Deep Is Your Treasure

At a recent “Living the Questions” Adie Tindall led an excellent conversation on how art speaks to us. Art does have a way to reach those parts of ourselves, deep in our hearts, that other media perhaps cannot, maybe this is why we value it so much. So many of us treasure such works of art and artists too. During the conversation John Poskitt told of a limited edition copy of a piece of Bob Dylan’s art that cost him a lot of money and that he was paying for in instalments. John is a great lover of the arts.

Art had been in the news earlier that day. A work of art by “Banksy had sold for almost £10,000,000. It eclipsed anything else he had produced in the past by more than five fold. As someone pointed out whoever was behind “Banksy’s” promotion was a genius. He had after all begun as a gifted graffiti artist. Now no doubt the piece had gone up in value due to its subject. It goes by the title “Devolved Government” and is an image of a Parliament of Chimpanzee’s arguing in the “House of Commons”. I don’t believe it would have raised such a price a few months earlier. I wonder what raised the value so much?

Now as talented as “Banksy” is, and regardless of his mystique and clever promotional work, and regardless of the satire of the piece, how the heck can a painting be worth £10,000,000. It just seems obscene to me. Although it is not just painting’s and other art treasures that seem valued way beyond reason. Football is another example. I love football, but surely no footballer is worth £200,000,000. It seems ridiculous but this is the market value for the best of the best.

Now I am sure there are things that we all value above anything else in life, that we treasure beyond measure. I wonder what it is that you treasure the most? What is beyond value in your life, your pearl of great price, that you would sell all that you have for. Is there anything or anyone that you treasure so much that you would give everything for. Something to ponder perhaps. Some folk devote their whole lives to these things that they treasure the most

The great stories of human history speak of heroes going on epic journeys in search of great treasures. “Mythos”, from a variety of cultures, tell tales of questing for such treasure whether they be material objects or perhaps attempts to reach a certain goal or to manifest a dream. Think of the Arthurian legends, particularly the quest for the Holy Grail. Think of the biblical accounts, Moses and the Israelites, or Jesus's journey into the wilderness for forty days and forty nights, a journey of sacrifice and transformation. Or perhaps the Native American initiation tradition of Vision Quests. Such journeys often included climbs to the summit of mountains, like the climb to the summit of Parnassus, the ancient mount of the Muse. While watching the rugby the other morning I noticed the symbol depicting Mount Fuji with the Red Sun rising behind it. The Japanese people consider Mount Fuji, to be the point of contact between heaven and the underworld. Perhaps the ultimate journey, the final one.

Many of these great adventures described mythical themes depicting great feats such as climbing a mountain, or going off in solitude into the desert, or perhaps going into the heart of a forest forever searching, seeking, and questing. Until it is time to return home with treasure to share.

It’s not just the great heroes that go on such quests, ordinary people do too. Increasingly people are going on Pilgrimage. It’s nothing new by the way. All the great religious faiths have a tradition of pilgrimage within them. What is interesting though is that there seems to be a growing need to seek pilgrimage in our time and space, in these secular times. I even attended a Unitarian pilgrimage recently, as I led worship at the triannual “Rivington Pilgrimage”. I have to be honest though and say that it isn’t a true pilgrimage as we didn’t really walk very far. Although for some of us it was a journey just getting to Rivington due to the severe flooding. Several folk could not get there and had to return home in the end. And of course there was the amazing trip earlier this year to Israel and the magic that Sue and I shared by the Sea of Galilee. The whole trip was life transforming on so many levels. A deep and beautiful treasure of the heart.

I know several people who have walked the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route. The Camino is a path to the shrine of Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain. Since medieval times, people have made the pilgrimage to the cathedral there. And pilgrimage is of course central to Islam, where, every believer is called to make at least one pilgrimage to Mecca in his or her lifetime.

At the core of these calls to pilgrimage is a universal human longing for growth, for becoming more than we were by going father than we ever dared. Now in these physical pilgrimages these longings manifests themselves in walking and somehow in this walk transformation occurs. The destination of such pilgrimages is a new horizon, the one we glimpse from a distant and are drawn to. Like the sun rising behind Mount Fuji.

Now while such physical pilgrimages can be beautifully transformative I have discovered another for more important pilgrimage. This is the pilgrimage to the heart. Not a physical journey but a deeply arduous one. A journey not only to the heart, but of truly awakening the heart, the true frontier of humanity. I suspect that most of the ancient pilgrimages were really about this. The stories were certainly journeys of transformation.

