Blue Monday: Finding Comfort, Solace and Joy in Winter

Today Monday 15th of January has become one of those days that have been marked out on the yearly calendar. Not an official public holiday, there isn’t one until Easter. That said it is still a day we mark. It is known as “Blue Monday”, no I don’t mean the song by New Order. “Blue Monday” has become regarded as the hardest day of the year, afterall the Christmas spirit has all gone and we are right in depths of winter. It is dark, it is cold and there is little light around, Spring seems so far away. 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 looking towards 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. There is a need to embrace and fully experience the darkness, the lifelessness and the starkness of this time of year. We should not wish it all away, for everything there is a season and a time for everything under the sun.

Whenever I look at the winter world it looks barren and bleak. Like those trees I passed as I wandered round Dunham Massey with Molly and a friend the other day. The trees look so vulnerable just standing there all alone and yet I know they are alive, standing there bold and upright. They remind me of my own vulnerability and my exposure to the cold of winter and to the challenges of life, challenges I do not shrink from, even though I do from time to time feel tempted to do so.

Like everyone I want to feel safe, protected and warm, I want comfort, I seek solace, I do not want to feel cold, exposed and vulnerable. It is a refuge that we all seek; often it is a refuge that folk seek and believe they will find in religion and spirituality. This sense that we are protected and safe, but is it realistic? So often we seek protection from the troubles of life, from its winter. If life has taught me anything it has shown me that the insulation I often seek so easily becomes isolation. These attempts to protect myself from exposure only increase the suffering. If I have learnt anything in life it’s that self-protection just cuts you off and leaves you feeling all alone, once again. What is needed to live through the winter is comfort and solace, not isolation.

Comfort and solace offer something different; something so needed in winter; something that can be found in many ways. I was thinking of this as I enjoyed some traditional Transylvania soup that a friend had given me, a chicken type broth. It brought comfort to my body, but also my soul. It truly was chicken soup for the heart, the body and the soul.

One of the advantages of ministry is that it really forces you to pay attention to the passing seasons. By doing so you learn to appreciate what each has to offer. Winter has so much to offer if we would but let ourselves appreciate it. I think the trees in winter have much to teach we who would prefer to hibernate. If I have learnt anything I have learnt that the spiritual life is about living openly and vulnerably, it’s about accepting the reality of life. It’s about standing their upright, arms outstretch in the cold vulnerability of life waiting for the time of re-birth and renewal in whatever form this takes, just like the trees in winter.

That said we also need solace and comfort. Unlike those trees we have one another. We can share in each others warmth and we can seek help and comfort from both visible and invisible sources. This is how we live through winter, we find its power and beauty and instead of hibernating we learn to live fulling alive; we do not have to just survive, we can learn to thrive. Sometimes all you need is a bowl of soup, whether that be for the body, the heart and or the soul.

We all need solace, we all need comfort and consolation in times of distress. It is wonderful to be able to receive both visible and invisible help at such times.

As David Whyte so beautifully put in his essay on the word “Solace”

“Solace is not an evasion, nor a cure for our suffering, nor a made up state of mind. Solace is a direct seeing and participation; a celebration of the beautiful coming and going, appearance and disappearance of which we have always been a part. Solace is not meant to be an answer, but an invitation, through the door of pain and difficulty, the depth of suffering and simultaneous beauty in the world that the strategic mind by itself cannot grasp nor make sense of.”

Solace isn’t just about comforting as we understand it today, as a “there, there”, in its original meaning there is a sense of pleasure and joy too. This brings to mind the 5th verse of the 30th Psalm “Despair may last for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” I and friends were sharing in joy early on Tuesday morning, there was much laughter in our coming together. Yes, some had their struggles and were offered comfort, a hug and listening ear, but we also shared in solace together as we laughed and had real fun. This is true solace and it certainly warmed our cockles on that cold winters morning.

Another thing that has been bringing me solace, a great deal of joy in fact, in recent weeks has been remembering songs my dad and grandad used to sing to me as a child. I have been sharing them with friends. They were often rude and funny musical songs, with a Yorkshire twist. Sometimes a little naughty, but always good hearted. They brought me solace when I was a child and they have been bringing me solace this winter.

Such as “I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts”

I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts
Seem them all a standing in a row
Big ones, small ones, some as big as your head
A turn of the wrist a flick of the fist and up the showman said

I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts
Every ball you throw will make me rich
There stands my wife, the idol of me life
Singing roll a bowl a ball a penny a pitch

Singing Roll a bowl, a ball, a penny, a pitch
Roll a bowl, a ball, a penny, a pitch
Roll a bowl, a ball, roll a bowl, a ball
Singing roll a bowl a ball a penny a pitch

Rememebring these old songs has brought me much solace these last few weeks.

Where do we seek solace, when life is difficult? Where do we turn for comfort? Comfort is another of those interesting words that does not mean exactly what it once did.

Comfort comes from the Latin word comfortare, which means “strengthen greatly.” To give comfort is to shore up the mood or physical state of someone else. It may take quite some time to shore up someone when they are lost, in a state or despair, or deep depression. It takes more than just going for a walk, taking flowers, encouraging them to find a love and connection through nature. Yes, these help, of course they do, but you cannot just lift a deep state of depression this way. The support maybe needed for quite some time. To strengthen someone greatly takes some time and effort and above all consistency. It’s about standing or sitting with someone through what is at times a long haul. This is counter intuitive to our age. We are living through the age of the quick fix.

When you are struggling in the need for comfort and solace it can feel like it will never end, a bit like a long cold winter. It will though, at least if we find ways to stick with it, if we find comfort and solace to keep on living through the winter. As Wendell Berry so beautifully put it in “Hannah Coulter”

“You think winter will never end, and then, when you don't expect it, when you have almost forgotten it, warmth comes and a different light.”

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.

We do not have to do so alone though. We can seek comfort and solace from one another. We can walk through this season together, experiencing it all, wholly alive. We can offer comfort and solace. Whether that is by being with one another in our shared suffering, offering something that warms the body, the heart and soul, like that bowl of soup. Solace can also come with joy and laughter. I was with friends on Friday night at my friends album launch in Manchester. A wonderful night of shared celebration. It was just wonderful watching friends shine, following their bliss. It can come in walking together on cold days enjoying the splendour of nature. It can come in so many ways. I hope you all have your oen Molly’s. She is such a treasure, who brings comfort, solace and above all joy to so more, not least me.

Where do you find comfort? Where do you find solace in the cold of winter. How do you find ways to stay alive and awake, rather than hibernate? How can you find ways to support and comfort those struggling around you? How can you offer solace? Whether by shoring someone up or bringing joy to their hearts, Perhaps something to think about this morning, rather than sinking into “Blue Monday”

I will end today with these beautiful words by Kathleen McTigue. A “Winter Blessing”

“Winter Blessing” Kathleen Mctigue

The world catches our hearts through its light:
splintering dance of sun on water,
calm moonlight poured through branches,
candles lit on early winter evenings,
a splatter of stars on a clear night,
and the bright eyes of those we love.
But the brilliance never ends,
even when the light goes out.
Mystery shimmers and shines in the world
in even the darkest corners.
It’s there where the roots push life into soil and rock,
in small lives lived under every stone;
there is the silent pulse beneath the tree bark.
It’s in the depth of slow tides as they turn,
there in the sky on moonless nights
when muffling clouds block out the stars.
It’s there in the prison, the hospital,
by hospice bed,
there at the graveside, in the empty house –
something beating in the dark shelter
of our hearts -
the small shine of hope, the gilt edge of kindness.

May we be granted the gift of deeper sight
that we might see – with or without the light.

