Step Into the Twilight Zone: Finding the Courage to Be

Have you ever got the lyrics of a pop song wrong, been singing the wrong lyrics for years. I have and I have heard of many hilarious examples of others too. One that I have only realised I have been singing wrongly to myself for forty years is “Twilight World” by “Swing Out Sister”. I have always known it as “Twilight Zone”. This is why when I searched it this week on Google, it didn’t immediately appear. Here’s the chorus

Don't be fooled by love songs and lonely hearts
You're living in a twilight world
Don't be fooled by love songs and lonely hearts
Don't give in to the twilight world

So not “Twilight Zone”, but “Twilight World”, it gives the song a very different meaning. Hopefully things will become clearer as the lights come on. Oh, by the way I love the phrase “Swing out sister”, which I have used for many years.

Sometimes life can feel a little like you are living in an episode of the “Twilight Zone” or “Alfred Hitchcock Present” or a personal favourite “Tales of the Unexpected”, programs that are repeated on “Sky Arts”. Or more contemporary versions such as “The X Files”, “American Gothic”, “The Outer Limits”, “Inside Number 9”, “Black Mirror”, or perhaps “Stranger Things”

And if I only could
I'd make a deal with God
And I'd get Him to swap our places
Be runnin' up that road
Be runnin' up that hill
Be runnin' up that building
Say, if I only could, oh

“Stranger Things” indeed!

I felt like I was in an Alfred Hitchcock movie the other evening. A friend had come round. After a while I noticed some crows from my window. They were making quite a racket; it was quite disturbing. Molly was certainly agitated. I said to my friend, it feels a bit like that Hitchcock movie “The Birds”, it was strangely disturbing. After a while Molly got really agitated and began barking at the door. I calmed her down, but she wasn’t happy. My friend eventually left, as he did Molly shot outside with him. There by the door was a crow. Molly investigated but didn’t attack it. It wandered into the garden whilst the other crows squawked and flew around. I directed Molly inside and my friend stood around. As he did the largest crow swooped down, pecked at his head and flew off. It was obviously attempting to protect its fallen friend. My friend was in a state of shock and bleeding from his scalp. It was quite disturbing. He texted his mother, who he cares for. She was quite upset with him, as she thought he was joking with her. While all this was going on she had been sat at home, with a friend who was taking care of her, they had been watching “The Birds” by Alfred Hitchcock.

“Living in the Twilight Zone”?

My friend is ok. He went for a tetanus injection and was looked over by a doctor and nurse. Both of whom had never heard of such a thing. His mum will not be watching “The Birds” again, but she is ok.

Molly wasn’t her usual self for a few days; she is ok now. On Sunday she did something she had never done before, and it terrified me. After the service on Sunday we walked to John Leigh park, down the back roads. We were meeting her friend Ronnie and my friend. We arrived early and Molly just ran down to the garden area, something she does often. I was talking on my phone and sauntered down the path to the bottom of the park, as if walking round the park. I don’t normally do this, usually we walk into the middle of the park. After a few minutes I called out to Molly, she did not appear. I went looking for her and no sign. I searched and searched and couldn’t find her. my friend arrived with Ronnie, still no sign. Fear then began to take a hold and the whole park was looking for her. I bumped into Jennie Louise who is a dog psychologist, she told me of her dog once doing something similar and that it ended up running all the way home. This though is not as far as Molly’s home. She explained that Molly will probably have re-appeared when she left me, found me not there, caught my scent and probably trotted home. My friend said she would walk the route back to my house, whilst I waited in the park. It was a very long 10 minutes, until my friend rang to tell me that Molly was sat happily waiting on my doorstep.

You can imagine the relief. I don’t think I’ve hugged anyone like I hugged Jennie and then I set off home so grateful and so full of relief. All was well.

It did show me the power fear. Life has settled down since, although I was exhausted by it all on Monday. A feeling that I have been feeling for a while. I talked with a few friends, met up with a couple too. That evening, I did something I’ve been thinking of doing for some time. I joined in with a choir, at the town hall. I had heard them singing a couple of weeks before. I joined some 60 people I didn’t know. They made me feel very welcome. I was quiet at first, but soon got into the spirit. I even knew one of the singers who took me under his wing. It was just what my heart desired. I was laughing about it the next morning with Rob, especially at some of the “luvvie’s” present, to which he said something like. Well in a few weeks you’ll be the biggest luvvie of them all.” He is no doubt right. Once I feel comfortable and find my voice, I will be flying. It was certainly what my soul needed as I found my bliss; as I found the courage to be truly me. Courage and the love at its heart will always transform fear.

Looking back I have felt at times like I’ve been living in “The Twilight Zone”, a place I do not wish to step into again. It also left me thinking about horror and thriller movies, why we watch them. I suspect it is rooted in this fascination with have with fear. I have also been looking at the birds around the house a little more closely. They are lovely and they sing the most beautiful songs and yet as I witnessed on Thursday they can turn when under threat.

Have you seen the film “The Birds”? It is a classic 1960’s horror/thriller directed by the great Alfred Hitchcock and loosely based on a story by Daphne du Maurier. The film is set in a Californian seaside town that is suddenly, and for reason never explained, the subject of a series of widespread and violent bird attacks; a terrifying film in its day that no doubt instilled a fear of birds into a whole generation. Hitchcock truly was the master of the suspense thriller; he knew how to tap into that fear that lurks within us all. I know as a child there were many films that tapped into the fear in me.

Fear has the power to inhibit but it also has the power of allure. I remember those terrifying public information broadcasts from the 1970’s, images that still stay with me, about the dangers of railway lines, and electric pylons and of course “Lonely Water”, with the terrifying voice on Donald Pleasence. Not that we headed the dangers, in many ways it kind of made them more enchanting for me and my friends. When I think of the more exciting childhood memories they were all laced with danger. I also remember a collection of “video nasty’s” that my stepdad must have got a hold of and of finding them and watching them and the waking nightmares and terrors that I suffered as a result. I was far too young to be watching such things.

The cinematic childhood memory that haunted me the most though was a Saturday night episode of “Hammer House of Horror”. It was a werewolf tale that vividly remains within my psyche. The image that had the greatest impact was of the beast at the window in the black of night and the person turning round and it being in the room with them. This was etched on my memory for years and to such an extent that I never dared look out through the glass of my room after dark. Even to this day there is a part of me that feels nervous if I look through “glass darkly”. A feeling re-felt with those crows the other evening.

