Learning from geese: There's always something new to fall in love with

When flying in V formation each goose creates uplift for the birds flying behind it, by flapping its wings. The whole flock together creates 71 % greater range than if each bird flew alone.

People who share a common sense of direction and community can get where they are going quicker and easier because they are travelling    on the thrust of one another.

When the lead goose tires, it rotates back into the formation and another goose flies to lead position.

It pays to take turns doing the hard work and sharing leadership, as with geese, people are interdependent on each others skills, talents, understanding and capabilities.

The geese flying in formation honk to encourage those at the front to keep going.

We need to make sure our honking is encouraging. Groups where the honking is encouraging work much better. The power of 'encouragement (to stand by one's core values and beliefs and encourage the core values and beliefs of others in the group) is the quality of honking we seek.

When a goose gets sick, wounded or shot down, two geese drop out of formation and follow it down to help and protect it. They stay until it dies or can fly again. Then they launch out with another formation or catch up with the flock. .

If we have as much sense as geese, we will stand by each other in difficult times as well as when we are strong.

May we have at least as much sense as geese.

from a speech given by Angeles Arrien,

 based on the work of Milton Olson

One of my favourite songs is “Bluebeat” by New Model Army. There is a line it that goes “There’s always something new to fall in love”. I find this to be a consistent truth of my life.

Last year I fell in love with Geese. It all really began as an antidote to anxiety.

Prayer is really important to my life, it gives me the strength and direction I need to live as openly and honestly as I possibly can and therefore fully experience all that is before me. That said I have discovered, in recent times, its limits; for whatever reason prayer did not take away that anxiety that would come a calling, every Thursday morning, just over a year ago. I can see now that it was the very stillness and solitude of prayer that may well have caused its limitations. When I was in prayer I was still alone. Solitary spiritual practise was not enough it seems, well not at that moment in my life.

So what was the cause of this over powering anxiety, what created this ghost of fear, to come knocking at my door once again?

Well it was learning to drive, something that did not come naturally to me. I let the struggles I had with it get to me at times and I have to say I never thought I would be able to learn. That said I stuck with it and eventually passed.

You may well ask, how did I overcome that anxiety that would almost overwhelm every Thursday morning?

One Thursday morning I rose from solitary prayer and stepped into the cold of winter, crossed the road and walked around Platt Fields Park. I was studying for the ministry at the time at Luther King House, which is where the Unitarian college is, just across the road from Platt Fields Park between Fallowfield and Rusholme in Manchester. I walked and walked and connected to the simple beauty of nature, the people and the animals. Over the next few weeks and months I would continue this walk, often several times a day. I got use to the similar sights. The group of middle aged men, with their cans of beer and their dogs; the students and Asian women jogging; the BMX boys; the mothers with prams; the men fishing and on Sundays the old guys with their model sail boats. I also took friends there and we would walk and talk together. It became more than a weekly ritual; it became a daily one or even sometimes a several times a day one.

Of all the different things I encountered on these walks, it was the geese who had the greatest impact.

You see I’ve fallen in love with the geese.

I’ve fallen in love with the geese.  Just as Milton Olson did in seeing them as an inspiration for how our human societies can function successfully. He observed how every individual gains in power by simply working together for a common purpose, each taking it in turns to lead.

Just by simple watching these geese in a park in central Manchester I was able to connect to the humble reality of my own existence. As I passed them and watched them as they took off and landed as they cried out and honked to one another. I would often chuckle to myself as they waddled about and I observed their funny feet. This love deepened during the spring and summer as they gave birth to their own chicks, which followed them around the lake. 

Just gorgeous, yes I’ve fallen in love with the geese, not the swans, or ducks or other birds. The geese, I’ve fallen in love with the geese.

I fell in love with these simple creatures. They took me out of myself and enabled me to connect to that greater reality that for some reason prayer was failing to do at this juncture of my life. Actually that may not be quite true because it was of course in this quiet time of prayer that the voice in my gut told me get up and walk outside into that cold winter morning.

