Emptiness and Fullness: Living by Heart, Mind and Soul

You may remember that in the last video I offered a simple suggestion for us all. Well, there has been a lovely response and that’s just the things I know about. I asked us to explore our lives, to think of a few of our favourite things, to let them fill our hearts and then respond in love in some small and if you like big way in this our world. To share a little thing with someone, or some aspect of our world, and to bring that love to life. I know it won’t change the world, but it will do something and it might just change the world for someone. Well, what lovely responses I have borne witness to.

Looking at the world it is easy to see all that is wrong. Our minds, our hearts and souls are bombarded with darkness. There is much darkness, let’s not pretend. It is so easy for our hearts and minds to be filled with fear about it all. That though is not all there is and as I go through my daily life, this is not what I experience. I bear witness to loving generosity everywhere and every day.

Last Sunday I received so much that filled my heart. After the service at Altrincham. Will Pitcher gave me some wonderful gifts of behalf of his family, for helping them through the loss of both of their parents Hugh and Pat. It was a lovely book “The Complete Winnie the Pooh Collection” and music box that played “You are my sunshine, you make me happy when sky’s are grey”. Inside it read “There is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think”. The family noticed I had a Winnie the Pooh diary. I get one every year. Now the reason they noticed it was due to one of my empty headed moments. The first time I went to visit them I accidently picked up last years diary. I only noticed this as I was about to set a date to meet again. It brought much mirth and human connection and it was obviously something they held in their hearts. They responded in love from their hearts and wanted to pour out that love in gratitude. They are a credit to Pat and Hugh.

That evening I met with friends as I always do. As they were leaving one said he wanted a word with me. We spoke for a short while and then he presented me with a gift. It was another thank for something many years ago that has led to so many wonderful things. It is crafted from glass cup in the shape of a pile of books. It is of deep significance to him and countless others and I cannot begin to tell how much it meant to me.

I returned home in the beautiful summer sun and unpacked the gift. I didn’t at this moment know what it was going to be. As I picked a knife from the draw I must have put my keys down. I opened it up and was so moved I decided I wanted to take a picture and share with people. I thought it would be better to go outside. I did and then returned home put my hands in my pocket and no keys were there. I had locked myself out. Thankfully I was able to call on an angel who let me into the chapel where there is a spare kit. I had to wait a while though and as I did I sat and talked with a friend who was still there, they had been talking with someone. It was a beautiful evening. I also took a video of the gift, so moved by it all, my heart full to bursting. I was also laughing at my gormless self. I shared it with friends, passing on the generosity.

I awoke on Monday morning and beautiful morning it was. I shared a gift of “Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day, I’ve got a beautiful feeling, everything’s going my way”. I added a little extra about even if it isn’t all going my way, it still feels like a beautiful morning, a beautiful day. The truth is not everything is, but there is love and my heart feels filled with love. Perhaps a bit too filled it seems. I have noticed that the fuller the heart, the emptier the head. There are plusses and minuses to this. If your head is too empty, then you can too easily find yourself locked out of your own house and this can be an inconvenience for you and others. Yes, my heart was full, but my “gorm” was not. I was gormless and not gormful.

The week off I had enjoyed had done me the world of good. The last 12 months have been very full, a near perfect example of the blessings and curses that come with “Choosing Life”, to paraphrase good old Moses. There has been professional fulfilment too, as I get increasingly involved in helping to shape and develop future ministry. There have been personal and professional challenges, including so much grief. It has felt like too much at times. My mind has felt filled to bursting at times and this has left my heart almost empty. It’s a strange feeling to be filled up to brim with life and yet at the same time to feel almost empty in my being at the same time. A very strange paradox indeed. I know I am not alone. We need to find stillness and not be too full in order to fully function in our own lives, to feel alive.