There is a power and an allure in fear. It is something everyone experiences. It can overtake the rational mind and many exploit it in others. A feeling that seems to intensify in this age of muti-media and instant 24 hour rolling news. There are forces that feed fear and paranoia in folk, a power that at times can control people’s lives, beyond all reason. It can cause deep distrust and keep people penned in at home and paralysed.

Fear comes in many forms. We need not fear fear in and of itself. It is a vital part of our make-up, of our animal heart. It sets the pulse racing and heightens our awareness. Fright is a vital instinct. It points to danger; it’s a warning signal. That said there are other forms of fear which are not so useful. Perhaps the most debilitating of all is dread.

Dread and other forms of debilitating fear can overwhelm us and lead to crippling forms of anxiety which can inhibit us from simply living and being. When we are overcome by such emotions everything can appear bleak; our senses become dulled; it drains all the colour and taste from life. This leads to us projecting our anxiety and worry onto everything that we do in life; it takes the very life out of living and leads to abject misery. It drags us into pits of depression and traps us in the very things that we believe protect us from present dangers. As a result, we go deeper into ourselves and get lost and trapped in our black holes of doom and gloom. It can be very difficult to find our way out of these states of being. It sucks the life out of us and stops us being who we really are, all that we can be.

So how do we overcome the power of this debilitating fear? How do we find the courage just to be? Something I experienced once again on Monday.

Well I have discovered that it is not complicated. All it takes is just a little faith and a little love to create the courage just be. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Which of course it is, but it is far from easy.

This brings to mind a verse from one of my favourite hymns, that we sang earlier, “Others call it God”

The verse goes like this...

“A picket frozen on duty,
A mother starved for her brood,
And Socrates drinking hemlock,
And Jesus on the rood;
An millions, who though nameless,
The straight, hard pathway trod –
Some call it consecration,
And others call it God.”

The straight hard pathway of faith is not easy, but it is well trod.

The images depicted in this verse are of characters who had the courage to do what they believed they were there to do, whether a picket on duty, or a mother looking after her children or the likes of Jesus and Socrates who were willing to sacrifice their lives for love or truth...inspirations to me, inspirations to us all, inspirations that still sing to us down two millenniums or more.

Socrates was charged by the Athenian council with “corrupting the minds of the young, and of believing in deities of his own invention instead of the gods recognised by the state.”

He courageously contested the charges against him, but ultimately lost and as a result was condemned to die. He accepted the judgement of his peers, while responding with these immortal words “The difficulty is not so much to escape death...The real difficulty is to escape from doing wrong, which is far more fleet of foot.”

He did not fear death because he felt that it would take nothing from him of value. As he said to the court “I have never lived an ordinary life...I did not care for the things that most people care about – making money, having a comfortable home, high military or social rank.” Neither did he fear what death would bring which he saw as either the sweetest sleep or a journey to a better place, a place of justice. As he proclaimed, “nothing can harm a good man either in life or after death.”

Socrates would rather have surrendered his life, than his integrity. Both in life, as in death, he perfectly illustrated the courage to be. He had the integrity and therefore courage to say, “I have a more sincere belief than any of my accusers, and I leave to you and to God to judge me as it shall be best for me and for yourselves.”

“Jesus on the rood” (Jesus on the cross) like “Socrates drinking hemlock” is another incredible example of someone living out the courage to be. This is truly an example and beacon to us all. He was not immune from fear though. He experienced fear and doubt at the very end, as he hung dying on the cross. Who wouldn’t? In the Gospel accounts of his life, he rarely quoted scripture, but at this moment he did. That said he did not quote the comforting 23rd Psalm “I shall walk through the valley of the shadow of death and fear no evil for thou are with me”. No, instead he quoted the much starker 22nd Psalm “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me?” He did not quote the comforting words “My cup runneth over”, instead he cried out “I thirst”.

Some might say where is the courage here? Well, it is in what comes next, as he utters “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” In these words, lies the essence of his message of radical love. For Socrates integrity gave him the strength to be; whereas for Jesus it was love; the love of God and the love of neighbour as for self. He surrendered himself utterly to his purpose and to his God as he uttered those immortal words “Father, I commend my life unto thy spirit.”

This is where we find the courage to truly be, to overcome the power of unnatural fear, through living in and through love, truth and integrity. Love will always overcome fear; love will always enable us to find the courage to truly be all that we can be. Again as the verse depicts, it is love that enabled the picket to stand in the freezing cold, to stand up for what they believed in; it is love that motivated the mother to sacrifice herself for her children; it is love that enabled both Jesus and Socrates to make their ultimate sacrifices.

We will always know the emotion of fear; we will always feel fear. We need it, fear is a natural instinct. That said we need not be enslaved by it. We need not fear the crows perched above us. To be free all we need do is live in integrity, live in love and the courage to simply be will shine, from our very being. In doing so not only do we liberate ourselves, but we will become a light to others who in turn may be inspired to liberate themselves and others too.

Let love and truth show us the way to be all that we can be.

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

What's in a name?

An occasional visitor to the area asked me the other day “if I knew Cornelius?”. My answer was no I don’t know anyone by that name. He told me that Cornelius knew me really well. I wracked my brain, surely I would remember someone called Cornelius. He described him and where I knew him from, but still I could not place him. I began to wonder if I was losing my mind. The next day I was talking with the visitor again and Cornelius arrived, he introduced himself to folk, “hi my name is Bernard”. I have known Bernard for many years. Apparently, Cornelius is his middle name, but that was the part that the occasional visitor could remember, not his actual name.

It has had me chuckling to myself ever since, it also got me thinking.

What’s in a name? Names are important it seems. There is a power in naming people, places and things; a power that should never be under estimated. There is a power in naming anything, not just our personal names but our lives, who and what we are.

