Super Ordinary Heroes: The Lives of Christopher Reeve and Victor Frankl

“When the first Superman movie came out I was frequently asked, "What is a hero?" My answer was that a hero is someone who commits a courageous action without considering the consequences...

...Now my definition is completely different. I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.”

Christopher Reeve

I recently watched “Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story”. It was a powerful and moving documentary film about not only his life, but his family’s life also. Like a lot of young people, of my generation, Superman was the ultimate hero, and Christopher the archetype. I went to see all of the first three films at the pictures. Just like young people do today as they marvel at such features. Christopher Reeve seemed to be the perfect image of the “Superman”. He was the all American hero and a great success. He seemed to be well loved too by his contemporaries. He had a life long friendship with Robin Williams. He had lived something of a hedonistic lifestyle, living the good life and achieving much. Then tragedy struck and he became paralysed from his neck down after being thrown from his horse.

His chances of survival were slim. In fact he only survived due to a new surgery. He fell into despair and said to his wife Dana “Maybe we should just let me go”. Dana persuaded him to give himself two years and told him “But you are still you. And I love you.” He was still him, but he could no longer physically touch life. Despite all he had lost he still had had the love of his family, he also had fame and saw that he could create something powerful and useful from this. So, he decided use all he had to create something good. He and Dana set up the “Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation”.to help both other paraplegic people but also develop research to help people perhaps one day walk again, to heal spinal injuries.

Christopher Reeve realised that even though he could no longer use his body, he had a power that so many other people do not. He could use his fame. He could create something from this tragedy. He succeeded he created something incredible, as did his family. Sadly, he died suddenly in 2004 but his legacy lived on. A year later his wife Dana was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer, sadly she died only a year or so after Christopher. This left their son Will without either parent. He and his older siblings Matthew and Alexandra, from a previous relationship, carried on the work of the foundation.

There is a moment towards the end of the film where Will speaks of the death of both of his parents and the potential to slip into despair. He, spoke of a decision, of a choice that he and perhaps all of us have to make. That you can look at the universe and look at life and say it is simply meaningless; or you can search out a meaning and create something from this. It struck me powerfully, in fact it filled me with tears.

I know that Christopher Reeve became a Unitarian towards the end of his life. He went on an inner journey following his accident and the open and free community helped him to do so. He was interviewed by “Readers Digest” not long before he died and he was asked why. He said "It gives me a moral compass. I often refer to Abe Lincoln, who said, 'When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. And that is my religion.' I think we all have a little voice inside us that will guide us. It may be God, I don't know. But I think that if we shut out all the noise and clutter from our lives and listen to that voice, it will tell us the right thing to do."

As I watched this deeply moving film it obviously brought to my mind the “Hero’s Journey” that Joseph Campbell Identified. Chrsitopher Reeve and his family are a classic example of this. That said it spoke more powerfully to me of the work of Viktor Frankl. I thought this throughout and I felt it deeply as his son Will spoke of the decision he took after both of his parents had died. The choice was his to turn to meaningless despair or find meaning, to create something from this suffering and thus transform it into something meaningful. This the whole family has done. So many have benefited from this decision.

I also thought of Christopher Reeve’s inner journey. He was an athlete and a physical being. He enjoyed fame and fortune and all the trappings that go with it. He enjoyed all the pleasures that life has to offer. In the end he lost all of this, it was a chasing in the wind, to quote Ecclesiastes. He lost all that and had to go on an inner journey, into the spiritual realm. Again it brought to my mind the work of Viktor Frankl and what he described as “Religio” or the search for the “Unconscious God” and to bring this alive through our lives and thus create a life rich in meaning. I think it is clear that in so doing that Christopher Reeve truly found the hero inside himself. To repeat that quote of his:

“When the first Superman movie came out I was frequently asked, "What is a hero?" My answer was that a hero is someone who commits a courageous action without considering the consequences...

...Now my definition is completely different. I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.”

Christopher Reeve reminded me of a quadriplegic man, from Texas, named Jerry Long, who Viktor Frankl often spoke of in his later interviews. Jerry Long had read “Man’s Search for Meaning”, whilst recuperating from an accident that had left him paralysed. It did not kill his spirit though. He wrote to Frankl and they formed a lifelong friendship. Frankl described Jerry as "a living testimony to logotherapy lived and the defiant power of the human spirit".

Jerry gained his doctorate in psychotherapy and became a renowned public speaker throughout the world. In 1998 he wrote a contribution to a journal issue commemorating the recently deceased Viktor Frankl. Here is a passage from it.:

"Once, after speaking to a large audience, I was asked if I ever felt sad because I could no longer walk. I replied, "Professor Frankl can hardly see, I cannot walk at all, and many of you can hardly cope with life. What is crucial to remember is this - We don't need just our eyes, just our legs, or just our minds. All we need are the wings of our souls and together we can fly." - Jerry L. Long

This is what Viktor Frankl was trying to show the world, through Logotherapy. He was trying to help us see this.