I am reminded of a story of a university professor who visited a Japanese master to inquire about Zen. The professor began to ask questions while the master just sat quietly, listening. After a while the master began to pour tea into the professor’s cup. The cup soon filled up, but the master did not stop pouring. The tea soon began to spill over on to the table. Initially the professor just sat there in stunned silence, he did not know what to do. Eventually he could take no more and shouted out “It’s overfull. No more will go in!” The master stopped pouring and simply said “Like this cup you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”

It would appear that a full cup ,an overflowing cup, is not such a great thing. Whether it is filled with things or filled with fears. Well certainly this is true when it comes to our minds and perhaps our responsibilities and certainly our fears and anxieties.

That said the last few days have also reminded me of another image of an overflowing cup, that is a beautiful and vital thing.

The image comes from the 23rd Psalm.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths
Of righteousness for his name sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley
Of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil:
For thou art with me.
Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou prepares a table before me
In the presence of mine enemies:
Thou anointest my head with oil;
My cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me,
All the days of my life:
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord
For ever.

The Psalms are attributed to King David. Here he sings of God as a shepherd who will see him safely through the Valley of Death. “Thou prepares a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.” In the psalm the overflowing cup is an excess of goodness, a symbol of abundance, a source of joy. Something you can never have too much of. Can you ever be too full of love?

I am reminded here of the gifts I was given, good old “Pooh Bear” and that cup of love and knowledge, this cup will no doubt be filled and poured out many times. A cup I will drink from, as will many others.

Two cups of contrasting meaning; two cups overflowing: One depicting a mind that is too full and therefore unable to focus or learn something new, or too full that is paralyses us with so much fear; the other depicting a cup overflowing with love that will enable us to live full loving lives, despite the very real troubles present.

Is there a contradiction here, is this a dilemma? Well only if you get lost in the metaphor, the curse of the literalist. The two images are of course depicting different aspects of our humanity.

The Zen story is describing the mind, whereas the Psalm is depicting the heart. It is talking of God’s infinite love. So yes, we can be full abundantly with love and yet still have a mind that is clear. Experience has revealed to me that it is the full heart that enables me to clear my mind and not a clear head that leads me to a full heart. By emptying my mind, I do not fill my heart and yet as my heart becomes full, my mind and soul do indeed begin to settle.

As I look back at my life, proved once again in the last few weeks, I can see clearly that it is when my heart is filled with love that my mind begins to clear. There have been times when my head has been so full that there just was no more room for anything else; times when my life was just too full and I couldn’t create space, when prayer and meditation was not enough. My head doesn’t spin these days, thank God, but I can still begin to not feel life again, as my body becomes detached from my soul.

This has happened again in recent months. I so needed last week. I needed to stop, my soul needed to catch up with my body. I needed to let my heart be filled; I needed to once again be touched by the joy of living, as I was in danger of becoming detached from life. Then there was last weekend and the love I was offered and gratefully received.

Love is one of those commodities that multiplies by subtraction, the more you give it away the more all receive as it encourages others to the same. I have borne witness to this all week long, in the people around me. I saw a wonderful example of anonymous generosity this week. Someone responding in love, but ensuring I didn’t know who it was. I believe that we can all live fully aware of the abundance that is open to us in life. We can live as though are cups were overflowing with abundant love. We can give our love freely. We can truly throw caution to the wind and live with true gracious abandon. I know that sounds some what awkward, but I know we can, we just need to be encouraged. We just need to encourage one another.

I do not believe that I am the only dreamer I am sure that you have all felt this at times. We have all felt full up with the abundance of life, if only for brief moments. We can trigger this in others too. It can begin with a smile at a stranger in the street. Or just by responding with spontaneity. I have talked many times of my belief in the chaos theory of compassion, the source of which is this abundant love that can be poured out from us all. I have seen proof of this once again in the last few days of my life.

The wonderful thing about this abundance is that unlike any other resource it is not finite it truly is infinite. The more we express it, the more we give it away, the more are cups are filled. The key is to share it extravagantly to pour it out onto one another.

That said you do need to be careful not to over do it too. I know I can exhaust myself. There is always need for balance in life. If your mind gets too full of things then you lose all sense of clarity and or connection. You find that you forget everything and lock yourself out of your house, like I did.

So you do need to have a clear mind, a cup that is not overly full in order to focus on what life is offering you. That said in order to do this you need an open heart, you need this to allow this abundant love to fill you up and to flow from you, to let it pour out into your life. We were all born to love.

