Joy and Suffering: Opposites and Equals”

I recently spent a few days away at Great Hucklow with “Ministry in the Making”. It was a wonderful experience, if somewhat exhausting at times. The title this year was “The Ministry of all believers.” How do we believe in our people? The foundational quote that we kept on referring back to came from the opening of “A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us"

It was an inspirational week; it was wonderful to work with such a group of gifted and interesting people. They are a credit to our free religious tradition.

“it was the best of times it was the worst of times”, says it all about the paradoxical nature of life, certainly of my life and certainly of the last 12 months.

Life by its nature is paradoxical, it is full of contradictions. Some of the days of greatest joy also contain some suffering. Actually, a day of celebration for one set of people can be one of utter dismay for others. Life truly is dukkha. Choosing life for me is to embrace this, to live in the middle of the paradox of joys and suffering, of the best of times and the worst of times, this is the nature of life, this is what it means to live spiritually alive. As Barry Lopez has said:

“One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once, life would collapse. There are simply no definitive answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.”

To live spiritually alive is of course to lean into the light, or perhaps its more than this it is to let the light shine out of us, to truly become our destiny and become the light of the world.

Joy and suffering go hand in hand. To know joy is to also know suffering, you cannot have one without the other. Being in a place of joy opens your heart and it should make you more aware of the sufferings around you. It can make you very vulnerable too, an open heart is a vulnerable heart and an awakened heart. It’s also worth noting that just because you are filled with joy, it does not mean that others will necessarily share in this.

Does this mean we should inhibit our joy? I do not think so. It does not serve the world and actually only feeds the darkness ever more. It is easy to be cynical to hide the light, this is a betrayal of God given life. I know only too well the dangers of this.

To live fully alive, is to accept life in its entirety, both the joys and sufferings. It is to walk with others in their sufferings, to hold them in their time of need and to let them hold you when you need comfort too. It is not to hide your light. This serves no one, although it might not always be appreciated. How often in human history have we destroyed the lights that have shined the brightest. That said sometimes you can spend too much time basking in that light and that serves no one too. It is about being open, living spiritually alive and sharing that with others. It is about accepting life in its entirety and to love the folk you share life with as they are too, this is to truly love, to follow that greatest of all commands.

As I’m sure you have noticed one of my ministerial mantras is “Choose Life”. I often find myself quoting these well known words of Moses from Exodus; words he uttered during his final sermon just before the people entered the “Promised Land”, without him, after 40 years in the wilderness. By the way forty years simply meant a very long time, a lifetime back then. The words are of course “I lay before you life blessings and curses, therefore choose life”. To me this is what it means to live truly alive, to live spiritually. To live spiritually alive to embrace the whole of life as it truly is. Now my use of the phrase has been questioned, especially the choice of the word “curses”. What is questioned is the idea that life’s troubles are seen as curses. I have to say I kind of agree with the protest as to see life’s troubles as curses is to see them as something that has bestowed upon you, and a kind of punishment and burden that you have to live with. I have tried for years to come up with an alternative to curses that means the troubles and sufferings that we live each day. You can’t pick and choose I know that. To know the joy of life, you also have to know the sufferings, for as the Buddhist say, life is Dukkha.

Life by its nature is paradoxical, it is full of contradictions. Some of the days of greatest joy also contain some suffering. Actually a day of celebration for one set of people can be one of utter dismay for others. Life truly is dukkha. Choosing life for me is to embrace this, to live in the middle of the paradox of joys and suffering, this is the nature of life, this is what it means to live spiritually alive.

To live spiritually alive is of course to lean into the light, or perhaps its more than this it is to let the light shine out of us, to truly become our destiny and become the light of the world.

I spent some time with a old friend early this week. He lives in Accrington, up in deepest darkest Lancashire. We talked and shared many things. He is close to retirement after 45 years of service at one firm. He has a dream to become a kind of one on one tour guide. He certainly knows his local history. He drove me round the beautiful countryside and told me many tales about the local history. We visited the site of the statue of Alice Nutter, one of the Pendle Witches, he showed the Cromwell’s broken bridge and the last surviving Clarion House in England. It was a thoroughly enjoyable drive, educational and interesting as he shared the sites of local history, in all its darkness and light. I reckon it might be something he could be a natural at. We also shared some personal stories of our childhoods growing up in small towns in the north of England. There is much about Accrington that his like the town I grew up, for better and for worse. We shared some happy memories and some not so happy memories.

I shared some hilarious ones and one that wasn’t so funny. How people can sometimes respond to happiness with darkness and destruction. I remembered being at a youth club, I would have been 12 or 13 and it was a challenging time in my family life. I remember I felt safe and free at the club and was just enjoying watching the others dancing. I felt happy and I felt free and this broad beaming smile spread across my face. Suddenly for no reason known to me a boy just hit me in the face. I was in utter shock. The leaders spoke with him about it afterwards and asked him why he did it, to which he said “I don’t really know I just hated the fact that he looked so happy, it made me feel so bad.”

I shared how the incident reminded me of a scene from that nihilistic film “Fight Club” and the leading character saying that he was going out to destroy something beautiful, because he felt so terrible inside.

Sometimes seeing the light can remind us just how dark things truly are and can lead to ever darker responses. Light doesn’t always encourage others to seek ever more light. It can lead us to turn away, reject life and sometimes lead to the destruction of light and life.

To live fully alive, is to accept life in its entirety, both the joys and sufferings. It is to walk with others in their sufferings, to hold them in their time of need and to let them hold you when you need comfort too. It is not to hide your light. This serves no one, although it might not always be appreciated. How often in human history of we destroyed the lights that have shined the brightest. That said sometimes you can spend too much time basking in that light and that serves no one too.

This brings to my mind those words of Jesus; foundational words I believe to the message he brought to humanity. Words from his first sermon, in contrast to the words we quoted earlier from Moses final sermon. Words from “The Sermon on the Mount” . They are words that are foundational to my own simple faith, particularly verses 14, 15 and 16 (Matthew chapter 5).

“14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”

Sounds simple doesn’t it. Yes, but not always so easy. It is worth it for you and countless others.

Life is full of opposites. There is joy and there is suffering, there is love and hate, there is hope and despair and there is light and dark. To live fully alive is accept all and to respond appropriately and to not be afraid to weep at times, to laugh, to smile and to shine your light.

To live fully alive, spiritually alive, is to live with your heart burst open, it is to live with a vulnerable heart. A vulnerable heart can be easily hurt and easily wounded, it will carry many scars.

Do not be afraid to shine your light, or to show your scars for those around you need to see them.

