Births, Deaths & Marriages: Living the Dash

A week last Tuesday Sue and I had an appointment at Sale Registrars. We had gone to register our upcoming wedding. As we waited to be interviewed, first of all together and then individually, we noticed a young couple with a small child and new born baby. It was a blissful joy to be close to this family with this beautiful life, full of potential. in their hands. As we waited another couple came in with their own new born. I wondered what these two young lives would become. It was a beautiful feeling. I was first to be interviewed. I did not do a great job if I am honest, for some reason I couldn’t remember Sue’s house number, but I was passed. As I came out. and Sue went in for her interview, I noticed two older women sitting where one of the young couples had sat previously. The atmosphere had changed, they were there for a very different reason. They were there to register the death of one of the women’s husbands. The other woman was there to support her friend.

At one point the woman, who had lost her husband turned to me to ask if I was there to register our wedding, I made a slightly jokey comment about it and she smiled, although as she did I could see the tears in her eyes. The image has stayed with me ever since. Sue came out a little later with news of when we would be able to collect the Blue forms giving us permission to marry at Dunham Road. Sue said that it would be one year, exactly to the day, when I proposed to her by the Sea of Galilee.

As we left we talked about what we had just been a part of. We had seen the examples of three of the most significant experiences of human life, birth, marriage and death. Something we are both involved in creating services for. These are the three major occasions when loved ones gather together. There, in a seemingly ordinary building, in a small town in England, we witnessed most of life within us and around us. It certainly made me pause, in deep reverence for life itself. What a crazy ride this life is. The beauty, the joy, the anticipation, the mystery and the deep broken hearted grief all come together in a local government building. Yes plain old ordinary things and yet so deep and meaningful.

I’ve been thinking about the new babies I saw that day and the smiling woman with tears in her eyes. I have been thinking about the potential in the babies and the life the woman’s husband must have led. It got me thinking about the child blessing services I conduct. I call them blessings because in my understanding I am blessings these new lives in the hope that they themselves will become a blessing to life itself. All this brought to mind a wonderful poem that can be found by clicking on the following link The Dash by Linda Ellis

"The Dash" is a bit of a folksy poem, but its message is deep, powerful and meaning filled. The dash is the line between our date of birth and of death. The dash appears short and even thin and yet it can be deep and meaning filled. What matters the most is how we live "The Dash"

Sue and myself are going away for a couple of nights. One reason is a mini break from the hustle and bustle of our lives. The other though is to spend time together to create our wedding service. We are taking time together to reflect on the ritual we would like to create to share with the people we love. It means so much to both of us. In many ways the service is more important than anything else. It will speak of our lives before we reached this point, what our relationship means to both of us and what we are committing to as we move forward together. We are both in the second half of our lives. Even if we are blessed with good health we have past the half way point of our dashes. So we want the ritual to be deep and meaning filled and a threshold that leads to our new lives together.

As I have looked back at the day at the register office and forward to what is to come my mind has been dominated by thoughts about rituals, particularly rites of passage. The three major ones are marked legally at the Sale town hall, but the actual rituals take place elsewhere. These three primary rituals and rites are things that Sue and myself spend a lot of our adult lives involved in. They make up a large part of our professional lives, but they are not the only rituals that we engage in. All life is made up of ritual. Our dashes are held together by all kinds of rituals, although I am not sure we always notice this.

Everything we do in life can be done ritually and thus can become meaning filled. Even the most simple basic task can be enriched if we live reverently. If we live with reverence for life itself. If we see life as a deeply sacred thing. If we bless it with our true presence. It is not just marrying, burying or birthing that are enriched by ritual, even standing, sitting, walking, nay breathing can be done meaningfully, ritually. There is nothing more deeply ritualistic than deep listening. The real beauty of life lays in the ordinary, in observing and experiencing the meaning of life in the ordinary. By so doing the great moments are created.