So sing and rejoice abandon yourself to love and anoint one another regardless of the troubles that may come your way. Will it take all our troubles away. No, but it will bring love to life in our humble human being. Isn’t this the greatest gift of them all.

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

I was recently present at two funerals. One I conducted, the other I attended. A week last Thursday I conducted the funeral of Hugh Pitcher at Queens Road. The funeral felt like a song of praise for Hugh’s life. Hugh was a truly gifted and humble man. He was a truly gentle and gentleman, one of integrity and humility. It was a pleasure to know him and to be able to conduct his funeral service. That evening, I attended a V.E. Day memorial service at St Margeret’s Church, up the road. I was asked to sing “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen. I spent time learning the song, so I could sing it “A Capella”. I found it a soothing experience doing so, as I got lost in the music. The next day I travelled back home for my friend Stuart’s funeral service. Now while there were elements of songs of praise during the service, especially the music he entered into by “Killing Joke”, the service itself left me frustrated and somewhat empty. Now that was partly how I was feeling, but it was also to do with the service itself. We did sing our own songs of praise to his life as I shared with friends later. We sang our own Hallelujah’s to Stuart’s life. Throughout the day and the drive back and forth, the words of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah were singing and ringing in my heart and soul.

As I have said I spent time learning “Hallelujah” last week. There are many versions of the song. In fact probably the better known version was not the one originally recorded by Cohen. Over the years Cohen himself would sing many different versions of the song. It took him seven years to write the song, re-working it and obsessively immersing himself in it. Some claim that the 7 years mean something deep and profound as the number seven has Biblical significance.

Cohen has claimed that he wrote 180 verses for the song and that he changed the lyrics he himself sang as time went by. There is a universal quality to “Hallelujah” as it blends the sacred and secular. It is not enough to simply call it a song, it is somehow more than that, it also a prayer that beautifully commentates on the nature of humanity. The singer song writer Regina Spektor has said of “Hallelujah”, “You get this feeling of hearing a modern prayer.”

Hallelujah was not immediately successful. In fact it was made famous by other artists, covering it and developing it, as the mystique grew. Jeff Buckley transformed the song into emotional masterpiece while Cohen was on a five sabbatical training to become a Zen Buddhist Monk. Buckley’s version is deeply emotive and following his tragic death the song gained even more prominence. Many artists have covered it and it is now a kind of secular anthem. That said as Cohen sang “It doesn't matter which you heard/The holy or the broken Hallelujah

I sang my own adaptation based on the lyrics of John Cale’s version, last Thursday. I did not sing a laid back version, certainly nothing like Cohen’s original, or Cales adapted version. I sang a song of Praise to God, symbolic in my eyes to the feeling that must have been experienced on that first V.E. Day. How the people must have cried out “Praise the Lord” that war in Europe had ended. I hope we can sing that song again soon. I felt that my version was also an impassioned plea that we humans could one day live in peace.

To me to sing in praise it to sing with passion, to let the spirit take you where it will. "Isaac Watts once likened singing hymns to 'breathing toward heaven.' In so doing we our singing our praise to the God that gave us life with his own breath. It is not just about the words and music, but what is felt in the experience, the emotion and the breath, joining with the Divine breath of life. To sing Hallelujah is to sing with enthusiasm, that Divine spirit within, bursting into life. As John Osborne observes:

“How I long for a little ordinary human enthusiasm. Just enthusiasm — that's all. I want to hear a warm, thrilling voice cry out Hallelujah! Hallelujah! I'm alive.”