This brings to mind a story I heard a few years ago. Like all great stories it is one of mythos, it may be apocryphal, it may not be 100% true, but there is a deep truth within it.

It is the story about the soldiers who survived the battle of Agincourt. How each year, on the anniversary of the battle, they would stand up on their tip toes and proudly bare their scars for all to see. Scars of battle, scars of a life fully lived that they brought into that moment and in so doing became fully alive. Scars they were not afraid of, that they were not haunted by.

As they stood there they stood proud, fully alive, shining their light for the whole world to see.

They chose life in all its joys and sufferings.

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

Laughter, Silence and Solitude: Balance and the Paradoxes of Life

Extract from “Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth” by Matthew Fox

"I sense that the cosmos is not only full of surprises, but also full of jokes. Do all creatures play the role, unwittingly of course, of cosmic comics? Are we here to amuse one another as well as the gods and goddesses, the visible and the invisible? Do the angels laugh at us just as we laugh at them? If life becomes death and death becomes life, and darkness turns into light and light into unbelievable darkness — are there any limits to the amount of jesting that goes on in the universe or the number of surprises that stun us?

"To attempt to live without humor, without awareness of paradox all around us and within us, without the ability to laugh even and especially at ourselves is to contradict the universe itself. Too much sobriety violates the laws of nature. What Eckhart calls 'unself-consciousness' is often expressed in our ability to let go with cosmic laughter; it is a necessary dimension to common survival and therefore to our ethics. Erich Jantsch writes that 'openness to novelty' is part of an evolving consciousness.

"One person I know who dedicated his life to naming the paradoxes of existence was Ken Feit, who called himself a 'spiritual fool.' He challenged persons to attempt to listen to 'the sound of clouds bumping or a car clearing its throat or grass growing or a leaf changing color.' One of his favorite acts was to liberate ice cubes:

"Did you ever liberate an ice cube?
An ice cube, after all, is water that's kept in prison
to serve humans' needs by cooling their drinks
and soothing their headaches.
Well, I sometimes ransom bags of ice cubes
from gas stations,
take them to nearby ponds, and let them go
so they can return
to their water brothers and sisters.

"Is Ken Feit being foolish? Or wise? And what is he bringing out of us by his wisdom, or foolishness, or both? I believe the universe holds the answer."

I have never tried to liberate some ice cubes, but I might just give it a go.

As I returned home from visiting the other day, I popped through Altrincham, and bumped into a couple of people I have got to know, as I wander out and about. The first I know from the dog park. I see him everywhere. He is a delightful Canadian man who has done so many interesting things in his life. He now lives in Altrincham and it has been a delight getting to know him, his wife, his nephew and his two Jack Russell dogs. We talked for a while, as we do, I then moved on headed for home. As I did I bumped into one of my neighbours who I talk with often on the street and in Café Nero. He was asking me about my work, the stresses and strains, he listened and then asked me about meditation. We then shared a delightful conversation about different practices that we have engaged in over the years. I spoke about current practices. We talked and shared and laughed about the times when we have both have got overly serious about our practices. As we were laughing I thought to myself, well sometimes this is the best form of meditation and spiritual practice. Humour literally medicine, or at least it kind of was originally.

A little later I took Molly out to the park. It was a bit wet, but she needed to get out. We met a friend and their dog Ronnie. The dogs had a ball as we talked about both serious and ridiculous things. It began fairly seriously as we spoke of love and loss and grief, the troubles of life. In time though it descended into laughter as we shared stories of our lives and the folk we have known and know. It was a lovely hour of deep connection. One thing I told my friend is that I have never been able to scream. She found this hard to believe and then she began to work it out. As she said I was just born with this strange baritone voice. A child who could talk like an adult before they could walk, but could not scream. They found it hilarious and I found it hilarious as we tried to make sense of this phenomena. I am much too alone, but enough alone, to truly make sense of this. It is phenomena, some people cannot scream. The reason I cannot and have never been able to, is not due to physical damage though, I suspect it is purely psychological. I wonder if anyone else suffers from this, that they have never been able to scream, not one, in their conscious life.

My friend is a writer and I am a minister. We are both observers of life and create from what we see and experience. We make meaning from this. We are also people who spend a lot of time alone and other periods with others. The difference between us though, is that I spend far more time engaging and listening to others than my friend does, it is a requirement of my work. Anyhow I left my friend with the news that you can now watch every single episode of “The Comic Strip Presents” on Netflix.

I had a busy day with folk on Tuesday and as I headed for home I was thinking I need time to be still to let things sink in. I had listened a lot that day and shared somethings from my heart and soul, along as share in some ridiculousness too. So I went home and spent time in silence and stillness, sometime in quiet reflection.

The last few months have revealed aspects about myself, once again, some I like, some I struggle with. Greif and passing through grief, has a way of doing this to person. As I settled down that evening I read the following from Rilke.

“I am much too alone in this world, yet not alone enough” by Rainer Maria Rilke, 1875 – 1926

I am much too alone in this world, yet not alone
Enough to truly consecrate the hour.
I am much too small in this world, yet not small enough
to be to you just object and thing,
dark and smart.
I want my free will and want it accompanying
the path which leads to action;
and want during times that beg questions,
where something is up,
to be among those in the know,
or else be alone.

I want to mirror your image to its fullest perfection,
never be blind or too old
to uphold your weighty wavering reflection.
I want to unfold.
Nowhere I wish to stay crooked, bent;
for there I would be dishonest, untrue.
I want my conscience to be
true before you;
want to describe myself like a picture I observed
for a long time, one close up,
like a new word I learned and embraced,
like the everday jug,
like my mother’s face,
like a ship that carried me along
through the deadliest storm.

I love being with people, but am also aware how much I need time alone to “truly consecrate the hour. Like many ministers I am an introvert in the Jungian understanding. I am the kind of person who re-energises from spending time in solitude. I tend to give my energy when in the company of others and recharge in solitude. I need to be alone, with my God, to truly feel alive in life. This humbles me in the true meaning of the word. It reminds me I am part of the ground the earth. I always remember that linguistically humanity, humility and humus (meaning the earth), share the same linguistic root.

Ralph Waldo Emerson put it more beautifully than me in the following that he wrote whilst reflecting on the wonder of being in the woods.

“Standing on the bare ground – my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space – all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.”

I love the beautiful paradox here “I am nothing; I see all;” I really love the last part “I am part or particle of God.” As I thought of these words an image of a Meme, I had seen on social media, also came to mind. It goes by the title “Serbian Proverb”, it read “Be humble, for you are made of earth. Be noble, for you are made of stars,” These words and that evening sitting reflecting on my day certainly humbled me and I live in hope that they will enoble me too. I know how important it is that I believe this. These two qualities are vital to a fulfilling life, they are not opposing dualities, more complimentary qualities.

