They Might be Giants: Finding the Courage to Overcome

It has been quite a summer of sport. It is not over just yet, we are still in July after all. I have enjoyed it immensely, the hopes and dreams and ups and downs, that for most has ultimately ended in disappointment. There have been quite a few underdog stories too. Most of us love an underdog story, probably because it taps into the dream that one day, by some miracle perhaps, we might become victorious.

Before I came to live in this area I knew very little about Urmston and Altrincham. I had heard of Urmston only because of one of the characters from “Dinner Ladies”, that wonderful comedy by Victoria Wood. I only knew of Altrincham from watching the football results and the mythos of their giant killing days in the FA Cup. It has been a great honour to serve the good folk of both places these last 16 years.

Now it was this year’s FA Cup that brought a local giant killing to mind, perhaps the greatest. This was when Non-League Macclesfield Town slayed Premier League Crystal Palace. Crystal Palace were actually the FA Cup defending champions having won it 2025, how the mighty fall. Other examples of minnows defeating or shining against the giants were Cape Verdi in the World Cup, drawing nil-nil with the eventual champions Spain. Cape Verdi did not lose a game in their group and were only beaten by the finalist Argentina in extra time, Argentina had scored an equaliser in injury time of normal time. Now despite a few hiccups the giants did eventually gain victory, the top four ranked teams in the world filled all four semi-final places.

There were two wonderful examples of minnows defeating giants in tennis too. Maja Chwalinska ranked 114 in the world and a wild card reached the French open final. Then the British qualifier Arthur Fery, another a wild card and coincidentally also ranked 114 in the world, reached the semi-final at Wimbledon before succumbing to the giant Alexander Zverev. I remember watching them walk side by side and thinking this truly looks like a David and Goliath rematch as Zverev stands 6 feet and six inches, Arthur Fery is just 5 feet 9 inches tall, almost a foot shorter. Instead of shaft the size of a weaver’s beam, his weapon of choice was his tennis racket.

In such encounters Goliath usually wins, but not always. Sometimes the underdog does win. The small does overcome the giant. Courage can be found if we carry it within our hearts. The 19th century Unitarian minister, Theodore Parker, said, “The arc of the Universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” He believed that there was some deep and powerful force in the Universe that stands behind the weak and the small when they fight against the more powerful. The story of David and Goliath, the little shepherd boy, the runt of his family, the eighth born son, who defeated the most powerful warrior in the world, asks us, “Where would we find such courage?” Sport can be a wonderful metaphor for this, sometimes the mighty do fall and the righteous do indeed overcome.

I am sure we are all familiar with the story of David and Goliath. I know as a child I found it compelling. It made me think that the weak sensitive child that I was would one day stand up to bullying giants of life. I still live with this childlike hope. I know I am not alone.

The story of slaying of the giant Goliath is to be found in the Old Testament book of Samuel. Here is an extract from 2 Samuel Ch 21 v 19

“Then there was another battle with the Philistines at Gob, and …………… killed Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.”

Do you know who killed Goliath in 2 Samuel? Say it out loud to yourself.

Well, in the “ Samuel it was someone named “Elhanan son of Jaare-oregim the Bethlehemite”

Here is the full verse: “19 Then there was another battle with the Philistines at Gob, and Elhanan son of Jaare-oregim the Bethlehemite killed Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.”

The story of David slaying Goliath is actually found in the 1st Book of Samuel, which describes Goliath there in the following way 1 Samuel Ch 17 vv 4-7

“4 And there came out from the camp of the Philistines a champion named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was four[a] cubits and a span. 5 He had a helmet of bronze on his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail; the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of bronze. 6 He had greaves of bronze on his legs and a javelin of bronze slung between his shoulders. 7 The shaft of his spear was like a weaver’s beam, and his spear’s head weighed six hundred shekels of iron, and his shield-bearer went before him.”

“The shaft of his spear was like a weaver’s beam”

Now to add to the confusion here is an extract from 1 20 Chronicles, probably written a couple of centuries after the book of Samuel. This section depicts the battles of David and his army at war, including with giants. There are many battles depicted as David was the warrior king.

“5 Again there was war with the Philistines, and Elhanan son of Jair killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.”

All three accounts use this same description of the shaft of a spear being like “a weaver’s beam”

Confusing isn’t it. How do we make sense of these seeming contradictions.

Biblical scholar Dan McClellan describes the slaying of Goliath as one of the biggest contradictions in the Bible. The Bible in McClellen’s understanding is not a univocal text, meaning it does not speak with one voice, nor should it be viewed this way. Instead, it is a text to be engage with. I am in great sympathy with Dan.

So, who was it who slayed the Giant Goliath, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam?

McClellan’s highlights several academic observations that reveal that the account in 2 Samuel of Elhanan of Bethlehem slaying Goliath pre-dates the account of David in 1 Samuel. That as the legend of David grew editors of the Davidic tradition appropriated the heroic feat of Elhanan to build up the myth of David, as the heroic underdog and creating a different kind of giant mythology. He highlights that the account in Chronicles is an attempt to show Elhanan as the slayer of Goliath’s brother Lahmi. By the way there are many accounts of giants being slayed and warriors going into battle. David is viewed as this warrior king who came from nothing to lead armies with ingenuity and skill.

The central claim of McClellan is that these account’s were ways to attempt to build up the legend of David as this little man who through courage and ingenuity slayed the giants. It is a wonderful mythos and like so many heroic figures of human mythology contains truth and exaggeration. In my view knowing this does not down play the idea of courage and guile to allow the small and seemingly weaker overcoming the giant, at least sometimes. Like all heroes such figures are flawed and sometimes their supporters build them up in order enlarge the mythos.

Here Dan McClellan explores the David and Goliath contrdictions.

 
We find our own truth in such tales and this is what matters to me. I wonder who your favourite underdog is, ancient or modern. Mine is probably “Daniel-San” from “The Karate Kid”, a story clearly influenced in part by the story of David and Goliath. Or perhaps Luke in the original Star Wars film “Episode IV” “A New Hope”. Surely Luke destroying the Death Star by finding it’s one vulnerability is another example of the David and Goliath Mythos. Or perhaps Achillies from “The Odyssey”, out now at the movie theatres, is another example. Even the mightiest fall, for they have their weak spots.

I recently listened to a Podcast by Malcolm Gladwell. He was discussing his book “David and Goliath” it takes a very different view to the conventional understanding, highlighting that David’s skill actually put him at an advantage. He highlights that often in war the mightier do not prevail and the righteous more often than we would think can become victorious, not through might, but through guile and skill. He highlights that sometimes our seeming weakness can become our strength. I know myself I was often told that I was overly sensitive as a child and that I would not survive in this world if I didn’t change. There was truth in this. That said I know today that my sensitivity is one of my greatest assets in my life. It just needed to be used in the right way. It turned out to be my stone that slayed my inner Giant. The central theme that Gladwell highlights is that the very thing that puts you at a disadvantage forces you to creatively reinvent the rules of the game to amazing effect. You develop new kinds of skills to compensate for the areas where you are weakest and you approach the world with a fresh kind of offbeat vision. You play a different game and suddenly your powerlessness becomes the very root of your power. It can be disarming, it can be thrilling, it can be wildly successful.

The message at the heart of the life of Jesus teaches this. I don’t mean the mythos developed around him and often the religion built from him, but the radical message he brought. He came to reform his religion to bring it back to the people, but not through power in a conventional sense. Being an ordinary working man it prevented him from doing so in a conventional way, so he followed his own path. He used what he had, he made the most of his simple gifts. He refused conventional status and power and created new terms of success showing how the so called losers became winners and winners became losers. He said “Blessed are the peacemakers.” “Blessed are those that hunger and thirst for righteousness… blessed are the merciful… blessed are the pure in heart…” Jesus taught that success was measured by how loving and compassionate you are. Instead of accumulating wealth and power here, “store up treasure in heaven where moth and vermin do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal.” The problem was the worship of other things, such giants actually got in the way, “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” He contested all the social values of his day and invited the people into a different dimension of spiritual living.

Sadly, this is a message that has so often been lost in the religion created in his name and much religion actually. Sadly, too often the worship of other God’s and monster have taken over. Too often, as in the original story, David becomes the Goliath.

