Love is the Only Response: Deliver Us To and Not From the Suffering in the World

Working alongside Janine (a student minister working with the congregations I serve), discussing her time studying at Luther King House, has got me reflecting on my time as a student minister there. Particularly the challenges of being a Unitarian studying alongside fellow students from traditional Christian denominations. I know myself it took time to adjust and to find myself and my own understanding of my faith within this context. This is not easy, and it is not the only environment that you have find yourself during this challenging time; it is not easy, but it is vital to ministry formation dare I say. I think one the most challenging aspect of time in college is the assumed starting points in theological discussion and understanding.

I have been thinking a lot about ministry these last few weeks.

I recently attended Rev Penny Johnson’s funeral. It was a beautiful service, prepared by Penny herself. Her husband Ken and minister Rev Jeff Gould of course adapted and added to it, especially in some elements of the personal tribute to Penny’s life and ministry. Penny exemplified ministry, Unitarian ministry through her love and service. I have some wonderful personal memories of Penny. She was especially helpful to me in my formative years in the job.

I found myself chatting with Geoff Levermore, before the service. He always asks very probing questions, too probing at times I would say. One question he asked was where I would place myself on the Unitarian spectrum. I asked him what he meant by that? He explained asking if I found myself tending towards Liberal Christianity, something more human centred or a more earth centred, more naturalist spirituality. I said I don’t really think about ministry that way. I could see he didn’t feel satisfied with my answer and so I said that I identify as a Universalist really. He said a Deist and I said no I identify more as a Panentheist, or at least if I have to put a label on my beliefs. It seems he had not heard of Panentheism. The truth is though that I am not too precious about such things, as I know my primary role is to serve. Rev Penny Johnson being a wonderful example of this. She saw her role and certainly the worship she created as being related to the world in which she lived and helping others to live in this world. She never wore a clerical collar and did not see herself as separate from those she served. She saw her role as being with people in their struggle, a perspective I share with her.

That said if I have to put a label on it I say I am a Universalist. As a Universalist I believe there is truth in so many traditions. I am yet to find the whole truth in any.My place is not in the spectrum, it kind of is the spectrum. I also believe in a God of love that is present in all life and yet is greater than all life. This is panentheistic, or at least how I see it. This brings with it a great responsibility, for my faith to be real it has to be lived out in this world. This can be challenging at times. As a friend once said in response to my Universalism, “The thing I worry about is how much input a God of love is having, in that so many are hurt, killed.” This point seems particularly pertinent at this time, especially as we witness the horrors taking place in Israel and Palestine. So many innocent lives brutally killed. It is heartbreaking to witness such horror and barbarity and how this is spreading to other parts of world. The sorry spectacle of our inhumanity to one another. Not that this is a new story it has been going on throughout human history. Now some say this is evidence of the evils of religion. Some of us may have sympathy with this view. That said if I look at most of the evils of the second half of the 20th century and many today they were and are inflicted by secular states too. Think of China and North Korea today, or Cambodia and the Soviet Union in the past. To me most of such violence and dare I say evil is due to failing to recognise the sacredness of one another. Of failing to see the other as neighbour, the secular and the religious as just as culpable of this. When will we see the other in ourselves and ourselves in the other?

So, it is a pertinent question to ask about a God of love. If we look at the world, at the suffering within the world, it is reasonable to ask in what sense a God of love could be involved in all of this? Of course the response of many is that none at all, for there is no God. Or others will say that God is not all loving. Others may say well it’s all a mystery and we cannot understand how God’s love operates. Then still others will suggest that we look at the helpers and that this love manifests in their actions. Do any of this answers seem adequate to you? It is certainly something to ponder.

Now suffering and a God of Love is a question that has troubled theologians, philosophers and plain ordinary people for centuries. The question has been asked and continues to be asked as to what causes suffering and can it be overcome? Now in some quarters it has been suggested that the root cause of suffering is “evil”. Which has led to the question that if evil exists then how can God be all powerful, ever present and all loving? In theological circles this has become known as “The Theodicy Dilemma”

“The Theodicy Dilemma” may be summed up by the following question about God asked by the eighteenth century philosopher David Hume:

“Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil.”