It is emptiness, stillness, quietness that reveals the greatest paradox of life. For it is often in this emptiness that we truly understand how important everything is; it is the emptiness that reveals the fullness of life. As I constantly remember everything matters, every thought, every feeling, every word and every deed. For everything is a part of everything else. The mistake is to fall into the despair of emptiness, although perhaps this is a stage that we may have to go through. This mistake is formed from a superficial understanding of emptiness, for in doing so we may well end up dismissing life as a kind of dream, that doesn’t really matter or exist. In doing so we end up dismissing life itself as empty and unsubstantial, that it doesn’t really matter. If we do we enter that dangerous state of seeing the world with contempt and therefore dismiss the very real suffering of others. There is nothing either humble or enobling in this. To me the very point of emptying and going within is to enable me to truly connect with both the joys and sorrows of life, its difficulties and its successes in a very real way and therefore act in a noble way. It is the very stillness that will hold us in the storms we feel or witness and then not turn away but live in the way of love. Almost perfectly illustrated in the poem “I am much alone in this world, yet not alone” by Rainer Maria Rilke, I shared earlier.

“Wisdom tells me I am nothing. Love tells me I am everything. Between the two my life flows”, said the 20th century Hindu guru, Nisargadatta Maharaj, who taught non-dualism. Carl Sagan once wrote, "For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love"

For me in the silence in the emptiness I find the love that connects me to all that is in a truly loving sense. In the emptiness my cup once again begins to runneth over. In so doing I can once again know the fullness of life and live in such a way that is indeed enobling. This is something both my neighbour and myself understand and something we shared in the street the other day.

By deepening in silence we discover that the apparent emptiness holds no real fear, instead it leads us to true beauty and joy; it leads us to the joy of living. In that space we can discover that we are “a part or particle of God”. In doing so we rest in the infinite space that is life and begin to live in both accord and harmony. This silence brings peace, wholeness and well-being. It humbles us for it allows us to see that we are made of the earth and yet also enobles us for we can see that we are made of the stars.

As I reflected that evening I also began to smile at myself and the people I had met and spoke with that day. I remembered the laughter and the connection we had shared in deep seriousness. How this human aspect is so vital to life. Now I have heard it said that humour is also linguistically linked to humility and humanity. It isn’t by the way, not that this matters. Humour has a whole different etymology, which is itself just utterly ridiculous. To be in good humour, meant to be in good health, that the “Umeres” were in balance, the strange coloured substances that moved around our bodies, were in balance, or so they believed a thousand years ago. Sounds funny today. Well ,no doubt when they look back at us and they write our history, they will probably think we were just as ridiculous. This is why laughter is the greatest medicine.

I need time with people to listen and connect and I need time alone. I need time for tears and I need, oh I oh so need, joy and laughter. They bring into a deeper relationship with life and with God. This is something I know for certain I am not alone with.

John O’Donohue claimed "I think that laughter is one of the really vital dimensions of the divine presence that has been totally neglected.

I often feel when the Divine One beholds us obsessed in our intricate maze of anxiety and planning and intentionality, that She can’t stop laughing.

It’s great for people, actually, to laugh, too. I love a sense of humour in a person. It’s one of my favorite things, because I think when somebody laughs, they break out of every system that they’re in.

There’s something really subversive in laughter and in the smile on the human face. It’s lovely and infectious to be in the company of someone who can smile deeply.

I think a smile comes from the soul. And I also love its transitive kind of nature—that if you’re in the presence of someone who has a happiness and a laughter about them, it’ll affect you and it’ll call that out in you as well.

Your body relaxes completely when you’re having fun. I think one of the things that religion has often prevented us from doing is having really great fun. To be here, in a way—despite the sadness and difficulty and awkwardness of individual identity—is to be permanently invited to the festival of great laughter."

We humans are complicated and paradoxical creatures, balls of contradictions. I know that I am. Just like the weather these past few days, we can experience four seasons in just one day. Just like the weather our moods and experiences constantly change. This si why it is so vital to remember to “Be humble, for you are made of earth. Be noble, for you are made of stars,”

None of us knows what the coming seasons will bring. There will be tears, but not always of sorrow, there will be joy and laughter too, if we can but stay open hearted and refuse to retreat back into those shells of self-protection. Let’s not be afraid of our tears, for there are tears of laughter too. Let’s enjoy every season for none of us know how many seasons we have left; let’s not forget, in the words of Conrad Hyers "The first and last word belong to God and therefore not to death but life, not to sorrow but joy, not to weeping but laughter. For surely it is God who has the last laugh."

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

Do I Contradict Myself? I Contain Multitudes

At the last “Living the Questions” John Poskitt led a really fascinating discussion on his favourite obsession Bob Dylan, on his life, his creative talent even his philosophy. Not that he had singular consistent one. Like all people he was subject to change. John played several of Dylan’s songs, some classics and one I hadn’t heard before, from his most recent album, his 39th original studio recording, “Rough and Rowdy Ways”. The song was “I Contain Multitudes”. The songs theme explores the complexity of Dylan; the complexity of all people actually, suggesting we are a mixture of influences, that have shaped our lives, our attitudes, our vision and our behaviour. This includes the negative aspects of our lives as well as the more positive ones. Human beings, like life, are complex things. Do we contradict ourselves? Yes we do, we contain multitudes.

Now the line on which the song is based comes from the following from Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass”.

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then, I contradict myself.
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

No human being is entirely one thing or another. The seemingly worst of us have good qualities and the best of us have negative ones. There is no perfection in any of us, in life itself. We all of us contain multitudes of contradictions, people constantly surprise me, I hope I do them.

In “Resurrection” Tolstoy captures this idea when he states (edited using gender inclusive language)

“Every person bears within him or herself the germs of every human quality, but sometimes one quality manifests itself, sometimes another, and the person often becomes unlike him or herself, while still remaining the same person.”

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then, I contradict myself.
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

How often in life do we say that such and such acted out of character. Well maybe they just displayed an aspect of their character that is rarely seen. We are all complex, we contain multitudes. It is vital that we recognise that in others and one another. To be fully human is to be complex and inconsistent. I have been thinking of this as I have thought of a dear friend and congregant who died this week. A strong, passionate, vivacious character, a person who could get things done and would do anything for anyone. This of course was not all that she was, like all of us she had her own demons and succumbed to them in the end. So many people are feeling the pain of her loss this week. I most certainly have been doing. As I felt constant grief and loss for the world, I would hope we all do. There is suffering everywhere and in everything, but that is not all there is. Life is not suffering, but there is suffering in everything. There is horror and there is violence, but that is not all there is, there is love, there is compassion, there is deep, deep care. People care a lot. Never stop caring. To care of course originally meant “sorrow, anxiety, grief.” From an Old Anglo Saxon word karo meaning sorrow or lament, from a proto Germanic word Kara. The modern German phrase Kairfretag meaning Good Friday shares this same root. Isn’t the whole world lamenting at the horrors in the Ukraine. That said this is not all that is life. I have witnessed and experienced more love this week, than I can remember doing for a long time.