My older brother was named after our dad and his dad, our grandad. He was named Billy (short for William) at birth. I am told I was to be called David, although my paternal grandfather wanted to name me Harry after his beloved brother who had died as a young boy, my mum didn’t like the name though. We could have been William and Harry, I am glad we are not. In the end I was called Danny, because it went with Billy apparently and David didn’t. My full name is of course Daniel David, although I have never been called this, certainly never within the family. Interestingly my brother renamed himself some 20 odd years ago and is now called Otis Wolstenholme; Wolstenholme being my mum’s maiden name.

Many people do not go by the name on their birth certificates, not just musicians like our Otis. I remember many years ago attempting to visit Molly Clarke at Wythenshawe hospital and being told there was no one by that name there. I had to think quickly and remembered somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind that Molly was not Molly at all, but had another name. Sadly I couldn’t remember it. Her birth name was Enid Mary, she had though always been called Molly.

Naming can be a tricky business. Names describe things, but never fully a person or situation or thing. As Paul Tillich said, “That which reveals, also hides”. I suspect it is true with naming of things. As Justin Sullivan sang “Trouble always begins in the naming of things. Like Gods and desires, lines in the sand.” People change their names for a variety of reasons. Folk adopt stage names. Sometimes in naming things, we close and seal them. I have been known by other names like “Dan Denver” and even “Mr Jolly” (although in truth that was the name of the band, not me) a friend use to call me “Danny Darko”. In the Christian tradition people often take on conformation names. There are many other reasons too. Company’s, political parties, even places and sports teams change their names for a variety reasons, often in an attempt to rebrand something.

As Daniel C. Matt wrote in “God and the Big Bang”

“We need names to navigate through life, but those very names obscure the flowing continuum. Behind each handy name is a teeming reality that resists our neat definitions. If this is true of the names we assign to the hundreds of thousands of things of this world, how much more so with our names for God, for the Oneness of it all.”

It seems we are nothing without a name. Well actually not always it seems. Some of the most memorable characters in cinema history had no name. Such as Clint Eastwood’s character in the Serge Leone’s Spaghetti Western Trilogy, “The Man With No name”, or Sam Elliott’s character in “The Big Lebowski”, who was simply known as “The Stranger”, or Charlie Chaplin’s “The Little Tramp”, he had no name. Or “The Doctor” in Dr Who, Who is not the Dr’s name, Dr Who is the name of the series, he and now she is simply named “The Doctor”, the character though remains unnamed. Or “Fleabag”, in the series by Sophie Waller-Bridge who is not named, she is just known as “Fleabag”.

Most of us have a name though, we are known by our names. When we introduce ourselves we usually say, “hello my name is …” Our names are one way of connecting to others face to face.

We hopefully remember the persons name, although not always. I sometimes find myself wracking my brain trying to remember people’s names. I am not quite as bad as the guy who kept on referring to Bernard as Cornelius, but I am not great.

There can be other types of calling people by one word names that are less than connecting and inviting, they can be quite the opposite. I am not going to name such names here, but I am sure we can all think of some. They are often powerful words used to exclude people and make them feel somehow less than welcome. Such words deny the inherent worth and dignity of people, they reduce them to lesser people, or they try to. I am sure we can all recall such words and name calling.

Everything is know or named after something. Our congregation is a member of the General Assembly of Unitarian of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches. Now many ask “Unitarian! What is that?” Cliff Reid even wrote a marvellous book about it.

Unitarian originally meant “One God” as opposed to the three headed God of the Trinity in mainstream Christianity. These days most Unitarians are not overly concerned about this, the word Unitarian has lost its literal meaning for most of us. As historian Earl Morse Wilber explains: “The word Unitarian means freedom in religious belief and a trust that reason must guide our religious thought and action, and a conviction that tolerance, the cherishing of difference of opinion, is a good thing.”

The be Unitarian to me is about being open and accepting of difference, at its core is a sense of humility that keeps us open to new truths, each of us can only know so much, further understanding is aided by coming together and sharing, by so doing each of us gain so much. Tolerance and love though must also be guiding principles, as others may come to other conclusions and understandings and love, in its many forms is what finally holds us together. Actually I am not sure that tolerance is quite enough, I have come to believe that we need to celebrate difference and not just merely tolerate it.

So we name things, as we understand them, but this is often where the trouble begins, as the naming can create barriers that separate us from one another. This is particularly true when it comes to matters of faith and belief. Our Unitarian tradition gives us complete freedom here. So please remember that when I speak of God, I may not be speaking of the Divine in exactly the same way that you understand. God for me is a very open and inviting word.

I love the way that Forrest Church addressed this in “The Cathedral of the World: A Universalist Thelogy”

“God language can tie people into knots, of course. In part, that is because ‘God’ is not God's name. Referring to the highest power we can imagine, ‘God’ is our name for that which is greater than all and yet present in each. For some the highest imaginable power will be a petty and angry tribal baron ensconced high above the clouds on a golden throne, visiting punishment on all who don't believe in him. But for others, the highest power is love, goodness, justice, or the spirit of life itself. Each of us projects our limited experience on a cosmic screen in letters as big as our minds can fashion. For those whose vision is constricted (illiberal, narrow-minded people), this can have horrific consequences. But others respond to the munificence of creation with broad imagination and sympathy. Answering to the highest and best within and beyond themselves, they draw lessons and fathom meaning so redemptive that surely it touches the divine.”

It can be difficult to speak of the Divine in any sense that keeps us open, trouble always begins in the naming of things. This brings to mind good old Moses in Exodus. The book depicts him fleeing Egypt to escape the consequences of killing a slave driver. He takes up the quiet life of a shepherd. One day he finds himself alone in the mountains, when a bush burst into flames. A voice tells him to shake off his shoes for he stands on holy ground, he realises he is in the presence of God. God had seen the sufferings of the Israelites and told Moses to go to Egypt and plead with the Pharaoh to let the Israelites go. Moses wondered why the Israelites would follow him, of all people, and so he asked for a sign, a name that would give him credibility with them. God responded, “I AM WHO I AM.” Here God has no name.

We are known by our names, everything is known by its name, but here God has no name, like the mysterious stranger in “The Big Lebowski”. This God is beyond limit and definition, beyond being named, beyond our limited understanding. We cannot confine God by our limited minds.

We can though find ourselves in a holy place, on holy ground and thus know the presence of the divine love. How do we do this, by blessing life with our holy presence, by being open to all that life is. In so doing we will surely know the love that is divine. We will surely be known by our true names.