Now the David’s and Goliath’s come in many forms; they do not necessarily come in human form; the giants, the monsters, the unsurmountable obstacles incarnate in various ways. It takes faith and hope and courage to overcome them, even if we have failed many times. It is the faith, hope and courage that enables us to stand up and try once again.

Mark Nepo takes an interesting slant on this ancient Mythos. In the “Book of Awakening” he writes about the Goliath’s in life being the towering unsurmountable obstacles that we all face. The impossible dream, the heartbreaking challenges of love and loss such as grief, chronic illness and the personal traumas we all face. Every day I find myself in conversations with folk living through challenges of all kinds, and of finding the faith, hope and courage to overcome their own personal Goliath’s.

Mark Nepo describes his own battles with his own Goliath’s. After surviving a rare form of lymphoma in the 1990s, he emerged with profound insights on suffering, transformation, faith, hope and resilience. These were the equivalent to the five stones that David carefully selected. Nepo was taught the true meaning of courage, of love. He learnt that these seemingly unsurmountable obstacles were not giants or monsters to be slain, but teaches, hard lessons that compel us to strip away the things that do not really matter in life, discover where the true meaning is found and uncover the true courage at the heart of our being. Not in vainglory but as people of faith and hope and love.

We all face our mythological giants in life. I wonder what has been your greatest challenges and how you have walked through them, overcome them. Some of us maybe facing some now. What has carried you through? What were your five selected stones that helped you defeat your Goliath? What stories, mythos helped carry you through? Not what hero fought your battle, but who or what inspired you keep on taking the next step, the one of courage to keep on walking on through.

May we all find the faith, the hope and courage to face what we encounter on our journey through life. May we find the love to encourage one another to keep on, no matter how many times we might fall.

I’m going to end this with this piece.

“My Heart Fights for Those Who Can't Fight” by Sara Sutherland Dean

Someone called me a “bleeding heart liberal.” It was not intended as a compliment. However, I will always consider it one of the biggest compliments of my life.

My heart bleeds for the underdog.
My heart fights for those who can’t fight.
My heart rejoices in seeing others overcome adversity.
My heart desires love and peace for everyone.
My heart is compassionate and empathetic.
My heart sees pain in others and wants to help.
My heart believes in equality.
My heart sees the good in people.
My heart chooses action over fear.

Amen

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

Do Not Regret the Road Not Taken

Unitarian college, the students and tutors have a lot to answer for. No, I don’t just mean Peter the ministry student who is currently with us or Janine who was with us in the recent past. I am speaking of something completely different. Three years ago I was invited to attended “Ministry in the Making” as part of the leadership team. Molly accompanied me of course. She worked her magic and they insist that she is always there. She is becoming something akin to “The Guru’s Cat”. I am allowed to accompany her it seems. It has been a great experience for all, but has led to one or two ongoing problems. One of the tutors and some of the students turned Molly into someone who thinks she can take cuddly toys. It has cost me a few quid over the years. When we first went they encouraged her to take one of the toys that are there in the chapel for “Send a Child to Hucklow”. This developed into a habit whenever we went into shops. She no longer does so, but she will pick up anything that is on the streets of Altrincham and bring it home. She shares more than black and white markings with magpies it would seem. Invariably when I take her for a walk she comes home with all sorts. The other day she took a toy octopus that was in the doorway of a charity shop. I had to go back later with a donation, not that anyone would have known. Taking Molly for a walk can be very interesting indeed. She never regrets the path we choose and nor do I. it is never dull.

The other morning, while we were out walking, I received a voice message from a friend who had watched my last YouTube devotion, titled “A Blizzard of Blossom: Beauty Awakens the Soul to Act”. It had moved them greatly. One of the things they shared with me was very pertinent to the lives of themself, Oliver and myself. They spoke of Oliver’s poem and how he had been “taken” to a place of grief”. It was the word “taken” that really spoke to my friend. They themselves had been taken on a quest whilst on retreat. Their spiritual teacher used the word “taken”, in the context of taking your seat in meditation, a willingness to create a spaciousness and to be taken where ever we might need to go. They continued that knowing that they are not in control brings a sense of relief that the journey is about being available to being taken, wherever that may lead.

This all got me thinking about how we are often taken or perhaps take journey’s throughout our lives. To take and or be taken has multiple meanings in our lives. We take a walk, a nap, a drink. We take exams and bus rides. We take our medicines and we take a joke or not. We are taken too in so many different ways. It is the journeys that we take and do not take, or perhaps are taken on or not taken on that got me thinking. My friend talked about being taken on a spiritual journey by simply taking their seat in meditation. This sounds like an act of surrender, but not passively so. It is they who choose to take their seat in meditation. I get a strong sense that they are not regretting going on this journey.

This got me thinking about the journeys we take and do not take throughout our lives. I also wonder how much we choose these journeys and how much we are taken on them. Who knows. I wonder what regret we experience about the journeys we take and do not take. How do we discern the journey we take or get taken on? Does it actually matter? Is it about taking or not taking the right road? Or is it actually about how we take or are taken on our journey? Maybe it is not so much about the path we follow, but the path we make. The mark we make on life. This is beautifully illustrated in following by Antonio Machado from “The Soul Is Here for Its Own Joy” translated by Robert Bly.

You walking, your footprints are
the road, and nothing else;
there is no road, walker,
you make the road by walking.
By walking you make the road,
and when you look backward,
you see the path that you
never will step on again.
Walker, there is no road,
only wind-trails in the sea.

Now of course taking or not taking a road reminds me of one of the best known poems of the 20th century “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost. The poem is often celebrated as being a triumph of personal freedom and autonomy, of taking the most difficult path and this making all the difference. It is often mistakenly called “The Road Less Travelled” named after one of its lines, “and I took the road less travelled by and it’s made all the difference. I noticed Nick reading from “The Road Less Travelled” by M. Scott Peck during “Living the Questions” the other evening. A wonderful book, although its title is referencing a common misunderstanding of the poem.

The truth about the poem is that it is was written for a fellow poet friend of Frost’s called Edward Thomas. Frost it seems was taking (The proverbial) out his friend. He was gently mocking his friend. It seems that Thomas was an indecisive man and when he and Frost were out walking Thomas would always look back at the end of the day and regret which ever path they didn’t follow. He seemed to ruin is own enjoyment. Maybe his was the first example of what people today name “FOMO” (Fear of Missing Out). Frost himself experienced some regret as the poem has been taken so very seriously and yet its intention was one of light hearted humour. Even the final line and sigh were meant to be mocking his friend who would over dramatize his regret of the journey they had taken. What Frost was suggesting is that it didn’t matter which path they took. Frost and his wife when out walking would often toss a coin when meeting such forks in the road. They would follow which ever way the coin suggested. They enjoyed the walk. That was the point.

Anyway here is the poem

“The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

It seems we have been reading this poem wrongly ever since and it has made no real difference.

So perhaps there is a different lesson to learn about the roads we take or are taken on. The paths we tread or choose to follow. Maybe it’s not that important what path we take or don’t take. Maybe what really matters is how we travel and who we travel with. Maybe what matters is to accept the invitation and make the most of what we take and who we meet and opportunities that come our way. What matters the most I suspect is not to live in and by regret for whatever path we do or do not take. We make the road as we walk on, which ever way we turn.

Again to repeat those words by Antonio Machado

You walking, your footprints are
the road, and nothing else;
there is no road, walker,
you make the road by walking.
By walking you make the road,
and when you look backward,
you see the path that you
never will step on again.
Walker, there is no road,
only wind-trails in the sea.

Do not regret the road you have taken, instead take what is offered before you. Keep on taking the next step, even if you have got it wrong a thousand times before. As Rumi wrote:

“Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving. It doesn't matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times. Come, yet again , come , come.”

Jelaluddin Rumi

I love the line that is sometimes edited out of this verse, “It doesn’t matter, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times.” Who amongst us has not fallen short of what they had hoped to be, who hasn’t broken their vows so many times? Who does not live with regret for the things they have done in life, or failed to have done in life? I know I have. Only Frank Sinatra it seems lived without regret, well along with Edif Piaf and Robbie Williams. We must not though let the regret destroy us and ruin the journey we will continue to take, as it did for Robert Frost’s friend Edwards Thomas.