Now you may well ask Who is this Viktor Frankl and what is Logotherapy.

Viktor Frankl was the founder of what has often been referred to as the “Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy” Freud founded the first which was based on the central role of the libido or pleasure principle in human psychology. Alfred Adler founded the second which emphasised the importance of the will to power and the significance of the superiority/inferiority complex in human behaviour. In contrast to these two schools Frankl’s psychology is based on the will to meaning which he saw as the primary motivating force in human life. He named it “Logotherapy” taken from the Greek term logos, which means “word”, “reason”, or “meaning”. Think of the opening words from John’s Gospel, “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.” The word here of course is “Logos”. There is an implication here that meaning has a transcendent origin.

Frankl saw a spiritual dimension beyond the biological and psychological. He saw the suppression of this as the root cause of our human malady. Therefore, the task of “Logotherapy” was “to remind patients of their unconscious religiousness” and to uncover the spiritual dimensions of their lives and enable them to recover the capacity to choose those values which give our lives worth and meaning.

Now this meaning is of course different for everyone, as Frankl said himself:

“For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.”

Frankl claimed that meaning is discovered through creative and worthwhile activities, by creating something beautiful or doing good – I believe that one of the greatest sadness’s of our age is the fact that the phrase “do-gooder” has become a term of mockery, that it is somehow seen as wrong and suspicious to do good - Meaning can be found through experiencing and sharing in the beauty of art or nature or through loving or ethical encounters with others. Now is the example of Christopher Reeve and his family, the embodiment of this.

Even in the most horrific and terrifyingly hopeless situations we still have the capacity to choose our attitude towards whatever circumstances we are faced with. It is our response to life’s events that shapes our souls. Remember Frankl developed his theory during the utter despair and horror of the Nazi death camps. As Frankl himself said “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”

There are those that say that life has no meaning, that nothing matters in life. I was once one of these people. These days I see no truth in such statements. These days I see meaning in everything, even in the most painful moments in life. In fact, it has usually been through coming through these most painful moments that the greatest meaning has emerged. Not immediately always but eventually as I have been able to give back to others from the experience of the suffering I have experienced and or witnessed. These last few months have proven this once again. By the way Frankl is in no way suggesting that this justifies suffering, please do not misunderstand. Frankl is not suggesting any such thing. To quote Dorothee Soelle, “no heaven can rectify an Auswitz”. Frankl was very clear that is suffering can be stopped then it must, and that can be done to stop the suffering must be applied. What I have discovered and Frankl taught was that despite the suffering that by living openly meaning can emerge. Meaning can emerge from living by the way of the Lure of Divine Love. Such love draws us out of ourselves and meaning emerges as we live from love and our most painful experiences are transfigured into meaning and purpose. The suffering is still as real, but meaning begins to emerge as we are saved from the hell of despair.

We can find our meaning, by uncovering whatever it is that makes us feel alive. I have witnessed it again in the lives of ordinary people recent weeks. I have experienced it too. Spiritually speaking, my heart has felt close to bursting at times recently. Not without pain, of course not, but even in that suffering meaning has emerged and I have experienced utter joy and bliss.

The key is to find our meaning, whatever makes our soul sing and bring it life through your very human being, bring to life that which is within you and all life. I am not here to tell you what the meaning of life is. I would be cautious of anyone who suggests that they have all the answers to such questions. What I can tell you though is that meaning can and will emerge from you, all you have to do is bring it to life. In so doing not only will your life be meaning filled but you will inspire others to do the same. Just as Viktor Frankl has been doing for generations and the story of Christopher Reeve and his family have too.

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

Follow Your Bliss: Find Your meaning

I was chatting with a congregant Helen Redhead in the gym. As many of you know she has recently begun competing as a power lifter, she is making great progress. She was telling me some new training that she was involved in. it was something like “Stone lifting”, a bit like you would see in the Highland Games. She has since told me that they are called “Dinny Stones”. I think the idea of getting dressed up was as exciting as competing to Helen. It was great to see her so thrilled and excited, to see her “Following her Bliss.” She told me afterwards that she was going to meet a mutual friend for lunch. She was going to share about past struggles of her own that she had overcome, a wonderful example of her finding meaning from a place that was once suffering, by helping someone else who was experiencing a similar struggle and was looking for hope. Just as she was leaving I thanked Helen for writing this weeks sermon, which is on “Following your bliss: finding your meaning”

I will begin with “Follow Your Bliss”

What does it mean to “follow your bliss”? Well according to Joseph Campbell it is a sacred call to action. It is a call from your soul to light the fire within you to do what destiny asks of you, to bring yourself fully to life and therefore to become a light in the lives of others. Following your bliss is about doing the things that bring meaning and fulfilment despite the troubles that may accompany it. It is about meaningful living despite the very real suffering present in all life. As Campbell says by “following our bliss doors will open up for us where we could only see barriers before.”