So, what’s in a name? Well maybe this is something to think about as we enjoy this summer. Why are you called by your name? What other names, nouns and pro-nouns describe who you are? What does it mean to you to be a member of this congregation? What does it mean in a wider context? How do you live out who and what you are? How can we live as if all ground was holy ground? How do we bless one another and life with our holy presence?

What’s in a name indeed.

Below is a video devotion based 

on the material in this "blogspot"

Troubles With God: Wrestling With My Soul

Last Saturday night I was watching the Denmark Finland game , at the European Football Championship. I am one of those people who will watch pretty much any sport and love these big tournaments. It was a pretty ordinary game until something suddenly happened towards the end of the first half. I thought at first that someone must have suffered a head injury as several of the Danish players surrounded their playmaker Christian Ericson. It suddenly became clear that something serious was going on. The Danish captain Simon Kjaer (pronouced care) acted decisively and while it is no doubt that the medics saved Christian’s life the action of Kjaer had a big impact too. He gave him instant first aid in the first crucial seconds. He placed him in the correct position, held his tongue, got the players to surround him and create a human shield around their ailing teammate, to protect him from flash cameras and shocking headlines being spread around the world, while the medics attempted to get his heart going again, Christian had suffered a cardiac arrest. Once the medical team had put a curtain around him Kjaer went to the side of the pitch to console Ericson’s partner, who was beside herself. I cannot begin to imagine the distress she must have been in. I know how distressed I was watching and no doubt the millions of others watching all over the world.

Thankfully, due to the brilliant work of the medical team, within the stadium, and his captain Kjaer and teammates Christian Ericson his alive and recovering in hospital. Later that evening the players returned to the field and resumed the game. They showed remarkable courage, sadly they lost the game. I am sure that their hearts were not completely in it. They showed remarkable courage in my eyes to do so, although I believe it was too much to ask them to do so. As well as Kjaer I was particularly touched by the actions of the Danish goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel who spent time consoling players from both sides and many others, as they returned to the pitch. He must have been drained of all emotion and no doubt it affected his game. That said there was something of greater importance at work that night. Sometimes there are greater sacrifices to make.

Now like so many people around the world I was deeply moved by these events that I witnessed. It took me out of my own personal troubles, as it did for millions of people throughout the world; the world found itself wishing this young man and his loved ones well. You could almost feel the outpouring of love in the air.

As the game restarted, there was initially one or two technical issues with the BBC commentary, but after a few moments the commentator Jonathan Pearce began to speak, he seemed to catch the mood of the moment beautifully, his words touched me deep in my heart and soul, as he was introduced by the presenter and former England striker and captain Gary Lineker. Pearce said:

“Thank you Gary. The images of Kasper Schmeichel embracing the opposition players from Finland, so full of emotion, will stay with me for a long time.” He continued “I am not a religious person but seeing the messages flood in for Christian Eriksen from footballers like Marcus Rashford and Jesse Lingard and so many of you out there, I am sure somehow must have played a part.”

The next day I heard another favourite football podcaster state “I am not a religious person in any way, but I found myself praying for Christian Eriksen”, so many others were too, so much love, so much care, so much emotion and thanks to the amazing medical people working swiftly Erickson is recovering well. It showed humanity at its best, as that incredible spirit came alive and worked though us all.

As a world we have been through so much this last year or more and it is far from over. We have been living in a kind of crisis state really. People have generally stepped up to the plate and done what they can to care. No doubt we are inspired by so many different things; no doubt we make sense of what inspires us in different ways. Some inspired by love, others by God. Some offer best wishes and others perhaps pray. No doubt we all struggle at times to explain what exactly it is that inspires us and also keeps us going, what gives us the courage to go on in times of trouble. I found it interesting that the football commentator and podcaster both felt that they must state that they are not in any way a religious person and yet they both talked about prayer and a spirit at work; that not only was visible help at work during this time, but also some form of invisible, inexplicable help at work too. Whether that be prayer, or just offering blessings to one another. It all helps. That’s why I’m a great believer in offering blessing to one another as much as we can. I need it, we all do. The power of love runs deep, we can all feel it. Some of us call it God, others prefer to give it another name.

Brings to mind the line from the hymn “Some call it consecration, and others call it God”

Both Jonathan Pearce and the podcaster wanted to make it clear that they were not religious and yet they expressed a sense of spirit at work. It brought to mind a word I had recently come across on “Grandiloquent: word of the Day”. The word “Nullifidian” (pronounced nuhl-uh-FID-ee-uhn) meaning “one who is unhindered by religious ideology” from “nullus” meaning none and “fides”, meaning faith. Not necessarily an atheist, but then someone not tied down, fettered by a belief or tradition. I think there are more and more people like this in the world today. They call them “nones” as in none affiliated. They don’t necessarily reject all spiritual matters, but cannot subscribe to tenets of a particular traditions. I suspect many of them could well find a home among we Unitarians. They are the reason there is so much work as a celebrant for the likes of Sue.

On Wednesday morning I drove to the chapel, I had a few things on my mind and was struggling with putting these thoughts together. As I arrived, I noticed a man wandering around the gardens. He looked a little lost. I made my way to the vestry and was just sorting out my laptop before going to the gym for my daily exercise. There was a knock on the door and there stood this man. He had piece of paper in his hand and said he was looking for an AA meeting. He was seeking help and I was able to offer my time to him. So we sat in the garden and talked. Well, he talked and I listened. I directed him to where and when the meetings were. He then began to ask me about Unitarians, “asking what are we exactly?, compared to Methodism and C of E or Roman Catholics.” He told me he had been Christened and confirmed as a Methodist. I tried to explain how we are an open tradition, that we don’t make statements of belief that members must subscribe to, that those who come here come to their own truth in matters of faith and belief, but that we congregate together in a spirit of love. He looked at me a little puzzled and then left, telling me he would see me at the meeting in the morning. By the way he did.

I have been pondering that conversation since, as well as other attempts to speak of spiritual matters, of faith and belief and personal spiritual experience. Language has its limits, the words we use can hardly explain exactly what we as individuals experience. There is a gap between experience, process, articulation and receiving of words depicting the experience. By the time we put it into words the experience has already been reduced greatly.

