of this during the last singing meditation I experienced. I always light a hundred candles as we sit together in the dark. The candles are meant to light what we are engaging in, to allow those present to read the words we sing around. Now usually I leave the kitchen door open which adds a little artificial light. I now realise how much this has been a mistake. Last week I didn’t and do you know what the room seemed even more illuminated. The candles burned ever more brightly in the darkened room. The light shone even more brightly on we that were singing and sharing silence in deep, deep darkness.

We need to honour the darkness in order for us to truly rejoice in the light, when the moment of magic comes.

But first we must know the dark, we must learn the patience of sitting in the dark. This brings to mind that beautiful short poem “Know the dark” by Wendell Berry

“To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.”

But we don’t want to know the dark, we want to walk in the light. Often we spiritually inclined do not want to look at the darkness, we only want the light. Who really wants to take the time to look at the darkness within ourselves and within our world? The truth is of course that if you refuse to look at the dark, to shine a little light on it, is to truly live in the dark; this is a life without joy, this is not truly living in life. We need to bear witness to all life, to hold life with a steady gaze, to live spiritually alive.

In order to live spiritually alive we need to see life in its fullness. We need to practice holding an unwavering gaze in the dark to not look away or to flush it out with neon light, one that is far too bright.

You see as Roethke said: “In a dark time, the eye begins to see.”

I am learning to surrender to a more natural light, to the dark. I am learning to allow my eyes to adjust to the whole of reality. I need to do so to truly embrace the beauty of the dark. This includes the lingering darkness within myself that leads me to still reject and to turn away from some aspects of life.

I am slowly learning to follow those words of Wendell Berry

"To go in the dark with a light is to know the light. To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight, and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings, and is travelled by dark feet and dark wings"

I am learning the lessons of the darkness and during these Advent days I will not be waiting passively for the coming of the light. Instead I will appreciate these dark days, shed some gentle light on the dark places within myself, my life and this our shared world, so that when the moment of magic comes I can become a child of the light and become a light for others. 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. This brings to mind the following beautiful words by Mary Oliver “The Buddha’s last Instructions”

The Buddha’s Last Instruction
by Mary Oliver

“Make of yourself a light”
said the Buddha,
before he died.
I think of this every morning
as the east begins
to tear off its many clouds
of darkness, to send up the first
signal—a white fan
streaked with pink and violet,
even green.
An old man, he lay down
between two sala trees,
and he might have said anything,
knowing it was his final hour.
The light burns upward,
it thickens and settles over the fields.
Around him, the villagers gathered
and stretched forward to listen.
Even before the sun itself
hangs, disattached, in the blue air,
I am touched everywhere
by its ocean of yellow waves.
No doubt he thought of everything
that had happened in his difficult life.
And then I feel the sun itself
as it blazes over the hills,
like a million flowers on fire—
clearly I’m not needed,
yet I feel myself turning
into something of inexplicable value.
Slowly, beneath the branches,
he raised his head.
He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd.

So let’s prepare ourselves for the moment of magic yet to come. Let’s nurture the love within us and prepare to give birth to it in 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.

Amen

Inbetween Days: Liminal Space

So here we stand on the hinge of another year. The winter solstice has passed, Christmas has been and gone and we find ourselves in those in-between days standing at the threshold of a new year. Yes the day light hours will increase over the coming weeks but still we must face winter. January and February can be difficult as we feel stuck in the cold on these dark winter evenings.

Winter is not an easy time, so many of us want it over as soon as possible. We want spring and the new birth and life that it brings, but that is not the way to live and we know it. To live, always holding on to the spring yet to come, is to fail to fully experience what is present now. There is such richness in the dark cold of winter and we need to feel it and allow our eyes to adjust to the darkness. There is a beautiful wonder about winter that we would do well to embrace. For it is in this cold stillness that change can begin to form and grow.

There is a beauty in those in between days as we stand on the threshold of something new, in that space. As we stand together between the worlds in the changing of the light.