This question encapsulates the whole Theodicy debate.

In the twentieth century Czeslaw Milosz wrote the following poem “Theodicy”

“Theodicy” by Czeslaw Milosz

No, it won’t do, my sweet theologians.
Desire will not save the morality of God.
If he created beings able to choose between good and evil,
And they chose, and the world lies in iniquity,
Nevertheless, there is pain, and the undeserved torture of creatures,
Which would find its explanation only by assuming
The existence of an archetypal Paradise
And a pre-human downfall so grave
That the world of matter received its shape from diabolic power.

Even more hard hitting, I would suggest, than Hume’s questions. This from Milosz a Nobel Prize winning Poet who was a Polish Catholic, who spent much of his life wrestling with his own faith.

I remember exploring “Theodicy”, in depth, while training for the ministry. Something I have been thinking of again as I have been sharing with Janine. I probably spent more time on the piece I wrote on the subject than any other, which showed in my final marks. I struggled and I wrestled, as so many have no doubt done. Looking back I can see how important it was for me to do so. By the way I have been struggling with it again these last few weeks. The struggle has been so important as I have learnt, in my time as a minister, that a large part of the work is to be with others in their suffering, often senseless suffering by the way. It is of course suffering that brought me into ministry in the first place.

Whilst training I remember wrestling for hours, in the library and walking in the park, with the theodicy question, I continue to do so by the way. I found my own unsettled faith in it and as a result a greater purpose has emerged. If I have learned anything from suffering, it is that I cannot take away the suffering of anyone else, but I can be with them in it. I have learned that in so doing the God of my limited understanding comes into being once more.

My understanding did not fit neatly within any of the traditional orthodox Christian views I explored during my training. I did not see it as a consequence or our fallen nature, an absence of good which causes us to choose evil, following Augustine or Calvin, or that suffering was a part of some kind of Divine plan. I had some sympathy with the views of Aquinas that somehow we lose our way. I find the idea that suffering has to take place in order for life to discover what is good very troubling. I cannot see how someone finding good at the expense of the suffering of others a good thing. I am with Dorothy Soelle and her view that “No Heaven can Rectify an Auschwitz”. The ends can never justify the means, if the means bring such suffering to so many. If God is present, then God is there in the suffering and our response to the suffering, something Eli Weisel explored in his seminal work “The Night”. The God of my understanding comes alive in my response to suffering.

So yes, I believe in a God of love, but not one who controls life. God in life but not controlling life. The God I believe has to come alive through our being. It may not be an adequate answer, but it is one I experience through my fragile human being. I respond to the idea of a God of Love, as my experiences and observations of life suggest this. I also experience this love coming to life as I am with those who suffer and do all I can to be with them in their pain, but I cannot prove that beyond doubt.

My growing sense of Universalism and Panentheism helps me to live faithfully, in love, in a world in which there is so much beauty but also heartbreaking suffering, some natural but an awful lot caused by our inhumanity. I accept that no matter how lovingly I and others live, that horrific, dare I say evil, things will happen both personally and universally. So where is the God of love? Well it comes alive in the response to this suffering. It is the God of love, that allows one to come through even the most horrific situations, with a response grown from a sacred reverence for life itself. This is the God of Love that I worship, that is beyond my understanding.

I have come to believe that it is our holy duty to respond to the suffering of others, to stand in solidarity with them and act in holy compassion and never to declare the other as somehow less than human.

In my prayers I ask this Universal Love to help me feel a deep connection to all life and to bring some healing to the world in which I live and the world beyond my being.

It is, I believe, our holy duty to begin to bring healing to our world, to wipe the tears that flow from our humanity and to repair the tears in the fabric of the world, to bring compassion and love to those in fear, to bind up the broken and bring wholeness to those who feel separated from the love in life. This is the call of love from the God of my limited understanding.