Regret is an interesting word, it is in itself a lament, from the Old French word ‘regreter”, meaning “one who bewails the dead,” which comes from a Germanic root meaning “to greet.” As Mark Nepo has said of regret “We always face these two phases of regret: to bewail what is dead and gone, and, if we can move through that grief, to greet the chance to do things differently as we move on.”

Nepo notes something of real value here, it is a lesson from grief. Yes, regret is a lament for what has gone, what has died, but if we greet it fully with love we can learn from the past and do things differently in the future. The response to regret is both of life and death. The choice is ours. By the way this is the one choice we have in life. We do not choose what happens to us but we can choose how we respond to what happens to us. This is the one ultimate freedom, that is open to all of us.

To quote Viktor Frankl:

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.”

So our response to regret is ours. We can either choose life or death. We can close in and shut down or we can create with love.

This freedom cannot be taken from us. We can choose life and continue on, instead of constantly lamenting the path we have taken or the one we haven’t..

There are two interesting examples of responses to regret within the New Testament. They are found within the Easter story, following Jesus’s betrayal. Luke’s (Ch22 vv 60-62) Gospel depicts Peter regretting his betrayal of Jesus. He wept bitterly for his fear based denial and yet how did he respond. Well it was on Peter that the earlier Christian Church was built. For Peter Hope was once again born. Matthew (Ch 27 vv 3-5) depicts a very different response to regret that of Judas Iscariot.

I have regrets about some of roads I have taken, as well as those I have allowed others to take me down too. No doubt I will make many more mistakes later on. I cannot afford to live in such regret. To spend my days agonising over it, as Edward Thomas did. This is oh so life denying. It will stop me building, creating and sharing something as I journey on. We have the freedom to make something of the journey we are on. Even if that is just sharing some wisdom from our own journey.

Last week I had privilege of being invited to listen to a man speak of his powerful journey. It was on Zoom as he was in America. He was 105 years old and he talked so eloquently and beautifully about his 70 years of recovery. He spoke for about 45 minutes. He talked about many trials and tribulations as well as loves and joys he had experienced in such a long life. He spoke mainly about love and forgiveness. There seemed not a hint of regret and or pity in his voice. He shone like a light and had the most amazing skin. If you could manufacture what he had as a beauty company you would make a fortune. You cannot though. He did not seem to regret the path he had taken or the one he had not taken.

So, let’s not sigh about the road we have and have not taken. Let’s not die in regret, let’s instead live in possibility. Let’s journey on in love, begin again in love, even if we have fallen short a thousand times. We need not be paralysed lamenting the past, nor do we need to close the door on it. Let us instead move through the grief of regret and greet the future with its possibility of what might yet be.

Let us keep on making the road, by taking the next step forward and share it with whom ever wishes to journey with us.

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

Stories are never just stories. We become the stories that we tell ourselves.

“The Two Tribes” by Mark Nepo

“In the beginning, when the first humans came across each other, it went two ways. Upon seeing someone different, the more fearful one said, "You're different. Go away." The other, upon seeing someone not like him, said, "You're different. Come, teach me what I don't know." While our reasoning has grown more complicated throughout the centuries, it's essentially the same. "Go away" or "Come, teach me."

Since the beginning, the two tribes have had their philosophies. The "Go away" tribe has always believed that human beings, by their nature, are self-serving and untrustworthy, in need of control. The "Go away" tribe believes in stringent laws and constraints, both moral and legal, to ensure that people don't run amuck. The "Come, teach me" tribe believes that human beings, by their nature, are kind and trustworthy. The "Come, teach me" tribe believes in empowering laws that cultivate freedom, to ensure that people actualize their web of gifts through relationship.

The truth is that we are born into both tribes and can move from one to the other, depending on the level of our fear. The times of genocide throughout history mark the extreme, malignant manifestation of the "Go away" tribe. Distorted by fear, it's not enough just to say, "Go away." For unbridled fear turns to anger, which normalized turns into prejudice and hate. Such deep, embedded fear dictates that we need to make sure that those who are different can't return. And so, we exile them, jail them, hurt them, and in extremely ugly cases, persecute and kill them.

However, the times of enlightenment throughout history mark the extreme manifestation of the "Come, teach me" tribe, which through learning and wonder leads to eras of compassion and cooperation. Empowered by trust, curiosity turns into interdependence and a belief that we are more together than alone. When allowed to blossom, we realize that we need each other and our diversity of gifts to make life whole.”

“Stories are never just stories. We become the stories that we tell ourselves.”

A traveller was riding through the countryside. He was heading to the city for a wedding. He had been riding for some time when he realised he had become lost. He noticed a man sauntering along, happy in his own thoughts. The traveller thought he had better approach him and ask for directions. Unfortunately, he was unaware that the man he was approaching was Nasruddin. There may be trouble ahead…

The man approached Nasruddin and asked, "What is the best way to get to the city.”

Nasruddin looked up at the man and then looked ahead, before looking backwards. He looked up at the sky, before looking down once more and contemplated for some time. He then looked up at the man again before looking ahead, only slightly to the right this time. He then looked back at the man and began to speak: "Well, if I were going there, I wouldn't start from here."

Whenever we set out on a journey, it matters where we start from, where our journey begins. Yes, it isn’t the journey, but it will impact on how we travel.

We never step into anything without a past; we carry the past with us to some degree or another. How we journey in life will be influenced by our starting point, by what we are taught either subliminally or deliberately. How we see ourselves, one another, and or the world, will impact on how we journey and how we meet life. It matters how we greet the world and how the world greets us. Where we begin from will have a bearing on the journey, on how we live each day. Are we come teach me people or go away people? It matters how we greet one another and or greet life.

The other day the following post appeared in my Facebook Feed. It is by social historian I follow “Rutger Bregman” Published on 20th February 2026

The BBC just released a new adaptation of Lord of the Flies, the classic novel by William Golding. It's beautifully made, but it's still telling the wrong story.

A few years ago, I went looking for the *real* Lord of the Flies. I wanted to know: has it ever actually happened? Have kids ever been shipwrecked on a deserted island?

It took me a year of research, but I found it. In 1965, six boys from a boarding school in Tonga stole a boat, got caught in a storm, and drifted for eight days without food or water. They washed up on 'Ata, a remote, uninhabited island in the Pacific. They stayed there for 15 months, and what happened on that island was the exact opposite of William Golding's novel.

These boys set up a small commune. They built a food garden, stored rainwater in hollowed-out tree trunks, created a gym with improvised weights, and built a badminton court. One of them, Stephen (who would later become an engineer) managed to start a fire using two sticks. They kept it burning the entire time.

Of course they fought too. But when they argued, they had a rule: go to opposite ends of the island, cool down, then come back and apologize. As one of them told me: ‘That's how we stayed friends.’

Back home, everyone assumed that the boys – Luke, Stephen, Sione, David, Kolo and Mano — were dead. When they were finally discovered by an Australian captain named Peter Warner, he radioed their names to Tonga. After twenty minutes, a tearful response came back: ‘You found them! These boys have been given up for dead. Funerals have been held. If it's them, this is a miracle!’

Peter commissioned a new ship, hired all six boys as his crew, and named the boat the Ata, after the island where he found them. They remained friends for the rest of their lives – Peter and Mano even became soulmates. I tracked them down, and it became one of the central chapters of my book Humankind.

Here's what struck me most: William Golding (the author of Lord of the Flies) was a troubled man, an alcoholic who once said ‘I have always understood the Nazis, because I am of that sort by nature.’ I think he was projecting his own darkness onto children. And we turned it into a lesson about human nature that we teach to millions of kids around the world.

I think the real lesson is the opposite. When real children found themselves alone on a real island, they didn't descend into savagery. They cooperated. They took care of each other. They survived.

I'm not saying that the Tongan castaways were representative of all kids everywhere. But I am saying that every kid who has to read or watch the fictional Lord of the Flies also deserves to know what actually happened when it played out in real life.

Stories are never just stories. We become the stories that we tell ourselves.

I remember when I first learnt of this account back in 2020 at the beginning of lockdown it had a profound effect on me, as did his book “Humankind”. In the true story of the “Lord of Flies” when school boys were lost, stranded, on a desert island they did not descend into chaos and destruction. What they did do was take care of one another, in fact they found ways to not only survive, but to function as a community, until they were rescued. Why are we not taught this story? I didn’t learn about it in school. Why instead are we only taught the story of chaos and destruction, of distrust and greed. Why are we so carefully taught that we are by our nature wrong?