I suspect that this is our greatest treasure of all, our hearts. The Talmud says, 'God wants the heart.' All life stems from and through the heart. In ancient times is was believed that the heart was the center of human intelligence and the seat of the soul. According to Augustine of Hippo the heart was a metaphor for our deepest and truest selves, believing that union with God could only be achieved through it.

It is through the heart that we begin to connect to our truest and deepest selves. And through connecting to our deepest selves and thus awakening our hearts we begin to act in loving meaningful ways in the world. We will not act with compassion without our hearts. We will not act with true reason without the heart. In fact reason can be deadly without compassion, without being led by the heart. This is the true pilgrimage, the journey to the heart. As Howard Thurman once said 'the longest journey is between the heart and the head.' Thurman, the great mystic, theologian and educator was critical of the tendency in the modern age to separate the heart from the intellect. You see it is not only the body that is nourished through the heart but

our whole humanity. This is why it is so vital to take care of not only our physical heart but the heart of our spirit too and this requires an inner pilgrimage, that of silence.

Silence has become an important and treasured aspect of Unitarian worship. I spend time in communal silence several times a week. It enables me to reach that treasure at the core of myself and others too, it is vital to my life as food, water and exercise. We shared a special moment in silence last Sunday at Dunham Road. Some thirty or more human hearts and perhaps twenty dogs all sharing in reverential silence together for several minutes in the middle of the “Blessing of the Animals” service. You could feel a deep power at work in this pure silence, so deep I could almost hear our hearts beating. It was one of the most beautiful silences I have ever shared. Although when I think of it I have shared many such moments with strangers and friends throughout this year. It has been the year of the heart. Last Sunday I was not the only one to feel it either. Several people commented to me afterwards just how special the experience was. 50 hearts beating as one, is there a greater treasure in life. It was a beautiful spiritual journey to share together as we entered the caves of our hearts and helped awaken something beautiful within each and every one of us.

We each of have a great treasure within us, a treasure that needs to nurtured and cared for and brought to life. It’s a treasure that the world needs us to share with it. We need to take care of this priceless treasure and live from it. And if we do we may just begin to bring alive that love that is Divine. To bring the Kin-dom of love alive that dwells within in each and everyone of us, in everything.

The world awaits us, let's take that great journey together.

Speak what your heart must

I love listening to people, to connect with what they are sharing, what they are struggling with. I love to identify with others, to connect heart to heart. What I identify the most with is the struggle; the struggle to put into words the questions and the experiences.

I love listening to words, they are powerful things, they touch deep places within us. And yet all that words are, when reduced to their merely physical components is vibrating air. This is true and yet it really isn’t true. Words are so much more than there merely physical components. They connect people to deep, deep, places in one another’s being. They are imitations of the Divine I suspect, they are like seeds in so many ways, they begin to bring salvation or utter destruction. And yet they are just noises formed from vibrating air.

I love listening to people when they speak their heart, they speak what they must speak.

I have particularly enjoyed listening to the many and varied people who have attended the groups I lead at both congregations I serve. The other Sunday I was chatting with Aled and Adie about the last “Living the Questions”, I said it was a great conversation, to which Aled replied something like “You always say that”. This is true, it is always a great conversation and yes I do always say this. Now it may not go the way I would have liked it to, but that doesn’t seem to matter. I always enjoy the conversation and am fascinated by what comes from those in attendance. I just love listening to folk as they try to articulate their varied understandings of life and their personal spirituality to others; others who can at times seem baffled by what is being said. What I love about the groups is that they manifest in an understanding, loving and respectful spirit. We speak the language of the heart and we listen with the ears of our hearts, well at least most of the time.

Being listened to and especially being accepted and understood is so vital to people. I have noticed this particularly in the grief group I host. Whenever a new person attends the one common feature for everyone is this sense of loneliness that they express after the loved one has gone, how they feel unheard by others, like their words are not being accepted or that others have tired of hearing them. The beauty of the group is that each can come and speak freely and are truly accepted. I have witnessed some moments of deep connection within the group. I have truly seen love incarnated in the air and words that we share together, it is a truly beautiful blessing.

There is something truly beautiful in speaking words, heart to heart. The language of the heart is not really about correct use of language but a way of being with each other, it is an intention, it is about invitation, it is about allowing others to be who they are in your space, this is true openness by the way. Openness is not about telling another all about yourself, instead it is about inviting another to be themselves in your space.