It is a call that asks my senses to be opened to the world and instead of being delivered from evil, it is call from an ever-loving God to be delivered to the suffering in this world.

I’m sorry if it does not answer why a God of love would allow suffering. I am sorry if that is not good enough. I am sorry. I cannot sincerely offer any more. I cannot give an opiate that relieves us of pain. I can only offer a loving response to that pain.

All I can offer is a loving purpose that comes to life in this beautiful and at times suffering world.

Before offering a closing blessing I am going to share with a wonderful poem the recently deceased great poets Louise Gluck “Celestial Music”, it seems pertinent to me at this time. I first came across in Mark Bellitini’s wonderful book on grief “Nothing Gold Can Stay: The Colours of Grief”

"Celestial Music" Louise Gluck

I have a friend who still believes in heaven.
Not a stupid person, yet with all she knows, she literally talks to god,
she thinks someone listens in heaven.
On earth, she's unusually competent.
Brave, too, able to face unpleasantness.

 
We found a caterpillar dying in the dirt, greedy ants crawling over it.
I'm always moved by weakness, by disaster, always eager to oppose vitality.
But timid, also, quick to shut my eyes.
Whereas my friend was able to watch, to let events play out
according to nature. For my sake, she intervened,
brushing a few ants off the torn thing, and set it down across the road.

 
My friend says I shut my eyes to god, that nothing else explains
my aversion to reality. She says I'm like the child who buries her head in the pillow
so as not to see, the child who tells herself
that light causes sadness–
My friend is like the mother. Patient, urging me
to wake up an adult like herself, a courageous person–

 
In my dreams, my friend reproaches me. We're walking
on the same road, except it's winter now;
she's telling me that when you love the world you hear celestial music:
look up, she says. When I look up, nothing.
Only clouds, snow, a white business in the trees
like brides leaping to a great height–
Then I'm afraid for her; I see her
caught in a net deliberately cast over the earth–

 
In reality, we sit by the side of the road, watching the sun set;
from time to time, the silence pierced by a birdcall.
It's this moment we're both trying to explain, the fact
that we're at ease with death, with solitude.
My friend draws a circle in the dirt; inside, the caterpillar doesn't move.
She's always trying to make something whole, something beautiful, an image
capable of life apart from her.
We're very quiet. It's peaceful sitting here, not speaking, the composition
fixed, the road turning suddenly dark, the air
going cool, here and there the rocks shining and glittering–
it's this stillness that we both love.
The love of form is a love of endings.

Louise Gluck, Poems 1962-2012, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013.

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

The "Miracle" of Letting Go

I have a confession to make. Now please try not to be too shocked, but I have something to confess, which might trouble the most rational amongst you who read this "blogspot". I have to tell you this truth, that I didn’t know I believed in, but I do.

I believe in miracles…

Now don’t get me wrong I am not talking about the kind of miracles that are described in the Gospels , that are said to have taken place at Capernaum, by the Sea of Galilee, possibly the most beautiful place on earth. No, I’m talking about every day miracles that seem to come to life as we struggle and resist and then we surrender and something new emerges,

These thoughts came to me as I struggled with finding a way to begin this piece that you are reading. The hardest part of creating anything is how to begin and how to end. By the way it’s the same in life. The hardest thing is to begin something new, or perhaps, in actual fact, the hardest thing is to end something old.

Which one do you have the most trouble with, beginning something new or ending something old?

There was one thing that I experienced in Israel – Palestine that I’m glad I did, but am not sure that I would like to repeat. Can you guess what it was?

Well it was floating in the Dead Sea, the lowest inland spot on earth. By the way it is something that none of us will probably be unable to do in at some point in the future as it is disappearing.

So, I’m glad I did it, but it was not a very pleasant experience. That said as I have reflected on it, it has revealed something of myself to me.