Following our bliss is about saying yes to this call and beginning our own heroic journey. In doing so synchronicity will seemingly be abound and luck will follow. By following our bliss we seemingly become guided by something more than ourselves. This is what Campbell observed and it has certainly been my experience, since I began following mine, which is of course this ministry.

Following our bliss though is not an easy ride, quite the opposite actually. Yes, there maybe moments of triumph when all are for us and no one seems to be against us, but there will also be moments of suffering and betrayal when everyone and everything seems to be against us. As Campbell observed that like all heroic journeys there are tests and trials along the way. There are monsters and dragons to slay on the journey although most of these are the ones we carry with us. It is our fear of the adventure that is our greatest enemy. It is this that stops us taking the first vital step.

Human history is littered with figures who have been drawn out of themselves, have followed there bliss and begun their adventure thus inspiring others to do likewise. Some have done this on a mass scale, figures like Nelson Mandela, and many others have done so on a much smaller, but no less important scale. All have had to face their trials and tribulations and all brought so much light to our world. They were not special people though, they were ordinary people just like you and me; ordinary people who followed their bliss; ordinary people who found the courage to be all that they were born to be.

I wonder what it might mean for you to follow your bliss?

I am at my most blissful when singing, especially with folk my heart and my soul are in harmony with. I am singing more at more once again, my soul is calling out for this. I had the most incredible experience this week during “Singing Meditation” as my voice blended heart and soul with that of another, I feel it may lead to more singing and soul stretching. My heart felt so alive, so aroused. Before we began we were chatting and Martin, who was attending for the first time, shared that he had recently found his voice, after nearly fifty years, during a service at Cross Street Chapel in Manchester. It was beautiful how he described this. I shared I had had similar experiences myself at Cross Street all those years ago. I discovered later that another friend, Helen and mine’s mutual friend, had begun to find her voice during “Singing Meditation”. All this was bliss to me, to my heart and soul and was music to my ministry, my purpose, my meaning. I wonder where this may lead. I suspect it will be somewhere wonderful, as we follow our bliss.


“Singing Meditation” was last Tuesday, the 23rd August. It was 22 years ago on that Ethan was born, the little boy who lived six years, but who was the most significant person ever to enter my life. My ministry in many ways is a legacy to his love and life. Certainly my journey through this seemingly unbearable grief is what led me to this work. His mum shared some lovely messages with me last Tuesday, including one in which she told me “You were always good for Ethan, you taught him it was ok to be a sensitive soul.” It broke me that day. I never think about what I gave to him, only what he gave to me. Of course we all still live with the grief of this loss, I have been saved though from despair by the meaning that is my life’s work that has grown from this loss. It has saved me from despair. It has enabled me to help others in their own grief, I have not lost that sensitivity, if anything I feel more deeply as time goes by, as I am sure you have all observed these last few months. Sometimes this makes it difficult, but it is the only way. My life has proven to me that despair is suffering without meaning D=S-M. Despair equals suffering minus meaning.

This leads me to the other question

“How do we find our meaning?”

The equation D=S-M comes from Viktor Frankl. In “Man’s Search For Meaning” he wrote “Man is not destroyed by suffering; he is destroyed by suffering without meaning.” He discovered that if we have a “why” to live for we can endure anything. More than that actually it is this that allows us to thrive, to be all that we are born to be. To not only improve our lives, but to serve our world. This in my eyes has parallels with Campbell’s idea of finding your own bliss, only in less flowery language and imagery.

Like finding our bliss, uncovering meaning is no easy task, how do we do so? Where do we find meaning in our lives? What about those who tell us that life is essentially meaningless? Is there one meaning? Is there one truth?

Now Frankl would suggest that it is for each of us to discover our own meaning in any given situation. That this is our task; that this meaning may not be in the given moment but in some place in the future; that it is to be found in some purpose or meaning yet to come. Again, there are parallels with Campbell’s idea of finding your own bliss. Campbell saw no one meaning, that life itself was meaningless in one sense. Our task is to discover what our bliss is to inspire others to do the same, in so doing our lives become meaning filled. The meaning is not given to us, it is revealed through our lives.

Campbell made his discoveries through studying ancient texts and stories, Frankl developed his observing and experiencing the horrors of the Nazi death camps.

In “Man’s Search For Meaning” Frankl gives an account of his struggle to find meaning when held as a prisoner in the Nazi death camps of the Second World War. He lost most of his family and friends in the camps and yet he never lost hope in humanity.