With passion and enthusiasm in mind I will sing a version of my own. This time though I will sing the original lyrics that Cohen recorded in 1984

Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth
The minor falls, the major lifts
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well, really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light in every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

“Hallelujah” has several biblical threads woven through it, but there is so much more to the song than these stories. There are deeper metaphors, some of which are explored in later verses. There are many stories to found in “Hallelujah”, including our own story which if you look for it, you will find in it. I feel sure that each person who has performed it has found theirs. I found some deep solace last week as I struggled with grief and one or two personal and communal challenges. I have found my own “Hallelujah”

There have many and varied interpretations of the song. Some say it is simply a song about desire, lust and betrayal, themes Cohen explored constantly. Others have spoken of a deep longing for covenant, for putting things right again in our relationships with others and with God. Others see it more literally and claim it is a story about King David’s great mistake. I hear real pain and regret in the song, but there is more to it than this. One verse, that was added later and can be found in many versions recorded since, suggests this

Maybe I've been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah

To me it is hymn of praise, much like the original Psalms attributed to David. There is real faith at the heart of “Hallelujah”, despite the cries of pain and suffering, as well as despair and regret. The opening verse speaks of “The minor fall and the major lift”, The song only works when the two are sung together, surely this is the song of life, those “Blessings and curses”, that Moses spoke of. Surely this is Hallelujah. I was thinking of this as I reflected on both Stuart’s and Hugh’s funeral services, both so contrasting and yet echoing many of themes of “Hallelujah”.

Now as you know I enjoy my etymology, so I thought I would look at the word “hallelujah” itself. It is word made up of two parts. The first “hallelu” means “to praise; the second “jah”, is an abbreviation for Yahew, one of the many words for God, often translated as “Lord”. So “Hallelujah” means that often heard phrase “praise the Lord”. It is a song of praise to God, the Divine. This can be one of celebration, in a major chord, or a more melancholy one, in a minor key.

Leonard Cohen himself has explained what he was trying to express in the song. He said, “It’s a desire to affirm my faith in life, not in some formal religious way, but with enthusiasm, with emotion…It’s a rather joyous song.”

Alisa Ungar-Sargon has said that ‘The song’s central premise is the value, even the necessity, of praise in the face of confusion, doubt, or dread.’ The song speaks of the whole of our humanity, our capacity to achieve greatness and also destructiveness. King David the primary character being the ultimate example of this. That both the holy and the broken exist within each of us. Something also explored in another famous song of Cohen ‘Anthem,’ and that classic line, ‘There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.’

“Hallelujah” is a song about humility, but also about grace and faith, that no matter how far we have fallen we can still sing our hallelujah and no matter how much we achieve, we can still be humbled by life.

The key for Cohen is to remain open and that no matter how many times we fall we can rise again. This is exemplified in that final verse of “Hallelujah”.

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

“Hallelujah” has a universal quality. Leonard Cohen explored many themes through his music. There are both Jewish and Christian dimension, as well as other traditions, such as Hinduism. He spent five years studying in silence at a Zen Buddhist monastery in California after being brought to his knees again when he was swindled out of all his money. Perhaps the solitude appealed to him; perhaps he felt a need to quiet himself, to get away from the rush and tumult of the entertainment business and the hard labor of seeking after fame. But it did not suit him well, as he notes in two poems: "The Lovesick Monk" and "Leaving Mt. Baldy." In the first, he gently pokes fun at the austerity of the place and the rigors of Zen practice. In the second, he admits:

"I finally understood
I had no gift
for Spiritual Matters."

His love for women was probably too much too, another theme that Cohen constantly explored. Zen Buddhism was not for him in the end, the denial of this physical life, His spirit was far too embodied. There were cracks in him, that needed to let in the light, and he wanted to sing “Hallelujah”

These two themes are powerful message, the cracks and the joyous sing to my heart and soul, in this time and place, of all times I suspect. This is the beauty and the joy of living.

The song “Anthem” took ten years to write, three years longer than “Halllelujah”. The line, “there is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in”, might well be Cohen’s credo, the beginning and end of his personal theology. This is something he revisited in in other songs, although from slightly different angles, like “Suzanne,” with the following line “look among the garbage and the flowers / there are heroes in the seaweed,” and again in “Hallelujah”, “There’s a blaze of light / In every word / It doesn’t matter which you heard / The holy or the broken Hallelujah”.