Now I had a feeling I was not going to enjoy the experience as soon as I discovered I had to wear flip flops, something I do not like doing. Actually I’m not a great lover of beaches full stop. I love walking by the sea and staring out at it, but I do not like beaches very much.

Anyhow we booked into a resort and took the trailer down to the Dead Sea. Everyone else there seemed to be from eastern Europe and were having a wonderful time. I took off my robe and began to walk out into the warm water. It was a windy day and the water was choppy. The ground beneath my feet was rocky. I struggled and stumbled in unfamiliar footwear that began to slide off my feet. I stumbled over a couple of times and cut my foot slightly on the rocks. Not something to do in salty water. I had been careful not to shave that morning as I was warned not to have exposed cuts. So I kept on stumbling and struggling and not at all enjoying the experience and then I found myself up to my waist in warm salty water and I began to lay down, holding onto a post with one hand and one of the flip flops, that had fallen off, in the other. I let go of the post, I let go absolutely and let the salty water support me. Wow! What an amazing experience. There I was floating on the water, being moved around by the tide and the wind. I waved and laughed and just floated. It was lovely, if only for a few minutes. I eventually moved back to the post, struggled to put on the flip flop. I succeeded and then struggled to my feet and stumbled back to shore. I did fall over again, but made it back without too much trouble. I then washed all the salty water away and let Sue have her turn. She had similar struggles, but not with the flip flops.

It was a new and perhaps magical experience, but not one I am desperate to repeat. Now you may ask where was the miracle? Well the miracle was in the fact that I was able to let go, to let the water support me and to experience floating on water. Like so many folk, I do not let go, I do not surrender easily to anything. I’m getting better at it.

I was chatting about this with a friend the other day, about the sweet surrender that comes when we let go. As we talked they mentioned the following poem “The Avowel” by Denise Levertov

“The Avowal” by Denise Levertov

As swimmers dare
to lie face to the sky
and water bears them,
as hawks rest upon air
and air sustains them,
so would I learn to attain
freefall, and float
into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,
knowing no effort earns
that all-surrounding grace.

Gosh if only it was that easy. If we could just lean back and let ourselves fall, believing that this love would sustain us. How often in life do we trust anyone or anything, how often do we trust life at all? How often do we feel we have to control everything and everyone just to get by? Do we trust life? Do we trust each other? Do we trust that the Creator Spirits deep embrace will hold us? Rarely I suspect. The miracle comes, I have come to believe, whenever we act in faith, play our own part in life and not try to control everybody else’s.

Now some people tell me that the struggle is a lack of faith. I do not agree at all. In many ways the struggle is the most faithful thing we ever do.

M. Scott Peck famously wrote in his seminal work “The Road Less Travelled” that “Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult-once we truly understand and accept it-then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.”

In some ways living faithfully, spiritually alive, is the most difficult thing we do. It is not easy, it is a struggle. Searching for truth is difficult, understanding what we are here to do is difficult, beginning something new is terrifying and letting go of something old even more so. The answers only really come in the struggle as we fight, and wrestle until we finally surrender and often it just comes, from nowhere, as if it were some kind of miracle.

And when the sweet surrender comes, the same conclusion always follows. A voice somewhere in the core of my being gently speaks to me in a voice less than a whisper, but somehow more than silence "Just keep on doing what you are doing Danny, all is well. Just keep on doing what you are doing." It is not a voice I hear but a deep knowing.

Whenever I think of such struggles with ourselves, with one another, with life, with God I think of Jacob and his struggles in Genesis ch 32.

In the passage Jacob is depicted wrestling with a mysterious man, who it turns out is probably God, although is not clear. As he wrestles with this being, he is grievously hurt, but he fights on. As the night ends and dawn breaks the being tries to leave but Jacob holds on and demands it blesses him as the price for ending the struggle. The being relents and blesses Jacob by giving him a new name “Israel” meaning “one who struggles with God” or as I once heard a friend say “one with whom God struggles.”