The great twentieth century theologian Paul Tillich had an interesting take on the limit of language to describe one’s faith. He claimed that whatever reveals “Ultimate Reality” also hides it. I think it applies to all aspects of truth. Whatever we do to communicate truth will reveal aspects of it, but not fully. I’m not sure it is possible for any of us see the light of truth absolutely, we always see it through lenses. We never see anything absolutely and as soon as we attempt to articulate the meaning something gets lost in translation. We understand things through the lens of our culture and upbringing and we communicate it through this even more so. It is important to remember this. It certainly humbles me. I know from over ten years of ministry that folk do not hear exactly what I am trying to express. Not that this bothers me too much, I love how creative interchange can expand on what is shared as well as reduce its meaning. I love to hear back from others what they experience through what I share. I have had several fascinating conversations with folk following on from what they heard last Sunday. It has been wonderful to listen to. I learn so much from these conversations.

I love these kinds of conversation, when people attempt to wrestle with experience and belief. They are wonderful things to wrestle with. Folk have been doing so since humanity gained consciousness no doubt. I love to see others engage and wrestle too, to give in and surrender and wrestle again. Every time a person doe, they are blessed by the struggle.

Now I say I usually enjoy such conversations, but sometimes I do not. Why don’t I sometimes enjoy them, you may well ask? Well because sometimes they do not go anywhere. It is very difficult to engage in these kind of conversations with people whose minds and hearts are snapped shut. It’s that old hubris thing again, some people seem so certain about things. What troubles me about fundamentalists whether of religion or atheism is that they seem to want to reduce God. When they talk of God they talk of something almost human or something a bit more than human. They seem to reduce life down to some kind of mathematical equation that can either be proven or disproven. The God that such people talk about believing in or not believing in seems so much less than God, I find most of the conversations impossible. They tie people up in knots and this leads to arguments often over minutae. In many ways I am more interested in what people experience more than what they claim to believe and or disbelieve. Our beliefs and dis-beliefs seem oh so limiting. The key is to stay open and share, then listen, then share again.

To key is to struggle, to wrestle, to give in and start all over again, in so doing you will be blessed, at least that is what I’ve discovered. Through struggling you will discover something beautiful and wonderful, even if it is just the power of your open, vulnerable heart.

The key to the spiritual life for me is that it is about putting something other than our own self-centred wants and needs at the core of our lives. The most dissatisfying and dissatisfied lives are the ones that are merely for the good of themselves. If you want to experience the love that is God, you can do so in that space that is created when you give to another from your heart and you receive from another from their heart. For me that is all I need to know about theology, that God once again comes to life when we give ourselves to another and they give back to us in return. I experienced this so wonderfully on Wednesday morning with that lost soul in the gardens at the chapel.

I saw a wonderful example of this last Saturday night in the actions Simon Kjaer, how he responded to his ailing teammate, his fellow players and Christian Ericson’s wife and no doubt many others. This is a man who knew what to do when crisis hit. What did he do, he cared for those around him. Now for many this isn’t a religious act, maybe it is not, but it Is certainly an act of faith, faith in life and humanity itself and it had a powerful impact on me as I know it did on many others too.

Now for me in that space I saw what I understand as God come to life. I cannot prove that to you or anyone else, I don’t need to. The key is not so much what we believe anyway, what is more important is how we act. All we need to do is put self giving love into practise and I guarantee you that that power will change all our lives.

If we do we will bless life and it will bless us too.

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

Living your way into the answers

I have a love for detective stories. My favourite tv programs tend to involve mysteries and detection. As I child I was not a great reader of fiction and yet I loved Agatha Christie. Now don’t get me wrong I did read, just not fiction. I rarely read do even today. Why I am not wholly sure, I know I would benefit from doing so. That said when relaxing I do like to watch detective series, new and old. I’m just as happy watching “Murder She Wrote” as I am watching any of the high tech modern series. I’m just as happy watching Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes as I would be watching “The Code” Last year I fell in love with “The Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries”, which is a modern historical Australian series, set in the inter-war years, a kind of attractive and daring cross between Miss Marple and Jessica Fletcher. I also recently discovered a wonderful board game “Baker Street” based on Sherlock Holmes, myself and Sue had a lot of funny playing this a little while back. There is something in the searching for clues and answers and coming to conclusions that I suspect I love in these books, films and activities. I know I am not alone.

Now the thing I love about all these detective characters is that they pay attention. Yes they look for clues but the key is that they pay attention to the people around them. The classic example of this is of course Miss Marple. The key to her detecting was in her paying of attention and her simple down to earth understanding of people, which she had developed during her time growing up the village of St. Mary Mead. Her gift was to see things in seemingly unique ways and her ability to connect the details and stories together and relate them to people she had known during her long life. She would hear the details of a murder and say something like, “That reminds me of poor Mr or Mrs so and so …” And how this little problem that they had faced or had caused would be related to the murder. Miss Marple paid attention to people. She also paid attention to the world around her, connecting it all together. To me this is the key to spiritual living, to pay attention, to make connections and then to put them into practical application. To not merely ask questions of life but to see the connections. The key was not to merely ask questions and search for answers but to piece it together and live them as a conclusion in life. The key is to do as Rilke suggested “To live the questions” and in so doing you might just live your way into the answers. This is done in our very human and real lives; it is done by paying attention to one another and by paying attention to life.

One of the groups I host is “Living the Questions”. Each month we explore and attempt to bring to life the questions of truly living. It has been a joy and blessing to be part of this these last few years, it has certainly transformed me and I have witnessed this in others too. The inspiration for the group’s title come from a favourite passage from “Letters to a Young Poet” by Rainer Maria Rilke. In it the poet Rilke writes a letter to his protégé the 19 year old cadet and budding poet Franz Xaver Kappus making a beautiful case for the importance of not merely asking questions, but living them, while embracing uncertainty and allowing for the development of intuition.

Rilke wrote:

“I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing, live your way into the answer.”

To me this is what it’s about, to seek and struggle and to live the questions themselves. We need to do more than just ask the questions. You have to live the questions themselves you have to experience them and then somewhere in that struggle an answer may well be revealed, or maybe not. Either way I am convinced that by doing so we will live purposeful lives for the good of all.