Below is a video devotion based on the material in this devotion

Sanctuary

“This Place Is Sanctuary” by Kathleen McTigue taken from “Shine and Shadow”

You who are broken-hearted,
who woke today with the winds of despair
whistling through your mind,
come in.

You who are brave but wounded,
limping through life and hurting with every step, come in.
You who are fearful, who live with shadows
hovering over your shoulders,
come in.

This place is sanctuary, and it is for you.
You who are filled with happiness,
whose abundance overflows,
come in.

You who walk through your world
with lightness and grace,
who awoke this morning with strength and hope,
you who have everything to give,
come in.

This place is your calling, a riverbank to channel
the sweet waters of your life, the place
where you are called by the world’s need.
Here we offer in love.
Here we receive in gratitude.
Here we make a circle from the great gifts
of breath, attention and purpose.
Come in.

I was recently invited to an “open evening” at Timperley Community Church. The purpose of the evening was to discuss the new “Emergency Night Shelter” that will be opening there for those who find themselves homeless and who the council cannot give housing to in the coming winter months. There is currently no provision for this in Trafford and according to official statistics there is no real homelessness in Trafford. Official statistics claim that there are just two homeless people in the whole of the borough. I know from personal observation and experience that this is untrue.

The “Emergency Night Shelter” are seeking support in the community and from religious organisations. They are looking for volunteers to man the shelter as well as provisions such as socks, underwear, pillows and pillow cases, water proof clothing and toiletry packs. I will be endeavouring in the coming months to help in whatever ways I can. I have noticed in my five years as a minister in Trafford that there is a growing need for this provision.

Homelessness is on the increase in this country, I find this disturbing. What I find equally disturbing are attitudes toward people who find themselves in such situations. I do not like some of the language that I hear and the way that people are spoken of. I hear an alarming dehumanisation going on and it is not healthy for the soul of this country.

In 2013 112, 070 people declared themselves homeless in the UK, this is a 24% rises over a four year period. Official statistics submitted by local authorities show that the number of “rough sleepers” has increased from 1,768 in 2010 to 2,744 in 2014. “rough sleepers are only a small fraction of the total homeless population.

Local authorities have a statutory duty to house some homeless people, such as pregnant women, parents with dependent children and people considered for a variety of reasons as vulnerable. This rarely includes young single adults who are often hit the hardest. There are tens of thousands who find themselves in hostels. There are though not enough beds to provide for them all. Many fall into the category that are known as “hidden homeless”, more or less out of sight in B&B’s, squats, or on the floors of friends and families. I’ve been in this situation myself more than once in my lifetime. There is no security here, nowhere in which to build and or rebuild a life.

There are a variety reasons as to how and why people become homeless. There is of course an increasing problem with finding affordable housing as well as other poverty related issues. According to Crisis most men cite the reasons that they have become homeless as relationship breakdown, substance misuse and leaving an institution such as care, prison or hospital. Single women, who make up about a quarter of the clients of homelessness services are more likely to find themselves homeless as a result of physical or mental illness or after escaping a violent relationship. Whatever the reasons these are human beings and need to be seen and treated this way. They are no different to any of us. When we dehumanise one person, we dehumanise every single one of us. When we look into the eyes of a stranger we see our own eyes staring back at us.

All this got me thinking of a verse from the book of Hebrews chapter 13 V 2 "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it." Do we show 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 who find themselves in dire circumstances. It’s about recognising ourselves in those very same people. It’s about being open and welcoming to all, where ever they have been, where ever they are going and where ever 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 in his eyes.

Increasingly our age is becoming characterised by distrust, there is a fear of the strange and the stranger. The idea of assisting or taking in a stranger is not something most of us would want to do and the idea that we might be entertaining an angel just seems crazy. Is it though? Who knows what gifts can emerge in such encounters. Maybe when we welcome the stranger and give them sanctuary, in whatever ways we can, what we are actually doing is liberating ourselves from the bondages of selfishness and self centredness that we create. You see when we put barriers and blockades up to keep the unpleasantness of life out all we are actually doing is cutting ourselves off from the beauty present in life.

Living with hospitality and openness is another way, a better way. No it won’t change the world but it will change our every encounter and bring the healing of sanctuary to all involved. In the words of 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.” When we open our doors to those in need we open our hearts to a loving encounter and in so doing we do indeed greet angels. The angels in ourselves and the angels in the stranger.

All this talk of opening doors as well as offering welcome and hospitality has brought an ancient word into my mind, “Sanctuary”. I think the first time I heard the word was as a child watching Charles Laughton playing the “Hunchback of Notre Dam” and those immortal words “Sanctuary, sanctuary, Esmeralda you gave me water.” I think the second time was in the song by The Cult “She Sells Sanctuary”. I’m not sure I understood it then though. I have been thinking about it once again recently as I reflected on our world. “Sanctuary, who will offer shelter?” I have also been thinking of all those beautiful souls that have opened themselves to me in so many ways and given me sanctuary materially, emotionally, mentally and spirituality.

Now a sanctuary in its original meaning was a sacred place, such as a shrine. These places became safe havens for people in desperate need and fleeing persecution in medieval times. The word has developed and expanded in meaning over the centuries into a place of safety for humans and animals too. A place where we can be welcomed and made to feel at home and therefore thrive.

I like to think of my free religious tradition as a kind of sanctuary. A place where people can come and feel secure and safe as they are and then begin to thrive and grow spiritually with us. In so doing they can become sanctuaries and places of welcome and hospitality in the world. They can live with openness and give to those they meet in a loving way. For me being a Unitarian minister is about creating sanctuaries wherever I go and encouraging others to do likewise. Encouraging them to live openly and lovingly in a world that seems increasingly closed in and distrusting. It’s about encouraging people to do what they can, whatever that might be. In so doing they may well not only encounter angels, but become the angels that others encounter too.

Where can we offer hospitality and welcome in this world? Something perhaps to think about? How can we become a sanctuary? Where is the place of need in the world around? How do we begin to heal our world and offer hope and home to helpless and the hopeless? How do we welcome the stranger and encounter the angels of life? Perhaps it could begin by offering some support to the night shelter at Timperley Community Church, or similar things in your own towns and cities. That would certainly be a start and of obvious practical benefit, but it must also begin in our hearts and minds by us living more openly and lovingly, with heart filled courage. It begins with building a sanctuary in our own hearts and opening the doors to one another and greeting the stranger.

I’m going to end this chip of a "blogspot" with the following by Gordon B McKeeman “A Drop in the Bucket” taken from “Singing in the Night”

“A Drop in the Bucket”

What it says about inadequacy, futility, insignificance!
A drop in the bucket. What’s the sense? What’s the use?
We’re no longer in the center of things.

Copernicus removed the earth from the center of the solar system. Darwin removed humans from the center of the earth. Astronomy has removed the solar system from the center of the universe.

Well, who are we, then, and where are we?
Physiologists call us “weak, watery solutions, more or less jellified.”
Mark Twain said. “Man is the only animal that blushes-or needs to”
Just suppose that we are the merest drops in a bucket.

There are unspoken assumptions here.
We assume that a full bucket is what we’re aiming at and that until the bucket is full, nothing has been accomplished.

There is never a shortage of buckets. The empty bucket litany is long and tedious: racism, sexism, ableism, authoritarianism, oppression, injustice, violence, environmental degradation, overpopulation.

You feel like a drop in the bucket? Who asked you to fill the bucket - especially all alone?
Remember how many there are who share your concern. We may feel daunted, but we are not one drop. A sense of isolation is the parent of the drop-in-the-bucket feeling.