Don’t we all wrestle and struggle with ourselves, with others, with life, with God, or perhaps its others, life and God who struggles with us? So many times I have struggled to just experience what was on offer to me for fear of trying something new, or letting go of something old. I am not alone, I know.

What about you? Maybe, maybe not? You decide…

Sometimes we try too hard, sometimes we over think things instead of just allow ourselves to go with life. This seems to happen when we are caught up in storms and or troubles, we try to force it. I am certainly guilty of this, but again I know I am not alone.

I have witnessed a wonderful example of the miracles that can occur when we are able to stop fighting against ourselves, especially our own bodies. I have on a couple of occasions observed and spoken with Martin, an elderly member of one of the congregations I serve. Martin has for some time struggled with walking due to the onset of Parkinson’s disease. Well it seems that his family have discovered a new technique that has helped sufferers to improve their gate and thus reduce falling, the technique is simply to listen to music while moving, it seems that the rhythm helps the sufferer to walk. Who knew that ABBA, Martin's favourite, could bring about miracles. From what I have been told the technique stops the individual from focusing too much on their struggle to walk, instead they get caught up in the rhythm of the music and thus can walk more naturally, it sets them free. It reminded me of “King’s Speech” and how in the film the King was able to overcome his stammer by listening to music while he spoke. It also reminded me of being distracted while taking my driving test and how this allowed me to let go of fear and to simply drive the car. Somehow when we relax and just let things go we somehow find ourselves able to do things that over concentration stops us from doing.
Simple, ordinary, everyday miracles. Not the walking on water types, but the simple walking, speaking and driving kind.

Sometimes all you’ve got to do is surrender to the struggle and suddenly you find yourself able to do the things that you thought you could not.

It’s simple, but it sure aint easy.

Now comes the hard bit, how do I end this "blogspot"? Well the truth is I don’t know. How do I end when the journey continues on? So I thought I’d end with a piece on miracles by Walt Whitman. I will leave it with you and let you form your own conclusions. So please lean back and fall into these words.

“Poem of Perfect Miracles.” By Walt Whitman

REALISM is mine, my miracles,
Take all of the rest—take freely—I keep
but my own—I give only of them,
I offer them without end—I offer them to you
wherever your feet can carry you, or your
eyes reach.

Why! who makes much of a miracle?
As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward
the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in
the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love—or sleep in
the bed at night with any one I love,
Or sit at the table at dinner with my mother,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive, of an
August forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,

Or birds—or the wonderfulness of insects in the
air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sun-down—or of
stars shining so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite, delicate, thin curve of the new-
moon in May,
Or whether I go among those I like best, and that
like me best—mechanics, boatmen, farmers,
Or among the savans—or to the soiree—or to
the opera,
Or stand a long while looking at the movements
of machinery,
Or behold children at their sports,
Or the admirable sight of the perfect old man, or
the perfect old woman,
Or the sick in hospitals, or the dead carried to
burial,
Or my own eyes and figure in the glass,
These, with the rest, one and all, are to me
miracles,
The whole referring—yet each distinct and in its
place.

To me, every hour of the light and dark is a
miracle,
Every inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is
spread with the same,

Every cubic foot of the interior swarms with the
same;
Every spear of grass—the frames, limbs, organs,
of men and women, and all that concerns
them,
All these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles.

To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion
of the waves—the ships, with men in them
—what stranger miracles are there?

“This Land Belongs to You and Me: A Visit to “The Holy Land”

“This land was made for you and me”, so sang Woody Guthrie.

I have always been baffled by the idea that land or place belongs one set of people and that others are excluded for whatever reasons. A feeling that seems to intensify when the exclusion is for faith or lack of, gender, colour of skin, politics, or sexuality. Who decides what and where belongs to who and who not?

I recently spent a wonderful week in the “Holy Land”, Israel – Palestine depending on your point of view. A land that has been fought over for thousands of years. By the way it is unique in this is it? Much of the land of this world has gone through similar experiences.