In the chapter “A New Realism” Rutger Bregman wrote in his book “Human Kind: A Hopeful History”

“Scenario:

An airplane makes an emergency landing, breaks into three parts, the cabin fills with smoke, everyone inside realises that they need to get out as soon as they can. Which scenario sounds more likely?

PLANET A: the passengers turn to their neighbours to ask if they’re ok, those needing assistance are helped out of the plane first, people are willing to risk their own lives to help random strangers.

PLANET B: everyone is left to fend for themselves, there is a mad rush for the exit, panic breaks out, there’s lots of pushing and shoving, the children/elderly/disabled are trampled by the mad crowd as they rush out

97% of people estimate that we live on Planet B, that mass panic is the most likely. But it has been found in almost every case that we live on Planet A – we are kind and we help each other where we can. If you watch the Titanic movie it looks like panic, but if you ask people who were actually there they say that the evacuation was actually quite orderly. Or think of September 11 – as the twin towers burned, thousands of people calmly descended the emergency stairs, even though their lives were in immediate danger. They stepped aside for firefighters, they let the injured be carried ahead of them. People would actually stop and say “no on, you go first” or “please take my place” – there was no madness.

There is a persistent myth that by our very nature humans are selfish, aggressive and quick to panic. Dutch biologist Frans de Waal calls this “veneer theory”, the notion that civilisation is nothing but a thin veneer that could crack under the slightest pressure. But in actual fact, in times of crisis (when bombs are being dropped or flood waters are rising), then we humans become our best selves. We may have a good side and a bad side, but there is considerable scientific evidence showing that in times of crisis we overwhelmingly turn to our good side.”

Much like Nepo highlights in the story I shared earlier we are both types of people “The come teach me people” and the “go away people”. The problem is that we seem to believe that generally speaking we are “Go Away People” by nature and so is everyone else. We believe we are the fiction of William Goulding rather than the Tongan schoolboys who created structures to take care of each other. They knew that their lives depended upon them cooperating together on the remote island of “Ata”.

I believe we have both aspects, both potentials within us, “The come teach me” and the “go away”, we inhabit both planet A and planet B. That the aspect that comes to prominence is the one we develop. It matters what stories we tell about ourselves and one another, as the stories we tell becomes the life we will lead and the world we live in. This is the place where we will begin every journey, every single day of our lives.

This is beautifully illustrated in the following story:

An old man said to his grandson, “there’s a fight going on inside me, a terrible fight between two wolves. One is evil – angry, greedy, jealous, arrogant and cowardly. The other is good – peaceful, loving, modest, generous, honest, and trustworthy. These two wolves are fighting within you too… and every other person on the planet”

After a moment the boy asks “which wolf will win?”.

The old man smiles: “The One You Feed”.

It matters the stories that we tell of ourselves and one another. We have a natural reticence to speak of the good we do. In fact, those who do the most, prefer to do so anonymously. We do not follow the directive of Jesus from the “Sermon on the Mount”, we hide our light it would seem. The story we tell is not to speak of the good we do. Not everyone of course and actually those who do boast about their achievements can often overstate them. I don’t feel comfortable singing my praises or when others sing them to me. I know how uncomfortable I felt the other week when Jane Brophy the Mayor of Trafford did so publicly. This has been on my mind as have written and delivered eulogies for some wonderful folk recently. We seem to feel comfortable singing the praises of folk after they have died, but not while they are still alive.

How often have I heard people say when they do good things that they often disguise them behind some kind of selfish motive. Why do we tell these stories about ourselves, why do we make ourselves sound worse than we are? Why do we promote negative stories about ourselves? Why are we so uncomfortable with praise? I have seen examples only this week of people apologising for the good that they have done. It is charming and lovely and I recognise it in myself. That said it serves no one and actually leads to us telling negative stories about ourselves.

As Rutger Bregman noted in “Humankind”

“Unfortunately, this reticence works like a nocebo. When you disguise yourself as an egoist, you reinforce other people’s cynical assumptions about human nature. Worse by cloaking your good deeds, you place them in quarantine, where they can’t serve as an example for others. And that’s a shame, because Homo puppy’s secret superpower is that we’re so great at copying one another.”

Bregman suggest that we “come out” about our generosity as an example to others, to encourage them to do the same. To counteract the narrative of so-called human selfishness. That it is our nature to learn, to almost copy and mimic others, we like to fit in. therefore if we teach a frightening and scary and untrustworthy nature then this will be mimicked in others, thus creating a nocebo effect.

So maybe it is time to come out of the closet about who we are, to stop hiding our light. To stop suppressing our humanity. To recognise the instincts that are a part of our humanity. Yes, we are capable of hideous and heinous things. We only have to pick up any daily newspaper to see evidence of this, but this is not all that we are. We only hear the bad news about everything. We need to become the good news, the news the world needs to hear. Maybe it is time to start telling a different story about ourselves and one another.

“Stories are never just stories. We become the stories that we tell ourselves.”

I was recently talking to a young man. He is someone I have got to know over the last couple of years. It has been wonderful to see him grow as a person. That said he is like so many folk, he has a pretty cynical view of life and the state of the world. He tells me his generation is the hopeless one; he told me he had little or no hope for the world. I spoke with him and pointed out that humanity as been through much worse times that now and we have not destroyed ourselves. I told him that while I may not be a “cockeyed optimist” I do live in and by hope. I believe in our capacity. Yes, we are living through troubled times, but hope will carry us through, if we live by it, if it grows from our hearts. If we tell ourselves that all hope is not lost, that this can be the story we will live by and the road we can follow. I left him with the following quotation by Vaclav Havel

“Either we have hope within us or we don’t; it is a dimension of the soul, and it’s not dependent on some observation of the world. Hope is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond the horizons.

Hope in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.

Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism.

It is not the conviction, that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. It is Hope, above all, which gives the strength to live and continually try new things.”

I know how vital it is that hope is the starting point of each and every journey. It is what makes my heart sing.

“Stories are never just stories. We become the stories that we tell ourselves.”

The other week I shared some of the story of Oscar Hammerstein II, at the interfaith entertainment evening. I spoke of his Universalism, a faith whose story is one of Hope; that this Hope inspired his life and work; that he wrote songs of love and hope and social change. Here’s a classic from “South Pacific”

"A Cockeyed Optimist" Lyrics

When the sky is a bright canary yellow
I forget ev’ry cloud I’ve ever seen—
So they call me a cockeyed optimist,
Immature and incurably green!

I have heard people rant and rave and bellow
That we’re done and we might as well be dead—
But I’m only a cockeyed optimist,
And I can’t get it into my head.

I hear the human race
Is falling on its face
And hasn’t very far to go,
But ev’ry whip-poor-will
Is selling me a bill
And telling me it just ain’t so!

I could say life is just a bowl of Jell-O
And appear more intelligent and smart,
But I’m stuck like a dope
With a thing called hope,
And I can’t get it out of my heart!
Not this heart!

Now someone who is considered a “cockeyed optimist” is often mocked as naive, Pollyanna-ish and maybe they are. Maybe optimism in the sense of expectation is unrealistic, that said so is cynicism in the sense that this is how something will work out, that it is inevitable. I wouldn’t start any journey from that place. That said if you step out in hope in a belief in the potential, in our capacity then you might step out on a very different journey. This is Hope rather than optimism.

“Stories are never just stories. We become the stories that we tell ourselves.”

Now of course the story we often tell of ourselves, even if it is done so subliminally, is one of distrust, that there is something wrong with our nature. I was recently talking with a friend who has a real problem with the word “sin” when he hears the word his toes curl. This is due to the story he was told growing up, that he was a sinner to the core. His problem is with the idea of “Original Sin”, the story that we are wrong by nature and can only be saved by a certain kind of faith. I do not believe in “Original Sin”, that said I do believe in “Sin” of a sort, in the sense of falling short of what I am capable of being. I am as human as the next person and I fall short. That said I reject any idea that I am permanently flawed in nature, that any of us are. Well, the rational part of me rejects it. Sadly, there is a part of me where this idea that there is something wrong in me, still exist somewhere beneath my rational mind. Why because this is the story I and others keep telling about ourselves and others. It is the story at the heart of the fictional “Lord of the Flies” and it is at the heart of many other stories we tell about ourselves, and yet it isn’t the whole story is it, and it certainly isn’t the story of the “The Real Lord of the Flies”. It is not the story of the boys on the island of Eta.