Havinf said all this it is “Hallelujah” that calls out to me. So, it is back to “Hallelujah” that I am going to return as I come to an end. That “secret chord” of King David, that flawed hero, 'the baffled king,' who sang songs of praise to God, songs of hope and despair. Those four original verses and the hundred plus Cohen has written since describe this human need to sing our praise, even if the song is only to life itself, to sing the joy of living. It’s the praise that saves us, that lets the light into the cracks and out of them too. It is in the singing that we light the flame once more in our own hearts and one another’s too. It is something I experienced several times last week, when amongst people who were remembering with love, friends and family and the sacrifice of previous generations.

Those cracks in our hearts, let the love both in and out. It allowed us to come together in that same spirit and to sing out in praise, to sing the song of love.

You see I have heard that it’s not so secret that chord
We can all sing and play, it will please the Lord
Because you have the music in you, don’t you?
It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth
The minor falls, the major lifts
We’re cracked open by love, let’s all sing Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

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

Elephants a symbol of liberation?

We all have things that hold us back in life, things that tie us down and stop us being all that we can be and doing all that we are capable of doing. What are the chains that that keep you locked down? What are you tethered to? What is the cage that keeps you fenced in?

The animation above is a telling of a tale by Jorge Bucay. It tells of an elephant that believed it could not escape its chains because it had been conditioned to do so. It was tamed, it accepted its fate. It was tied down and trapped by what it believed to be true, even though it was blatantly untrue. It had stopped questioning its reality. Its mind had become fettered. This is something I think that everyone can all relate to, I know I can. How often in life do we settle for our current reality and just accept what feels comfortable and just perform for our master, whatever and whoever they may be? How often do we all just trundle along, accepting our current reality, failing to see the elephant in the room, the problem, the thing that needs to be altered?

Elephants have been on my mind the last few days. I cannot seem to escape them, they are everywhere. Everywhere I turn they seem to be popping up. It began a few days ago when a friend posted the Jorge Bucay story on facebook, or maybe it was a little earlier when I read the beautiful story of the elephants visiting the home of Lawrence Anthony after he died. What an incredible story that is (Click on link) http://delightmakers.com/news/wild-elephants-gather-inexplicably-mourn-death-of-elephant-whisperer/ They’ve cropped up in conversations too. People keep on talking to me about elephants. My friend Karl was telling me a tale about having to buy one the other day “that he just couldn’t say no to”. Last Saturday during the training I received from the media trust the instructor suddenly randomly began recounting a Rudyard Kipling verse about elephants; elephants have been cropping up in other conversations too. I called to visit a member of the congregation and began chatting with her about elephants and mentioned that a ministerial colleague had lots of elephant ornaments in their home. She said "well I have a love of cat ornaments, I don’t have any elephants here," or so she thought. As I left her house I just glanced into her kitchen and my eye caught sight of an elephant right there in front of me, on her fridge. She had an elephant fridge magnet that she’d had for years, that she’d forgotten was even there. Now that’s not very elephant like is it? Forgetting that you had an elephant on your fridge. Why did I notice it then, coincidence? Maybe? Maybe not? Jung called it synchronicity (See Link) http://www.carl-jung.net/synchronicity.html. By the way another friend of mine tells me that the same thing has been happening to her, she has received elephants on cards and has seen them on the news and another friend told her that when she was out shopping with their grandson the other day she kept on picking up things with elephants on them everywhere. My friend is quite a spiritually minded person and she said to me “I wonder what the significance will turn out to be?”  I wonder too. Many other people have told me of other recent elephant tales, too many to go into detail about here.

So here I am writing about elephants, why? Well because I have to. The very same invisible force that compelled those elephants to pay homage to Lawrence Anthony is compelling me to explore elephants and their spiritual symbolism.

In the two clips below Lawrence Anthony's widow Francois talks of his work and the visit of the elephants to pay their respects

Elephants are incredible creatures, beautiful and powerful and deeply spiritual. Many of the religious traditions make reference to them and they are used in so many stories. Did you know that they actually listen with their feet (See Link) http://news.nationalgeographic.co.uk/news/2006/02/0216_060216_elephant_sound.html and they mourn their dead? So it’s no surprise that they sought out Lawrence Anthony a man who had offered them so much love and came to pay him respect. There is no doubt in my mind that they are deeply soulful creatures.