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then, I contradict myself.
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

I know myself I am full of contradictions. I am inconsistent in what I believe about life, faith and God. I have been considering that his week as I have felt the grief of the loss of my friend, especially the way her life ended. Grief changes us, it should and each new loss builds into others. Nothing in life is experienced within itself. I have been thinking of profound spiritual experiences I have had, moments that have transformed my experience of life. Some have been the most beautiful and uplifting, some of been the most excruciatingly painful. An agony I experienced like no other, came at the moment of a great loss in my life, one I only discovered had happened much later. A moment that changed my whole life, a moment I wish had never happened, but was beyond my control. Some of these most powerful moments have been experienced alone and in isolation and others shared with others. Some my rational mind has attempted to explain away, others I have accepted. Each contained their own multitude of experiences. What they have done is better enabled me to do the work I have been given, despite the complexities of my humanity. All have enabled me to live a little better from that “Love that passeth all understanding”. They have all enabled me to care more, but not without deep sorrow.

Life is not always as it seems and sometimes this is down to perspective and point of vision. Even light can be a tricky and contradictory thing, as the physicist Niels Bohr discovered when he tried to describe the nature of electrons and neutrons, lights elementary units. He discovered that under some experimental conditions, these units behaved as though they were particles, but under other experimental conditions they behaved as though they were waves.

So which one is correct? Were they particles or were they waves? Surely light could not be both? Surely they must be one or the other? Well Niels Bohr said they were both. He said the observer and the circumstances of the observer make a difference, and so you need a "principle of complementarity" to understand the nature of light. He concluded that under some observational circumstances the units of light must be considered particles, and under other circumstances they must be considered waves. It would appear that the two points of view both compliment and contradict each other. So, by taking both together you improve the picture, even though they contradict themselves.

So, despite the challenge that comes with accepting these complimentary contradictions they paint an enlarging view of the nature of life. I suspect it is the same with us, with our lives, with life in general and certainly the spiritual life. In fact, I would suggest that complimentary contradictions help to enhance the spiritual life, for after all the spiritual life is one of paradox.

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then, I contradict myself.
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

David Whyte suggests an interesting paradox with regards to the spiritual life. He believes that the deeper our commitment to the principles in our lives, the more fluid life starts to feel. True commitment often doesn't mean rigidity, it's more likely to result in flow and movement. Commitment is liberating and contradictions are complimentary.

The world’s religious traditions are no stranger to paradox. Taoism is full, or do I mean empty, of them. Here is one example:

Fullness and emptiness give birth to each other.
Difficult and easy complete each other.
Long and short shape each other.
Tones and voice harmonize with each other.
Front and back follow each other.
Therefore wherever the sage is, he dwells among affairs by not doing.
He teaches without words.
The ten-thousand things arise, but he doesn’t impel them.
He gives birth, but he doesn’t possess.
He acts, but he doesn’t rely on what he has done.
He has successes, but he doesn’t claim credit.
So by not claiming credit, he is never empty.

The teachings of Jesus are firmly grounded in paradox. He said “the first shall be last”; “empty yourself and be filled”; “lose yourself and be found” The epistle Paul wrote “As dying, and, behold, we live”; he said of his fellow Christians “As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, as poor, yet making many rich, as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.”; and he said of himself “When I am weak, then I am strong”

Aristotle saw this as absolute twaddle of course. He is the great grandfather of scientific methodology, of all who pride themselves on their critical faculties and all who claim rationality. He talked of the law of the excluded middle. Put simply something cannot be both hot and cold at the same time. How can anyone argue with such logic? We cannot be rich if we are poor; we cannot be first if we are last; we cannot experience joy if our lives are full of sorrow.

Is he correct? Well, he sounds like he is making sense. How on earth can we receive when we are giving? It does not seem to make sense, when thinking logically and yet.

The religious sages tell us otherwise. As does light at least according to Neils Bohr and his observations on the nature of light.

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then, I contradict myself.
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

Of course a paradox does not make sense in a purely logical sense, but to expect it to do so is to fail to understand its purpose. It is the tool that broadens the framework in which we see reality. Things can both contradict and compliment each other.

Paradox stretches the boundaries of truth. Through our imaginations we push truth past its seeming limits. Without imagination, without foresight we would probably never have come down from the trees, or out of the caves. A paradox cannot be solved by conventional truths, it requires unconventional truths. It stretches common sense to the point where it becomes uncommon sense and thus moves our experiences of life forward. It challenges the status quo and the understanding of any given time. This is of course what the great religious sages did, they brought new understanding to their time and place, as does good science.

Our lives are riddled with paradoxes. How often have we heard the following statements? “I am surrounded by people and yet I am lonely” “My life is so full of choices, that I can’t make a decision about anything” or on the more optimistic end of the scale “I am skint and yet I am happy” or “I have so much, because I have so little”

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then, I contradict myself.
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

Life is full or do I mean empty of paradoxes. There are so many contradictions, nothing adds up absolutely. Our ducks will never be truly in a row. This is the nature of existence, both material and spiritual. There are so many contradictions in all of us as there is in life and it is these very contradictions that compliment each other and make far more than the sum of lifes parts, far more. Life contains multitiudes.

So let us keep on contradicting ourselves. Let us share these beautiful contradictions and in so doing we will create something larger than we could imagine, that compliments all our lives. Let us continue enlarging everything by sharing our many multitudes. The more we give it away, the more we will all receive and in abundance.

Let us continue to enlarge our multitides.

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then, I contradict myself.
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

Below is a video devotion based

on the material in this "blogspot"

Bringing Christmas Alive: Past. Present and Future

Last weekend I was consumed by a deep and heavy cold. I’m sure I wasn’t the best company and was probably wasn’t entirely in the Christmas spirit. I hope I wasn’t too Scrooge like. On Saturday night I did witness a beautiful joyful annual ritual. As I sat in the chair, feeling somewhat sorry for myself, I watched Sue and her daughter Lucy put their Christmas tree up and take out the many decorations. Everyone seemed to have a story, some had even belonged to Sue’s grandma, and others were her mothers, several more had been collected as her own children had grown up. I thought how lovely it was to connect those decorations to at least three generations. I wondered to myself if Lucy would keep up this tradition when she begins to create a family of her own, I suspect that she will.