“Stories are never just stories. We become the stories that we tell ourselves.”

It seems we are being carefully taught that we are fundamentally and irredeemably flawed. Maybe it is time we started telling another story. The story of Hope. Maybe it is time to stop hiding the light of what we are capable of being. Maybe one day they will make a big budget movie about the 6 Tongan Boys who created a community and took care of each other on the island of “Eta”, who created a civilised society and not only survived, but thrived.

Where and how are you going to begin your journey. It matters you know, it really does. For “Stories are never just stories. We become the stories that we tell ourselves.”

I am going to end this morning with a bit more from South Pacific, another from Oscar Hammerstein II

"You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught"

You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear,
You’ve got to be taught from year to year,
It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear—
You’ve got to be carefully taught!

You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a different shade—
You’ve got to be carefully taught.

You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate—
You’ve got to be carefully taught!
You’ve got to be carefully taught!

“Stories are never just stories. We become the stories that we tell ourselves.”

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

Choose Life: Learning to Live from Regret

This last Thursday 8th May marked “VE Day”, “Victory in Europe Day”; a day that must have been of the most incredible celebration 80 years ago, as the war in Europe ended, as the liberal democracy overcame Nazism. The Second World War had not yet fully ended, that was not until August 15 when Japan surrendered, with the formal ceremony taking place on 2nd September. It is important to remember such times as these, I have come to believe. That said it is not just that we need to acknowledge, to remember them, but to live lives of remembrance, in the hope that we do not repeat the horror that led to the Second World War again. It is vital to learn the lessons from the mistakes of those who came before us. I am not sure we have. I think we human beings have a long way to go before we can make the claim that we have learnt how to live in peace. I don’t just mean on global scale, but also much closer to home, including our own lives.

I have been thinking about memory quite a lot of late. Much has happened in my own life and the life around me, that has caused me to pause, to reflect. It has brought memory to the surface. At the same time, I have felt some of my own memory getting a little fuzzier. I have struggled to remember exact details of events. Whilst at the same time I have experienced real clarity in some deep old memories, and yet other more recent ones seem less clear. I know what this is, what is causing this, it is grief. I have experienced a lot of losses these last few months, tragic ones to be clear. I travelled home to Yorkshire on Friday for the funeral of a dear old friend.

I have found myself reflecting on so much, recently. Yes, good times, but I’ve also been visited by a few ghosts of the mistakes I have made and the regrets I live with. These are very common feelings when grieving, for myself and many others. I am not someone who claims that they have no regrets. I am not sure that is either helpful or honest. Regret is ok, so long as you do something with it, turn it into something beneficial for yourself and others, learn from the mistakes, live with regret, rather die or stagnate in it. This counts for individuals, communities, nations and the whole of humanity for that matter. The key to everything is to learn to live with regret.

You may recall a couple of weeks ago that I spoke of spending a bit of time talking with the new and upcoming ministers at the recent General Assembly Annual meetings. What I didn’t say is that I also spent time with some colleagues, who are precious to me, who are now retired. I spent some time in the company of Rev Dr Ann Peart, the one who loves Hope’s ankle in the stain glass window at Dunham Road. Ann and myself have a deep care and affection for one another and it was lovely to see her. We are both very different people, have our faults and our qualities. Talking with her brought back memories of my time at college, the challenge, the characters and the lessons learnt. One thing I remember was a little sign of Ann’s door that read “I have learnt so much from my mistakes that I think I am going to make a few more.” I was smiling as I remembered this, as I know that the only way to do so, is to keep on journeying, “Choosing Life” to paraphrase good old Moses and Wham of course. Yes, making some mistakes at times, but doing mainly good, certainly doing whatever I can for the creation of life and not it’s destruction.May we all choose life every day.

Some say that they have no regrets about anything. It is interesting that perhaps the most heard song at funerals is “My Way” by Frank Sinatra and that famous line “Regrets I’ve had a few, but then again too few to mention” or perhaps the famous Edith Piath “je ne regrette rien” no regret. A more modern version would be Robbie Williams’ “No Regrets”

Is this really true though? Can any of us truly say that we have no regrets? I’m not sure I can. I cannot make the claim that I have no regrets at all. There have been many failures and mistakes along the way. Most folk live with regret and struggle with parts of their past. Like King David I am sure we could all write our Psalms of Lament.

Regret is an interesting word, originally it was a kind of lament, from the Old French word ‘regreter”, meaning “one who bewails the dead,” which comes from a Germanic root meaning “to greet.” As Mark Nepo has said of regret “We always face these two phases of regret: to bewail what is dead and gone, and, if we can move through that grief, to greet the chance to do things differently as we move on.”

Nepo notes something of real value here, it is a lesson from grief. Yes, regret is a lament for what has gone, what has died, but if we greet it fully with love we can learn from the past and do things differently in the future. The response to regret is both of life and death. The choice is ours. By the way this is the one choice we have in life. We do not choose what happens to us but we can choose how we respond to what happens to us. This is the one ultimate freedom, that is open to all of us.

To quote Viktor Frankl:

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.”

So, the response to regret is ours. We can either choose life or death. We can close in and shut down or we can create with love.

There are two powerful examples of responses to regret in the New Testament. They are found in the Easter narrative, following Jesus’s betrayal. Luke’s Gospel (Ch22 vv 60-62) depicts Peter regretting his betrayal of Jesus. He wept bitterly for his fear based denial and yet how did he respond. Well, it was on Peter that the earlier Christian Church was built. For Peter Hope was once again born. Matthew (Ch 27 vv 3-5) depicts a very different response to regret that of Judas Iscariot. This is much closer to the original meaning of regret, which meant to bewail the dead. His response was to take his life. Both Peter and Judas can be seen as examples of how we can act with guilt or from shame over the things we regret in life. One chose life and the other turned away from life. One chose to create and the other to destroy. One turned further inward in shame and other turned out to do something creative with their guilt and regret. Peter lived with his regret, where as Judas died with his.

Regret has its place; we need to feel it and to respond in life giving and affirming ways. It matters how we live with regret, is it in life affirming ways, or shame based life denying ones. We can learn from our mistakes if we choose life.

As Joan Chittister wrote in “The Gift of Years”

“The burden of regret is that, unless we come to understand the value of the choices we made in the past, we may fail to see the gifts they have brought us.

The blessing of regret is clear — it brings us, if we are willing to face it head on, to the point of being present to this new time of life in an entirely new way. It urges us on to continue becoming.”

We all have regrets. It is delusional to say that we should never have them, in fact a person who never feels regret or guilt has something missing in their humanity. Yes, regrets, fuelled by shame, can gnaw away at our souls, but it we are wise, regrets can be powerful teachers. We need a lot of humility and curiosity to learn from our regrets rather than simply allowing them to whittle away at the spirit. Above all we need hope: if we regret something but are willing to learn from it, we must dare to hope that we can learn from it. All humility is, in some sense, a thing of hope: when we humble ourselves, we are living in the hope that we can do better.

Of course, before we move on we need to put right what we have done wrong. This may just take an acknowledgement, or it may take more, an action. Once we put right what is needed and wanted though we can begin again in love, in so doing we are choosing life once more. Not only for ourselves, but for all humanity. This is the key to everything, I have come to believe, to “Choose Life” once again.

So, I say let’s face and truly know those things we regret, no matter how many times we have failed to live up to our ideals. Let’s be powered by appropriate guilt and not fetted by inappropriate shame. We need not be paralysed lamenting the past, nor do we need to close the door on it. Let us instead move through the grief of regret and greet the future with its possibility of what might yet be.

Let’s choose life and infinite possibility. Let’s make lives of remembrance from the ashes of what went wrong before. Let’s do so as individuals, communities, nations and humanity.

I’m going to end this "Blogspot" with a meditation, with something to reflect on. It is adapted from “The Land of Regret” a spiritual practice created by Steven Charleston from the book “Spirit Wheel”

Steve invites us to enter into the mystery of the following words asking us to hear “What Native America has to say, to teach, to share…. When you enter into the mystery of these words for yourself, do so without preconception or judgment. With honesty and humility. Enter the deep earth of our ancient longing and reach for the highest branches of our collective hope…. Take each message as you find it. Let it speak to you directly. Ponder its meaning.”