The truth is though that we are always standing at thresholds, at times of change. Each beginning is actually the end of something and each ending is the beginning of something new and what stands in between is threshold.

Over the last few months I have kept on hearing a phrase that I was not really consciously aware of before; it is phrase that has kept on knocking on the window of my consciousness all this year, staring right into my soul. The phrase is “Liminal Space”. Now what on earth does it mean? You may well be asking. Well “Liminal Space” is a threshold, a space between things.

The word “Liminal” comes from the Latin “limens”, meaning “a threshold.” A threshold is a doorway or the entrance, it is a place or point of entering or beginning. In psychology the term “Limen” means the point at which a stimulus is of sufficient intensity to begin to produce an effect.

So “Liminal Space” is that moment when something changes from one state to another. Such as the dawn of each day, when the morning sun rises high in the sky bringing daylight. Or at dusk, when the evening sun sinks into the horizon bringing nightfall.

“Liminal Space” is that moment when we move either into or out of a deep fog, whether physical or one made from our own minds. Sometimes in that fog we find a complete stillness and in that stillness a new truth can be revealed. As we do we come out of the fog once again and step into a new clear light. Similar to those moments when we awaken from a deep sleep, when we are not yet fully awake but no longer asleep. And at the other end of the day that state when we move from being fully awake and conscious into deep sleep. Then there are those moments of life’s transitions, between life and death itself. The following reflection by Victoria Safford, describes this beautifully.

“In Between” by Victoria Safford

"One afternoon some time ago I brought my little baby out to visit a very, very old neighbour who was dying that year, quietly and gracefully, in her gracious home. We were having a little birthday party for her, with sherry and cake and a few old friends gathered round her bed. To free a hand to cut the cake, I put my baby down right on the bed, right up on the pillow - and there was a sudden hush in the room, for we were caught off guard, beholding.

It was a startling sight. There is the late afternoon light were two people side by side, two human merely beings. Neither one could walk, neither one could speak, not in language you could understand, both utterly dependent on the rest of us bustling around, masquerading as immortals. There they were: a plump one, apple-cheeked, a cherry tomato of a babe, smiling; and a silver-thin one, hallow-eyes, translucent, shining, smiling. We revellers were hushed because we clearly saw that these were dancers on the very edge of things. These two were closer to the threshold, the edge of the great mystery, than any of us had been for a long time or would be for a while. Living, breathing, smiling they were, but each with one foot and who knows how much consciousness firmly planted on the other side, whatever that is, the starry darkness from whence we come and whither will we go, in time. Fresh from birth, nigh unto death, bright – eyed, they were bookends there, mirrors of each other. Radiant.

Cake in hand, and napkins, knife, glasses, a crystal carafe a century old, we paused there on the thresholds of our own momentary lives. Then, “What shall we sing?” said someone, to the silence, to the sunlight on the covers, to the stars. It was the only question, then, as now, years later. What on earth shall we sing?"

“Liminal Spaces” are “Thin Places” occurring on boundaries between things. This brings to mind a beautiful song by Justin Sullivan. Please listen to a version of it here...

“Liminal Space” is a boundary. Think of fences, walls and trees between property. It is the edge between things. Such as water and land, a valley or a hill. When I think of where I come from in West Yorkshire, such boundaries are everywhere in those hills and valleys of green and grey. Another example is in the change of the shape of the land, just look around you then next time you are out and about where you live . Another example is the East Coast of Yorkshire , around Filey and Flamborough Head where the cliffs are eroding and falling away into the North Sea. It is amazing to stand there sometimes and stare out into the sea watching the waves hitting and then retreating from the coast . It is that moment of contact, just before the sea withdraws once again that is a kind of “Liminal Space”.

“Liminal Space” is not only physical in nature though. It is that moment, which may last a lifetime, that lies between the known and the unknown. It is a moment of transition a space of heightened intensity when we cross the threshold of what we think we know. That moment of abandon when things change and are never quite the same again. Moments that can change us forever. Moments that change everything. We all have them, it’s just that too often we are not fully awake to them. We all of us stand in that space, between the changing of the light. Between every sunrise and every sunset a whole new world of possibility is born.