Ronald L. Grimes captures this near perfectly in “Marrying and Burying: Rites of Passage in a Man’s Life”

"Ritual practice is the activity of cultivating extraordinary ordinariness. It is necessary, because human activity has a kind of entropy about it; life, like love, runs down. Things get tiresome and difficult. Body and soul cry out for something different, hence the impetus to ritualize. But if the ritually extraordinary becomes a goal or is severed from ordinariness, it loses its capacity to transform, which, after all, is what rites of passage are supposed to do."

The wedding is going to be a deeply special day, for a multitude of reasons; it is made special by the moments in our dashes and so many other people’s dashes; it is the "specialness" of the lives we have created that will make the day so exceptional. That ritual will be made meaningful by the rituals that we live by in the ordinariness of our days and the days that will follow, however long we are blessed with.

All this reminded me of beautiful piece of wisdom from Forrest Church’s masterpiece “Love and Death: My Journey Through the Valley of the Shadow”, written while he was dying of oesophageal cancer. He asked "knowing that we will die, what should we do?" To which he answered "we should live, we should laugh, and we should love." He then recalled a lesson he learnt from his children, about living. One day, when they were young, he was walking them to school, on a busy New York street. Suddenly a car swerved round a corner and almost killed them all. Forrest was incensed by this, but he remembers, "my kids just laughed, romping blithely down the sidewalk, jumping from tree to tree as they always did, trying to touch the leaves." The kids were celebrating, nay singing the joy of living, and they "had the right idea. Why didn't I think to jump and touch the leaves?"

Forrest believed that it was living, loving and laughing that took real courage, they required heart, while dying didn’t really take much courage at all, in his eyes that just came naturally. Something he was experiencing as he wrote these words.

Now to really live Forrest suggested a simple little mantra:" Want what you have. Do what you can. Be who you are." He didn’t suggest that this would be easy but it is the only way to live and in so doing we will live in such a way that our lives will prove worth dying for by the love we leave behind.

Perhaps somewhere in that little mantra is an answer as to how we bring deep meaning to the ordinariness of our lives. Perhaps this is what we need to ritualise. To want the things that make up our lives and not wish for something else and in so doing we might just begin to be who we truly are, instead of wishing we were someone else. In so doing we can do the things that we are able to do and thus bring deep meaning to the little bit of the dash that we are living right now.

This is the gift of life, the beautiful gift of being alive in this ordinary moment, a moment that can become deep and meaningful, not only for ourselves but for those we get to share our lives with. For we never know how long we’ve got left how close we are to the end of the line, the last part of dash. Nor do we know how close those we love are to the end of theirs.

I'm going to end with a wonderful poem by one of the greats of the last few decades, Mary Oliver. Her dash came to an end a year ago last week.

“The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down --
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

Grief, the price we pay for Love

I remember attending a funeral many years, long before I became a minister, before I’d even considered becoming one actually; I remember being told before the funeral that many in attendance may not actually be grieving for the person for who’s funeral it was, but for other losses and other people and memories of other funerals they have attended in the past.

Now a strange thing happened at this funeral I did not weep at all. The truth is that I was all cried out at the time. It was just a few days after Ethan’s funeral and I’d been broken in grief for several weeks by then. I remember noticing people crying and breaking down and wondering if they were crying for my grandma, or for others they had lost in the past. It was probably a mixture of both and does not really matter in any case. The tears and sorrow were real, the grief was real, caused by the loss of someone that they loved.

I have over the years felt some guilt for how I shed no tears on the day. I do not today though as I know that at the time I was all cried out, I was in a numb stage of the grieving experience, my heart was not able to express my love for my grandma there and then, it was just too broken by another loss.

Over the years, as I have attended and conducted many funerals, and looked at those in attendance, as they have grieved. As I have connected with them in their tears and grief I have often wondered if they were grieving for the deceased or another loved one, probably a mixture of both. I have wondered about my own tears and grief too on such occasions.