So I invite us to still our thoughts, quieten our minds, connect to our bodies, to our breathing…Let us be still and silent together…

I have visited the land of regret more than once
But have never lived there, for the land is barren
And no person would make their home there

Unless, as the elders say, they have been so focused
On their sorrow and shame
That they have lost their way to forgiveness
The sacred well in any desert

Lost their way to repentance and reconciliation
So they haunt the wild lands of their own memory
Seeking responsibility like a mirage.

Better, the elders say, to let regret do its job:
Be a teacher with a lesson that must be learned.

Then make your cairn to mark your passing
To express your regret, to accept the teaching
And walk on, keeping to the straight path before you

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

Every day you have less reason not to give yourself away

I will begin with something from my favourite farmer poet, the wonderful Wendell Berry. The following is often seen as a poem about death and dying but really it is about generosity the most living giving of all virtues.

Sabbaths – 1993, I

No, no, there is no going back.
Less and less you are
that possibility you were.
More and more you have become
those lives and deaths
that have belonged to you.
You have become a sort of grave
containing much that was
and is no more in time, beloved
then, now, and always.
And you have become a sort of tree
standing over a grave.
Now more than ever you can be
generous toward each day
that comes, young, to disappear
forever, and yet remain
unaging in the mind.
Every day you have less reason
not to give yourself away.

“Every day you have less reason not to give yourself away.”

How was your Christmas and New Year. I had a lovely, quiet and restful couple of days on Christmas and Boxing Day. It was just what I needed as I was very tired, exhausted actually. I had given so much of late and had to face some difficult challenges over the last few months. I had though come through it with faith and integrity. I feel strengthen by this. I have felt so deeply loved and supported too, this has meant so much. I have been truly comforted, held with assurance, from both visible and invisible hands. I have seen myself and I have seen the world through fresher eyes, this is never easy. I have given a lot too. I felt deeply, I see more clearly how I am a deeply sensitive soul. This is not always easy. I have though lived with integrity, and I feel a deeper sense of connection and aliveness as a result of this.

I caught up with family after some time alone and saw most of the people I wanted to see. I would have liked to have seen one or two friends, but that just wasn’t possible. There will be other times. I did hear from a dear old friend on New Year’s Eve. He has been close to death and I plan to see him in the New Year.

It was lovely being with people who have known me all my life, there was a deeper love. They have their own troubles and we shared a little about that. One or two made comments about my life in recent months. It was said to me, in a variety of ways, be careful not to give yourself away too much. I smiled at this. It was said from a place of love, but not one of true understanding One of things I have a greater understanding of these last few months is that I am who I am and it is vital for me to live life my way and not try to be something I am not. I smiled to myself at this loving concern, but I suspect I will be giving myself away quite a bit these next twelve months. I am what I am.

“Don’t give yourself away too much” I was smiling about this as I drove through the fog on the M62. I am not sure exactly how to do that. I am who I am. One thing I have noticed about myself these last few months has been a deeper acceptance of who I am and the world in which I live and breath. Doesn’t mean I give the way things are my approval, more that I have a deeper acceptance that his is how it is. Delusion about reality is of no use to anyone. It is vital to live with an awakened eye.

I’ve been thinking of Wendell Berry’s poem “Sabbath’s”, once again these last few days. It is a New Year poem I reckon. It is the end of the poem that really gets into the heart of me. “Every day you have less reason not to give yourself away.”

I have learnt that if you truly want to know yourself, this is how you do it. This is how you will find yourself, how to know love, how your very being gets transformed and you become who you truly are, by giving yourself away. By pouring your heart out, you fill it with love and your mind and spirit know peace. This is the purpose of the religious of life of living in true intimate spiritual community. You cannot experience this if you practise your spirituality in isolation, something I have felt more deeply of late.

Religion gets a very bad name these days and rightly so, as for too long it has been about control and dogma, but that is not really its purpose, not in it truest sense. It is about giving yourself away and in so doing you actually not only find yourself, but become who you truly are.

This brings to mind a favourite quotation on the purpose of true religion, by Karen Armstrong:

“Religion is not about accepting twenty impossible propositions before breakfast, but about doing things that change you. It is a moral aesthetic, an ethical alchemy. If you behave in a certain way, you will be transformed.” When we dare to move beyond the known patterns and perceptions of our lives, letting the alchemy of love, listening and justice do its work, then we will be more than changed. The base metals of our lives will be transformed into something precious and flourishing. This is the purpose of religion, and the meaning of a religious life: to be transformed.”

These thoughts were passing through my being as I reflected on the recent weeks of my life and the people I have shared this time with. I see so many gorgeous examples of this transformation in them. Just beautiful!

Again as Wendell Berry wrote “Every day you have less reason not to give yourself away.”

This is about living generously. My word I have witnessed a lot this in the ordinary people I share my life with. I’m not talking about on the big global scale, I’m talking about the communities that intersect my life. When I look at the big picture, on the news screens, what I see is selfishness and greed and yet when I look at the people around me, what I witness is people being generous, people giving themselves away. It fills my heart.

As Parker J Palmer has pointed out generosity does not require material abundance. When I look at the people I have been around in recent weeks, what I have witnessed is generosity of spirit, generosity of time and generosity of heart. I’ve witnessed it every time I’ve been to visit in hospital as I have looked at the people all around me. I have witnessed people giving their time, their support, their open hearted presence, their hope even in the suffering of their loved ones. These are our gifts of the self. This is how we bring that divine love alive. This is the alchemy that transforms life. This is the heart of true religion. This is gratitude in action, this is living with gratitude, this is abundance, extravagance, this is God incarnating in out ordinary human lives. Sadly too often we are afraid to do this. In fact we are told over and over again “Don’t give yourself away.”

Why?

What are we so afraid of?

No! Times is passing by, it is short “Everyday day you have less reason not to give yourself away.”

It’s that simply really and yet at times it seems so complicated. This is the transformative nature of the religious life, the free religious life at least. It comes alive, as we come alive when we give ourselves away.

It brings to my mind another favourite poem that came back into my heart in those days between Christmas and New year, “Accepting this “ by Mark Nepo

“Accepting this “ by Mark Nepo

Yes, it is true. I confess,
I have thought great thoughts,
and sung great songs—all of it
rehearsal for the majesty
of being held.

The dream is awakened
when thinking I love you
and life begins
when saying I love you
and joy moves like blood
when embracing others with love.

My efforts now turn
from trying to outrun suffering
to accepting love wherever
I can find it.

Stripped of causes and plans
and things to strive for,
I have discovered everything
I could need or ask for
is right here—
in flawed abundance.

We cannot eliminate hunger,
but we can feed each other.

We cannot eliminate loneliness,
but we can hold each other.

We cannot eliminate pain,
but we can live a life
of compassion.

Ultimately,
we are small living things

awakened in the stream,
not gods who carve out rivers.

Like human fish,
we’re asked to experience
meaning in the life that moves
through the gill of our heart.

There is nothing to do
and nowhere to go.
Accepting this,
we can do everything
and go anywhere.

There are so many beautiful paradoxes in this poem; paradoxes that speak to me of what it means to live spiritually alive; spiritually alive and in the company of others. I have witnessed and experienced so much of what it speaks of these last few weeks, this has filled my heart and humbled me. I have borne witness to how the spirit only comes alive in relation. That’s what the spiritual life is actually about you know, relationships. You cannot be a spiritual being, a living one at least in isolation. It only occurs truly in community, as messy as that can be. The more we give ourselves away, the more all will receive, that strange arithmetic of giving, that multiplies by subtraction.

I’m going to end today with a confession. I hope you can forgive me. Life is an utter mystery to me. It just doesn’t make sense. I know my own life doesn’t, well not completely. I don’t understand it, I just can’t make sense of it. I am at ease with this. The other day I felt so free as I was out in the park walking with Molly, just chatting with the folk I meet. My head as completely empty and my heart was full and I felt this incredible sense of belonging and well-being and pure love. I felt powerfully the presence of God and every person I looked at that day seemed to me to be made in that image.

All I do know is that every day I have less reason not to give myself away.

Maybe that is all I really need to know, maybe all I have to do is keep on remembering this and keep on giving myself away. The next time I forget, please remind me.

“Every day I have less reason not to give myself away.