Words connect us in some very special ways, they can be incredibly powerful. They can begin to bring deep healing or can be deeply destructive. What matters is the intention behind them. What seems to matter is the condition of our heart and soul as we speak what we must speak.

I recently heard the following little tale…Like the tales about Nasruddin it spoke to me…

There’s a story about a Unitarian minister’s new car breaking down just after the Sunday service. Come Monday morning, the minister managed to drive the vehicle to the town’s one garage for repairs. “I hope you’ll go easy on the cost,” he told the mechanic. “After all, I’m just a poor preacher.”

“I know,” said the mechanic. “I heard you preach yesterday.”

Now I hope this isn’t true about the worship I create. I know I perhaps don’t speak perfectly. In fact I’m sure sometimes the language I use takes some getting used to but I do hope that what I share touches those who engage in it and not only speaks to the mind. If I fail to touch the heart and soul, occasionally at least, then I know I am a poor preacher.

It matters what we say and it matters how we say it, in the spirit that it is delivered. When we speak is it about creation or destruction, separation or connection, is it about authority above or is it about inclusion. It matters you know it really does.

Words are powerful they can be either destructive or creative. Perhaps an example of their creative power comes at the beginning of John’s Gospel and the following lines:

'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made.'

According to John the "Word" can literally create life, in fact all life. Now of course in the original Greek, which these opening words were written in, the word for “Word” was originally “Logos” which roughly translated actually does mean merely “word,” but also “speech,” “principle,” “meaning” or “thought.” In Greek philosophy, it is also referred to as universal, divine reason or the mind of God. So it could mean God speaking life into being, linking it to the first verses from Genesis when God is said to have breathed life into being, remembering always that he saw this creation as “Good”. So “word” here means, in my view, that life is the meaning coming into being and Jesus is the example of this in human form. Not the one and only example, but one we can all aspire to. For we can all incarnate Love, we can all be a part of the Divine creation. It begins in our words and how we say these words for they are an expression of our meaning.

When we speak we are not merely flapping our lips, vibrating air, we are engaged in Divine activity, we are creating or destroying life.

I believe what we say and how we say it really matters, as everything really matters. Others beg to differ. They say that nothing really matters, especially what we say. This is exemplified in the following rhyme, familiar to us all.

'Sticks and stones may break my bones but names (words) will never hurt me.'

Now if this is true then words don’t really have power, that they can’t really hurt us. What do you think? Do words have power? I believe that they do, in fact I believe that they can be so powerful that they can either create or destroy life. The rhyme though suggests otherwise.

I believe that the spoken word is very powerful. That said it is not just what is said that matters but how and in what spirit. I have come to believe that the words we speak are actually expressions of our spirit and where we are spiritually. They express whether we are part of the creation or the destruction of life. Words do become flesh and they do dwell amongst us, the spoken word far more than the written word I believe, for they are far more of an expression of our spirit.

Yehuda Berg an author on the Kabbalah, a mystical form of Judaism, said:

“Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively using words of despair. Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate and to humble.”

Words are very powerful, what we say and how we say them have power. We affect people and life just as we affect ourselves with our words. So are we speaking creatively or destructively? Or has Proverbs 18 v 12 put it (written words I know) “Rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.”

Gary Chapman in his book, “Love as a Way of Life” uses a similar metaphor for words as being either ‘bullets or seeds’. When we use words as bullets or like sword thrusts we are playing a part in the destruction of life, we are building barriers of separation and or exclusion; where as if we speak from wisdom and love we become part of the creative process we are part of the love becoming flesh, we are building bridges of healing and restoration and holding out our hands in an inclusive and embracing way.

Be careful what you say and how you say it, in what spirit, for what you say and how you say it, will play a part in the creation or the destruction of life. It matters what you say and in what spirit you say it.

Words are powerful, it matters what we say and how we say it, and in what spirit. We hear words and how they are spoken before we can understand them with our minds. We hear them from the moment we are born, perhaps even before we are born in our mother’s womb. Here in the powerless and utterly dependent moments the words we hear and digest have a powerful influence on the people we become. Words are very powerful, the words spoken and the spirit that they are spoken in have the power to create and or destroy life.

Everything matters, every thought, every feeling, every action and every word spoken. What we say and how we say it is not the only power at work, of course not, but never ever let anyone tell you it does not matter. You have no idea the power that you are involved in with the words you speak. Your very next sentence maybe the beginning of something beautiful in the life of another, it may well play a part in changing or giving life to someone. Or on the other hand it may aid in their destruction.