Sometimes one can decide the size of the bucket.
Don’t think you can do a large bucket? Try a smaller size. Even imparting a bit of hope - a pat on the back, a financial contribution, a few hours of volunteer service - every drop helps!

It might even be wise to remember why you need to help fill this bucket, possibly to quench the thirst of someone hard at work on a larger one.
that buckets of whatever size are filled a drop at a time. If you don’t help, it will take even longer.
that your drop may be one of the last ones needed. (Why is it that our image is of the first drop in the bucket?)
where we’d be if everybody gave up putting drops in the bucket? – probably much worse off.

Persistence depends on patience, on keeping at it when there is little to reassure us. It would be too bad to give up, to sit back, bemoan the sorry state of the world, and wonder why somebody, anybody, everybody (but not me, thank you) doesn’t do something about “it.”

After all, the Grand Canyon was fashioned by drops of water,
as ordinary as they seem.

Return to Love

“The Map and the Man” taken from "The shortest Distance: 101 Stories from the World's Spiritual Traditions" by Bill Darlison

It was a particularly rainy Saturday afternoon. Two children, John and Rebecca, were becoming increasingly bored, and their father, who was under strict orders to keep them entertained while their mother went shopping, was running out of ideas. He wanted to watch the sport on television and to read his newspaper, but the children had demanded his attention. He’d tried them with paper and coloured pencils, but this barely entertained them for five minutes. He’d tried the television, but didn’t even want to play on the computer. And there were still a couple of hours before mother returned!

Suddenly, he had an idea. Picking up a magazine from the table, he quickly flicked through the pages until he came to a map of the world. “Look at this, kids,” he said. “I’m going to cut this map into pieces - a bit like a jigsaw puzzle – and if you can put it together again, I’ll take you both to McDonald’s for tea! Is it a deal?

The children agreed to give it a try. Their father cut up the map, gave them a pot of glue, and set them to work on the kitchen table. He meanwhile, put on the kettle, made himself a cup of coffee, and sat down with his newspaper in the living room. He was feeling very pleased with himself. “It’ll take them at least an hour,” he thought with a smile.

But barely ten minutes later he heard, “finished dad!” He couldn’t believe it. He went through into the kitchen table and there, sure enough, sitting on the table, was the completed map. “How on earth did you finish it so quickly?” he asked.

“It was easy,” said John. “The map of the world was complicated, but on the other side was a picture of man. We just put the man together.”

“Yes”, said Rebecca. “If you get the man right, the world takes care of itself.”

...There is some real wisdom here...If we get the man right, the world takes care of itself...I hear the wisdom of "First things first here...I here the wisdom I was taught many years "If you are spiritually well, the rest will take care of itself...

Last Sunday was one of life's redemption days. Days I seem to experience increasingly as time goes by.

I had been invited to lead worship at Wakefield Westgate Chapel, back home in West Yorkshire. Little did I know when I began the journey that it would turn out to be one of the most beautiful days of my whole life. One of those days when fruits were finally born. Now as I set off you would not have called it beautiful. The rain was falling and the traffic was heavy. That said once I got on the M62 proper the roads began to clear, if not the weather. No that got decidedly worse as I hit the highest point of the motorway, just as you are leaving Lancashire and entering Yorkshire and approaching Stott Hall farm. It’s always a magical time for me, this sense of coming home. Emotion always begins to build and memory takes over as I re-feel so much. As I drove I had a feeling that something special was going to take place that day. There was a calmness over me as I felt held by the eternal hand of love. It was a strong and reassuring feeling. A feeling I have grown to know so well over the years. A silent kind of strength, not boastful or loud but loving and sustaining. Paul understood it perfectly in the famous words on Love in his letter to the Corinthians. That strength that holds and guides, as you do the things you are there to do in life, your duty for the want of a better word. Some have called it the loving hand of a father and I can understand that, although of course it transcends all human created gender boundaries.

Well amazing things occurred that day. One’s that even for me are too personal to share publicly. All I can say is that they were beautiful and moving deeply redemptive, as I once again witnessed the power of Love at work in human lives. As I drove home that day I wept with both joy and gratitude.

Of all the stories that Jesus told I think it is the “Parable of the Prodigal Son” (Luke Ch 15 vv 11-31) that speaks most powerfully to me. It is a universal tale that speaks on so many levels about the blessings and troubles with forgiveness and reconciliation. There are three characters in the tale a father and his two sons. The youngest son squanders his inheritance on a hedonistic lifestyle, he loses everything. In desperation he sells himself into slavery and due to a great famine finds himself close to starvation. It is at this point of utter despair and hopelessness that he remembers where he has come from, he remembers his father and reasons that even his father’s slaves have a better life than him. So he returns home to throw himself on his father's mercy, not as his son but as a slave. On hearing he is returning his father rushes to meet him. Now even before his son atones his father does more than forgive him. He kisses him, a beautiful touch of intimacy and then as he son throws himself at his father’s feet he orders that the fatted calf be slaughtered and a huge party of much rejoicing be held, to celebrate the return of his son who was once lost but now is found.

The parable of "The Prodigal Son" is a beautiful tale of redemption and forgiveness, but is it a realistic one? If only it was that easy. Well actually there is so much more to this story than has already been discussed, there is another character who does not find forgiveness so easy to come by. There is the other brother who refuses to rejoice and celebrate the returning of his long lost sibling. Quite the opposite in fact, he is angry, he is indignant, he will not reconcile with his brother and is now at odds with his father. In fact he does not even refer to the "prodigal" as his own brother. Instead he names his as “This son of yours” and by doing so disowns him emotionally. He tells his father all he has done for him and yet has received nothing in return for his good and virtuous life. His father pleads with him and then utters the immortal words, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.” He tells his older son that all that is his belongs to him and also reminds him that this brother of his has returned from the dead. He reminds him that he is his brother and therefore a part of him. They were all three of them once bound together and now need to be once again reconciled, they need to be re-bound. Now this to me this is the essence of religious living. For I have come to believe that reconciliation is a deeply religious act.

I wonder sometimes if I myself have become like the older brother who really would rather not recognise the younger brother who is a part of me. It is not easy to forgive ourselves for our failings. I think sometimes I would prefer to disown that aspect of myself, but I know that this is not the right way, the loving way. I know if I want to truly be of service to this world I need to be fully reconciled with all that I am, so as to be able to love without prejudice. I also need to recognise that in each and every person exists each of the three “Prodigal Son” characters. The one who is returning seeking forgiveness, the one offering forgiveness and the one who can feel rejected and neglected by this expression of love. Reconciliation is a process and one that takes time; it is a long journey but one that is certainly worth embarking upon. It is far from easy, but it is without a shadow of a doubt worth embarking upon.

It brings to mind the following wonderful reflection "Mending the Broken World" by Kathleen Mctigue taken from her book of meditations "Shine and Shadow"

“Mending the Broken World” by Kathleen McTigue

In early September I stop to watch my neighbour at work repairing a stone wall that lines the road perpendicular to ours. Built as all the old field walls of our region have been built, the stones are held by balance and judicious choice rather than by mortar. The wall was built well, but the weight of many decades has broken it here and there, with some stones fallen out of place or carried away for some other use.

As I warm myself in the autumn sun and watch him work, I see about half of what he does is simply look at these stones in their haphazard piles, stroking his chin in thought, Then from time to time he rolls one from the pile onto the ground and turns it from side to side, pondering, or walks back to study again the place in the wall he’s trying to mend. When he finally makes his choice, he’s sure. Each stone waits for the right opening, the place where its particular heft and shape fit as though cradled. Once in place it is no longer merely a stone, but an essential piece of the wall, part of a larger thing taking shape as naturally as a tree flows from root to trunk to branch.