Frankl was the founder of what has often been referred to as the “Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy” Freud founded the first which was based on the central role of the libido or pleasure principle in human psychology. Alfred Adler founded the second which emphasised the importance of the will to power and the significance of the superiority/inferiority complex in human behaviour. In contrast to these two schools Frankl’s psychology is based on the will to meaning which he saw as the primary motivating force in human life. He named it “Logotherapy” taken from the Greek term logos, which means “word”, “reason”, or “meaning”. Think of the opening words from John’s Gospel, “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.” The word here of course is “Logos”. There is an implication here that meaning has a transcendent origin.

Frankl saw a spiritual dimension beyond the biological and psychological. He saw the suppression of this as the root cause of our human malady. Therefore, the task of “Logotherapy” was “to remind patients of their unconscious religiousness” and to uncover the spiritual dimensions of their lives and enable them to recover the capacity to choose those values which give our lives worth and meaning.

Now this meaning is of course different for everyone, again we see parallels with Campbell here. As Frankl said himself:

“For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.”

Frankl claimed that meaning is discovered through creative and worthwhile activities, by creating something beautiful or doing good – I believe that one of the greatest sadness’s of our age is the fact that the phrase “do-gooder” has become a term of mockery, that it is somehow seen as wrong and suspicious to do good - Meaning can be found through experiencing and sharing in the beauty of art or nature or through loving or ethical encounters with others.

Even in the most horrific and terrifyingly hopeless situations we still have the capacity to choose our attitude towards whatever circumstances we are faced with. It is our response to life’s events that shapes our souls. Remember Frankl developed his theory during the utter despair and horror of the Nazi death camps. As Frankl himself said “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”

There are those that say that life has no meaning, that nothing matters in life. I was once one of these people. These days I see no truth in such statements. These days I see meaning in everything, even in the most painful moments in life. In fact it has usually been through coming through these most painful moments that the greatest meaning has emerged. Not immediately always but eventually as I have been able to give back to others from the experience of the suffering I have experienced and or witnessed. These last few months have proved this once again This in no way justifies the suffering please do not get me wrong, I am in no way suggesting any such thing. To quote Dorothee Soelle, “no heaven can rectify an Auswitz”. No what I am saying is that through living openly meaning can emerge. Meaning can merge from living by the way of the Lure of Divine Love. Such love draws us out of ourselves and meaning emerges as we live from love and our most painful experiences are transfigured into meaning and purpose. The suffering is still as real, but meaning begins to emerge as we are saved from the hell of despair.

We can also know bliss in our lives, by uncovering whatever it is that makes us feel alive. I have witnessed it again in the lives of ordinary people in this extraordinary week. I have experienced it too. Spiritually speaking it has been quite a week, my heart has felt close to bursting at times. That said this week has not been without pain, but even in that meaning has emerged and I have experienced utter bliss.

So follow your bliss, find your meaning. I am not here to tell you what the meaning of life is. I would be cautious of anyone who suggests that they have all the answers to such questions. What I can tell you though is that meaning can and will emerge from you, all you have to do is follow your bliss. In so doing not only will your life be meaning filled but you will inspire others to do the same.

Please find below a video devotion based

 on the material in this "blogspot"

No one steps in the same river twice

No one ever steps in the same river twice. This is because the river is not the same, but then neither is the person. This little aphorism from Heraclitus has been drifting in and out of my consciousness as I have been travelling around these last two weeks. I’ve been all over England and North Wales staring out to sea on several occasions as I have enjoyed two weeks leave. One thing I’ve noticed is that even when on leave my homiletic consciousness is still awake. Every interaction I engage in still taps into it. I have noticed once again that my life, that all life, is constantly in flux, is forever changing, that nothing ever stays the same. That life truly is like a river, it is forever flowing.

A couple of Sunday’s back I as invited to the semi-final and final of “Slimming World Man of the Year 2017”. It was a wonderful day meeting the 38 finalist, listening to their stories and awaiting this year’s winner. I was moved deeply by so much of the day as I listened to stories of hope and transformation. I also relived my own experiences of the year before. How different it was standing in this very same river of the event and how much I as a person had also changed. I got to give a speech too, and to hand out the awards. So much has changed this last 12 months, since I was named "Slimming World Man of the Year 2016". I am not the same man I was 12 months ago. I see life and my purpose, my meaning, in new and wonderful ways and yet on the surface things seem mostly to be the same.