If we can learn to not just ask, but live the questions now we might just perhaps one day in the future, almost without noticing it live our way into the answers. This though will only come in and through life itself, through paying attention to all around us, for all life is animated by the same spirit.

Now the one thing we don’t get to choose is what is going on around us. We can’t filter this, however much we try. To live the questions faithfully means paying attention to everything. This means facing not just the beauty of life but its ugliness too and wrestling with all the challenges this brings and then acting in appropriate ways. This is not easy, sometimes it can be deeply painful to face the whole truth of any given situation. You have to do it though if you wish to one day live your way into the answers. As the great twentieth century theologian Paul Tillich wrote “Being religious means asking passionately the questions of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt.”

Now living the questions, in the hope of one day you may live your way into the answers is not merely about logic, its not just about thinking your way into life. Actually if you live purely by your mind, your logic. you can miss so much. To live the question is a form of artful living, it is deeply creative in fact. My favourite detectives, usually the female ones all use intuition and emotion as an element of their questioning. Another favourite of mine is Leroy Jethro Gibbs from NCIS, who always uses his gut. To truly live the questions requires us to live fully in our bodies as much as our logical minds.

We Unitarians can sometimes be accused of being too logical and to disregard our intuition. I do not see this as a fair criticism. Yes we are encouraged to doubt and ask questions, but we are also encouraged to use our whole human experience and not to merely worship the mind as if it were God.

To truly live the questions and thus therefore one day hopefully live our way into the answers requires us to pay attention, to pay attention to everyone and then relate it our own experiences, like Miss Marple did. To find the answers she paid attention to life, to other people and to her own intuition. She lived her way into the answers by merely paying attention.

The problem is that paying attention is not always easy. It is easy to be distracted and sometimes it hurts too much to pay attention. It certainly does for me at times.

I noticed the other morning that I was paying attention. I noticed while sitting in meditation and then listening to others that life was touching me deeply and as a result my mind became clearer. I heard the language of the heart touch me deeply as people spoke and yet at the same time I could hear, clearly hear, all the sounds of life outside. I could hear the traffic, I could hear the dogs barking, I could hear the birds singing and I could hear the rain falling, as I did the words shared penetrated me more deeply. I listened to their questions and as I did I began to live my own and in doing so I knew I was on my way to live my way into the answers. And what is the answer you might ask? Well the answer is to pay attention, pay attention to everything. In so doing you will begin to live your way into the answers.

Accepting this: There is no other place

"Accepting This"

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

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

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

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

We cannot eliminate hunger,
but we can feed each other.
We cannot eliminate loneliness,
but we can hold each other.
We cannot eliminate pain,
but we can live a life
of compassion.

Ultimately,
we are small living things
awakened in the stream,
not gods who carve out rivers.

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

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

—Mark Nepo

One of my favourite places on earth is Crosby Beach. It’s not just vanity by the way, although I do love to stand next the sign that reads Greater Crosby. So maybe a little vanity…Maybe, maybe not…

What I love about Crosby Beach are the 100 identical sculptures, of those 7ft tall figures that go by the title “Another place”. There they stand staring out to sea, perhaps looking for another place, any place but here; these naked, lonely scarecrows staring out into the great big nothing, dreaming of another place.

Have you ever felt like that? I have. I have stood there staring out at into space so many times dreaming of something other than the life I was living. Who does not want to escape when the tides of suffering are coming in?

It’s a common hope, to dream of some other place beyond the life we have, beyond the suffering and pain we can all experience at times, or perhaps to dream of a place away from what can often be seen as the mundane aspects of normal life. We all at times hope for some Heaven, The Promised Land, Nirvana, the perfect life when all are troubles are behind us. It is common to all we humans to dream of some technicolour dream land, our own private Oz…


Someday I'll wish upon a star
Wake up where the clouds are far behind me
Where trouble melts like lemon drops
High above the chimney top
That's where you'll find me

Oh, somewhere over the rainbow bluebirds fly
And the dream that you dare to,
Oh why, oh why can't I?

Yes it’s such a common desire to dream of some other place beyond our current life. It’s dangerous though. Remember those words sung by Dorothy in the 1939 film “The Wizard of Oz”, brought with them the Tornado and none of us want that. As I have often heard, “be careful what you pray for.”

Dorothy dreamed of another place somewhere over the rainbow, a place away from dull, grey, flat Kansas. Is there another place that we dream about, that we Hope for, a Heaven, a Nirvana? Who knows? I don’t. Nobody knows.

This is not how it is meant to be. It is a waste of this precious gift that is our finite human lives, to wish it away. We are not meant to live our lives dreaming of another place, a place beyond this life. Our task, I have come to believe is to create heaven here and it begins within each and every one of us. I much prefer to follow that simple message in the “Sermon on the Mount”, to become the light of the world. To create the Kingdom, the kin-dom of love, right here, right now. We are here to bring alive the light within us, to hold one another, to live in love.

We bring heaven alive through our loving living or we create Hell by fearing one another, fearing life, turning away and dreaming of some other place, somewhere over the rainbow, somewhere beyond this life. Why do we waste our days wishing our lives away?

“Another Place” contains 100 identical figures all placed in different parts of Crosby beach. Some are way out to sea and some close to edge of the beach, almost on land. They disappear as the tide comes in and eventually all are consumed by the sea. None can hold back the tide, they are always overcome by it. The sea is a powerful force, a power far greater than our singular human selves. Every single one of those statues is eventually overwhelmed by the sea. They teach me a lesson in humility.


Oh how I love the sea.


I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I love to go to the sea from time to time. Sometimes I hear it calling powerfully to me. It’s a song I hear singing in my heart. I hear it with the ears of my heart. Now what it is that I love so much I am not entirely sure, I cannot tell. Only my heart knows and I have not yet fully perfected the language of heart. Yes I hear it, but I cannot yet adequately put it into words. I am trying.

My love probably has something to do with the vastness of it. Like King Canute I am humbled by the sea. I know it is a power far greater than little old me, but it is more than that, I also find it deeply connective too. While the waves move individually, the sea moves as one. The sea speaks powerfully to me about the spiritual nature of life, both personally and communally.

Like Nepo said

Ultimately,
we are small living things
awakened in the stream,
not gods who carve out rivers.