Well last Friday I had my question partially answered. It was my day off and I was spending it with Sue, who almost had a day off too. There was just one thing she had to do and that was conduct a funeral. I decided I’d like to accompany her. One reason was to see her at work, it was beautiful to do so. We arrived and I stood to one side, a stranger amongst people I did not know.

Well actually I did know some of the people, the funeral director and staff.

We entered and I sat towards the back as Sue "held" us through the service. Almost immediately I began to weep and wept throughout most of the service. It was not for the woman whose service it was. Or even her loved ones. I cannot have been as I did not know them. No what was happening is that I was able to fully let go, to be held in love and to experience my own grief. My grief for my step brother Daniel and my whole confusing and wounded family; my grief for an old friend whose funeral I had recently conducted and my grief for the congregants, and their loved ones, that have died in recent months. I also re-felt many other losses from over the years. The tears just kept coming. I was able to sink into my own grief, because for the first time I did not need to think about others in attendance, to watch out for their pain. I was able to let go and to be held by that incredible love that is there at the core of all life when I am fully open to it…As the song goes “All you’ve got to do is surrender.” Well surrender I did.

All of us belong to the largest community on God’s sweet earth, the community of grievers. Grief is the price we pay for love, it is a price worth paying, for what is life without love? It is nothing, it is meaningless, just an empty vessel. The only way to escape grief is to totally armour your heart and deny love. Now who would want to do that, to live without love, to live the life of a zombie?

I have for the last year or so been hosting a grief group “The Colours of Grief: Our Shared Experience of Love and Loss”. It has been an incredible and richly rewarding experience, so deeply moving. It has been about love, as those who have come and gone and come again have held one another in the spirit of love, and shared their own experiences of love and loss.

It has confirmed powerfully to me that grief is all about love; grief is the price we pay for love. No one is immune from it. It is what holds all of us together.

Yes we all belong to the largest community on earth, the community of grievers. Now while it is the largest community on earth it is one that most of us do not want to belong to. I am sure that this has always been the case, but today this seems even clearer than at any time in the past. We live in almost death denying times. We live in times where we are supposed to be able to rise above our problems, our troubles, our struggles. Even modern, so called, spirituality seems to suggest this. That we can rise above anything if we just manifest it. Grief and death though show us otherwise. If I know nothing else I know that grief is not something we rise above or even get over, grief is something that levels us that brings us down to our human finite selves. I suspect that this is why acceptance is considered the last stage of grief, because somewhere in all us is this false belief that it can’t really bring us down to human size.

Grief changes you. That said it is not really the loss that does this, but the love that is at the core of grief. Now what hurts so much about grief is the loss, the very real physical loss of the one that we love. There is no consolation for this and we do not get over it either, the pain of such loss becomes a part of us, just as the love we shared becomes a part of us. What actually happens, in time, is that our life enlarges once again and we are not dominated by the intense feelings as much as we once were. That said from time to time the grief will overwhelm us, this can happen years later. Well that is love and loss, it is meant to overwhelm us from time to time. By the way there is no time limit to love and loss either. To quote Mark Nepo, we humans are fish swimming in the ocean, not God’s who carve our rivers and this ought to humble us. Grief, love and loss always humbles us. As Stephanie Ericcsons says in “Companion through the Darkness”. “Grief is a tidal wave that overtakes you, smashes you up into its darkness, where you tumble and crash against unidentifiable surfaces, only to be thrown out on an unknown beach, bruised, reshaped.”

When we lose someone that we love, it changes us forever. Life will never be quite the same again. We do not rise above the pain of grief, we cannot pretend that it is not there, we don’t simply get over it. What happens is that we are changed by it and as a result our hearts are enlarged by it and we grow as human beings, if the love has truly been realized. You see grief is really about transformation, rather than transcendence, by the way this is the true nature purpose of religion. Grief is not an attempt to explain the loss or even understand some meaning locked into what happened. Instead, it seems to me, that grief is more about finding meaning in the absence of an explanation.