My neighbour is an ordinary working man, I know his name, and sometimes we talk together about life and horses and his willingness to help me haul manure to my garden one of these days before the first hard frost. But on this sunny September afternoon as I watch his eyes and hands become familiar with each stone and then lift it to shape the wall, it’s easy to imagine God at work in the immense universe, quietly humming, pulling our lives together into something strong and useful.

I don’t mean we’re mute or helpless, waiting passively for the great Stonemason to lift and move our lives or tell us where we belong. I mean only that there is a place for us, that our gifts – the shape of our minds and talents, the angles of our interest and concern – fit the needs of the world the way my neighbour’s stones anchor themselves in the lengthening wall. I mean that the world’s possibilities shift and change each time we put ourselves into building something large and strong and beautiful. Whether or not we find room in our theologies for the word God, the world itself calls us to imagine ourselves essential to this engaged holiness, bringing forth what is ours to give of creation and strength, toward mending the broken world.

...I hear so much in these words that concept of building or perhaps re-building the "Kin-dom of Love right here right now in and amongst us...

Now of course this no easy task. If I have learnt anything it is that this rebuilding begins with forgiveness. An easy word to speak perhaps but a difficult state to achieve and the reconciliation that it brings with it even harder. That said I suspect it is the purest act of love we can engage in. Now the reason it is so hard, especially with old hurts, is that when we engage in it we bring these painful feelings right up to the surface. Forgiveness is an act of remembrance. In order to forgive we have to truly re-feel all that has happened. We don’t really forgive and forget. What we actually do, if we are to truly forgive is re-member. We re-bind the past to the present and can then begin to reconcile. This is why I say that reconciliation is a deeply religious act, because we are re-binding together what has been separated. That said by so doing we do truly begin to heal our world one stone at a time. It is so easy to look at the world in despair and say I am powerless, there is nothing I can do. The truth is that if we look at the world in this way that is true. That said if we look in our own hearts, in our families and our communities there is much that can be done. Perhaps if we begin here and reconcile ourselves with those closest to us there is much to be done. I wonder sometimes if by focusing on the bigger picture, the whole world, we lose sight of picture on the other side. As the story at the beginning of this "blogspot" teaches, “If you get the man right, the world takes care of itself.” And if we do so we begin to build "the kin-dom of Love" right here right now, what Jesus called the Kingdom of God, which I see as being one in the same.

It is said that “God is Love” and for me this portrayed perfectly in the Parable of the “Prodigal Son”, something that is not always portrayed within the Judaeo/Christian tradition and its imagery of the hard paternal father figure and not really the Abba that Jesus spoke of in the Gospels. Now of course if God is understood in a literal sense, when discussing this parable it is easy to see why God has been seen as a patriarchal figure and I see this as a mistake. Seeing God as Love is to see God not as super human figure, but instead as a way of being and doing and living and breathing. God as Love is to see God as the name for that which we hold of greatest value, for the mystery of existence. This is something surely theists and none theists can adhere to, unless of course they view life as being without meaning. And to see life as meaningless is to deny even the existence of love

When I think of this parable what I witness is a story of Love coming alive. It is a return to Love if you like. To me this is what is at the essence of spiritual living. It is about reconciliation. It is about turning away from merely ourselves and connecting with all. Not just with all that is now, but all that has ever been and probably ever will be. It is a story of turning or if you prefer returning to Love and once again coming alive. This comes alive as we begin that journey of reconciliation, almost immediately. As it did in the "Parable of the Prodigal Son". Remember as soon as the father heard the son was returning and even before he asked for forgiveness the father embraced him, he even kissed him and in so doing that powerful eternal Love came alive.

Here for me is the message in this story. In that beautiful intimate act is everything. The parable is about this power coming alive that can heal our wounded and often broken world. It is something that happens on an intimate and individual level, between each of us. It is also something that I believe we are all responsible for.

It begins here in our own individual lives. It begins in our own hearts as we reconcile ourselves with our whole lives. It begins with those who we have shared our lives with. It begins by focusing on the little picture. If we get that right the bigger picture will begin to take care of itself. Remember as the little girl in the story said “If you get the man right, the world takes care of itself.”

It begins with you and it begins with me. It begins by returning to Love.

Now I am going to end this little chip of a "blogspot" with some words by Robert T Weston entitled “If Love Be There”.

“If Love Be There”

This day, setting aside all that divides me from others;
This day, remembering that the world is beautiful
To him who is willing that it be so
And that into the open, eager heart
The beauty enters in, if love be there.

This day, I will make a part of the song of life.
There may be grief, but if there be love it will be overcome.
There may be pain, but it can be borne with dignity and courage.
There may be difficulty, but it can be turned to strength.
Remembering that the world is beautiful
If I will let it be so for others whom I meet,
This day I will make a part of the song of life.

Easter: Hearing the voice under all silences

“Rolling Away the Stone” by Sarah Gilbert

In the tomb of the soul, we carry secret yearnings, pains, frustrations, loneliness, fears, regrets, worries.
In the tomb of the soul, we wrap ourselves in the security of darkness.
Sometimes this is a comfort, Sometimes it is an escape. Sometimes it prepares us for experience. Sometimes it insulates us from life.
Sometimes this tomb-life gives us time to feel the pain of the world and reach out to heal others.
Sometimes it numbs us and locks us up with our own concerns.
In this season where light and dark balance the day, we seek balance for ourselves.
Grateful for the darkness that has nourished us, we push away the stone and invite the light to awaken us to the possibilities within us and among us-possibilities for new life in ourselves and in our world.

Amen

Easter is seen through many lenses, some are very clear, precise, they are certain as to what Easter is about. Others amongst us though seem to see Easter through a kaleidoscope of ever changing colours and shapes. What comes to your heart and mind when you think of Easter?

Easter is a deeply universal festival in my eyes, I think there are so many layers to this mythos, that if we allow it to can touch all of us. In order to be touched by the magic of Easter you do not have to believe in the actual bodily resurrection of Jesus, you can believe in Easter without having to accept that this actually happened. In fact perhaps it loses some of its power if we focus purely on this aspect of the mythos. Maybe actually if we view Easter through this very clear lens we will miss much of what it can teach us. Maybe it is better to view Easter through a kaleidoscope or at least partially clouded glass, maybe we see more through the mystery than the seeming clarity.

Over he last few days I have been reflecting on the account of the resurrection in John's Gospel. The reason for this is the rather beautiful reflection titled “Easter Resurrection”, by Kathleen McTigue, that I recently came across. It has moved me greatly.

"Easter Resurection" by Kathleen McTigue

"The Easter story as told in the Gospel of John revolves around the experience of Mary who gets up before dawn on the day after the Jewish Sabbath and goes alone to visit the tomb. Her beloved teacher has died a horrible death, and it was only by the unexpected generosity of a wealthy man that Jesus was given even the small dignity of a real burial place instead of a pauper's grave. Because of the Sabbath, his body had not been cleaned according to tradition, and Mary set out early with her herbs in order to do this last grieving service. But when she got to the tomb she found that the stone blocking its entrance had already been rolled away, and his body was gone.

It isn't hard to imagine her despair and anger at being robbed of even this last farewell. she ran to some of Jesus' other followers with the news, and they came back with her to see for themselves. they probably stood there for a while arguing about what to do, but there was nothing to be done. Who would you complain to when you risked your life even admitting to the authorities that you had known him? Filled with that bitter realization, they finally left him again.