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

I am not alone in being overwhelmed by the sea's power, thank God. Frederick Buechner in his beautiful meditation titled “Tears” wrote the following about the great twentieth century theologian Paul Tillich

“Tears” by Frederick Buechner

"They say that whenever the great Protestant theologian Paul Tillich went to the beach, he would pile up a mound of sand and sit on it gazing out at the ocean with tears running down his cheeks. One wonders what there was about it that moved him so.

The beauty and the power of it? The inexpressible mystery of it? The futility of all those waves endlessly flowing in and ebbing out again? The sense that it was out of the ocean that life originally came and that when life finally ends, it is the ocean that will still remain? Who knows? . . .

Maybe it was when he looked at the ocean that he caught a glimpse of the One he was praying to. Maybe what made him weep was how vast and overwhelming it was and yet at the same time as near as the breath of it in his nostrils, as salty as his own tears."

...I think I get it...

I feel fully human when I open my senses to the sea, it humbles and connects me to life. It reminds me that I am not God and yet that mysterious power is very close at hand. God is with us, in us, running through us. We swim in a sea of love, in the waters of life.

I bow before the majesty of it all. It truly humbles me. I bow before life, before the waters of life. I bow before the ground of all being of which I am a part of. I am human and I am finite. In accepting this I see I am a part of life and I can live my life as one fish swimming in the ocean of life. I suspect that is what it means to live in heaven. Heaven on earth. This is what it means to choose life in all its blessings and curses. It is to be at home in the earth or the sea in which you find yourself, to be truly present in your being, to truly belong here and live in the time and space you find yourself and to serve the life in and around you.

A pretty picture you might think, but is this just a dream? How do we do this? How do we serve the life we find ourselves in? How do we begin to swim in that sea? How do we begin to create that kin-dom of love right here right now? Is this just another’s dream?

Well we can’t simply transcend suffering, ours or other peoples. I don’t think we are meant to. Pain, as much as joy is something we live with. We have to let life sink into our very human being…

“Come with me on a journey under the skin, oh come with me on a journey under the skin…All you’ve gotta do, all you’ve gotta do, all you’ve gotta do is surrender…surrender…surrender…

I love “The Waterboys”

We have to sink into the ground at our feet, surrender the ground of all being. To begin where we find ourselves, start close in…in the earth, the hummus, be fully human. Simple but far from easy…

We seem to be living in very troubling times. We see this clearly when we look nationally and globally, but also when we look close at hand. It’s been a long hard winter in the congregations I serve, we have lost several people after long illnesses. It’s been a difficult time within my own family. My step brother Daniel, the son of my mum’s husband took his own life last week, ripping a deep hole in my family. As I stand here now I feel the pain of so many people I love deeply, within my family and my communities. We cannot escape this suffering and I cannot take away the pain of my loved ones, as much as I want to. Gosh if I could only perform miracles but I cannot. Ministry truly humbles me and so it should. I cannot take anyone’s burden from them, but I can walk with them and be with them in their pain and of course their joy and celebration, the blessings and curses of “choosing life”.

To repeat those beautiful by Mark Nepo

We cannot eliminate hunger,
but we can feed each other.
We cannot eliminate loneliness,
but we can hold each other.
We cannot eliminate pain,
but we can live a life
of compassion.

I have spent much of this winter and early spring standing with people as we held each other. Last Wednesday I stood with two of my sisters and we held each other tight, broken with tears rolling down our cheeks.

As individual people we cannot end suffering, but we can do small little things. This is how we create that kin-dom of love. Didn’t Jesus say it begins with the little things, the mustard seed?

David Whyte, formed in the same soil of West Yorkshire I was formed in, only with an Irish soul, in his wonderful poem, talked about starting close in. This is how we begin the courageous conversation as he called it, this is how we begin to live, to create that kin-dom of love right here right now. Through the authentic, the courageous conversation, we dwell in our own being and connect with all of life…but it begins close in with the first step.


“Start close in” by David Whyte

Start close in,
don’t take the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step
you don’t want to take.

Start with
the ground
you know,
the pale ground
beneath your feet,
your own
way of starting
the conversation.

Start with your own
question,
give up on other
people’s questions,
don’t let them
smother something
simple.

To find
another’s voice,
follow
your own voice,
wait until
that voice
becomes a
private ear
listening
to another.

Start right now
take a small step
you can call your own
don’t follow
someone else’s
heroics, be humble
and focused,
start close in,
don’t mistake
that other
for your own.

Start close in,
don’t take
the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step
you don’t want to take.

By David Whyte in, “River Flow: New and Selected Poems”

We cannot take away the pain of the world, it’s not our task, but we can humbly walk with one another. Again to repeat those words by Mark Nepo, from his poem “Accepting This”

We cannot eliminate hunger,
but we can feed each other.
We cannot eliminate loneliness,
but we can hold each other.
We cannot eliminate pain,
but we can live a life
of compassion.

“Accepting this” is a poem that touches the soul of me so deeply. Yes we are small things, but we are significant and we are living things, who truly are awakened when we swim in the stream, in the water of life. No we are not God but we can be enlightened by that spirit and experience meaning. We can know what it is to be fully alive, we just have to let that water flow through the gill of our hearts. We do not need to wish for some other place or even travel to some other place. We just need to accept the reality of our beautiful and finite humanity and we can do anything and truly go anywhere. If we take care of these small things we may just begin to build that kin-dom of love right here right now.

So let’s stop dreaming of some other place, somewhere over the rainbow, let’s instead inhabit the ground at our feet, let’s open the gills of our hearts and swim in the water of life and let’s build a land where we’ll bind up the broken, walk hand in hand and hold one another tight…

This is heaven on earth…All is well…All is well…All is well…

The limits of language: That which reveals also hides

The following is taken from “The Cathedral of The World: A Universalist Theology” pp 10-11 by Forrest Church

Above all else, contemplate the windows. In the Cathedral of the World there are windows beyond number, some long forgotten, covered with many patinas of grime, others revered by millions, the most sacred of shrines. Each in its own way is beautiful. Some are abstract, others representational; some dark and meditative, others bright and dazzling. Each window tells a story about the creation of the world, the meaning of history, the purpose of life, the nature of humankind, the mystery of death. The windows of the cathedral are where the light shines through.