Now sometimes we enter such times, “Liminal Space”, willingly, as a result of a decision to try something new. But there are also others times when we just drift into them a bit like driving into a fog on our journeys somewhere, not knowing when the fog will clear. Such moments are filled with uncertainty, they are times of transition we did not ask for at all. These can be confusing times and such confusion can cause fear and anxiety. We humans do not like uncertainty, we like to know the ground that we stand on is solid and secure. We want the path to be clear, we want our goals to be certain, we want to rush through the fog and enter once more into the light as soon as possible. This is why so many of us don’t like the cold and darkness of winter, spring is so much more appealing, but we cannot have the joy of spring without life’s winter. We want certainty, we want firmness now!!! This though is not realistic, this is not life.

The French Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin captured this perfectly when he wrote: “We are quite naturally impatient in everything. To reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability – And that it may take a very long time.” He urged us to be patient, to embrace this time of uncertainty, to allow it to unfold naturally as we evolve into what we are meant to become. The key it would seem is to be open and to experience everything, because everything matters you know, even the experiences we don’t want to feel. We need to experience the thresholds, so as to learn all that they offer. To stand between the worlds in the changing of light. To pass through the “Liminal Space” and become all that we were born to be. Born again and again and again in each moment of life.

This year has been one of great change for me. This year has been one when I have come out of the mist of threshold into something new. New dawns have emerged and new beginnings have arisen. New truths and experiences have come to me. My life has changed on so many levels. In every sense. There has been the obvious physical change as I have lost over a third of my body mass. That said there have been other changes too in terms of my understanding of life and it’s meaning to me. These changes have been mental, emotional, spiritual as well as the physical one.

My understanding of my own spiritual faith has opened and awakened to new levels too. There has been one phrase that comes from “The Sermon on the Mount”, from Matthew’s Gospel, that has been taking shape in the soul of me all year long. The phrase is “You are the light of the world”. That this is the real message that was brought to the world 2.000 years ago and that it is our task to bring this to life in our mortal lives. That it is our task to incarnate this love in our world. That we are responsible for this our world. That we are the ones that our world has been waiting for. It is up to us you know, it’s up to us to bring this love alive.

Last year as I stood on the threshold of the year I did not know what was to come. None of us did, did we? This year we all stand at a new threshold uncertain of what is to come. As we stand in the coldest darkest days. Let’s not rush through these in between days and wish them away. Let’s instead appreciate this “Liminal Space” for what it is and when we are ready, let’s step into the days of the new beginnings and truly give birth to the love that is within us all.

I will end with this beautiful meditative piece by Kath R Walker...Best wishes for the days ahead and may you experience all that lies inbetween...

“In Between” by Kate R Walker

In between, liminal, that space where we wait.
Between moments; events, results, action, no action.
To stand on the threshold, waiting for something to end,
And something new to arrive, a pause in the rumble of time.
Awareness claims us, alert, a shadow of something different.

In between invitation and acceptance.
In between symptom and diagnosis.
In between send and receipt of inquiry and question.
In between love given and love received.

Liminality, a letting go, entering into confusion,
ambiguity and disorientation.
A ritual begun, pause … look back at what once was,
Look forward into what becomes.
Identity sheds a layer, reaches into something uncomfortable to wear.

In between lighting of the match and the kindling of oil.
In between choosing of text and the reading of words.
In between voices and notes carried through the air into ears to hear.
In between creation thrusts ever forward.

Social hierarchies may disassemble and structures may fall.
Communities may revolt or tempt trust.
Tradition may falter or creativity crashes forward.
Leaders may step down or take charge.
The people may choose or refuse.

In between, storm predicted, the horizon beacons.
In between, theology of process reminds us to step back.
In between, where minutia and galaxies intermingle with microbes and mysteries.
In between, liminal, that space where we wait: Look, listen, feel, breathe.

I Still Feel the Wonder

This is one of my favourite songs... "Changing of the Light"

"...I still feel the wonder as the sky turns to fire..."