Grief is about finding meaning in the absence of an explanation. This is what the transformative power of love is about too. As I look at my life and my ministry actually it is really about meaning rising once again from the ashes of defeat and loss and suffering. I know why I am here today, there is no despair, for I have a life rich in meaning, despite the very real experience of suffering, of loss and grief.

In “Love and Death” Forrest Church wrote “Love is grief’s advance party.” I know day by day I seem to love even more. As a result I know that I will know more grief. This does not fill me with too much fear. As I look around at the people I serve and the people I share my life with, as I walk the streets of the town I live in and move in the many varied communities that I belong to, I feel my heart filling and sometimes this brings a tear to my eye knowing that the physical aspect will come and go, but still the love will go on transforming my life and all of our lives so long as we find the courage, the heart, to love, so long as we do not harden our hearts.

Grief truly is the price we pay for love, but then what else is their worth dying for other than love. Surely we all want to live in such a way that our lives will prove worth dying for, by the love we leave behind.

If Only

In “Love and Death: My Journey through the Valley of the Shadow”, a book written while he knew that he was dying, Forrest Church wrote,

“The only way to reconcile yourself, make peace with yourself, make peace with your neighbor, make peace with God, find salvation, is to break through and love — to forgive and to love. You don’t change the person you forgive. You change your own heart. So anything that you can do to reconcile also means that at the end of your life, when you’re given a few months to live, you can look back without regret.

The two saddest words in the English language are “if only,” and they ring with the most poignancy at a time that a person gets word that he or she has a terminal illness: “If only I had stopped drinking; if only I had dared to change careers when I could; if only I had reconciled with my father when I had a chance.”

I agree with Forrest. I believe that “If Only” are the saddest two words in the English language. I would add also that they are loneliest too. How many of us live with this sense of regret for the things we have done, or just as painfully failed to do? How many of us live in isolation from people we have known and loved in our lives because of our pride? How many of us have let past wrongs done, or perceived to have been done, stop us living the loving and connected lives we are capable of?

So why do we find it so hard to seek and give forgiveness? Why is reconciliation so challenging? Why does pride hold us in this sense of regret? Why are so many of us visited in the darkest night with the ghosts that whisper “If Only”

Well because it is not easy. It requires us to rise above and beyond our small selves to a larger way of being. As Sara Moores Campbell has claimed. “There is incredible power in forgiveness. But forgiveness is not rational. One can seldom find a reason to forgive or be forgiven. Forgiveness is often undeserved. It may require a dimension of justice (penance, in traditional terms), but not always, for what it holds sacred is not fairness, but self-respect and community. Forgiveness does not wipe away guilt, but invites reconciliation. And it is as important to be able to forgive as it is to be forgiven.”

No it is not easy, but it is vital. Not only for ourselves but for the greater good also. Forgiveness is about reconciliation it is about bringing wholeness and healing to all. This is why, in my experience, failing to offer forgiveness and failing to atone for our own wrongs and mistakes makes reconciliation impossible and I have come to believe that it is this that breeds a sense of isolation and loneliness, deep within us. It is not by chance that atonement can be broken down to at-one-ment. For it is such acts that bring about oneness in life.

I recently spent a few days away with a group of people exploring the subject of forgiveness. We were together in a beautiful and loving setting and it was an open environment in which we all talked about our struggles with forgiveness of others and of ourselves. I believe that we all gained a great deal from our time together and I hope it renewed us in our efforts to reconcile ourselves with our pasts and those we have shared our lives with, so as to live better lives in the future. One thing that came strongly out of the weekend was this sense that forgiveness is not about forgetting. Yes it is about healing and reconciliation, but not about simply abandoning the past and passively letting go. In fact if anything real forgiveness is a true act of remembrance. It is about growing from the past and becoming increasingly whole people.

Again as Sara Moores Campbell said, “No, we do not forgive and forget. But when we invite the power of forgiveness, we release ourselves from some of the destructive hold the past has on us. Our hatred, our anger, our need to feel wronged – those will destroy us, whether a relationship is reconciled or not.”