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

Cultivating Grace

Here’s a beautiful poem by the farmer poet Wendell Berry

“Grace” by Wendell Berry

The woods is shining this morning.
Red, gold and green, the leaves
lie on the ground, or fall,
or hang full of light in the air still.
Perfect in its rise and in its fall, it takes
the place it has been coming to forever.
It has not hastened here, or lagged.
See how surely it has sought itself,
its roots passing lordly through the earth.
See how without confusion it is
all that it is, and how flawless
its grace is. Running or walking, the way
is the same. Be still. Be still.
“He moves your bones, and the way is clear.”

In the “Sacred Art of Lovingkindness” Rami Shapiro wrote

“Cultivating grace is a bit of a paradox. You cannot get what you always and already have. There is nothing you can or need to do to merit grace. All you need do is accept grace. The reason this is so difficult for us is that our hands are full. We are burdened by carrying the past and the future around with us wherever we go, and have no room for the grace of the present moment. Cultivating grace means putting down the burden of time, and opening our hands to the timeless now.”

It is hard to accept the giftedness of the life we have. This is often because we carry too many burdens of the past around with us. Shapiro is suggesting that to cultivate the gifts of life, all we need to do is prepare ourselves for it, to open ourselves to it. Or to put it another way, to catch the winds of grace, our task is to set our sails; we jus tneed to open our sails and to sail on that wind. The winds are always blowing, its just that we don’t always catch the wind. Now there is often a good reason for this, usually fear, caused from the past. We often prefer to batten down the hatches, than embrace the wind. The wind after all cannot be tamed, it can be a wild beast. As Hurricane Milton has proved once again this week.

As the wonderful hymn goes “Life is the greatest gift of all.” Something we don’t always treasure I know. I certainly haven’t in the past. Throughout our lives many things happen over which we have little say. I do not believe we choose what happens to us. What we do have a say in is how respond to what happens to us. The paraphrase Frankl it is our greatest freedom, perhaps our second greatest gift after life itself.

Neither do I think that life is predetermined, mapped out before us. That all things are inevitable. I do have a sense of the Lure of Divine Love, that if we take time in quietness, that we can connect to that Divine aspect within ourselves and life itself and can then make the wise choices in life, this tapping into this second free gift, this second Grace. If we are too weighed down by things it can be difficult to be open to this therefore cultivate Grace.

I have been marking 21 years of sobriety this week. I was offered the gift of new life having found myself in a dark hole. I accepted this second gift and continued to set my sails ever since. There’s been the odd storm, but generally speaking I have sailed in calmer seas. I have accepted the second freedom and made the most of what I have given, I have cultivated the grace and shared it with many others. Thank you.

Grace is one of those interesting theological terms, that has been understood in so many ways. The most common form is known as “Common Grace”. In the Christian tradition, this is the Grace that is given to each person by God, whether they are believers or not. That said it is not a word owned by this tradition, there are many and varied meanings. These include a type of movement, elegant and refined, like a swan of ballerina. Another would a talent or gift bestowed on someone like Mozart. It could be the condition of being favoured by someone. Or the way a person behaves, acting in good grace. Been given a grace period say in the payment of something. A grace note in music is an extravagant extra that could be played if the performer were so inclined to indulge. A prayer offered in thanks before a meal. A title of someone in high office, “Your Grace”. We can also honour someone with Grace. There are other and varied understanding from the many religious and spiritual traditions. So it is important to understand that when a person speaks of Grace, they may not mean exactly the same thing.

Now for me when I speak of Grace it is about openness, about being open and responding in a generous way. It is a gift offered freely to someone or life itself. It is a response from our heart. It is our ultimate freedom, our ultimate gift we are given. Although to truly cultivate this we need not to be too weighed down by whatever burdens we carry. If we are too weighed down we will struggle to respond to anything and or listen to our own hearts and souls. We will be unable to truly cultivate our grace. By the way we also need to be open to truly accept the grace offered to us.

Paul Brunton in “The Gift of Grace: Awakening to Its Presence” defined grace as the manifestation of God’s friendliness. I like this. That said I want to extend it to the friendliness in everything. Now for me God is at the heart of everything, a kind if panentheism, but still it is for us to engage with this friendliness and bring it to life, to manifest it through our lives. Again I see this as our ultimate freedom.

You can enjoy the grace of life each and every day if you are open enough to receive. It’s always there, its just that sometimes we are closed off to it.

Frederick Beuchner in “Beyond Words” said the following:

“After centuries of handling and mishandling, most religious words have become so shopworn nobody's much interested anymore. Not so with grace, for some reason. Mysteriously, even derivatives like gracious and graceful still have some of the bloom left.

Grace is something you can never get but can only be given. There's no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks or bring about your own birth.

A good sleep is grace and so are good dreams. Most tears are grace. The smell of rain is grace. Somebody loving you is grace. Loving somebody is grace. Have you ever tried to love somebody?

A crucial eccentricity of the Christian faith is the assertion that people are saved by grace. There's nothing you have to do. There's nothing you have to do. There's nothing you have to do.

The grace of God means something like: "Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are, because the party wouldn't have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It's for you I created the universe. I love you."

There's only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you'll reach out and take it.

Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too.”

The key is to be open to both the giving and receiving, it is our ultimate freedom, our ultimate grace.

What stops us often is a sense that we don’t deserve it. That there is something wrong with us, that we live with a sense of shame. It is shame that keeps us locked in and closed down. We become weighed down and closed off to the Grace of life and thus unable to respond in graceful ways.

Lewis B. Smedes in “Shame and Grace: Healing the Shame We Don’t Deserve” said the following:

“Shame is heavy; grace is light. Shame and grace are the two counter-forces in the human spirit: shame depresses; grace lifts. Shame is like gravity, a psychic force that pulls us down. Grace is like levitation, a spiritual force that defies gravity. If our spiritual experience does not lighten our life, we are not experiencing grace.”

It is the shame that holds us back, that closes us in. It doesn’t have to be like that. If we could only recognise that gift that is within us. What Mark Nepo has called “The Timeless Spot of Grace”. He wrote:

“Each person is born with an unencumbered spot, free of expectation and regret, free of ambition and embarrassment, free of fear and worry; an umbilical spot of grace where we were each first touched by god. It is this spot of grace that issues peace. Psychologists call this spot the Psyche, Theologians call it the Soul, Jung calls it the Seat of Unconscious, Hindu masters call it Atman, Buddhists call it Dharma, Rilke calls it Inwardness, Sufis call it Qalb, And Jesus calls it the Center of our Love.

To know this spot of Inwardness is to know who we are, not by surface markers of identity, not by where we work or what we wear or how we like to be addressed, but by feeling our place in relation to the infinite and by inhabiting it. This is a hard lifelong task, for the nature of becoming is a constant filming over of where we begin, while the nature of being is a constant erosion of what is not essential. Each of us lives in the midst of this ongoing tension, growing tarnished or covered over, only to be worn back to that incorruptible spot of grace at our core.”

Life is the greatest gift of all, for better or for worse. We don’t get to choose what happens. Our freedom, our greatest gift, our second grace is in how we respond to life and to others and of course to ourselves. It is our greatest gift, our second grace. We need to be and remain open and not too weighed down.

This requires us to pay attention. Simone Weil saw attention as a contemplative practice, through which we reap life’s deepest rewards, perhaps this is how we cultivate Grace. She saw attention as the rarest form of generosity. It is through attention that we open up to Grace. Attention as she saw it is something way beyond the mere will, which she saw as graceless. For Weil attention is an opening, like prayer, that is full of Grace.

So maybe this is where we begin, in attention. Maybe this is how we prepare ourselves, how we cultivate Grace. Attention is how we accept the giftedness of life. The winds of Grace are always blowing, all around us. We don’t get to choose what happens to us, but we do have the freedom to respond. This is our ultimate freedom, our second grace. We activate this, we cultivate this Grace, by paying attention. In so doing we get to bless each other, this world and in return it blesses us.

I’m going to end with some words of blessing. You know e need to bless more. We can all bless. WE bless by giving ourselves wholeheartedly to life.

“Choose to Bless the World” by Rebecca Anne Parker

Your gifts—whatever you discover them to be—
can be used to bless or curse the world.