So choose your words carefully, ensure they are spoken in the spirit of love of creation.

Speak your whole heart, what your spirit compels you to do.

May your words be like seeds that create life and not bullets that destroy life.

Belonging: Be-Your-Longing

Every month at the beginning of the “Living the Questions” that I host, I always offer space for those present to say a few words of introduction, it is an attempt to help them feel welcome. Just a few words about who they are and why they have come. Well at the last get together a regular attender’s husband came along. As he introduced himself he said my name is so and so and I belong to (he gave his wife’s name). He had come along, a little under duress I suspect, as it was his wife’s birthday and this is how she wanted to spend it. Now at that moment I didn’t say anything, I waited until the end of the evening when I would introduce the subject for the next month. The subject was of course going to be “Identity and Belonging” so I thanked the gentleman in question for leading us so beautifully into the subject by the way he introduced himself, he had disclosed both his identity and who exactly he belongs too.

Now of course this was all done in humour but there is a serious point. Who are we exactly and who or what do we belong too? What makes us who or what we are? What gives us a sense of belonging? What is it that gives us a sense of identity? When we say this is who we are is this an invitation to others or does it in fact create barriers? What happens if you feel that you don’t belong? What happens when you hit an identity crisis and all that you believe that you are is taken away? Are any of the things that we identify with permanent? What happens if we are cast out of the group we believe we belong or decide we have to leave because we no longer feel that we belong with them? Where does spirituality, a sense of oneness, God fit into all of this? As you can see it brings up lots of questions; questions I’ve been wrestling with for quite some time.

It’s interesting what it is that we think makes us who we are, what gives us our sense of identity, our sense of belonging. Last week I visited a member of the congregation who has been ill for quite some time. I sat in her home and we talked about many things. I asked about one of the pictures on her wall and as she told me about it she spoke of her first job and how her husband of 60 odd years would come and wait for her to finish work on Saturday before they would go “courting”. She talked of growing up in a Lancashire village that was right on the border of Yorkshire and how folk had often mistaken her as coming from Yorkshire. I half-jokingly said “I bet you didn’t like that”, to which she replied, that it didn’t really bother her. She then went on to speak of her own father, who she described as somewhat eccentric and how he used to write Lancashire dialect plays that were broadcast by BBC radio. I remember a few days later saying to a friend how I’d love to get a hold of those plays, to which my friend replied, “You probably wouldn’t understand them”. I have to concede that this is probably true.

Now I don’t know if it was me who got this conversation started, the lady I was visiting, or some power that has the capacity to influence if not control our lives. What was interesting though is that earlier that day a friend had asked me some questions about accents and dialect and what I thought about them with regards to English language being taught in schools. It was part of survey for something she was studying at college. I said that it saddened me that regional accents and dialect were disappearing. I said I did not think that dialect had had a detrimental effect on my generation and those who preceded us with regard to written English. In fact it would seem that many had a better grasp of the written word than current generations.

This got me thinking about my own grandfather and the loss of some of the things he used to say. Things that my generation would never say. This brought a tear to my eye. I suspect that this sadness had more to do with the fact that I would never hear him speak again rather than the loss of his way of speech. I do wonder though if I will ever authentically hear the greeting “Nah then owd lass” or “Nah then owd lad”. It “allus med mi chuckle” when he called my mum “owd lass”. No doubt if he’d met the Queen he’d have said to her “nah then owd lass.” I mentioned this to my mum and in response she sent me a whole list of sayings from Batley, the town in West Yorkshire where I come from, she had to translate one or two for me, because I didn’t have a clue what they meant.

All this got me thinking about belonging, about where I come from, about what makes me who I am about my own identity and about how we identify ourselves.

It’s a phrase I hear a lot “I identify as…” I think I understand why increasingly people feel the need to do so, certainly those who have been excluded and or persecuted in many ways for certain aspects of who they are, due to race, ethnicity, religion on non-religion, gender, sexual orientation etc. There is a reason why people say that they identify in certain ways. This is why the various pride movements have developed. There is still an awful lot of work to be done too. As a society we do still exclude and reject people due to certain aspects of who they are. It is so important for a person to be able to be who they wholly are in order to feel that they belong. To accept a person we have to accept them wholly as they are.