Our varied struggles with forgiveness showed how difficult it was to truly reconcile ourselves with our pasts, with ourselves and with those we have shared and share our lives with. Forgiveness is not easy. It is easy to say perhaps “I forgive you”, but those are just words, it is far from easy to truly mean them though. We cannot just simply will ourselves into it and it certainly isn’t an overnight matter. The key, as in all things, is to be open to it. Here lays its power and its love. Here lays the key to be freed from that aching loneliness of regret and the ghosts of “If Only”. Not only for ourselves but for the good of all. I have come to believe that all our lives depend upon it

Again to quote Sara Moores Campbell,

“…we cannot just will ourselves to enter into forgiveness, either as givers or receivers. We can know it is right and that we want to do it and still not be able to.

We can, however, be open and receptive to the power of forgiveness, which, like any gift of the spirit, isn’t of our own making. Its power is rooted in love. The Greek word for this kind of love is agape as “Love seeking to create community.” This kind of love is human, but is also the grace of transcendent power that lifts us out of ourselves. It transforms and heals; and even when we are separated by time or space or death, it reconciles us to ourselves and to Life. For its power abides not just between us but within us. If we invite the power of agape to heal our personal wounds and give us the gift of forgiveness, we would give our world a better chance of survival.”

At one point during the weekend we discussed the limits of forgiveness and whether there were any. A friend said that he didn’t know how he would react if someone did anything to his son and many people agreed with him and then I shared an example of this and the power forgiveness. I recounted my dear friend Claire’s reaction to witnessing her son being killed in front of her on a crossing. The driver did not stop at the crossing and took Ethan’s life. A power from within or beyond her compelled her to forgive him there and then. I know from watching her piece her life back together since that if she hadn’t have done so there and then she could not have survived herself or if she had she would have lived with an aching bitterness for the rest of her life. Not that the last nine years have been easy, she has been to hell and back many times, but that power, the power of love, has held her through it all and I believe that it was that same power that compelled her to forgive the driver of the car that day on the side of the road. A love that passeth all rational understanding, but one that can hold and sustain us through whatever happens in life, if we would let it have its way and bring it to life in our being.

Forgiveness is a true act of Love, in the purest Agapeic sense of the word. It is an act of the heart, it takes real courage, Remember that courage comes from the French word for heart “Coeur” In the Hindu sacred poem “The Bhagavad Gita” you hear this reflected “If you want to see the brave, look at those who can forgive, If you want to see the heroic, look at those who can love in return for hatred.” You see it reflected in the dying words of Jesus on the cross “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” This same loving courage was expressed in the way that both Martin Luther King and Gandhi led their movements of non-violent resistance. These were powerful loving soul forces that inspired healing and reconciliation taken up by the likes of Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu in South Africa and “The Truth and Reconciliation Hearings” that took place there following the end of Apartheid. It can be the same with our individuals lives and our individual hearts. At some level I think we all need to reconcile ourselves with someone or something, even if it is just our own pasts.

This is why I have come to believe that forgiving is not about forgetting at all. In fact what it is really about is remembering. Actually it is more than that, forgiveness is an act of remembrance. It is about bringing the memory alive and creating something from the past. Reconciliation is not just something that occurs between us, but also within us. In each of our hearts and minds and souls. If we can make something from our past hurts we can create meaning from even the hardest moments of our lives and bring a new wholeness and openness to our lives. In so doing we won’t live out our lives with that aching lonely feeling of regret and be visited by the ghosts of “If Only”. In so doing we will leave something to pass on to those who follow and our lives will have truly proved worth dying for, by the love we have left behind.

Below is the full version of Sara Moores Campbell's reflection on "Forgiveness" quoted above

“Forgiveness” by Sara Moores Campbell, from “Into the Wilderness”

There is incredible power in forgiveness. But forgiveness is not rational. One can seldom find a reason to forgive or be forgiven. Forgiveness is often undeserved. It may require a dimension of justice (penance, in traditional terms), but not always, for what it holds sacred is not fairness, but self-respect and community. Forgiveness does not wipe away guilt, but invites reconciliation. And it is as important to be able to forgive as it is to be forgiven.