I had similar experiences last weekend too as I drove down to Bridport in Dorset to attend the wedding of John Harley and Lizzie Hornby. It was a lovely weekend in a beautiful part of England. As I drove I remembered stepping into this river almost exactly two years ago. I am certainly not the same man I was then, so much has changed. The journey was a long one, the traffic was appalling, as it had been two years before. I travelled then to my nephews wedding in nearby Devon. That weekend was beautiful, but it was also one of suffering and proved to be a breaking point in my life. It was a physical breaking point in the sense that my car broke down. That said it was also a mental, emotional and spiritual breaking point, as from that moment of my car breaking down in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere in dark nameless country lane in Devon, something new began to emerge in me. It was a moment of re-birth, as during the week that followed a new version of myself began to be born. Yes as I drove down and got stuck in traffic on the M5 around Bristol I realised the truth that I was not the same man stepping into the same river. It was a wonderful experience in a beautiful part of the country.

Oh by the way I cannot go anywhere, twice that weekend strangers came up to me and said “You are that slimmer of the year bloke aren’t you.” Funny I know, I didn’t correct them.

Yes no one steps in the same river twice. This is because the river is not the same but then neither is the person. Life is constantly in flux, is forever changing, ever flowing on.

Flux is a central theme of the philosophy of Heraclitus. Heraclitus of Ephesus was a Greek philosopher around the 5th century BC. He was known as the “Weeping Philosopher” and “The Obscure”. He believed that the nature of life is subject to constant change and that it operates within “a unity of opposites”, also stating “the path up and down are one in the same.”

Other aphorism of Heraclitus were on the “Logos”. He stated “The idea that all things come to pass in accordance with this Logos” and “The Logos is common” The Logos was understood to mean the reason, the word, the meaning of everything. For Heraclitus the Logos is eternal and the source of everything, the problem is though that we humans fail to fully understand the Logos because we do not fully engage with it, although he believed that we human beings are capable of doing so because we have an element of the Logos within us. The reason we do not is that we rarely fully examine our true nature.

It is also claimed that he said something like “Eternity is a child playing, playing checkers; the kingdom belongs to a child.” He spoke in riddles, in paradox, but then isn’t this the nature of life? I have certainly found it to be so. That which destroys, is what ultimately creates. In losing ourselves we are found. To know the deepest truths, to the know the kingdom now, is to become almost like a child playing, didn’t Jesus say this in the passage relating to discipleship from Mark’s Gospel? Maybe this is how the meaning (The Logo’s) comes alive in human form in our very human lives.

The beginning of John’s Gospel speaks of this, of the Logos coming into being and dwelling among us and bringing light into the darkness of our lives. How many times have new truths, new meanings, new light come into being in our lives? Everything changes, everything is flux. Perhaps when we are humble enough to be as little children, to have the beginners mind that the Buddhist speak of, we enable new truths, a new word, a new meaning to emerge and in so doing the Logos once more becomes flesh in and amongst us. For this to happen though the old self has to end, to be destroyed, and this often involves suffering, although not despair as it becomes a suffering from which meaning can emerge and come into being.

It’s interesting how this homilectic consciousness comes alive, but while I was driving around thinking of change and meaning the work of Viktor Frankl came into my mind.

In “Man’s Search For Meaning” Frankl gives an account of his struggle to find meaning when held as a prisoner in the Nazi death camps of the second world war. He lost most of his family and friends in the camps and yet he never lost hope in humanity.

Frankl was the founder of what has often been referred to as the “Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy” Freud founded the first which was based on the central role of the libido or pleasure principle in human psychology. Alfred Adler founded the second which emphasised the importance of the will to power and the significance of the superiority/inferiority complex in human behaviour, based on ideas formulated by Nietzsche. In contrast to these two schools Frankl’s psychology is based on the will to meaning which he saw as the primary motivating force in human life. He named it “Logotherapy” taken from the Greek term logos, which as stated above means “word”, “reason”, or “meaning”. For Frankl meaning had a transcendent origin.

Frankl saw a spiritual dimension beyond the biological and psychological. He saw the suppression of this spiritual dimension as the root cause of our human malady. Therefore the task of “Logotherapy” was “to remind patients of their unconscious religiousness”; to uncover the spiritual dimensions of their lives; enable them to recover the capacity to choose those values which give our lives worth and meaning.

Now this meaning is of course is different for everyone. As Frankl said himself:

“For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.” He did not suggest that there wasn’t a universal meaning, he was not a true existentialist in this sense. What he suggested was that we ourselves seemed unable to uncover it as individuals, here I believe echoing thoughts of Heraclitus.

Frankl claimed that meaning is discovered through creative and worthwhile activites, by creating something beautiful or doing good – I believe that one of the greatest sadness’s of our age is the fact that the phrase “do-gooder” has become a term of mockery, that it is somehow seen as wrong and suspicious to do good - Meaning can be found through experiencing and sharing in the beauty of art or nature or through loving or ethical encounters with others.

Even in the most horrific and terrifyingly hopeless situations we still have the capacity to choose our attitude towards whatever circumstances we are faced with. It is our response to life’s events that shapes our souls. Remember Frankl developed his theory during the utter despair and horror of the Nazi death camps.