The following words by ee cummings have been floating around in my consciousness these last few days...

i thank You God for most this amazing day:

for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky;

and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun's birthday;

this is the birth day of life and love and wings:

and of the gay great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing breathing any

--lifted from the no of all nothing—

human merely being doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake

And now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

I also love the fact that cummings hasn't used capitol letters, not even for his own name, except for two words...

"...now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened..."

D. H. Lawrence once declared “The sense of wonder, that is our sixth sense and it is a natural religious sense”.

Our sixth sense is a natural religious sense, what on earth could that mean? I suspect that he is saying that the sense of wonder is something that is natural to us all and it this that sparks our natural religiousness. Viktor Frankl drew similar conclusions, with regard to our natural religiousness, claiming that we possess a will to find meaning; that in some sense we human beings are the meaning makers; that there is something within us that searches for meaning in life; that there is something that occurs when we truly see life in all its majesty; that there is something that ignites this natural religiousness within us. We are the religious animal.

We each of us seemingly have this religious impulse ingrained within us. Now of course sometimes that gets shut off and or closed down by life’s busyness and or suffering. We can all become desensitised to life from time to time, but the impulse is still there and can be reignited, even when all seems lost.

“I still feel the wonder as the sky turns to fire”

There is wonder present in all life. To see it we just need to reawaken the ears of our ears and open the eyes of eyes. Religious practise is one way of achieving this. It helps to create those Angelus moments I spoke of in the previous blog. We cynical adults need such moments to reawaken that natural childish enthusiasm and sense of wonder at life. It is no mistake that Jesus (Mark 10 vv 13-16) when speaking to his disciples told them that they needed to receive the kingdom of God like a child if they wanted to enter it. I suspect that he was talking here of the Kingdom now and not just what was to follow. He was teaching them that in order to experience that Kingdom that was already here and now they had to view life through the eyes of child; that they needed to reawaken the ears of their ears and open the eyes of their eyes; that they needed to reawaken their sense of wonder.

Prayer helps me to pay attention. Actually it does more than that; it helps me to connect to all of life. When I pray I feel that I am connecting beyond myself to the greater reality. This I believe enables me to reawaken the ears of my ears and open the eyes of my eyes. According to Thomas Heschel “to pray is to take notice of the wonder, to regain a sense of the mystery that animates all beings, the divine margin in all attainments.” I would go further than this and claim that the practise of wonder is itself a form of prayer.

Thomas Carlyle viewed wonder as the basis of worship. I see real truth is this. I believe that the purpose of worship is to reawaken, to maintain and to develop this sixth sense, this natural religiousness, this sense of wonder. One of the reasons I worship with others is to remember how to connect to that natural spirit in all life; to remember what is important in life; to connect beyond the confines of myself and then to carry that into my everyday activities. To worship is to remember, to re-bind together, this is the essence of religion.

That said I do not believe that mediators are required in order to achieve this. We can reawaken our natural religiousness, that sixth sense, that sense of wonder, alone. The nineteenth century transcendentalists brought this insight to western religion. They said that we do not need clergy, priests or religion itself to mediate our experience of God or the truth; we do not need the mediation of others in order to find meaning. They said that it was the inalienable right and duty of every soul to approach God directly. In fact they went further and said that there was no other way to know the holy or Divine other than to experience it directly through the creation, through nature.

Could this be true? Can the sense of wonder only truly be awoken through nature? Well personally I'm not convinced of this. That said I do suspect that if you cannot connect to the divine through nature it is unlikely that you will you will be able to connect to it through worship and words.

I recently came across the following words by Wendal Berry.

“I don't think it is enough appreciated how much an outdoor book the Bible is. It is a "hypaethral book," such as Thoreau talked about - a book open to the sky. It is best read and understood outdoors, and the farther outdoors the better. Or that has been my experience of it. Passages that within walls seem improbable or incredible, outdoors seem merely natural. This is because outdoors we are confronted everywhere with wonders; we see that the miraculous is not extraordinary but the common mode of existence. It is our daily bread. Whoever really has considered the lilies of the field or the birds of the air and pondered the improbability of their existence in this warm world within the cold and empty stellar distances will hardly balk at the turning of water into wine - which was, after all, a very small miracle. We forget the greater and still continuing miracle by which water (with soil and sunlight) is turned into grapes.”