The mind's power,
the strength of the hands,
the reaches of the heart,
the gift of speaking, listening, imagining, seeing, waiting

Any of these can serve to feed the hungry,
bind up wounds,
welcome the stranger,
praise what is sacred,
do the work of justice
or offer love.

Any of these can draw down the prison door,
hoard bread,
abandon the poor,
obscure what is holy,
comply with injustice
or withhold love.

You must answer this question:
What will you do with your gifts?

Choose to bless the world.

The choice to bless the world is more than an act of will,
a moving forward into the world
with the intention to do good.

It is an act of recognition,
a confession of surprise,
a grateful acknowledgment
that in the midst of a broken world
unspeakable beauty, grace and mystery abide.

There is an embrace of kindness
that encompasses all life, even yours.

And while there is injustice, anesthetization, or evil
there moves a holy disturbance,
a benevolent rage,
a revolutionary love,
protesting, urging, insisting
that which is sacred will not be defiled.

Those who bless the world live their life
as a gesture of thanks
for this beauty
and this rage.

The choice to bless the world can take you into solitude
to search for the sources
of power and grace;
native wisdom, healing, and liberation.

More, the choice will draw you into community,
the endeavor shared,
the heritage passed on,
the companionship of struggle,
the importance of keeping faith,

the life of ritual and praise,
the comfort of human friendship,
the company of earth
the chorus of life welcoming you.

None of us alone can save the world.
Together—that is another possibility, waiting.

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

Salvation here and now: It’s not about being saved from life, but to be saved by life, in life, for life

I have a friend named Neil. We have known each other for twenty years now. I think it is fair to say when we first met we didn’t see eye to eye, we had lived very different lives. We got to know one another though because we suffered from a common problem. This though is not what led to us becoming friends. That just happened over time. We have been on a spiritual journey along side one another, some of that time we have been very close and others not so much, there have been many parallels and crossings over. We were members at Cross Street chapel together. These days Neil has returned to his Catholic faith; yes he is Catholic, but he is certainly one with an open mind, heart, spirit and soul.

I conducted Neil’s wedding to Rosemary at Dunham Road, I think it was the second wedding I ever conducted. I did not introduce them to each other, although I did meet her before he did. When I was a student minister at King Edward Street Chapel, the home of Macclesfield Unitarians, Rosemary was attending. They met not long after I left there and realised that they had a common acquaintance in me, it is a small world. Rosemary has her health troubles and Neil has been a loving and devoted husband throughout this time, she has even survived his terrible jokes and puns. Neil retired many years and since then returned to education, a few years ago he completed his History PHD on the Irish in Manchester.

Like I said earlier at different times Neil and I have drifted apart and then reconnected. We have reconnected in the last couple of years and he has been a good supportive friend to me, during a few personally difficult times. We see each other, along with other friends most Fridays. We met last Friday and he told me that he was meeting his brother a little later. This was wonderful to hear as I know that they had fallen out a few years ago, they had had their differences about life and the world, the kind of things that seem to cause so much division in society these days. Neil though wanted to make things right, his brother had been his best man at his wedding. So, Neil plucked up the courage to contact his brother’s son and offered the hand of friendship, between two brothers. That afternoon his brother Ged, had agreed to meet him.

A little later I saw them having coffee together. I cannot begin to tell you how much seeing the beaming smile of Ged’s face meant to me. It was so wonderful seeing two brothers reconciled with each other. Neil told me later “When I met him I hugged him and said ‘I love you Ged’. After that it was as it should be with brothers.” It touched my heart. I had already seen two men levelling their pride earlier that day and reconciling with one another and then there was Neil and Ged. If only the rest of the world could behave that way. One thing I am grateful for in life is that I have never fallen out with any of my siblings, nore they me, despite the many troubles and fallings out there have been and still are in our large and complicated family. This includes all the half siblings and step siblings and ex step siblings too. There have been tough times, but we have all vowed never to let these things destroy our relationships with each other. I hope we keep it that way.

Neil and Ged reminded of a verse from chapter 5 in Matthews Gospel, from the “Sermon on the Mount”, which for me is the essence of the teachings of Jesus, something regardless of whether you are a Christian or not seem as good a code as any to live by. I know that Gandhi, a Hindu, believed so. The verse is as follows:

23 So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. 25

It is no use proclaiming faith etc, showing your piety, if your human relationships are a mess. Unhealthy pride can be destructive in human relationships. So often it is the levelling of pride that leads to reconciliation. It takes faith and love and courage to build the bridges of reconciliation, it takes someone to make the first move to bring healing for their relationship but also the wider relationship. You see if two people are in conflict, it is not only those two individuals who are damaged by it, all who are connected to them are damaged too. Reconciliation can bring healing to so many. I see this every day, just as I see the damage done by disputes and resentment.

In life there are many things that separate we human beings, often our beliefs and disbeliefs. Whether these be religious or anti-religious, political, social, cultural, we separate ourselves through them and yet we are all human. We all love and we all grieve when we lose those we love. To quote Eugene Ionesco “Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together.” We are united by a common humanity, united by our shared hopes and despairs. We are each of us unique and complete as ourselves and yet we only truly know ourselves through our relationships with one another and with life. To quote Mark Nepo “It is a great paradox of being that each of us is born complete and yet we need contact with life in order to be whole. Somehow we need each other to know that completeness, though we are never finished in that journey.” I know how precious my relationship with others is to my well-being.

We are living in ever more dividing and divisive times. We do not see ourselves as one people. This is dangerous. Not only to ourselves but to our shared humanity. By separating ourselves we will never know wholeness, we will never truly be all that we can be. No one is an island. We need to be at one not only with ourselves, but with all of life and whatever it is we believe is at the core of all life, to truly become completely ourselves, to touch perfection. Perfection means completeness. This is what salvation means by the way. To quote Forrest Church. “What I'm talking about…is salvation. The Latin root, salve, means health. The Teutonic cognates, health, hale, whole, and holy, all share the same root. Being an agnostic about the afterlife, I look for salvation here—not to be saved from life, but to be saved by life, in life, for life.

Such salvation has three dimensions: Integrity, or individual wholeness, comes when we make peace with ourselves; reconciliation, or shared wholeness, comes when we make peace with our neighbors, especially with our loved ones; redemption, in the largest sense, comes when we make peace with life and death, with being itself, with God.”

When we experience this wholeness we are as close as we will ever be to perfection, to completeness, although only for a moment as our lives go on. We begin to truly live our lives. Life is the greatest gift of all, the ultimate Grace. So choose life.

This brings me back to “The Sermon on the Mount”, this time verse 48 of the 5th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, the final verse of that chapter. “Therefore be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect.” This is heaven on earth, this is the Kingdom of Love right here right now. This is the purpose of the spiritual life, this is the religion of love, of true communal spirituality. This is what it means to live in perfect love Perfection is not flawlessness as we often think it is. Quite the opposite perfect love is sincere, it’s about showing our cracks, our flaws, our scars, showing who we truly are. The Latin root of perfection is “perfectus” which meant “completeness”, or wholeness, health in mind body and spirit, wholeness with self, others, life and God.

This is the purpose of spiritual community; this is the purpose of our free religious faith.

But how do we become whole, complete, perfect? How do we become at one with ourselves, one another, life, with God? Well it begins by being truly present in what we are doing; it begins by not being caught up in worry and fear, our own and others. It’s about not going into things hard, but rather by softly melting into what we are doing, by being who we are in what we are doing, by almost not focusing too hard, by looking through soft eyes. By being natural, who we are, by becoming what we are doing.

We are never truly whole complete unless we are at one with ourselves, one another, life and whatever it is that we believe is the power that permeates all life. We can never truly become ourselves alone. This is why true community is so vital to the spiritual life. We need right relationship to become wholly who we are. To me this is the purpose of what we do as a community, what we are doing here today. Yes, it’s about becoming who we truly are, but this cannot be done in isolation. This is the purpose of free religion. It allows the birth of the true spirit in each of us, but no one can completely give birth to themself, by them self. To repeat those words of Mark Nepo: “It is a great paradox of being that each of us is born complete and yet we need contact with life in order to be whole. Somehow we need each other to know that completeness, though we are never finished in that journey.”

This begins with reconciliation. By putting things right with our relationships with ourselves, our God, those important people in our lives, in our families and our communities and of course putting things right in our relationships with life.

This is salvation here and now. It’s not about being saved from life, but to be saved by life, in life, for life.

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