As Frankl himself said “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”

My life seems to echo these ideas constantly, new meaning has often emerged through the transformative nature of walking faithfully through suffering and the belief that something beautiful and meaningful can emerge once again from the ashes of life.

Two Sunday’s ago just before the Slimming World Man of Year 2017 semi-final and final began I was asked to speak to the thirty eight men present about my experiences. I was honoured to do so, although I did not perhaps give what the Slimming World folk were expecting. Instead I returned to Heraclitus' aphorism “That no one steps in the same river twice” and the idea that everything is constantly in flux and this is where the meaning emerges from, even when brought into being by the fire of suffering. I spoke about how I had changed in the last 12 months, how my understanding of my humanity and life had changed and that I that a new meaning and mission had grown in me. That I and hoped that they would reach other men and other people and help us face up to whatever in life is holding us back, stopping us living the lives that we can live, for ourselves and the greater good of humanity itself. This was my words becoming flesh and my lived life becoming meaningful in new and wonderful ways.

This is the mission for all people I believe. This is how we build the “Kin-dom of Love” right here right now. This is how we transcend whatever suffering we experience in life and not sink into despair. The meaning emerges by giving from our own lives for the good of all. We are all part of the ever changing river of life we each of us have an aspect of eternal love within us.

So let’s keep on stepping into the eternal river of all life.

Ikigai: As Meaning Emerges

I recently, unintentionally, attended a workshop led by a young woman who worked for Citizen’s UK. She talked about the organisation its purpose and what it can offer individuals and groups in an attempt to empower them so that they can bring about change in their own communities.

One aspect of their method was to encourage individuals to examine and talk about their stories. In this way individuals and groups can find common ground and then hopefully find ways in which they can work together.

At one point we were asked to explore the things that make us angry, that get our passion flowing. She asked where our pain came from? Explaining that this is where inspiration to act comes from. She talked of the etymology of the word anger, which as always pricks my ears up. Anger comes from the old Norse word “angr” meaning “distress, grief, sorrow, affliction” She then talked about the positives that can then grow from this pain, explaining that there are two forms of anger “cold anger” and “hot anger”. She suggested that “hot anger” consumes and controls a person, leading to irrational and ill thought out actions that can make things worse than they were originally. Whereas “cold anger” is more thoughtful and reacts to the individual rather than the other way round. She suggested that this type of anger can be harnessed positively and can lead to change.

We were then shown several methods, employed by Citizens UK, that help people to explore their own lives, to examine their own stories and to find out what really matters the most to them. We tried several of these exercises and as we did so I thought of the things in my own life that had hurt deeply and caused lingering anger. Anger and hurt that had at periods in my life been destructive and paralysing. I then thought of how these hurts and angers had in time turned into something positive and how meaning had eventually emerged from them, in the person I am today and the life I am now living. Meaning and deep love had emerged from the deepest most painful experiences of my life.

As I sat there reflecting I remembered the anger of Jesus towards the money changes from the Gospel accounts, along with images of his compassionate loving eyes and gaze. I remembered how his life was motivated by love, but not immune from anger when people moved beyond the pale. I thought of the passage of the rich young man who could not give up his love of money in order to follow what his heart truly desired. His worship of money was too great it seemed for him to give it up and lead him to follow his true bliss. I then thought of one of my favourite verses from the classic hymn “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind” the verse

“Oh Sabbath rest by galilee! O calm of hills above! Where Jesus knelt to share with thee the silence of eternity interpreted by love!” “Interpreted by love!” The repeated line “Interpreted by love!” just stayed with me and dwelt in that place deep in the soul of me. I thought to myself, everything of true meaning must be interpreted by love. That this is where the true meaning in life comes. This is what must motivate all life and this is the thing of highest worth and value and meaning in life and that if you put anything in front of it that you will be consumed by it. Interestingly, as if by chance, in another workshop the following day we explored this very hymn in a more prayerful way.

Now all this awakened my “homiletic consciousness”. My mind slipped back to a word I had come across while flicking through facebook on the train journey to Worthing and the FUSE (Festival of Unitarians in the South East) earlier that day - The Citizen’s UK workshop had proceeded FUSE and I only attended it because I had arrived early - The word was “Ikigai”. “Ikigai” is a Japanese word that simply means the thing that makes your life worth living, the things that gives your life meaning, the thing that makes your life worth dying for.

I wonder what it is that gives each of our lives meaning?

Now there are of course many who will tell us that life has no real meaning, that it is essentially meaningless. I was once one of those people. When the old pleasures were gone there was no meaning left, just a life meaning no-thing, nothing. Thank God this is no longer the case.