No, we do not forgive and forget. But when we invite the power of forgiveness, we release ourselves from some of the destructive hold the past has on us. Our hatred, our anger, our need to feel wronged – those will destroy us, whether a relationship is reconciled or not.

But we cannot just will ourselves to enter into forgiveness, either as givers or receivers. We can know it is right and that we want to do it and still not be able to.

We can, however, be open and receptive to the power of forgiveness, which, like any gift of the spirit, isn’t of our own making. Its power is rooted in love. The Greek word for this kind of love is agape as “Love seeking to create community.” This kind of love is human, but is also the grace of transcendent power that lifts us out of ourselves. It transforms and heals; and even when we are separated by time or space or death, it reconciles us to ourselves and to Life. For its power abides not just between us but within us. If we invite the power of agape to heal our personal wounds and give us the gift of forgiveness, we would give our world a better chance of survival.

Go placidly, not passively, amidst the storm

“A man seeks employment on a farm. He hands his letter of recommendation to his new employer. It reads simply, `He sleeps in a storm.’

The owner is desperate for help, so he hires the man.

Several week pass, and suddenly, in the middle of the night, a powerful storm rips through the valley.

Awakened by the swirling rain and howling wind, the owner leaps out of bed. He calls for his new hired hand, but the man is sleeping soundly.

So he dashes off to the barn. He sees, to his amazement, that the animals are secure with plenty of feed. He runs out to the field. He sees the bales of wheat have been bound and are wrapped in tarpaulins. He races to the silo. The doors are latched, and the grain is dry.

And then he understands.

`He sleeps in a storm.’

My friends, if we tend to the things that are important in life, if we are right with those we love and behave in line with our [beliefs], our lives will not be cursed with the aching throb of unfulfilled business. Our words will always be sincere, our embraces will be tight. We will never wallow in the agony of `I could have, I should have.’ We can sleep in a storm.

And when it’s time, our good-byes will be complete.”

I love this extract taken from Have a Little Faith” by Mitch Albom. A book set over an 8 year period exploring the lives of two extraordinary men. One is the authors childhood Rabbi Albert Lewis and the other is a former drug addict criminal Henry Covington who spends his time serving a community of homeless people and addicts in a run down former town church. “He sleeps in a storm” is an extract from a sermon delivered by the Rabbi

Now generally I am much like the man in the story. I sleep well and deeply. This hasn’t always been the case I used to suffer terribly from insomnia. I suspect that this is because so much of my mind was chaotic and certainly I didn’t tend to the things I needed to in my inner or outer life. Like so many of my generation, I lived a meaningless and unfulfilled life. Deep down inside I knew this, my mind never rested and as a result, I did not sleep.

Thankfully this is no longer the case. I tend to what needs to be tended to and as a result I am able to rest when it is time to rest and give myself fully to what life asks of me when I am awake. I am able to do my work calmly, without becoming overwhelmed by it. As a result, despite the many challenges, my life is rich with meaning and fully of life. As I often I like to say I live a wonderfulfilling life.

That said over the last couple of weeks I have suffered once again from insomnia. This has been due to an ear problem which has now thankfully been resolved. It did remind me though of those old days. This brought both gratitude and empathy to my heart and mind. Gratitude that I know peace, even in the storms of life as well as empathy for those who suffer from restlessness at night. For as I know it can feel like a living hell.

It is so easy to be overwhelmed by life’s troubles and become paralysed by the fear of what might be. This can lead to the opposite extreme of indifference to life and a rejection of it all. This is no way to live. We can live in the world, recognising all that is life, without being utterly consumed by all that is wrong. We are not powerless, in the face of the storms present in life, but then again neither can we control it all. We cannot do everything, but we can play our part in the drama of life. We can live our lives in the storm of it all, without getting destroyed by the whirlwind as it blows and we can rest when it is time to do so.