So what has this experience taught me? Well it taught me once again that I cannot exist as a solitary individual. I need to connect I need to relate. To me this is the essence of spirituality. Spirituality is about relationships and about developing a simple and loving connection to the greater reality. As I understand it spirituality is really all about developing relationships at every level.

Whatever I do in life and wherever I go if I forget this I’m in trouble.  Spirituality is about relationship. Nothing in life exists alone, without something to relate and connect to life will lose its meaning. No man is an island.

I think this is why I despair at so much of what is described as “New Age” spirituality. It is also why I believe my own Unitarian tradition is open at times to appropriate criticism. It can be too individualistic. Rightly no one has authority over another’s right to a private faith, doubt, belief and disbelief. That said we can’t just believe what we want, what we feel like on a whim from one week to next. Our faith offers freedom to search and seek and to ask the difficult questions. This I believe leads to a vibrant faith without certainty. That said Unitarians do not just simply believe whatever they want, at least not in my experience.

A few years ago my brother took a holiday, with his wife, to America. One day they were being shown around Dallas by a taxi driver. At one point they passed a church and the driver exclaimed in a mixture of bewilderment and humour “That over there is a Unitarian Universalist church and those folks can believe whatever they like”

Now when he initially related this story it irritated me. Why people may well ask? Well it’s this caricature that is so often painted about the Unitarian faith “that we can believe whatever we like”, that gets to me. As I have heard others state "It’s not so much about believing whatever I like, but about believing what I must." What life in all its mystery and wonder compels me to believe. For me this is a painful and difficult task at times. There are no easy answers.

Also if spirituality becomes a purely private affair, who’s sole aim is to relieve an individual of the pain and discomfort that life can bring, it becomes narcissistic.

Narcissism leads only to more pain and suffering and in the end merely enhances the isolation. Narcissism is the antithesis of spirituality. It is the total annihilation of our humanity. A narcissist is a person utterly absorbed and preoccupied with themselves and their own pain to the total exclusion of others. It was Sigmund Freud who actually coined the term.  He was influenced by Frederic Nietzsche, who was fascinated with the Greek Myths, and how these myths told the stories of our everyday lives.  Freud saw in the myth of Narcissus this common state of preoccupation with our own pain.

Narcissus was a handsome Greek youth who rejected the desperate advances of the nymph Echo. As punishment, he was doomed to fall in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. Unable to consummate his own love, Narcissus wasted away over time and changed into the flower that bears his name. He lost his humanity.

A free religious faith cannot be narcissistic and I do not believe that Unitarianism is and I do not for one minute believe it encourages such instincts. Yes we are individuals, who often believe and disbelieve differently from one another, but we are also much more than that we are a community with a common purpose, we do have shared values. By coming together in community we strengthen one another far more than we could do by sitting alone in solitary isolation, trying to make sense of life. We learn from one another but we do more than that we open one another up to many of life's great mysteries.We share each others joys and pains. We cry together, we laugh together and we celebrate together.

Yes I’ve fallen in love with geese, why you may well ask?

Well, because they have taught me what it is to be truly human and how to live in community with other folk.

Honk...honk...honk

Gifts: It's funny what you find left on your door step

I returned home the other night to find a foot high figurine on my door step. It is a statuette of two people hugging one another. There was no note with it, so I have no idea who left it for me. I put it on my mantle piece and offered a prayer of thanks for this beautiful and wonderful gift from some living breathing angel. I assume it is a thank you for something I have said or done at some point, but what who knows. All I can say is “Thank you universe” it is a beautiful gift.

It got me thinking about the gifts, not particularly material ones, but the talents we all possess that we can share with one another. Gifts are not meant to be hoarded selfishly but shared with all of humanity.