Viktor Frankl then floated once again into my consciousness. A friend who I have witnessed awakening these last two years, had told me he had started reading his book “Man’s Search for Meaning”, only a few days before. Another friend had recommended it to him a few months earlier. I did not, thank God, mention to the man that it was I who had initially recommended the book to our mutual friend. I did not need to as here was the love coming back and multiplying ten-fold. Here was further meaning growing on and on and on...

In “Man’s Search For Meaning” Frankl gives an account of his struggle to find meaning when held as a prisoner in the Nazi death camps of the “Second World War”. He lost most of his family and friends in the camps and yet he never lost hope in humanity.

Frankl was the founder of what has often been referred to as the “Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy” Freud founded the first which was based on the central role of the libido or pleasure principle in human psychology. Alfred Adler founded the second which emphasised the importance of the will to power and the significance of the superiority/inferiority complex in human behaviour. In contrast to these two schools Frankl’s psychology is based on the will to meaning which he saw as the primary motivating force in human life. He named it “Logotherapy” taken from the Greek term logos, which means “word”, “reason”, or “meaning”.

Think of the opening words from John’s Gospel, “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.” The word here of course is “Logos”. For Frankl meaning had a transcendent origin.

Frankl saw a spiritual dimension beyond the biological and psychological. He saw the suppression of this spiritual dimension as the root cause of our human malady. Therefore the task of “Logotherapy” was “to remind patients of their unconscious religiousness”; to uncover the spiritual dimensions of their lives; enable them to recover the capacity to choose those values which give our lives worth and meaning.

Now this meaning is of course different for everyone, he did not see one universal meaning. As Frankl said himself:

“For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.”

Frankl claimed that meaning is discovered through creative and worthwhile activities, by creating something beautiful or doing good. That meaning can be found through experiencing and sharing in the beauty of art or nature or through loving or ethical encounters with others. That even in the most horrific and terrifyingly hopeless situations we still have the capacity to choose our attitude towards whatever circumstances we are faced with. It is our response to life’s events that shapes our souls. Remember Frankl developed his theory during the utter despair and horror of the Nazi death camps.

As Frankl himself said “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”

I attended many other wonderful workshops throughout the FUSE weekend and experienced many more beautiful moments of connection and conversation, too many to mention now. There was one that stood out though. It was during a session about listening in which we were asked to break into threes and listen to one another in non-responsive and non-judgemental ways. Now just as I broke into a three, there were originally five groups of three, just by chance another person came in late and wanted to join in. The facilitator of the group asked if one of the threes could become two two’s and the group I was in did so. So we were now two. This meant that the whole process did not work as it was meant to, but what actually followed was deeply meaningful and seemingly exactly what my partner in the exercise required right then. He began to speak about something I had shared publicly some time ago that had helped him immensely and lead him down a path. I couldn’t even remember saying it, but it did sound like something I would say. My partner then began to open up about some pain and struggle he had been going through. We spent the whole session sharing and listening uninterrupted and he seemingly came to a place of conclusion in the time together.

The session had not gone the way it had been planned to but something far more important had emerged instead, something deeply moving and meaningful. Now some could suggest that this was “meant to be”. Perhaps this is true, nobody knows. My preferred conclusion is that this was a moment of possibility for both of us. A moment we took and meaning emerged from it due to our response to the given situation and the many situations that followed it. I believe that it is a perfect example of meaningful interchange and how the Lure of Divine Love operates. It does not control life and nothing is pre-determined but it is their offering itself constantly and it is up to us to respond. It is certainly how meaning emerges in my life. My task and I believe all our tasks is to stay open to these moments, and that by staying open to every moment our own meaning emerges from them as they pass.

There are those that say that life has no meaning, that nothing matters in life. I was once one of these people. These days I see no truth in such statements. These days I see meaning in everything, even in the most painful moments in life. In fact I have discovered that it has been through coming through these most painful moments that the greatest meaning has emerged. Not immediately always but eventually, as I have been able to give back to others from the experience of the suffering I have experienced and or witnessed. This in no way justifies the suffering please do not get me wrong, I am in no way suggesting any such thing. No what I am saying is that through living openly meaning can emerge. Meaning can merge from living by the way of the Lure of Divine Love.

Mr Pain & Man's search for Meaning

It still amazes me how I am constantly discovering meaning, seemingly from nothing.

A few months ago Rev Jane Barraclough asked me to lead the Wednesday lunchtime service at Cross Street Chapel. I was delighted to be asked to do this and duly agreed to do so. Seemingly no meaning there and then last weekend it dawned on me that it was exactly seven years ago to the day that I had first entered Cross street chapel on a cold Wednesday lunchtime. Just a beautiful bit of synchronicity, or at least I saw it that way.

It was a wonderful and wonder filled day that seemed so rich in meaning. I loved listening to the little conversations on the tram on my way to Manchester. I enjoyed my walk around the city, watching all the people going about their business. I felt so connected, so in harmony with what was going on. Every snippet of conversation I overheard seemed to be addressed directly to me.