I find it lovely how this simple annual ritual has an ability to connect the present with the past and the future, those three vital spirits of Christmas. Each telling its own story and each coming to life at the same time.

It brought me back to the quotation that I had ended last weeks "blogspot" with. Those beautiful words of Mr Scrooge toward the end of Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol”

“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!”

In the story Scrooge beautifully portrays the power at the heart of Christmas, how love can redeem even the most lost. It emerges through the journey of integration that he is taken on, of the past, present and future; of both the light and the dark of life; of hope and despair. During the telling of “A Christmas Carol” he was visited by three spirits, the ghosts of the past, present and yet to be.

“The Ghost of Christmas Past” forced him to not only look back at his past but to relive it, to truly feel it. He was made to remember what Christmas had once meant, before cynicism had taken hold. It showed him both the happiness and the sadness present in his past, there was no sugar coating. It is of course a true humbug to pretend that all the sadness in life is washed away at Christmas time. And yet while there is sadness present in all life there is also love and joy, there is much to be grateful for. It is the “The Ghost of Christmas Past” that revealed this to Scrooge.

As I recall the past Christmases I have known there is much joy, but there is also deep sadness too. This is life. I am at peace with my past these days as I feel it is truly a part of me. I feel these former ghosts, that once haunted me, are now fully integrated deep in the soul of my being. Those ghosts are a part of me.

“The Ghost of Christmas Present” showed Scrooge the full picture of the world in which he lived, especially at Christmas time. He saw the warts and the beauty spots too. It revealed the affluence as well as the want. It showed Christmas being enjoyed in far off places, on the high seas in lighthouses, it showed every heart being warmed by the season. This surely touched Scrooge, as his heart was warmed by the universal love, present in all life, regardless of material circumstances, expressed by the spirit of Christmas.

It is vital that we see the world truly with the awakened eye. To see life as it actually is, for the awakened eye is a compassionate eye. The world in which we live today is as mixed as the world of Dickens. We see poverty and want everywhere. Homelessness is a terrible blight of our time. Did you know that there are as many foodbanks in this country as McDonald’s restaurants? A terrible statistic don’t you think. And yet this isn’t the whole picture, there is a great deal of joy in coming together, often shown in times of trouble, people coming together in love, people helping and offering service to one another in a variety of ways,

“The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Be” brought the reality of Scrooge’s own lonely and un-mourned death to him. People either did not care or actually cheered his passing. All that he owned was quickly stripped from him; it meant nothing in the end. They even took the curtains from his bed. When the spirit showed him his grave, he did not recognise it as his own, he tried to deny it, but the spirits finger pointed from the grave back to him. This terrified Scrooge who cried out that he was a changed man, as he begged for mercy clutching the spirits robe. And then from his lips came those immortal words, “I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The spirits of all three will strive within me. I will not shut out the lesson that they teach.”

Scrooge became the Christmas hero because he brought the reality of what Christmas is all about to life; through him the spirit of Christmas came to life. It is the same for everyone, regardless of time and place. For surely Christmas is about honouring life in its wholeness; surely it is about reconciliation in its completeness. It is about giving birth to the love within each of by reconciling our past in our present and therefore creating a future inspired by love.

We are told that to truly live we must live in the moment. Now while I am not going to contradict this,but I do not think that this is not enough. I have come believe that the key to truly living alive is that rather than simply passively living in the moment, we must bring the present alive, by integrating our whole lives, past, present and future.

Christmas is about the past, present and future integrated as one. This is the love we must give birth to on Christmas morning, born in mangers of our hearts.

To truly bring the moment to life requires each of us to integrate the whole of our lives. This is especially true at Christmas time, in fact this is the beautiful Christmas paradox.

This all got me thinking about this great paradox of Christmas, it is found right at the core of the season. At Christmas we celebrate newness and rebirth and yet at the same time we revere tradition more than at any other time of year perhaps. Just think of all the traditions that you feel you must engage in just to make it Christmas. Christmas is a beautiful mix of the old and the new, inseparably intertwined in one gift-wrapped package, ready for us to open and enjoy. Christmas is newness, first and foremost, a celebration of birth and rebirth. It is a season of preparing, of focusing all that is within us on making ready the birthplace of the Christ child within the mangers of our own hearts. Isn’t this what happened to Mr Scrooge, thus heralding a new future.

Every Christmas is a chance to integrate the whole of our lives. We recreate our pasts through traditions. We hear and sing again the same carols, they stir something deep within us. How many of us engage in the same ritual that Sue and Lucy did, tenderly and lovingly unpacking and displaying cherished decorations. Don’t they bring to mind former days, former joys and sad memories too, especially as we remember lost loved ones. What about the cards that we write and send, posting greetings to distant and not-so-distant friends and loved ones, remembering all those who make up our network of mutual love. Even the most secular amongst us participate in ceremonies, keeping alive the traditions of Christmas that are so rich and meaningful in this season.

Christmas is a beautiful blend of the old and the new. We need the old to truly give birth to the new, it is a part of who we are. In order to give birth to the love waiting in the mangers of our hearts, this Advent season. Advent is about waiting to give birth to this love. How do we do this, well by following the lead of Mt Scrooge, by simply integrating the past, the present and the future.

In so doing we will give birth to that love during the moment of magic on Christmas morning.

Here is my favourite adaptation of a "Christmas Carol"

Joy and Suffering: Opposites and Equals

During my time in Israel – Palestine I found myself quoting Moses’s well known words from Exodus, during his final sermon just before the people entered the “Promised Land” without him after 40 years in the wilderness. The words are of course “I lay before you life blessings and curses, therefore choose life”. To me this is what it means to live truly alive, to live spiritually; to live spiritually alive to embrace the whole of life as it truly is. Now my use of the phrase has been questioned, especially the choice of the word “curses”. What is questioned is the idea that life’s troubles are seen as curses. I have to say I kind of agree with the protest, as to see life’s troubles as curses is to see them as something that has been bestowed upon you , a kind of punishment and burden that you have to live with. So I’m trying to come up with an alternative to curses that means the troubles and sufferings that we live with each day. You can’t pick and choose I know that. To know the joy of life, you also have to know the sufferings, for as the Buddhist say, life is Dukkha.