But Mary stayed, alone and weeping; maybe something defiant crept in with her grief that made her brave enough to stay. Then she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye, and turned to find someone standing there. "Why are you crying?" he asked. "Who are you looking for?" Thinking he must be the gardener, she said, as carefully as she could, "sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you've put him and I'll take care of it. I won't tell anyone. I'll just take his body and clean him up so he can rest in peace," Then Jesus - because of course it was Jesus standing there, and she didn't recognise him - Jesus just called out her name: "Mary." And then she knew, and she said back to him, "Rabbi."

For those of us who believe that Jesus was a human like us, the idea of his literal resurrection from death is a leap of faith we can't quite make. We know that when our bodies die, they die. We belong to the earth, and it is comforting and right to know that we dissolve again into the sweetness. But we can believe in Mary's resurrection. When Mary heard her name called, suddenly her eyes were opened to a new reality. She was called out from the blindness of her grief and despair, and from within herself she found a new way to see and to understand what had happened to her.

I take that Easter story as truth. It points to the moments in every life when something within us is called out, called forth, called to a deeper understanding of our world. Easter raises the question: In the bright opening of the earth, in the turning season when new life is pouring out all around us, what will we bring forth from within ourselves? It's a time that calls us to open our eyes in a new way, to see not just what we expect to see but perhaps some bright and mysterious truth we could not fathom before, something completely new and unexpected.

We are a troubled tribe, we human beings. The unfolding story of our time on earth is clouded with pain and cruelty, with missed opportunities, unthinkable heedlessness, and indifference. It is also marked by the bright notes of decency, kindness, freedom and courage. Easter proclaims that we each have a part to play in how the story unfolds, if we are willing to wake up. We listen for what is calling to us, and like Mary, when we hear our name we answer, rising anew to meet the life that will not stop calling our names."

Kathleen Mctigues's reflection truly touched the soul of me. Mary Magdalene was in utter despair, having lost her teacher, who she couldn’t even give a proper burial to. Then she once again heard the voice of hope, born from that same place of total hopelessness. As she did she was able to see life through new eyes, new vision came and she was able to turn away from despair to hope.

This is Easter for me a story of hope for all of us that whatever happens in our lives if we keep on turning in faith new vision will come. Easter time, in the midst of spring, truly is the turning season, it is the day of new beginnings. Easter teaches that we can begin again in love each and every day. This begins by hearing or even seeing new hope and turning from whatever despair may keep us trapped in our empty tomb and turn us toward that voice or light.

So I ask you once again what comes to your heart and mind when you think of Easter?

I have also been inspired by the following Easter reflection by Robert Walsh

“Early Easter” by Robert Walsh

love is the voice under all silences,
the hope which has no opposite in fear
by E.E. CUMMINGS

"Easter arrives in New England while spring is still mostly a promise. If there is anything we can trust, surely we can trust the Earth, in partnership with the sun, to put new leaves on the trees, to coax blossoms from the forsythia. Meanwhile, I watch through the window of a gray chilly day for the warming and the brightening to come.

Easter invites us to trust in something more amazing even than the coming of spring. Can we trust this: that love is more durable than life? Can we believe that love casts out fear? Can we have faith that love is the voice under all silences?

I trust, and I mistrust. From the quiet centre of myself, I hear a trusting of love, a faith that the story about love is true. On the noisy surface of my life, I hedge my bets. I collect things, join organisations, and take out insurance, hoping to be saved.

That’s why I need Easter. That’s why we keep this celebration. It is because we need to hear the old story about love. We need to be reminded about the voice under all silences."

...the voice under all silences...Again this truly touched that place right in the marrow of the soul of me...

Can we hear that voice under all silences, the one that calls out our name? Do we believe in the voice, do we believe that it can know our name? Do we believe that it is the voice of Hope that can lead us out of the dark empty tomb of Despair to the light of new beginnings?"

...Beautiful...

I have an experience of a power that is greater than all and yet present in each of us, in everything. That said I do not believe that it controls all that happens in life. I can turn to it for strength and direction and when I do so my prayers are answered and I can live in the way of love and courage. I can become “The Light of the World”, that Jesus spoke of “On the Sermon on the Mount”. I believe that we all can if we listen out for that voice and keep on turning from the tomb of despair to the light of hope.

Now if we believe that we are “the light of the world” then maybe the resurrection occurs within our very lives. That the love that Walsh is speaking of can come alive in us, can incarnate in our very being if we listen for it, if we engage with it intimately.

Easter is so much more than the coming of spring as Walsh states. There is more here than just the re-birth of spring plants and flowers. There are far deeper truths than just seeing the renewal of plant life all around us. I also think that there is far more going on than the story of physical resurrection too.

The resurrection for me is not really about the physical body coming back alive. What it is really about is the spirit within each and every one of us coming alive. Sarah York claims that Easter mythos is about the resurrection of many souls not from death but from deadness. She writes:

“What do I mean by deadness? I mean the things inside that kept the disciples away from Jesus’ funeral – fear, cowardice, lack of conviction and purpose. And I mean those same things in our own lives that prevent us from feeling alive – things like fear, cowardice, and the lack of conviction and purpose. And things like the loneliness, grief and boredom that numb us to life.”

This is what Easter means to me. It is far more than the resurrection of a body, which just seems impossible. It is also far more than the renewal of nature of spring after winter and of plants rising from the once frozen ground. When I think of Easter what I experience is that sense of spirit truly coming to life, just as it did for Mary Magdalene when she heard her name being called in the tomb. It’s about love coming alive in all our bodies and of that light coming alive and us sharing it with a world that at times seems completely starved of love. It’s about the voice of hope coming alive once again in the tomb of despair and being led out into life renewed. It’s about each and every one of us truly becoming “the light of the world”.

That’s what Easter means to me, but what does it mean to you…why don’t you think about that…I’ll leave you with that one…

I ask you once again what comes to your heart and mind when you think of Easter?

I am going to end this chip of a blogspot with a meditation by Mark Belletini, entitled “Exultet for Easter Morning”

I could say they are beautiful
those stars hemming the blue veil of morning
I could say it gives me pleasure,
that bronze and perfect Passover moon,
or I could say they make me glad,
those laughing daffodils along the lane.

Or, I could just as well say they are lit from within,
Divine, overflowing with what some long to call
Revelation, or even the growing vision of God.
But today, on Easter, I don’t care which words I use to express my
wonder.
I just am glad to be alive, blest with such marvels.

I could say that the earth hanging in space
is an accident in the universe that just happened,
or I could say it’s one more miracle,
in a cosmos full of miracles,
one overflowing with divinity.

But today, on Easter,
For all of my education and life experience,
I cannot tell which word is which.
Accident. Miracle.
They both seem to see each other’s face
in the mirror of my heart.
And so I rise in gladness again,
And sing the marvel that everything is!

When some argue for heaven,
And others argue for earth,
For the life of me I cannot comprehend the
seriousness of the debate.

After all, the heaven I see daily overhead
Never argues with me.
It just tumbles clouds through my eyes and yours
And paints the horizons pink and orange
Come evening or come morning.

And the earth I walk on never argues with me either.
It mostly just explodes with buds and petals
Like some out-of-control fountain.
Heaven and earth remain silent even when people malign
the ancient exclamation “O God!”
by fusing with violence and entitlement.

But now, on this Easter Day, everything grows
beyond words, beyond earth and heaven, into
a necessary vision of harmony and peace for all
humankind who rise into life that is alive.

Amen

The Spirit of Winter

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 before the beginning 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 the 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.

...I recently came across the following poem “Winter” by Robert Walsh...

The tree has bared itself to my view.
Its limbs and branches,
its hidden complexity,
exposed.

So this is the frame work that holds the thick leaves.
So many leaves as to block the sun,
the lost sun,
the sunken sun.

Now only the spindly thin wood
casts its shadow on the earth.