It was an amazing trip, filled with some incredible experiences that will stay with me for the rest of my life. Some deeply spiritual experiences and trans-formative too, on so many levels. I also proposed to Sue and she accepted, what a beautiful blessing. I did not see the whole place and or experience all aspects of it. I saw very little of the Palestinian perspective, from their point of view. I am not going to talk here about the current situation, I’m not sure I’m qualified to do so. I will though reflect on the spirit I encountered as well as a reflection on holiness and the holy.

Our week began and ended in Jerusalem. We arrived Thursday night having flown direct from Manchester. The flight out was an experience in and of itself. It seemed like some kind of extended family outing. So many people on the flight knew each other and there was much conversation to observe and listen to. We were given some lovely tips on places to visit by a man who spends half of his life in Jerusalem and the other in Manchester. All of his children now live in Israel. He even knew one half of the couple we were staying with.

We arrived late Thursday night. The next morning we went to give the talk I had been invited to deliver, at an AA gathering there. It was a beautiful experience. What wonderful fellowship, we shared. Afterwards we went for a walk around Jerusalem before returning for the most beautiful Shabbat meal with Steve and Lynne, it was deeply moving and fulfilling experience. The food was incredible, but it was more than that. We connected deeply with the spirit of the occasion. During the meal and throughout the stay we were shown the essential Jewish teaching of "Kadmah derech eretz et ha-Torah", 'the commandment of good manners or considerate behaviour. This teaching predates the revelation at Mount Sinai and originated with Adam and the creation of humanity. It suggests that while God could imagine humankind existing without the Torah he could not imagine humanity doing so without civility. So it seems to be a law that trumps other laws.

It is a teaching that lays at the core of all the Abrahamic traditions, which teach respect and civility to the stranger, to the other. Something that humanity has failed to do these last two thousand years or more. We experienced civility and welcome and the most wonderful hospitality throughout the trip except perhaps in the driving habits of the natives, which are very different to those in this land.

It was strange walking round Jerusalem on the Saturday, during Sabbath, everywhere was closed as we walked towards the walls of the ancient city. We found a none Jewish shop open, so we stopped and ate in a small garden built in gratitude to the former American President George W Bush. We then continued on towards the city and climbed up the walls. As we walked round we observed the housing and the Dome of the Rock. We came down in the Muslim quarter and then walked towards the Church of the Holy Sepulcre, past the shops and the other tourists and pilgrims, some of whom we had observed at the museum earlier as walked round the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit. We then headed back to be with our generous hosts.

The next day we returned to the ancient city for a guided tour of the the underground tunnels of the western wall of the Temple that was destroyed in the first century. Before spending time praying outside at the wall. Following this we went down to the ruins of the ancient city of David, just outside the city walls as well as visiting “The Burnt House”. As we were guided round the stories came to life as the ancient history of the Jewish people came to life with it.

Jerusalem is central to all three of the Abrahamic faiths. The temple both of Solomon and the second temple which the Romans destroyed during the first century rebellion was built on the spot where it is believed that Abraham took his son Isaac to be sacrificed as a sign of his obedience to God. This is sacred to Christianity due to death and resurrection of Jesus much of which it is believed took place on the site of what is today the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The Dome of the Mount is built on the same site as the temple, the believed spot of Abrahams sacrifice, the same place where the Prophet Mohammed's “Night Journey” to heaven is believed to have began. So the whole place is Holy to all three faiths and has been disputed for centuries, going back to the “Crusades”. It has been a place of deep worship and so much violence and hate. Sadly so little hospitality and considerate behaviour towards others has taken place here.

For so long holiness and sacred respect for other people has not been practised by a variety of people at these holy sites. We humans have at times failed to be holy to one another. I remember as I walked round and took in the history the words of Wendell Berry, sang in my heart “There are no unsacred places, only sacred and desecrated places.” These holy places have been desecrated for centuries by the bloodshed of so many in the name of the holy. It makes me weep. There are so many wailing walls around these parts.

This brings to mind some words by Sarah York on sacredness and the holy.