Life by its nature is paradoxical, it is full of contradictions. Some of the days of greatest joy also contain some suffering. Actually a day of celebration for one set of people can be one of utter dismay for others. Life truly is Dukkha. Choosing life for me is to embrace this, to live in the middle of the paradox of joys and sufferings, this is the nature of life, this is what it means to live spiritually alive. As Barry Lopez has said:

“One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once, life would collapse. There are simply no definitive answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.”

To live spiritually alive is of course to lean into the light, or perhaps its more than this it is to let the light shine out of us, to truly become our destiny and become the light of the world.

Now a classic example of the mixed nature of life came on the day I proposed to Sue at Capernaum at the water’s edge of “The Sea of Galilee”. A day that will probably be the most joyful in memory had actually begun in heartbreaking tears. I had awoken to the news that a woman I have called “Auntie Hilda”, or “Auntie Hazel” as she preferred as she didn’t like the name she had been given, had died. She had been my beloved grandfather’s partner since I was two years old and her children Samantha and Troy were like cousins to us as we grew up. So that morning I wept for her, her children, my loved ones and of course my grandad who died a few years ago. In many ways it was the tears that opened my heart fully to the experiences of the day and helped me find the spot and moment on that rock at Capernaum as we stared out at Galilee that beautiful day. As auntie Hilda’s children Troy and Sammi said a few days later she would have been so happy for me to hear of mine and Sue’s engagement, I will go and say my farewells to auntie Hilda next Friday. I hope there is Walls Vienetta at the funeral, something she always gave us for "afters" when we went for "tea".

Capernaum will be forever etched in my heart, but last weekend I had a very different experience of the place. This time it was watching the Oscar nominated Lebanese film “Capernaum” which according to its opening credits means “Chaos”

The film tells the story of a 12 year old boy named Zain who is growing up in poverty in Beruit. He is deeply embittered by his situation, he has no official identity and he and his family struggle to survive.

The film is told in flashbacks. He had been imprisoned in the notorious “Roumieh” prison for attempting to kill the man who is responsible for the death of his sister Samar who had been sold to him for marriage at just 11 years old. From the prison, encouraged by a tv programme,  Zain launches a lawsuit against his parents, suing them for the fact that he has been born.

Zain is a modern day anti-hero, cynical despite his years. Foul mouthed and living on his wits, but with a caring heart. Following the sale of his sister he runs away and meets all kinds of characters. He ends up looking after an Ethiopian cleaners child, who is also on the run, while she works. She is arrested and he is left with the child alone, struggling to survive. In the end circumstances lead to him having to give up the child to a people trafficker. Zain returns home to find identity papers in an attempt to escape Lebanon but the family has none. He learns of the death of his sister which leads to him attacking the man responsible and he ending up in prison.

There is some hope the in films ending, as Zain gets his identity papers and the Ethiopian woman is reunited with her child. That said it also ended in a deep feeling of sadness too. A sadness for the plight of so many people caught up in poverty and violence in this world. It led to a sense of powerlessness too for the plight of these people and all those who suffer.

This is real life though. Something that cannot be avoided. It brought myself and Sue back down to earth too. It brought more tears.

Joy and suffering go hand in hand. To know joy is to also know suffering, you cannot have one without the other. Being in a place of joy opens your heart and it should make you more aware of the sufferings around you. It can make you very vulnerable too, an open heart is a vulnerable heart and an awakened heart. It’s also worth noting that just because you are filled with joy, it does not mean that others will necessarily share in this. There has been a small amount of negativity towards Sue and mine’s loving announcement and we both have our share of suffering amongst our nearest and dearest even in our joy.

Does this mean we should inhibit our joy? I do not think so. It does not serve the world and actually only feeds the darkness ever more. It is easy to be cynical to hide the light, this is a betrayal of God given life. I know only too well the dangers of this.

A memory came back to me over the weekend as I was talking about Capernaum both the film and our time there as well as the challenges of life. It was from my childhood. I remembered being at a youth club, I would have been 12 or 13 and it was a challenging time in my family life. I remember I felt safe and free at the club and was just enjoying watching the others dancing. I felt happy, I felt free for the first time in quite a while and this broad beaming smile spread across my face. Suddenly, for no reason known to me, a boy just hit me in the face. I was in utter shock. The leaders spoke with him about it afterwards and asked him why he did it, to which he said “I don’t really know I just hated the fact that he looked so happy, it made me feel so bad.”

It’s strange how it came to me as I was talking over the weekend as I haven’t thought about it for years. It reminded me of a scene from that nihilistic film “Fight Club” and the leading character saying that he was going out to destroy something beautiful, because he felt so terrible inside.

Sometimes seeing the light can remind us just how dark things truly are and can lead to ever darker responses. Light doesn’t always encourage others to seek ever more light. It can lead us to turn away, reject life and sometimes lead to the destruction of light and life.

To live fully alive, is to accept life in its entirety, both the joys and sufferings. It is to walk with others in their sufferings too, to hold them in their time of need and to let them hold you when you need comfort too. It is not to hide your light. This serves no one, although it might not always be appreciated. How often in human history have we destroyed the lights that have shined the brightest. That said sometimes you can spend too much time basking in that light and that serves no one too.

We did that day at Capernaum. So much so that it meant we didn’t get to stand on the ground that is said to have been where the “Sermon on the Mount” took place. We didn’t quite get there. We were a bit like the grand old Duke of York, we only got half way up the hill, before we had to turn back as the car park was closing.

We didn’t need to in order to live the message that was delivered there. A message that is central to my simple faith, particularly verses 14, 15 and 16 (Matthew chapter 5).

“14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”

Life is full of opposites. There is joy and there is suffering, there is love and hate, there is hope and despair and there is light and dark. To live fully alive is accept all and to respond appropriately and to them and not be afraid to weep for all.

To live fully alive, spiritually alive, is to live with your heart burst open, it is to live with a vulnerable heart. A vulnerable heart can be easily hurt and easily wounded, it will carry many scars.

Do not be afraid to shine your light, or to show your scars for those around you need to see them.

This brings to mind a story I heard a few years ago. Like all great stories it is one of mythos, it may be apocryphal, it may not be 100% true, but there is a deep truth within it.

It is the story about the soldiers who survived the battle of Agincourt. How each year, on the anniversary of the battle, they would stand up on their tip toes and proudly bare their scars for all to see. Scars of battle, scars of a life fully lived that they brought into that moment and in so doing became fully alive. Scars they were not afraid of, that they were not haunted by.

As they stood there they stood proud, fully alive, shining their light for the whole world to see.

They chose life in all its joys and sufferings.