Not for me this display of basics,
of skeletal function,
of inner structure and meaning.

Today I seek insulation,
refuge,
boundaries.

I bundle, wrap, cover.

It seems to me that Robert Walsh does not like the bareness, the barrenness, the exposure of the naked trees. Perhaps it reminds him of his own vulnerability, his own exposure. Instead he wants to feel warm and safe and protected. As he says “Today I seek insulation, refuge, boundaries.” I suspect that this is something that we all desire often in life, this sense of being safe and protected. I certainly think that this is something that we seek in religion and spirituality. This sense that we are protected and safe, but is it realistic? He talks of seeking boundaries too. How often do the spiritually inclined speak of these? Me I wonder how often boundaries become barriers and insulation become isolation. If I have learnt anything in life it’s that self-protection just cuts you off and leaves you feeling all alone, once again.

I think that winter has much to teach us about the spiritual life and I suspect that it begins with the trees. I love driving through the countryside, in the north of England in winter time, particularly if there is layer of snow on the ground. The thing I love the most are those seemingly lonely winter trees, stretching out from the cold pale ground.

There is something very beautiful about the trees in winter. These lifeless stick like sculptures stretching out from the ground are stripped right down to the bone. They look vulnerable and exposed, lonely and almost devoid of life but I know that they are not. I know that by the coming spring the land I am passing through will look completely different, it will be bursting with life. The mistake is to fail to see the life there now. Life that is silently waiting to once again express itself.

One of the advantages of ministry is that it really forces you to pay attention to the passing seasons. By doing so you learn to appreciate what each has to offer. Winter has so much to offer if we would but let ourselves appreciate it and not do what Robert Walsh is hinting at in his poem. I think the trees in winter have much to teach we who would prefer to hibernate. If I have learnt anything I have learnt that the spiritual life is about living openly and vulnerably, it’s about accepting the reality of life. It’s about standing their upright, arms outstretch in the cold vulnerability of life waiting for the time of re-birth and renewal in whatever form this takes, just like the trees in winter.

...Greta Crosby writes of winter...

"Winter" by Greta Crosby

Let us not wish away the winter.
It is a season in itself,
Not simply the way to spring.

When trees rest, growing no leaves, gathering no light,
They let in sky and trace themselves delicately against dawns and sunsets.

The clarity and brilliance of the winter sky delight.
The loom of fog softens edges, lulls the eyes and ears of the quiet,
Awakens by risk the unquiet.
A low dark sky can snow, emblem of individuality, liberality, and aggregate power.
Snow invites to contemplation and to sport.

Winter is a table set with ice and starlight.

Winter dark tends to warm light: fire and candle;
Winter cold to hugs and huddles; winter want to gifts and sharing;
Winter danger to visions, plans, and common endeavoring --
And the zest of narrow escapes; winter tedium to merrymaking.

Let us therefore praise winter,
Rich in beauty, challenge, and pregnant negativities.

I’m with Greta Crosby (and not just because we share the same surname) when she says “Let us not wish away the winter. It is a season itself, not simply the way to spring. When trees rest, growing no leaves, gathering no light,”

Yes let’s not wish it away clinging desperately to hope of the new spring, let’s instead appreciate what the barrenness has to offer.

It’s not just the trees in winter that can teach us lessons either, the snow has much to offer too. Mary Oliver wrote a beautiful poem about snow.

"Snow" by Mary Oliver

The snow
began here
this morning and all day
continued, its white
rhetoric everywhere
calling us back to why, how,
whence such beauty and what
the meaning; such
an oracular fever! flowing
past windows, an energy it seemed
would never ebb, never settle
less than lovely! and only now,
deep into night,
it has finally ended.
The silence
is immense,
and the heavens still hold
a million candles, nowhere
the familiar things:
stars, the moon,
the darkness we expect
and nightly turn from. Trees
glitter like castles
of ribbons, the broad fields
smolder with light, a passing
creekbed lies
heaped with shining hills;
and though the questions
that have assailed us all day
remain — not a single
answer has been found –
walking out now
into the silence and the light
under the trees,
and through the fields,
feels like one.

The countryside in the north of England is so beautiful after the snow has fallen. I remember once as a student minister being at Great Hucklow and feeling that we would be stuck there for days as the snow fell and fell. Now as it happens we weren’t going anywhere so it didn’t matter. As luck would have it when it was time to go the snow had stopped falling and we could drive home. Again I remember the beauty of driving through the hills staring out at the blanket of snow that covered the ground.

In her poem Mary Oliver talks of a silence that comes with snow. I get that driving through the snow bound hills. When I do, I do not want to listen to music and I don’t want to speak and when I do, if I’m travelling with someone else, I do so in whispered tones.

Maybe this is the gift that winter brings, especially in these in-between days, after Christmas and before the coming of a new year, maybe its gift is the silence. How often in life do we spend time in silence, just listening to our breath or that of those around us and that of all life around us. How often do we spend time connecting to what is going on deep within us and the life we are surrounded by? Not much I guess. Most folk do not like silence. There is nothing to fear in the silence though. Silence is not merely absence of noise it is space that can be filled with possibility. Sometimes by walking silently out into in the silence of the snow, as Mary Oliver puts it, answers to the swirling questions may come.

So today we stand, silently, exposed at the hinge of the year, in the midst of winter. Maybe we don’t want to stand, maybe we don’t want the silence of the snow perhaps we would rather huddle up and make some noise. We need not be afraid, this is an important time as we prepare ourselves for the coming of a new year. A year filled with potential and possibilities. Who knows what the year will bring. We need to prepare ourselves for whatever is to come and to do so we need to first experience this winter and all it brings. Let’s not wish it all way. Let us instead open ourselves up to the cold and the vulnerability of the silence and let us do so in faith of what this life offers to us.

I will end this little chip of a "blogspot" with these beautiful words by Kathleen McTigue. A “Winter Blessing”

“Winter Blessing” Kathleen Mctigue

The world catches our hearts through its light:
splintering dance of sun on water,
calm moonlight poured through branches,
candles lit on early winter evenings,
a splatter of stars on a clear night,
and the bright eyes of those we love.
But the brilliance never ends,
even when the light goes out.
Mystery shimmers and shines in the world
in even the darkest corners.
It’s there where the roots push life into soil and rock,
in small lives lived under every stone;
there is the silent pulse beneath the tree bark.
It’s in the depth of slow tides as they turn,
there in the sky on moonless nights
when muffling clouds block out the stars.
It’s there in the prison, the hospital,
by hospice bed,
there at the graveside, in the empty house –
something beating in the dark shelter
of our hearts -
the small shine of hope, the gilt edge of kindness.

May we be granted the gift of deeper sight
that we might see – with or without the light.

Seasonal Inspiration 5

Happy Christmas. May the spirit of the season be with you this day and in all your days to come.

This is the fifth collection of material based around the Christmas season that has inspired me...I hope it fills your soul to overflowing as it has mine...

The first piece highlights the spiritual importance about waiting, about allowing the season to settle into us and to prepare ourselves for the magic that is to come, but to do so in a watchful and wakeful sense. I have come to believe that in order to truly experience the spirit of Christmas we need to take time to look over the lives we have lived and the world in which we live today; to examine our whole lives, both the light and the dark; to take time in the dark and prepare ourselves fully to open up to what has been, what is now and what might just be; to find the light that we can travel and live by and to not only follow that which is beyond us but open ourselves fully to it and invite it to grow within and through us and to wander on.

“Waiting” by Burton Carley

Teenager Mary waited. She waited to know the meaning of her pregnancy. She waited for the moral judgement and its shunning effect. She waited for the verdict from a man she hardly knew except for his reputation for righteousness.