Elephants are large animals they have small eyes and big ears. They are renowned for their amazing memories. If they have been somewhere once they will never forget it. They are herd animals and look after one another. If they come across the bones of a dead elephant they will cry out to others so that they will come and pay homage to a lost friend or relative. They are generally gentle and obedient creatures although if the leader calls on them to fulfil a task they will endure anything to do so, destroying any obstacle in their way and becoming insensible to pain and fatigue.

Yes elephants are deeply soulful creatures therefore it is hardly surprising that many of the faith traditions pay homage to them and their characteristics. 

It is generally thought that Hindu’s worship elephants; this is actually a misunderstanding of the faith tradition. It is not the elephant itself that they are worshipping but rather what it symbolises; the elephant symbolises obedience to the dharma, the ability not to repeat past mistakes and to take care of their neighbours.

Ganesh (See Link) http://hinduism.about.com/od/lordganesha/a/ganesha.htm is one of the most adored Hindu deities. According to mythology he is the first son of Shiva and Pavati and is known as “the remover of obstacles”, a characteristic that is associated with elephants. Ganesh has the head of an elephant, which symbolises wisdom; it is considered that a man who has the head of an elephant is a wise man. He is accompanied by a mouse, which the elephant uses as a vehicle to carry his spirit around in. The mouse is symbolic of the human body that scurries around in the dirt and darkness and the elephant is the spirit that needs to be carried around in the body in order to reach its destination.

According to Hinduism, humans are elephants who believe that they are mice. The story of Ganesh teaches that we need to remove the obstacles that will allow our true human natures to develop.

So we have two stories, inspired by elephants one depicting how we are chained by our minds, by what we believe is true and the other showing how an elephant mind can lead to liberation. Isn’t this so human? So often the very thing that can enslave us is almost identical to that which will set us free.

What are the things that hold you back, that stop you doing what you can do, from being all that you can be? We all have fixed ideas about things, that we probably rarely even question. Sometimes these are very obvious to others, but not to ourselves. How many of us fail to see the elephant in our room, or attached to our fridge.

And even if we see the obstacles can they be removed? How easy is it to break the chains that enslave us? They may look like a flimsy bit of rope, but they can still have great power over us.

In the Psalm 107 vv 13-15, David proclaims that it is God who does this. He sings “thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love and his wondrous deeds for mankind! Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress. He brought them out of darkness, the utter darkness, and broke away their chains.” In Luke’s Gospel, at the beginning of his ministry Jesus quotes Isaiah and states “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me, to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour,” by doing so he is proclaiming his purpose that he has come to set the people free. I see some real parallels with Ganesh here, the remover of obstacles.

Is this enough though? Can faith alone remove the obstacles that block us from physical and spiritual liberation? Also is it enough to simply seek liberation for ourselves alone?

Well I for one do not think so, on both counts. Faith for me means very little, unless it is accompanied by selfless action. Faith for me has always been about how I live and not about what I say I do or do not believe in. To me what matters is the building of the Commonwealth of Love right here right now, Heaven and Hell are right here right now, not some place beyond this life. What matters is the world in which I live today, faith has to be a living breathing thing and not some imagined Nirvana or Oz at the other side of the rainbow.

Nor is it good enough to simply want liberation for myself alone, wouldn't that be selfish?

And so I return to my Lenten message, what can I give to life to my world instead of simply giving something up, just for myself? What can you who read this blog give to your world too? Where is the need in your world? What gift can you give to your world? Where in your world is love so desperately needed? Look around you, see what you can contribute? Do you know what if you do you might find that you can easily set yourself free from the chains that hold you down; you might find that the barriers that block you from living the life you were born to live can and will be removed.

We can learn so much from the elephant, the most soulful of creatures. Through them we can learn to remember not to forget what love is; we can remember not to forget to pay homage to those who have loved us and shown us the way of love; we can remember not to forget the lesson the first time, so as not to have to repeat the same mistake twice; and perhaps above all else we can remember not to forget that we are all in this ship together, we do not journey alone, nor do we know freedom alone.