"The Spirit reveals itself to us in our relationship with our world and its inhabitants; it is the source of all that is holy, sacred, and true. The word spirit comes from the Latin word meaning 'breath'; the word holy derives from before the Christian era from words for whole as well as health, good luck, and happiness. The holy intimacy of strangers, then, is an experience of the Spirit's promise and power, breathed into human interaction and calling us into personal and spiritual wholeness — into the kind of harmony that yields health and happiness.”

This to me is what it means to live in a holy way and to create sacredness in life. It is where I have known holy intimacy with others in my life and something I certainly experienced during my time in the “Holy Land”. It is also a principle at the core of all the Abrahamic faiths, although something that has at times been sadly forgotten.

Now while I experienced holy intimacy and sacredness in relationship with others and also in nature too as I connect to life, I began to experience something rarer in the “Holy Land”, something I have not noticed as intensely before. I noticed something happening to me as I visited the Holy sites and connected to the stories, history and people of the time. It came deeply as we walked around the walls of the city of Jerusalem, I felt as I touched the western wall of the Temple. I actually felt it more intensely underground than the exposed area outside,. I felt it deeply and powerfully as I walked up Masada and experienced the story come to life as I stood on the ruins at the top. I didn’t feel it as I floated on the Dead sea. I felt it deeply and beautifully as I gazed out at the Sea of Galilee, as we walked through the ruins of Capernaum towards the rocks on the sea shore and I knelt down by the rocks and proposed to Sue and she said “yes, yes, yes, yes” We had both felt an incredibly powerful connection to love that day, although Sue had no clue what was coming. All day long one verse from “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind” had been singing in my soul. The verse was “O sabbath rest by Galilee! O calm of hills above, where Jesus knelt to share with thee the silence of eternity interpreted by love, interpreted by love!” I found the spot and love came to life. There was also the despair of “Yad Vashem”, the Holocaust museum, a sacred place that marks our human history of desecration, a history that sadly still goes on, that we seem to hear ever louder echoes of throughout the world today. It is a powerful testimony to what happens when we see others as somehow different to ourselves, to the horrors of supremacy of any kind, the root of all evil.

There were so many deep and connective, holy experiences. There was one that was different though. This happened on the Saturday and it came unexpectedly in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It was not while looking at any of the grand religious shrines but as I touched a humble slab that is said to be the stone that Jesus body was laid upon. I saw women wiping and touching the stone and emotion pouring out of them. Now I don’t know what happened to me, but something stirred within. So I knelt down, as the women had, I did not have a shawl or scarf and so I touched the stone with my hands and then my cheek and I just began to weep. I stood up and continued to weep. Something happened, something took over me in that moment. I have had several unfathomable spiritual experiences in my life and this was one of them. It was similar to others I have had in the past and yet it was different, it had a unique quality. I cannot explain or even truly describe it, but something happened. It awakened something in me. It was sacred and it was Holy.

It was a beautiful and incredible experience, no doubt you will hear more about it as I reflect over the coming months. Today I feel more connected to my own humanity and I hope that of others, I feel a deeper connection to the sacredness and preciousness of life, to the holiness of one another and what our purpose here as human beings is. This life belongs to you and me. We are connected to one another by a sacred bound of love and I believe it is our task to bring that love alive, to make sacred once again all those places on earth that we have desecrated by our inhumanity to one another. This is our holy task, our holy work, this is how we make all life Holy Land.

May it be so.

I’m going to end this "blogspot" with the following reflection “The Breath of Life Is Not Mine Alone” by Kristen L Harper

I do not wish to breathe another breath if it is not shared with others. The breath of life is not mine alone.

I brought myself to be with you, hoping that by inhaling the compassion, the courage, the hope found here, I can exhale the fear, the selfishness, the separateness I keep so close to my skin.

I cannot live another moment, at least not one of joy, unless you and I find our oneness somewhere among each other, somewhere between the noise, somewhere within the silence of the next breath.

Amen