Troubled Joseph waited. He waited to understand the meaning of Mary’s pregnancy. He waited and he knew not why, for it was clear what was expected of him. He waited to quietly end the planned wedding.

Mary and Joseph waited and both dreamed. Mary dreamed of wanting her child and how that child might have a future. Joseph dreamed of not keeping the letter of the law but keeping Mary. Now they found themselves waiting to arrive at Bethlehem on a journey they did not want to take, compelled by dreams and a census.

In the overflowing town, Mary and Joseph waited for a place to stay. They waited as all parents wait for the birth of a child. They waited without knowing how the mystery of their dreams would unfold. They waited while listening to the cry of the newborn, relieved and strangely joyful.

Mary and Joseph waited and watched as their first-born grew in stature. Mary waited as she saw keener perceptions revealed in his eyes. Joseph waited and watched as he saw in the driving of a nail some grace and strength beyond the rough-hewn skills of a carpenter.

The couple waited as the spirit took their child. They waited in the destiny of dreams and decisions, still wondering what they had done. They waited in hope and fear, as parents do, for him to find his place in the world.

And the child who was theirs and not theirs at the same time, could not wait. He went into the world seeing its wonder and sorrow, and he urged those about him not to wait any more for their place in it. Everywhere he went he carried with him the experience of love that waited for him and would not cast him out. He waited with compassion for the least and welcomed them, giving them a holy place, all the while remembering Bethlehem.

...This piece explores the wandering nature of the Christmas mythos, suggesting that this is a universal experience and that we spiritual seekers today are perhaps still wandering and a little lost...Aren't we all still looking for that star? Aren't we all still searching for Hope?


“Christmas Eve” by Kathleen McTigue

All these centuries after the story of the star,
the wise men, the baby born in the stable
And the angels singing him in with their mysterious alleluias,
we are lost and wandering still.
We stumble at every step over our own greed or need, our ignorance or fear.

Bethlehem is not a gentle city tonight.

Its people are wise in the ways of the clenched fist, the broken truce.
Marked like them with the scars of ignorance and sorrow we come to Christmas baffled as any shepherd by the music that sounds so high above us, the syntax foreign to our sceptical hearts.

Yet we try to speak the language of hope, lifting ourselves toward the future with a dream of what yet may be.

We remember that the heart of Christmas is hope:

hope that a child. Born homeless and in danger, may grow up to be wise and kind;
that the stars, serene in their darkness, have something to teach;
that there are mysteries around us, among us, singing thereal harmonies.

New hope in ourselves rise then, too:

That we will learn, one day,
and in the nick of time, how to walk our paths with truth and justice,
how to bring peace to life on this earth, how to sing for ourselves the angels’ songs of praise, wonder and joy.


This next piece is about discovering what me might really want for Christmas..."What do you want?"

“All I want for Christmas” by David S. Blanchard

This is the time of the year when we ask – and are asked – what do you want? Shall it be another tie, a new pair of gloves, a book? We ask and we answer. We shop, we wrap we ship. And the season usually comes and goes without us ever really answering the question: What do you want?

Some of the things we want we might be afraid to ask for because we can’t be sure what we would do if we got them. Many things we want we don’t know enough to ask for. Most things we can’t ask for because we know no one can give them to us.

Most people ask the question without any interest in really knowing, yet it can be a question for each of us to hold on to for a time in mind and heart. What do we want? Not what would we like, but what do we want to give us a deeper connection with life and to help us give expression to our love? Not a long list of things, but a sense of clarity that illuminates what it is we are doing and why. Not outward signs of generosity, but an internal sense of caring that guides us to give in any season, not just the reflex of always giving, but also the courage to truly answer some of those people who ask us, “What do you want?”

Dare to answer. Think of the things you want, and the things that others close to you would want.

Imagine the ways they might be given and received.

What do you want?

The next pieces are about Angels, they are amongst us you know. The first is an example of how we might become angels. Maybe this is what we really want; maybe this is what we ought to be preparing ourselves for. We can become angels to those we meet in our daily lives and we can hear the angels as they speak in our daily interactions. All we need to do is prepare ourselves. Maybe this is what we are really waiting for; maybe this is what we are truly watching out for. Maybe?

Maybe we become angles by being both watches and waiters, like those shepherds in the ancient story “that glorious song of old”. Maybe we do this by preparing ourselves both to hear those voices that carry that universal message of love and to also become those messengers in our daily interactions. Maybe all we need to do is prepare ourselves each and every day and to be ready, because we never know the next encounter might be the one that changes our lives and or the person which we encounter, just as it for Kent Nerburn in that timeless and universal story that follows.

“The Cab Ride I’ll Never Forget” by Kent Nerburn From Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace: Living in the Spirit of the Prayer of St. Francis

There was a time in my life twenty years ago when I was driving a cab for a living. It was a cowboy’s life, a gambler’s life, a life for someone who wanted no boss, constant movement and the thrill of a dice roll every time a new passenger got into the cab.

What I didn’t count on when I took the job was that it was also a ministry. Because I drove the night shift, my cab became a rolling confessional. Passengers would climb in, sit behind me in total anonymity and tell me of their lives.

We were like strangers on a train, the passengers and I, hurtling through the night, revealing intimacies we would never have dreamed of sharing during the brighter light of day. I encountered people whose lives amazed me, ennobled me, made me laugh and made me weep. And none of those lives touched me more than that of a woman I picked up late on a warm August night.

I was responding to a call from a small brick fourplex in a quiet part of town. I assumed I was being sent to pick up some partiers, or someone who had just had a fight with a lover, or someone going off to an early shift at some factory for the industrial part of town.

When I arrived at the address, the building was dark except for a single light in a ground-floor window. Under these circumstances, many drivers would just honk once or twice, wait a short minute, then drive away. Too many bad possibilities awaited a driver who went up to a darkened building at 2:30 in the morning.

But I had seen too many people trapped in a life of poverty who depended on the cab as their only means of transportation. Unless a situation had a real whiff of danger, I always went to the door to find the passenger. It might, I reasoned, be someone who needs my assistance. Would I not want a driver to do the same if my mother or father had called for a cab?

So I walked to the door and knocked.

“Just a minute,” answered a frail and elderly voice. I could hear the sound of something being dragged across the floor. After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman somewhere in her 80s stood before me. She was wearing a print dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned on it, like you might see in a costume shop or a Goodwill store or in a 1940s movie. By her side was a small nylon suitcase. The sound had been her dragging it across the floor.

The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets. There were no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks or utensils on the counters. In the corner was a cardboard box filled with photos and glassware.

“Would you carry my bag out to the car?” she said. “I’d like a few moments alone. Then, if you could come back and help me? I’m not very strong.”

I took the suitcase to the cab, then returned to assist the woman. She took my arm, and we walked slowly toward the curb. She kept thanking me for my kindness.

“It’s nothing,” I told her. “I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother treated.”

“Oh, you’re such a good boy,” she said. Her praise and appreciation were almost embarrassing.
When we got in the cab, she gave me an address, then asked, “Could you drive through downtown?”

“It’s not the shortest way,” I answered.

“Oh, I don’t mind,” she said. “I’m in no hurry. I’m on my way to a hospice.”

I looked in the rearview mirror. Her eyes were glistening. “I don’t have any family left,” she continued. “The doctor says I should go there. He says I don’t have very long.”

I quietly reached over and shut off the meter. “What route would you like me to go?” I asked.

For the next two hours we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator. We drove through the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived when they had first been married. She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl. Sometimes she would have me slow in front of a particular building or corner and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing.