No two people are exactly alike .We all of us possess different abilities, gifts and talents, that need to be nurtured and developed if we wish to live to our full potential. Our own souls require and desire this from us and I believe that this world of ours needs it too, if we are to create the Commonwealth of God, of love, here on earth.

In the last few weeks I have become increasingly aware of my need to sing more. It is a part of my being that I have neglected. I am beginning to feel, deep down within me, the need to reawaken and develop this aspect of myself, it has laid dormant for far too long.

When I was at ministerial training college we spent some time exploring how people learn differently; that not every mind works in the same way. We do not all think alike, it would seem. Some people learn with pictures, others through conversation orally and aurally, some by listening to a speaker and others by reading and reflecting silently, while still others only really learn by giving something a go and practically applying the information. I personally learn by listening and then engaging in conversation, but recognise that not everyone is the same as me...thank God.

Last year I finally learnt how to drive. During my first few lessons I remember my instructor explaining how some young lads just seem to have a natural aptitude for it and within a few weeks are ready to take their test. This did not apply to me. It took me quite some time to come to terms with the coordination of it all. This is probably because I like to think things through and that doesn’t really work while learning to drive, you have to react quickly to situations. I spent quite some time trying to work out the reasons behind my mistakes instead of focusing on what was in front of me, this usually led to a whole series of mistakes. That said I stuck with it and got there in the end. I learnt a lot about myself, while learning to drive.

Like many people I was utterly mesmerised by Barcelona’s performance during last Saturdays Champions League final. The way that Xavi, Iniesta and Melli etc et al destroyed the great Manchester United side, was mind blowing. It was one of the most spell binding performances I have seen, in a final, for many years. Here were gifted young men fulfilling their potential.

Footballers are rightly criticised for their behaviour at times; the adoration they are shown and the wealth they receive often goes to their heads and leads to all kinds of inappropriate behaviour. That said some of the ridicule they receive goes way over the top. Wayne Rooney is often vilified on comedy panel shows such as “Mock The Week” and “Have I Got News For You”, because he isn’t the most articulate of people. I seem to remember that the same thing happened to David Beckham. This seems unfair. These young men are immensely talented at one thing, why should we expect them to gifted in other areas as well? They are intelligent in their own way; in the way they see things on the football pitch. This was perfectly exemplified by Messi, Xavi and Innestia et al last Saturday night. That said we should never deify these talented young men. Yes they have a gift, which they are making good use of, but they are still human.

When we see others doing something with immense skill it is easy to feel envious and wish that we had their talent too. We can even convince ourselves that if we tried really heard we may well achieve what they can do; that if we mastered their skill we could somehow become complete and develop a higher opinion of ourselves and that others would develop a higher opinion of us also. It seems that so many of us believe that we have to brilliant at everything in order for others to think well of us. We are funny lot we humans. 

The Apostle Paul (1 Corinthians Ch 12) wrote to the Corinth congregation because he had discovered that each member, in their struggle to be the perfect congregational leader, was getting in the way of the others. As a result they were not working in unity. Each one of them wanted to possess all the good qualities that make up a good leader, to become the perfect leader and to leave the others in their shadow. Paul taught them that the spirit does not allow even the possibility that one person can possess every talent. He suggested a change in outlook and I believe that this still applies today, in our time and place. We all know that we can do some things well but we also know that we have weaknesses too. Often we feel that we must strengthen these weaknesses in order to escape criticism and to turn this weakness into a strength, I am not convinced that this is possible. It seems like a road to nowhere and headache inducing one. We should do our best, but we are all limited. Instead perhaps what we ought to be doing is nurturing our talents, not just for the good of ourselves, but for the whole of society.

By seeing that we all possess special gifts that are ours to be used for the good of all and by accepting that as individuals we will not be given everything we will hopefully stop berating ourselves for being less than perfect and begin to live in harmony with one another, making our community and world all that it can be.

Let us be grateful for the gifts that have been bestowed upon us. Whether they have been left on our doorstep or imprinted on our DNA and let us express them with those we live in community with.