Amen

The love of contradiction: The power of paradox

Last week I spent some time in London. It was wonderful to get away and visit a few sights and sounds. It was a time of contrast, you might even say contradiction. On the Tuesday Sue and I set off to the Victoria and Albert Museum of Art and Design, the aim was to see the Frida Kahlo exhibit “Making Herself Up”. We travelled through the hustle and bustle of the city as people went about the business. As we got off the tube we noticed a couple of women who were obviously going to the exhibit, they looked and dressed just like Kahlo. It was a beautiful exhibit using her work and her unique style of dress to tell her moving and remarkable life story. In many ways her whole persona was a work of art, making the most of who she was and her struggles both physical and, emotional, identity and political. A life of contrast and in some ways contradiction. I found it deeply moving. Beautiful actually.

After leaving the exhibition we spent some time enjoying some of the beautiful gardens in and around the V and A, particularly Kensington Gardens. Sue taught me about the different flowers and how well they go together. We also observed the rich variety of people going about their lives. We had a lot of fun just goofing around before heading towards Highbury to watch Lukas Nelson in concert. Another wonderful night. Lukas is the son of country music legend Willie Nelson and his music was a mixture of so many styles. You could hear an eclectic mix of influence in his music. It made me think of the all the great artists he must have met growing up as the son of Willie Nelson.

It contrasted beautifully with the Kahlo exhibition and yet at the same time complimented it. They were both influenced by their upbringing, Kahlo had a German father and Mexican mother and was influenced by the communist revolution of her time, she rejected her Catholic faith and yet her art and her life were obviously influenced the deep spirituality of her ethnically Mexican roots and of course the physical difficulties she struggled with all her life. Nelson’s joy and abandon in his music was just a beautiful spiritual experience. I particularly loved a new song of his in which he suggested that we turn off the news and stop getting wrapped up in the negative aspects of life and go plant a garden or create a family and bring some love and beauty into the world. A sentiment that rang in my ears over the next few days as I became overly absorbed in the troubles of Brexit and the insane visit of Donald Trump both here and all over Europe. I cannot change the world I cannot stop the pain of life, whether personal or global, but I can do something positive and loving in this world. I can create some love and beauty. Something we can all do.

I learnt once again last week that if I want to know life’s beauty all I have to do is be involved in creating it. By merely creating beauty I know beauty I come a part of life’s beauty.

My word what a week of contrast…and contradiction…

Barry Lopez said in “The Big Questions” by Lama Surya Das

“One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once, life would collapse. There are simply no definitive answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.”

I do love people, even when they irritate me. The thing I love the most is perhaps how contradictory we can all be. People constantly surprise me in loves and dislikes, none can ever be put perfectly in a box. It is the same with life really, it is full of contrast and contradiction.

Now the area where life’s contradictory nature is clearer than anything is in the spiritual aspects of life and living. At the core I have discovered is contrast, contradiction and paradox. Religion and spirituality is not common sense, it is by contrast uncommon sense. You cannot put it in a box and seal it, it is unbound, but then so is life. Our lives, like Frida Kahlo’s, if we are going to truly live spiritually alive ought to be works of art. We are here to create love and beauty, to plant a garden, to make a family, to create Beloved Community.

The world’s religious and spiritual traditions are no stranger to paradox. Taoism is full, or do I mean empty, of them. Here is one example:

Fullness and emptiness give birth to each other.
Difficult and easy complete each other.
Long and short shape each other.
Tones and voice harmonize with each other.
Front and back follow each other.
Therefore wherever the sage is, he dwells among affairs by not doing.
He teaches without words.
The ten-thousand things arise, but he doesn’t impel them.
He gives birth, but he doesn’t possess.
He acts, but he doesn’t rely on what he has done.
He has successes, but he doesn’t claim credit.
So by not claiming credit, he is never empty.

The teachings of Jesus are firmly grounded in paradox. He said “the first shall be last”; “empty yourself and be filled”; “lose yourself and be found” The epistle Paul wrote “As dying, and, behold, we live”; he said of his fellow Christians “As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, as poor, yet making many rich, as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.”; and he said of himself “When I am weak, then I am strong”

Aristotle saw this as absolute twaddle of course. He is the great grandfather of scientific methodology, of all who pride themselves on their critical faculties and all who claim rationality. He talked of the law of the excluded middle. Put simply something cannot be both hot and cold at the same time. How can anyone argue with such logic? We cannot be rich if we are poor; we cannot be first if we are last; we cannot experience joy if our lives are full of sorrow.

Is he correct? Well he sounds like he is making sense.

Yet the religious sages seem to disagree. They speak an uncommon sense it seems.

How on earth can we receive when we are giving? It does not seem to make sense, when we think logically. Life though is not pure logic, we are more than the sum of our parts. Just look at a garden. It is made up of many and varied flowers, each uniquely beautiful but who come alive as they blend together, they are far more than the sum of their parts. It is the same with our lives that are made up moments but that are made beautiful by the meaning that emerges from these moments, good and bad and oh so beautiful.

Of course a paradox does not make sense in a purely logical sense, it is in its essence uncommon sense, but to expect it to do so is to fail to understand its purpose. It is the tool that broadens the framework in which we see reality. It stretches the boundaries of truth. Through our imaginations we push truth past its seeming limits. Without imagination, without foresight we would probably never have come down from the trees, or out of the caves. A paradox cannot be solved by conventional truths, it requires unconventional truths. It stretches common sense to the point where it becomes uncommon sense and thus moves our experiences of life forward. It challenges the status quo and the understanding of any given time. This is of course what the great religious sages did, they brought new understanding to their time and place.

Here’s a little wisdom on the paradoxical nature of spiritual living by the Sufi mystic Kabir. It is taken from “Songs of Kabir: A Fifteenth Century Sufi Literary Classic” by Rabindranath Tagore

"I am neither pious nor ungodly,
I live neither by law nor by sense,
I am neither a speaker nor hearer,
I am neither a servant nor master,
I am neither bond nor free,
I am neither detached nor attached.
I am far from none: I am near to none.
I shall go neither to hell nor to heaven.
I do all works; yet I am apart from all works.
Few comprehend my meaning: he who
can comprehend it, he sits unmoved.
Kabir seeks neither to establish nor to destroy.”