I suspect that this applies to all religion and philosophy, which can never be fully understood or experienced within the confines of walls, institutions or books. As I have heard many times "The religious life is not a theory, we have to live it." and in order to live with, we have to truly experience it. This means embracing all that is life and increasing our sensitivity to it.

The sense of wonder is never lost. We can reawaken the ears of our ears and open the eyes of our eyes. We can re-awaken this sixth sense, this natural religiousness, this sense of wonder. Wonder can re-open doors which invite us to a greater experience of living that can transform our experience of life. This can enable us to fully sense life in all its forms; to fully sense our senses. We can be swept away by the elements or stand next a mountain and feel as insignificant as a speck of dust. All that is required is that we let the natural wonder at the core of our being work through our senses and as a result we become instantly connected to the joyfulness woven into the core of all creation.

Everyone can awaken to the wonder of life; everyone can find that sustaining joy which is at the core of all life; everyone can reawaken the ears of their ears and open the eyes of their eyes.

"I still feel the wonder as the sky turns to fire."

An Anniversary Waltz: You keep on inspiring me

I entered the blogosphere exactly one year ago to the day. It began after a presentation at the ministerial conference I attended at the annual meetings of the Unitarian and Free Christian denomination that I serve. I have been a very busy boy since. It seems I have quite a bit to say. I believe that this will be my 80th blog. I am sure I don't go about it the way you are supposed to, but hey who cares. I have found a way that works for me. I hope that these little blogs have helped those who have read them. I know by creating them they have helped me immensely.


I was wondering how I might celebrate "I Dream of the Ocean's" first birthday and then it came to me. I thought I would share words by other Unitarians, Universalists and Free Christians that have spoken to me personally. I will also throw in a bit of music about the sea, well why not?...let me know what you think...

The first piece is by my great hero Forrest Church...here is describing what he see's as a 21st century Universalist theology..."The Cathedral of the World":


Above all else, contemplate the windows. In the Cathedral of the World there are windows beyond number, some long forgotten, covered with many patinas of grime, others revered by millions, the most sacred of shrines. Each in its own way is beautiful. Some are abstract, others representational; some dark and meditative, others bright and dazzling. Each window tells a story about the creation of the world, the meaning of history, the purpose of life, the nature of humankind, the mystery of death. The windows of the cathedral are where the light shines through.

Because the cathedral is so vast, our life so short, and our vision so dim, over the course of our pilgrimage we are able to contemplate only a bit of the cathedral, explore a few apses, reflect on the play of light and darkness through a few of its myriad windows. Yet by pondering and acting on our ruminations, we discover insights that will invest our days with meaning.

A twenty-first-century theology based on the concept of one light and many windows offers to its adherents both breadth and focus. Honouring multiple religious approaches, it only excludes the truth claims of absolutists. This is because fundamentalists claim that the light shines through their window only. Some, as we know from painful experience, go so far as to beseech their followers to throw stones through other people’s windows.

Skeptics draw the opposite conclusion. Seeing the bewildering variety of windows and observing the folly of the worshippers, they conclude that there is no light. But the windows are not the light. They are where the light shines through.

We shall never see the light directly, only as refracted through the windows of the cathedral. Prompting humility, life’s mystery lies hidden. The light is veiled. Yet, being halfway in size between the creation itself and our body’s smallest constituent part, that we can encompass with our minds the universe that encompasses us is a cause for great wonder. Awakened by the light, we stand in the cathedral, trembling with awe.