That said I do wonder if sometime statements like “I identify as this…” creates barriers. When a person says that they “identify as” it is not revealing who they are, just a small aspect of who they are. By the way sometimes it is others who put those very same labels on us. This brings me back to the gay football loving stand-up comedian I spoke about a couple of weeks ago and his struggles to be himself fully and the loneliness experienced in his attempts to “fit in”. Looking for like hearted people

Looking at my own life it was during those days of yearning and longing, when I desperately felt lost and alone, that I tried so desperately to belong to some group of people and always felt that I never did. I have learnt that since I found that sense of belonging in my own soul I have found that I can easily find a sense of belonging with most people. I no longer need to fit in because I no longer feel alone. I belong in my own skin, I belong in the universe. I know I am a child of God, I know the love that passeth all understanding. I can accept myself warts and all and beauty spots too and I can therefore accept others too, well most of the time.

I love the following beautiful bit of wisdom from the late John O’Donohue’s wonderful book “Anam Cara”. I think in this passage he hits the nail squarely on the head with regard to our struggles to be who we are and to find a real sense of belonging. I love the way that he relates belonging to longing and yearning. He suggests that we need to find a balance in belonging and that often our problems stem from not being truly at home with ourselves. That we should be our own longing. That the key is to be-long within ourselves. If we belong within ourselves then we will feel at ease and belong wherever we are. Therefore the sense of who we are, our identity will not be ruled by the need to fit in, to belong, externally. 

“The Trap of False Belonging” by John O’Donohue

The heart of the matter: You should never belong fully to something that is outside yourself. It is very important to find a balance in your belonging. You should never belong totally to any cause or system. People frequently need to belong to an external system because they are afraid to belong to their own lives. If your soul is awakened, then you realize that this is the house of your real belonging. Your longing is safe there. Belonging is relating to longing. If you hyphenate belonging, it yields a lovely axiom for spiritual growth: Be-Your-Longing. Longing is a precious instinct in the soul. Where you belong should always be worthy of your dignity. You should belong first in your own interiority. If you belong there, and if you are in rhythm with yourself and connected to that deep, unique source within, then you will never be vulnerable when your outside belonging is qualified, relativized, or taken away. You will still be able to stand on your own ground, the ground of your soul, where you are not a tenant, where you are at home. Your interiority is the ground from which nobody can distance, exclude or exile you. This is your treasure. As the New Testament says, where your treasure is, there is your heart also.

A friend of mine recently posted the following quote by Brene Brown, during an on-line conversation on identity and belonging:

“Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.”

I’ve listened to quite a bit of Brene Brown recently and I have to say she speaks to the soul of me. I love what she has to say about the difference between “Belonging” and “Fitting in”, that they are not the same thing although they are often mistaken for one another.

Brene Brown explains that “Fitting in” is really about assessing situations and becoming the person that you believe you need to be in order to be accepted and acceptable. Whereas “Belonging” does not require us to change who we are, but to be who we really are.

Belonging is an innate desire to be a part of something larger than ourselves. This is a primal yearning, deep within the soul of us and thus we often try to acquire it by fitting in and seeking approval from others. Now not only does this not satisfy this yearning it actually becomes a barrier to it. In so doing we lose our identity and feel even more lost and lonely. True belonging you see only happens when we present our true, authentic, imperfect selves to the world, “warts and all” and beauty spots too. Unless we are at home within ourselves we will never feel that we belong anywhere.

This brings me back to my Lenten practise for this year. This need to make time for wilderness, this need to take time be alone in silence and to come to terms with who I am and my place in life and to therefore be fully a part of life. To be - long here. To “Be-my-Longing” if you like. To truly know the soul of who I am, to become the “light of the world” to remember what I truly am or can be and to be that in the world. This is something that we can all be. To feel that sense of be-longing in life. We must first of all be-long in ourselves and if we be-long in ourselves we will no longer have to try and fit-in in the world and we will truly be able to serve our world and be who we truly are.

May we embrace our true be-longing…

I'm going to end this little chip of a blogspot with a blessing by John O'Donohue

“For Belonging” by John O'Donohue

May you listen to your longing to be free.
May the frames of your belonging be generous enough
for your dreams.
May you arise each day with a voice of blessing
whispering in your heart.
May you find a harmony between your soul and
your life.
May the sanctuary of your soul never become haunted.
May you know the eternal longing that lives at the heart of time.
May there be kindness in your gaze when you look within.
May you never place walls between the light and yourself.
May you allow the wild beauty of the invisible world
to gather you, mind you, and embrace you in
belonging.