As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she suddenly said, “I’m tired. Let’s go now.”

We drove in silence to the address she had given me. It was a low building, like a small convalescent home, with a driveway that passed under a portico. Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up. Without waiting for me, they opened the door and began assisting the woman. They were solicitous and intent, watching her every move. They must have been expecting her; perhaps she had phoned them right before we left.

I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase up to the door. The woman was already seated in a wheelchair.

“How much do I owe you?” she asked, reaching into her purse.

“Nothing,” I said.

“You have to make a living,” she answered.

“There are other passengers,” I responded.

Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug. She held on to me tightly. “You gave an old woman a little moment of joy,” she said. “Thank you.”

There was nothing more to say. I squeezed her hand once, then walked out into the dim morning light. Behind me, I could hear the door shut. It was the sound of the closing of a life.

I did not pick up any more passengers that shift. I drove aimlessly, lost in thought. For the remainder of that day, I could hardly talk. What if that woman had gotten an angry driver, or one who was impatient to end his shift? What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once, then driven away? What if I had been in a foul mood and had refused to engage the woman in conversation? How many other moments like that had I missed or failed to grasp?

We are so conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments. But great moments often catch us unawares. When that woman hugged me and said that I had brought her a moment of joy, it was possible to believe that I had been placed on earth for the sole purpose of providing her with that last ride.

I do not think that I have ever done anything in my life that was any more important.

...So who was the angel in this story? I suspect they both were...they both encounted an angel, one of God's messengers...

I love the following reflection by Billy Collins on questions we might want to ask about angels...Do we ever ask them?

“Angels” by Billy Collins

Of all the questions you might want to ask
about angels, the only one you ever hear
is how many can dance on the head of a pin.

No curiosity about how they pass the eternal time
besides circling the Throne chanting in Latin
or delivering a crust of bread to a hermit on earth
or guiding a boy and girl across a rickety wooden bridge.

Do they fly through God’s body and come out singing?
Do they swing like children from the hinges
of the spirit world saying their names backwards and forwards?
Do they sit alone in little gardens changing colors?

What about their sleeping habits, the fabric of their robes,
their diet of unfiltered divine light?
What goes on inside their luminous heads? Is there a wall
these tall presences can look over and see hell?

If an angel fell off a cloud, would he leave a hole
in a river and would the hole float along endlessly
filled with the silent letters of every angelic word?

If an angel delivered the mail, would he arrive
in a blinding rush of wings or would he just assume
the appearance of the regular mailman and
whistle up the driveway reading the postcards?

No, the medieval theologians control the court.
The only question you ever hear is about
the little dance floor on the head of a pin
where halos are meant to converge and drift invisibly.

It is designed to make us think in millions,
billions, to make us run out of numbers and collapse
into infinity, but perhaps the answer is simply one:
one female angel dancing alone in her stocking feet,
a small jazz combo working in the background.
She sways like a branch in the wind, her beautiful
eyes closed, and the tall thin bassist leans over
to glance at his watch because she has been dancing
forever, and now it is very late, even for musicians.

The next piece explores the giving of gifts rather than merely presents. It speaks powerfully to me, right in the soul of me. Christmas is about the hope and potential of what human life can be. We can bring that love alive in our lives, but it aint easy. It takes real courage to rise above the cynicism of our age and time. Hope takes real courage. Maybe this is the true gift of Christmas, I have come to believe this to be so.

We can bring the gift of Christmas alive and it comes by giving our whole hearts, whole heartedly. In so doing we can once again truly know and experience joy, but not in childish way, in a childlike and yet mature way.

You see the true gift of Christmas is to truly experience joy, something that can easily be lost in life. Joy you see is at the heart of all of this. Joy is the real gift of Christmas and it is the joy that so many people have given me in my life that I need to bring into being and thus allow the gift of Christmas to incarnate in the present moment.

Whatever I have been given materially in my life has never lasted and has certainly never enabled me to connect to all that is, all that has ever been and all that has ever been. That said the joy and love I have been gifted throughout my days, when I take time to really feel it, has truly allowed me to not only celebrate but experience every precious moment.

This is the gift, to bring joy to our world, because by gum it needs it…I think David Blanchard describes this beautifully in the following piece...

“The Gift” by David Blanchard

Sometimes I think I can teach my children things that will make life better for them as they grow up. I want to believe I can protect them, or that there is some way for me to do their learning for them. This line of thinking is routinely floored, not because I am not always the best teacher. Despite my efforts to avoid repeating mistakes, I’m still learning things I thought I knew. Just last year I mistook a gift for a present.

This gift was a homemade potholder woven of colourful scraps of cloth. It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t beautiful. It wasn’t particularly unusual. Accepting it as a present, I placed it into service besides the stove.

Four days before Christmas I was called to officiate at a memorial service for a friend. Talking with her five–and nine–year–old daughters, I asked what things they liked to remember about their mom. What things they did together? What had she taught them? They were busy, deep at work on a gift-making project, but they expressed some memories that mattered, and recounted some gifts their mother had shared with them; making cookies…snuggling in bed…being their Brownie leader…planting bulbs. Then the nine year old looked down and said, “And she taught us how to make these potholders!”

Of course! A gift! How could I miss it?

Presents are the sort of things that fit on lists, complete with size and color preference. Presents are the sort of things we are smart enough to ask for. Gifts are altogether different. We don’t usually think to ask for them, perhaps because we think we don’t deserve them, or don’t want to risk expressing the need. Maybe we don’t even recognize the need ourselves. Gifts differ from presents because no matter what form they take, they always represent something greater, something deeper, something more enduring; they are about things like love. Respect and affirmation.

Gifts given are often woven into some simple token. And sometimes protecting our won comfort, we give them in disguise. They can be easy to miss.

Now I try to give more gifts than presents, and without too much camouflage. Be gift bearers yourselves. Give them along with presents, and look carefully for the gifts others are trying to give you.


...Finally here are a couple of pieces that I suspect are at the heart of this day...If we can do it for a season, maybe we can for eternity...


“To Live a Life – Not Merely a Season” by John Haynes Holmes

The wonderful thing about Christmas is that it fulfils all our dreams. It suspends our indifference and selfishness and fears and hates, and makes us for an instant spiritually kin. No one must be hungry or homeless on this day, no child forlorn, no heart forsaken, no race despised, no nation outlawed.

Christmas is the demonstration that no hope is vain, that the highest vision may be made real. It is as tho a spell were cast upon us, to save us...from our cruelties and lusts and make us ministers of love. The spell is fleeting – it passes quickly! But this means not at all that it is an illusion but that, real for this one day, it may be caught by the spiritual conjuration of our hearts and made real forever.

This our task – to seize and hold and perpetuate the Christmastide! To live a life, and not merely a single day or a season, which is delivered by prejudice and pride, hostility and hate, and committed to understanding and compassion, and good will! Then there will be no more Christian and pagan, Jew and gentile, black and white, native and alien, or any division – but only the human family, one as God is one, and heirs of that promise.

“If only for the season” by Edward Searl

If only for the Season…
Let us banish cynicism
and welcome wonder.

If only for the Season…
Let us downplay our differences
and discover the bonds
of common origins and continuing cause.

If only for the Season…
Let us set aside worry
and smile and laugh and sing.

If only for the Season…
Let us deny apathy and indifference
and truly live by loving.

If only for the Season…
Let us subvert covetousness and jealousy
and be both good gift getters and givers.

If only for the Season…
The brief season
of light,
life,
love,

Let us be wise enough to be
a little foolish
about candlelight and children and
matters of the heart…

If only for the season


...I wish you a very Happy Christmas, let's try and keep it's spirit alive throughout the whole year...