Some people have trouble believing in a God who looks into any eyes but theirs. Others have trouble believing in a God they cannot see. But that none of us can look directly into God’s eyes certainly doesn’t mean God isn’t there, mysterious, unknowable, gazing into ours through the windows of the Cathedral of the World”

The second piece is by Jeffrey Lockwood. Jeffrey Lockwood is a professor of natural sciences and humanities at the University of Wyoming. The piece is titled "Go Fly a Kite". I love this attitude to life...

Wind has a dark power over us, the capacity to trigger depression, despondency, and even - according to eighteenth century physicians - madness. How is it that moving air, an invisible presence, can so deeply disturb the human psyche? We have created our own vulnerability. In an age of technological hubris, we must confront the realisation that the wind is absolutely uncontrollable.

The wind is a wild beast with no regard for our rationality. It mauls our sense of dominion. Umbrellas keep us dry, moisturisers keep us wet, silk keeps us cool, wool keeps us warm, creams keep us from burning, but nothing vanquishes the wind. Those who are determined to dominate the world are antagonised by the wind. But those who accept the untamed forces of nature avoid such frustrations. And it is possible then to move from a mere defence of our sanity to genuine flourishing.

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.

Here's a bit more Forrest Church...on religion...

"I define religion more inclusively than many others do. Religion is our human response to the dual reality of being alive and having to die. We are not the animal with tools or the animal with advanced language; we are the religious animal. Because we know that we are going to die, we question what life means. Death also throws meaning itself into question, for some people rendering it moot. Yet, for most of us, knowing that we are mortal inspires a search for answers that will remain valid in spite of our mortality. If religion is our response to the dual reality of being alive and having to die, the purpose of life is to live in such a way that our lives will prove worth dying for.”

Oh and a bit on God...

“God language can tie people into knots, of course. In part, that is because ‘God’ is not God's name. Referring to the highest power we can imagine, ‘God’ is our name for that which is greater than all and yet present in each. For some the highest imaginable power will be a petty and angry tribal baron ensconced high above the clouds on a golden throne, visiting punishment on all who don't believe in him. But for others, the highest power is love, goodness, justice, or the spirit of life itself. Each of us projects our limited experience on a cosmic screen in letters as big as our minds can fashion. For those whose vision is constricted (illiberal, narrow-minded people), this can have horrific consequences. But others respond to the munificence of creation with broad imagination and sympathy. Answering to the highest and best within and beyond themselves, they draw lessons and fathom meaning so redemptive that surely it touches the divine.” 

I love this little piece by Don Beaudreault. A superb Jazz pianist who served in Merseyside for a short while. It is entitled “Angels Among Us”

I believe that there are angels among us all the time, especially at Christmas. But what exactly is an angel? Here is how I suggest we can tell if we bump into one:

Angels deny they are angels. They don’t all have wings or halos or smiles – those are only the ones who like to dress up. Angels don’t expect anything in return for services rendered. They don’t always tell us what we want to hear.

Oh, yes, every once in a while, we think we see them! Angels aren’t all called Michael or Gabriel. We might even be angels and not realise it.

Yes, angels are here among us – giving us gifts beyond measure. Gifts of humour when we think the sun will never shine again, passion when we believe we are unlovable, inspiration when our life force wanes, confidentiality when we can’t tell anyone else our secrets, forgiveness when we sorely need it, advice when we don’t know which direction to turn, frankness when we try to tell less than the truth about who we really are, and the gift of just being there when we are so very alone.

You see, the angels are the people who care about us. This is their message as they sing over Bethlehem infant, hover at the bedsides of those who suffer greatly, walk hand-in-hand with those whose lives this year have been very tough, and who are there source of strength and understanding when life doesn’t seem to make any sense.

Yes, angels are real, and they can bring Christmas to us every day of the year if only we let them into our lives.

Truly, the angels are among us!

Here's a little more Forrest Church...here he discusses the sacredness of our tears...

In contrast to the Buddhist (and stoic) ideal of detachment or dispassion, the ancient Hebrews honoured suffering, viewing it as a sign of a deeply felt experience, a symbol of their passion. I encountered an intimate expression of this on a recent trip visit to Israel.