This brings to mind some wisdom I discovered while reading Forrest Church’s masterpiece “Love and Death: My Journey Through the Valley of the Shadow”, written while he was dying of oesophageal cancer. He asked knowing that we will die, what should we do? To which he answered we should live, we should laugh, and we should love. He then recalled a lesson he learnt from his children, about living. One day, when they were young, he was walking them to school, on a busy New York street. Suddenly a car swerved round a corner and almost killed them all. Forrest was incensed by this, but he remembers, "my kids just laughed, romping blithely down the sidewalk, jumping from tree to tree as they always did, trying to touch the leaves." The kids were celebrating, nay singing the joy of living, and they "had the right idea. Why didn't I think to jump and touch the leaves?"

Forrest believed that it was living, loving and laughing that took real courage, they required heart, while dying didn’t really take much courage at all, in his eyes that just came naturally.

Now to really live Forrest suggested a simple little mantra:" Want what you have. Do what you can. Be who you are." He didn’t suggest that this would be easy but it is the only way to live and in so doing we will live in such a way that our lives will prove worth dying for by the love we leave behind.

“Be Who You Are” means to live authentically, to live by your own truth, to follow your heart’s desire, this takes real courage.

“Do What You Can” means doing what you are able to do in the world you find yourself. To play your role in life, remembering there are no small parts only small players. Don’t try and be the director and control everything and everyone else, you can’t control the wind, but you can play your part and do the best you can.

“Want What You Have” is really about wanting all that is your life right here right now, not fleeing from anything or wishing your life away. It’s about not dwelling and counting the many blessings that are present right here, right now. It’s about thoughtful wishing not wishful thinking.

Now this all brings me to the following beautiful piece of wisdom "The Desiderata". Simple spiritual and practical design for living...

“Desiderata” by Max Ehrmann

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be critical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy.

© Max Ehrmann 1927

“The Desiderata”, begins with these beautiful words “Go placidly amongst the noise and haste” please note it says placidly not passively…In my experience there is nothing passive about living spiritually. The spiritual life is an active life. We are not merely observers here, we are active participants and life demands that we play our roles, while not becoming the director and attempting to control the roles that others are here to play. It is wanting what you have, doing what you can and being who you are in verse form.

The Desiderata has been around for a hundred years now. It first came into my consciousness about 20 years ago and it has been beautifully haunting me ever since. It kept on reappearing, even in my darkest and most secular days. Even when I thought such things were nonsense it has kept on knocking on the window of my soul. I was given a framed copy of it recently by someone I had been doing what I can to help, as a token of their appreciation. It now sits proudly on the desk in my vestry.

The “Desiderata” was written a hundred years ago by Max Ehrmann. It was copyrighted in 1927 but was first penned several years previous to this. It has spoken to several generations since then. It has developed its own life it would seem, including a myth that attempts to make it timeless, it does appear to have that quality about it. The myth began following a reproduction of it by Rev Frederick Kates for a collection of inspirational works for his congregation in 1959 on church notepaper, headed: 'The Old St Paul's Church, Baltimore, AD 1692' (the year the church was founded). Copies of it were circulated and the myth began to grow. It really took off when a copy was found at the bedside of deceased Democratic politician Aidlai Stevenson in 1965.

I like the myth, it does lend a timeless and universal quality that makes the myth into a true mythos. “Desiderata” is a beautiful and practical poem and a wonderful design for spiritual living in my eyes. One that I try to follow, despite the storms of life. It enables me to do what I can. To truly live faithfully and to rest and allow life to be what it can be, while I play my role, the best I can.

We can all go placidly amongst the noise and haste, we can live and we can rest when the storms of life really blow. We can give ourselves fully to the life we have been given. We can want we have, do what we can and be who we are. We can all live in such a way that our lives will prove worth dying for by the love we leave behind and when our time comes we can once more step into the great mystery and the final eternal sleep.