After the service I met a friend for coffee and shared what I’d been experiencing. I told her how I felt so excited and alive and that I seemed to be seeing meaning in everything. She looked at me and said “really, I see little meaning in anything; I’m pretty much sceptical about everything.” It made me pause and it also reminded me of the man I was not long before I began my Unitarian adventure. I could find no meaning in anything; I was pretty much sceptical about everything.

The conversation has been on my mind ever since. I saw no meaning because I was asleep to meaning it would seem. I was suffering from a kind of colour blindness and tone deafness. Something inside was locked in and therefore I could not experience all that I can today and as a result I denied the possibility that there could be a deeper richer meaning. My rational reflection on my experiences back then revealed nothingness and yet my rational reflection, on my current experiences, reveal a life that is rich in meaning. I hear music where I could not before; I see a myriad of colour that in the past was only grey; I experience that under lying meaning that was just an empty void in the past.

But what is meaning? And can it be discovered in what many see as the emptiness of life?

When I think of meaning and our search for it, Viktor Frankl immediately springs to mind.

In “Man’s Search For Meaning” Frankl gives an account of his struggle to  find meaning when held as a prisoner in the Nazi death camps of the second world war. He lost most of his family and friends in the camps and yet he never lost hope in humanity.

Frankl was the founder of what has often been referred to as the “Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy” Freud founded the first which was based on the central role of the libido or pleasure principle in human psychology. Alfred Adler founded the second which emphasised the importance of the will to power and the significance of the superiority/inferiority complex in human behaviour. In contrast to these two schools Frankl’s psychology is based on the will to meaning which he saw as the primary motivating force in human life. He named it “Logotherapy” taken from the Greek term logos, which means “word”, “reason”, or “meaning”. Think of the opening words from John’s Gospel, “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.” The word here of course is “Logos”. There is an implication here that meaning has a transcendent origin.

Frankl saw a spiritual dimension beyond the biological and psychological. He saw the suppression of this as the root cause of our human malady. Therefore the task of “Logotherapy” was “to remind patients of their unconscious religiousness” and to uncover the spiritual dimensions of their lives and enable them to recover the capacity to choose those values which give our lives worth and meaning.

Now this meaning is of course different for everyone. As Frankl said himself:

“For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.”

Frankl claimed that meaning is discovered through creative and worthwhile activites, by creating something beautiful or doing good – I believe that one of the greatest sadness’s of our age is the fact that the phrase “do-gooder” has become a term of mockery, that it is somehow seen as wrong and suspicious to do good - Meaning can be found through experiencing and sharing in the beauty of art or nature or through loving or ethical encounters with others.

Even in the most horrific and terrifyingly hopeless situations we still have the capacity to choose our attitude towards whatever circumstances we are faced with. It is our response to life’s events that shapes our souls. Remember Frankl developed his theory during the utter despair and horror of the Nazi death camps. As Frankl himself said “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”

I witnessed a wonderful example of this on Sunday night. I went to see the performance poet “Rodney Chris Paradox” he really is worth checking out. During the night he delivered a song poem entitled “Mr Pain”, which is essentially about him dealing with the suffering he experienced while losing a limb. Before he began he explained that he’d been on a journey throughout the world in search of meaning, his life had become empty. The journey ended in Mexico where he had an accident which led to him having half a leg amputated. From this grew the story “Mr Pain”.

The poem describes how he had developed immunity to pain killers. He is assigned a “pain team” who try every form of western medicine to fight off the excruciating agony, every attempt failed. He then called upon all he had learnt from all the eastern traditions, which again failed. Finally he screams out to God and enters the emptiness. Here in this place of nothingness he surrenders to the pain and accepts his lot and from here the pain no longer seems to matter. By surrendering to it, it lost its power.

Everyone suffers pain in their lives and often there seems no justifiable reason for it. It just seems so unfair. I believe the mistake that we make is that we look for reasons in the past instead of making reasons out of what has happened. You see by remaining locked in the past we isolate ourselves, we say look this is my suffering and pain and we seek out someone to blame. What we ought to doing is understanding that we all share pain in life, it’s a part of existence and seeing what we can give back to life from our shared experience. I have discovered by doing so meaning begins to burst out of the seeming nothingness.

None of us gets to choose our pain and suffering and none of us can avoid it. That said we can choose how we respond to it and pass those lessons on to one another. No one can take that away from us. It is perhaps our one and only true freedom. How we respond to life’s circumstances.

I discovered that the real meaning in life emerges by trying to help others find meaning in their lives. Do you know what ever since this discovery life has become so rich in meaning. These days I see meaning in everything.

Remember “there’s no turning back because we are in this together all the way."