The Israel Museum in Jerusalem contains a collection of tiny ceramic cups. These were sacramental vessels. People cried into them.

Your mother has just died. Someone you love has cancer. Your spouse has left you. You are struggling at work. More likely, you have simply broken down. You burst into tears. So you pick up your tear cup, put it under your eye, and weep into it. When you are finished weeping, you cap it and put it away again. It is a way to save your tears.

Why save them? Because they are precious. It doesn’t matter why we cried, your tears are precious, for they show that you care. A full cup of tears is proof that you have felt deeply, suffered, and survived. Their value is ratified by this simple parable from Jewish lore. When his student complained that he was suffering and so deeply confused that he could no longer pray and study, Rebbe Mendl of Kotzk asked him, “What if God prefers your tears to your studying?”.

I stumbled across this a short while ago...I love it...I asked a member of the congregation to read it in worship and she loved it too...it is entitled "Old Tree" by Naomi Linnel

To everything there is a season.

And a time for every purpose under the heaven.

Ecclesiastes 3

I am the old tree in the corner of the forest;
Bark crumbling, I watch my dead wood fall;
I am hollow-hopeless, no squirrel enjoys my shelter;
My November-withered strength lies crushed beneath Spring's quiet glory.
Budless branches mocked by lustrous ferns,
I am a thing empty and barren in the midst of burgeoning plenty.

I am the old tree in the corner of the forest;
Around my dried out roots new life escapes the earth,
Oak seedlings and oxslips, hazel and juniper,
Wood sorrel and the common purple mallow;
Yellow-necked mice burrow beneath my rotting leaves,
Beaks full of insects, treecreepers spiral up my fissured trunk.

I am the old tree in the corner of the forest.
Dancing children circle me, singing in the shadowed sun of evening;
They have brought scarlet berries and blue-violet daisies
To decorate my cracked and rotting woody carapace,
Strewn sweet herbs and rose petals about me;
And their song to God the Mother is a Hymn of Praise

 Here's a bit more Forrest Church...here he discusses the importance of humility and openness...when I accept the limits of my human knowledge it opens me up to experiences I could never have even begun to imagine...certainly been how I ever experienced life these past few years...

“In every field of human inquiry, ignorance increases as knowledge grows. The Greek philosopher Socrates once said, “I am the most ignorant man in Athens.” He wasn’t indulging in false modesty. He was pointing out that others, knowing far less, had no idea how ignorant they were. Socrate’s ignorance, the knowledge of how much remained for him to learn, expanded in direct proportion to his learning. Of both belief and knowledge, the same is true for us. When reflecting on several years of contemplation on the origins of the cosmos, one cosmologist sighed, “It’s not only queerer than we imagined; it’s queerer than can be imagined.”

“Whether informed by religion or by science, our minds cannot unwrap life’s mystery. This is why, in offering evidence to corroborate religious truth, true believers may more honestly be accused of being too rational than too irrational. They are not alone. We all use our minds to figure out things that can’t be deciphered by anything as small as our minds. On the one hand, the attempt is a noble one. Trying to decode life’s mystery is what makes us human.”

“Balancing these two apparent contradictions. I base my own theology on contrasting principles: openness and humility. No ceiling limits the expansion of the human heart. Yet, humility teaches that when death visits, we will have attained only a flickering notion of what life and death are all about. The light we discover will be framed by darkness. But, when we ponder the nature of our shared mortality, meaning may begin to emerge. Not unlike when we leave a warm, brightly lit room, go outdoors, and contemplate a dark winter sky: one by one the stars come out.”

This piece was written by the first Unitarian I met when a walked through the doors of Cross Street Chapel one Wednesday lunchtime several years ago. This is what Peter Sampson has to say on the 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)

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.

I’m going to end with several extracts from the book Forrest Church wrote as he was dying from Esophageal  cancer, “Love and Death: My Journey Through The Valley Of The Shadows” It may well be my favourite book.


Here he describes how his own faith changed during the latter years of his life and describes a deepening and much more personal relationships with God...Speaks powerfully to me...