Our lives are riddled with paradoxes. How often have we heard the following statements? “I am surrounded by people and yet I am lonely” “My life is so full of choices, that I can’t make a decision about anything” or on the more optimistic end of the scale “I am skint and yet I am happy” or “I have so much, because I have so little”

The wisdom of paradox challenges our desire for certainty and perfection. The only thing that I know for certain is that my body will not last forever. We humans though do not like to believe this we like to think that we are all powerful and all knowable. We are mortal we are not God. The book “The Spirituality of Imperfection” by Ernest Kurtz & Katherine Ketcham, which was based around the authors work with alcoholics recognises that our attempts to achieve perfection have been our most tragic mistake. It highlights that one of the central theme of the spiritual traditions is the insistence that honesty, particularly honesty with self about self, is an essential requirement for any religious quest; that the greatest and most insidious dishonesty is to deny or refuse to accept our mixed human nature. We are not saints, nor are we sinners. We possess qualities of great goodness as well as the capacity to do great evil within us. We are beautiful balls of contradiction, made up of all kinds of thoughts and emotions and yet somehow far more than the sum of our beautiful parts.

So what I am trying to say is that we need to learn to not only accept but glory in life’s messiness. Let’s not get bogged down in worries and concerns, well not too much. I’m not saying we merely passive accept things, no not at all. Let us instead make something beautiful from life’s contradictions and paradoxes, let’s become artists of our lives. Let’s form something beautiful from our hearts, grow a garden, a family or a community, let’s live by this beautiful and sadly a little too uncommon sense.

It is in giving that we receive: a paradox

“Make me a channel of your peace. It is in pardoning that we are pardoned. It is giving to all man that we receive. And in dying that we are born to eternal life”

I love these words from the prayer of St Francis. By the way they are not words that he ever uttered himself, although they are certainly inspired by his life and his message. The prayer, of which there are many versions, first appeared a little over a hundred years ago in France. It is the line “It is in giving to all man that we receive” or the slightly shorter version “It is in giving that we receive,” that really speaks to me. The emphasis here is ever so slightly different to the words from Acts 20 v 35 “I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring you ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive” (King James version).

“It is in giving that we receive”. This is the magic moment, in the very act of giving of ourselves to others that we truly receive all that we could ever possibly wish for. It is the most beautiful of paradoxes. Granted it probably does not make logical sense and yet in my experience it is utterly true.

The world’s religious traditions are no stranger to paradox. Taoism is full, or do I mean empty, of them. Here is one example:

Fullness and emptiness give birth to each other.

Difficult and easy complete each other.

Long and short shape each other.

Tones and voice harmonize with each other.

Front and back follow each other.

Therefore wherever the sage is, he dwells among affairs by not doing.

He teaches without words.

The ten-thousand things arise, but he doesn’t impel them.

He gives birth, but he doesn’t possess.

He acts, but he doesn’t rely on what he has done.

He has successes, but he doesn’t claim credit.

So by not claiming credit, he is never empty.

The teachings of Jesus are firmly grounded in paradox. He said “the first shall be last”; “empty yourself and be filled”; “lose yourself and be found”. The epistle Paul wrote “As dying, and, behold, we live”; he said of his fellow Christians “As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, as poor, yet making many rich, as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.”; and he said of himself “When I am weak, then I am strong”

Aristotle saw this as absolute twaddle of course. He is the great grandfather of scientific methodology, of all who pride themselves on their critical faculties and all who claim rationality. He talked of the law of the excluded middle. Put simply something cannot be both hot and cold at the same time. How can anyone argue with such logic? We cannot be rich if we are poor; we cannot be first if we are last; we cannot experience joy if our lives are full of sorrow. Can we? Surely we cannot, it just does not make sense. How on earth can we receive when we are giving? It does not seem to make sense, when we think logically.

Of course a paradox does not make sense in a purely logical sense, but to expect it to do so is to fail to understand its purpose. It is the tool that broadens the framework in which we see reality. It stretches the boundaries of truth. Through our imaginations we push truth past its seeming limits. Without imagination, without foresight we would probably never have come down from the trees, or out of the caves. A paradox cannot be solved by conventional truths, it requires unconventional truths. It stretches common sense to the point where it becomes uncommon sense and thus moves our experiences of life forward. It challenges the status quo and the understanding of any given time. This is of course what the great religious sages did; they brought new understanding to their time and place.

Our lives are riddled with paradoxes. How often have we heard the following statements? “I am surrounded by people and yet I am lonely” “My life is so full of choices, that I can’t make a decision about anything” or on the more optimistic end of the scale “I am skint and yet I am happy” or “I have so much, because I have so little”

The wisdom of paradox challenges our desire for certainty and perfection. The only thing that I know for certain is that my body will not last forever. We humans though do not like to believe this we like to think that we are all powerful and all knowable. We homo-sapiens may well be wise men, but we are not God. The book “The Spirituality of Imperfection” by Ernest Kurtz & Katherine Ketcham, which was based around the authors work with alcoholics (something I personal experience of) recognises that our attempts to achieve perfection have been our most tragic mistake. It highlights that one of the central theme of the spiritual traditions is the insistence that honesty, particularly honesty with self about self, is an essential requirement for any religious quest; that the greatest and most insidious dishonesty is to deny or refuse to accept our mixed human nature. We are not saints, nor are we sinners. We possess qualities of great goodness as well as the capacity to do great evil within us.

I suspect that many of the troubles of modern living are a direct result of our demands for perfection not only from ourselves but others too. We do not have to be perfectly self actualised human beings. We do not have to surmount every obstacle alone. We need one another. Most of my spiritual experiences have been in those moments when I have given of myself to others, without the expectation of receiving anything in return; or when I have received wholeheartedly from others, when they have wanted nothing in return. You see the truth is that in these deeply religious acts, both are givers and both are receivers.

For much of my life, sadly, I could not allow this. It only began to happen following a complete breakdown and the discovery that I could no longer rely solely on my own resources and ingenuity. From there I was opened up and was able to truly ask for help and guess what, it was there. The help came from two very loving and open sources; one a little boy who had not yet learnt to guard against the pain that accompanies love and the other from people who had managed to rebuild their lives having been completely broken themselves.

I was reminded of this, once again, only last week. Ethan would have been 11 years old. On the day of his birthday I went to his grave with a card which I wrapped in cellophane and I remembered all he had given me, by just being himself. I saw his father on the way to the cemetery; he was pushing his lovely baby daughter along the road on his way home, she had a look of her brother. We stopped and we talked for a while and then we parted and went our separate ways.

Looking back at what happened all those years ago my one overpowering memory was the response of the community towards this family in the midst of tragedy. How they were held so lovingly.  They gave and they received, in the midst of terrible loss and agony.

Life can be so bittersweet at times. I have learned, through growing from my own brokenness and pain how much I need other people and how much I need God. I need that power that is greater than all, but present in each. I need to be in community with others to attain this. It will never take away the pain that is in life, but it certainly keeps me open to life’s joys.

I do not believe that it is better to give than to receive, because I have discovered that it is in the very act of giving that we all receive. In the end it turns out that the giver is in fact the receiver and the receiver is the giver.