"Those who return at times of trouble to the Twenty-third Psalm as a lifeline know the central role God can play in comforting a grief-stricken life. In my journey through the valley of the shadow, God leads me by the heart. When God dwells in my heart, I abide in God's presence. I live in an apartment of the creation furnished by the Creator. However humble my abode, its occupant but animated dust, the whole universe is my dwelling place. God's dominion is my domicile.

It hasn't always been this way for me. For years I dealt with grief and fear less imaginatively: I drank. Shortly after Princess Diana's death and one year before the terrorist attacks. I put an end to my lifelong affair with the bottle. Sobriety didn't change my theology, certainly not the premium it placed on the axis of love and death, but it did deepen it in one significant sense. I now fully felt what before I mostly thought. My heart had always been in play - how could it not with love and death my abiding theme - but now a trunk line opened from my mind straight to my heart, a line that was almost always open. My long standing belief in a distant God slowly transfigured itself into my felt experience of a loving God. Ah, what a world of difference: to feel, not merely know, what one believes.

During the final, most conflicted, decade of my drinking, I paid more lip service to God than I did devotion. My career continued to thrive. I didn't get drunk, I self-medicated. By outwards appearances, my life prospered. But it was increasingly hollow at the core. Delving into this hollowness taught me (as I had heard somewhere once) that when we don't really believe in God, it is not that we believe in nothing, rather we believe in almost anything. Because my wife, Carolyn, refused to look the other way, and because I had grown bone weary of my penchant for evasion, I couldn't live like this much longer. All my excuses and rationalisations had far outrun their expiration date. After several aborted attempts and long experimentation with variously successful half measures, with the turning of the millennium in the year 2000 I quit drinking."

Here he describes the importance of being cautious about our safety and daring to live before we eventually die...he reminds us that we do not sail this ship alone, we are in this ship together all the way..."an overexamined life is not worth living. I know that. some of you who come to me for couselling are so wrapped up in your own and your parents' underwear that I sometimes wonder if you will ever get out, if you will ever get naked. Just remember, you are not alone on the Titanic. we are all here together, on this extraordinary ship - different classes, yes, and not enough lifeboats - but when it comes to death there are never enough lifeboats. the ship is magnificent but one day it will sink. All hands will be lost.

This advice may return to haunt you, but I commend you to ignore life's dangers as readily as you protect yourself from them. Even as an overexamined life is not worth living, an overplanned life lacks wonder and sponteneity. The harder we work to get things exactly right, the more cautious we become, the more careful not to fail. Risking nothing, we stand to gain little beyond the security of battened-down existance. We miss the sea breeze and the ball. We will know little failure, or only little failures, but consider the cost. any sure thing is almost sure to be so carefully packaged that when we unwrap it, the size of the box will turn out to be so many times larger rhan the size of the gift that we cannot help but be dissapointed.

So if you are struggling with a relationship, out of touch with an old friend, unsure of whether to risk a new job, uncomfortably estranged from your father; if you are hiding to be safe, taking care not to be wrong, I suggest you take a chance. Don't wait until you are sure. Don't wait until you have it right. Though waiting till we have it right works for some things - mostly little things - often our most important decisions and actions are so fraught with danger that we will never surely get them right. If we don't fire before we take perfect aim, we may never fire at all.

Life is filled with danger. that's just the way it is. finally, the Titanic always hits the iceberg. Hence this simple, if imprudent, bit of advice. Before it does, pick up the phone. Pick up the gauntlet. Do whatever it takes. take a few chances. Dare to live before you die"

I love this final little piece. I have for sometime talked of a theory I have named as "The chaos theory of Love"...which is a more anarchic and spontaneous version of Confucius "Concentric Circles of Compassion...

"Why is kindness a pure virtue? Precisely because kindness is a gift that demands no response. For each such acts of kindness, you get nothing tangible in return, save the feeling, the sacrament, of human sympathy. Kindness is by no means inferior to love. In fact it is a kind of love, agape, God's love, poured out upon the earth without a quid pro quo - a pure unadulterated gift"