Because the cathedral is so vast, our life so short, and our vision so dim, over the course of our pilgrimage we are able to contemplate only a bit of the cathedral, explore a few apses, reflect on the play of light and darkness through a few of its myriad windows. Yet by pondering and acting on our ruminations, we discover insights that will invest our days with meaning.

A twenty-first-century theology based on the concept of one light and many windows offers to its adherents both breadth and focus. Honouring multiple religious approaches, it only excludes the truth claims of absolutists. This is because fundamentalists claim that the light shines through their window only. Some, as we know from painful experience, go so far as to beseech their followers to throw stones through other people’s windows.

Skeptics draw the opposite conclusion. Seeing the bewildering variety of windows and observing the folly of the worshippers, they conclude that there is no light. But the windows are not the light. They are where the light shines through.

We shall never see the light directly, only as refracted through the windows of the cathedral. Prompting humility, life’s mystery lies hidden. The light is veiled. Yet, being halfway in size between the creation itself and our body’s smallest constituent part, that we can encompass with our minds the universe that encompasses us is a cause for great wonder. Awakened by the light, we stand in the cathedral, trembling with awe.

Some people have trouble believing in a God who looks into any eyes but theirs. Others have trouble believing in a God they cannot see. But that none of us can look directly into God’s eyes certainly doesn’t mean God isn’t there, mysterious, unknowable, gazing into ours through the windows of the Cathedral of the World”

...The above extract from Forrest Church's "The Cathedral of the World" puts beautifully into words my own understanding of my own universalism...Or at least it sheds a little light on it (Tee, hee, hee)

Each Sunday I attempt to communicate with with the beautiful people I serve, through the worship I create and lead. It does not come easy, sometimes I really struggle and I am never wholly satisfied with what comes out of my mouth. I can never put into words exactly what I am attempting to share and I know that it is never fully received from those who are engaged in this creative interchange. It is a challenge to find the right words, to touch the hard to reach places, to truly articulate the language of the heart.

It is the same when sitting with those who are suffering. To offer comfort in such times is impossible. All any of us can really do is be with one another. Prayer helps. I often use an adaption of the fear prayer “God please remove my fear and direct my attention to what you would have me be.” I’m not so much asking what to do, that can be tough to discern, but how to be is a whole different matter. I know how to be. I need to open my heart and hold space for others to be. The heaet transcends language.

People are often asked how do you feel? In reality it’s a difficult question to articulate, to put into words. Words are limited, they can never fully describe a feeling. Actually if truth be known when we communicate face to face we do not do so with only the words coming from our mouths. If you are anything like me, it will be written all over your face and in your body.

That said words are our primary form of communication, whether written or spoken. It is how we attempt to explain and pass on something. As soon as we do though we are already reducing the meaning of what we are articulating. Yes people can relate, but they cannot experience exactly what another person has or does experience. If you don’t believe me go and ask a friend to look out of window with you and describe what they see. I will bet you anything that what you share will not be exactly the same.

Now of course some communication is intuitive, some people are better at connecting than others this way. There are some people that we connect with on this level easier than with others too. There are people in my life who have and I do connect and communicate with on a deeper heart level, way beneath the limits of language and words. As I look back at my life I can remember moments, situations and people for whom words were not required, the connection was and is heart to heart.

There are also times when something happens and you are just completely lost for words. It is ok you know, I have been many times in my life. This is humble, it is human and the truth is there is a limit to what we can say about anything and everything.

Words have their limit. There is a gap between experience, process, articulation and receiving of words depicting experience. By the time we put it into words the experience has already been reduced greatly. The great twentieth century theologian Paul Tillich had an interesting take on the limit of language to describe ones faith. He claimed that whatever reveals “Ultimate Reality” also hides it. I think it applies to all aspects of truth. Whatever we do to communicate truth will reveal aspects of it, but not fully. I’m not sure it is possible for any of us see the light of truth absolutely, we always see it through lenses. We never see anything absolutely and as soon as we attempt to articulate the meaning something gets lost in translation. We understand things through the lens of our culture and upbringing and we communicate it through this even more so. It is important to remember this. It certainly humbles me.

I was recently talking with someone who I feel it easy to communicate with, very much on a heart to hear level. There is quite a lot of synchronicity between us, which always delights me. During the conversation they asked me about the process of creating and sharing worship. A difficult question to articulate, as my muses are wide and varied. In many ways I just seem to stitch things together, but loosely, a kind of patchwork quilt really. I also explained that the sermons I deliver are less and less what I actually write. They are of course variations on a theme, but never what I initially write.

In spiritual matters sometimes words, language and understanding can actually get in the way. I remember many years ago when I was exploring ways to develop meditative practices I found the Brahma Kumaris. They practise a beautiful form of Raj Yoga meditation, which is open eyed and in principle is about focusing on light and love. I practised with them for many months and it helped me hugely. I still practise the methods today and can easily connect to those beautiful places deep within my being and all being. As in most things I was very enthusiastic and wanted to know more. The problem was that when I got into the theology and the imagery beneath the practise I found it impossible to follow. I suspect I took it too literally and not as mythos as a way of revealing deeper truth, rather than absolute truth. I was not so spiritually mature at the time and actually soon stopped practising with them. I feel a little sadness about this today as I wish I hadn’t got so lost in the images and the words and instead had just been happy with the practise. Why did I need to understand and articulate what I was experiencing? Why did I have to allow the literal and reductionist mind I had those days lead me away from aspects of this beautiful practise?

God only knows!

As I grown older, and a little wiser I hope, I have developed a growing love for poetry. There is a deep truth to poetry it speaks a language that allows the limit of words to go deeper. It seems to reveal far more than it hides, W.S, Merwin claims that poetry is “the expression of faith in the integrity of the senses and of the imagination.” It speaks a deeper truth. Perhaps a universal truth, it is mythos. As Stanley Kunitz has said, poetry is 'the most difficult, most solitary, and most life-enhancing thing that one can do. It's a struggle because words get tired. We use them. We abuse them. A word is a utilitarian tool to begin with, and we have to re-create it, to make it magical. You have to kill off all the top of one's head, remove it, and try to plunge deep into self, deep into memories, deep into the unconscious life. And then begin again.'

Poetry though frustrates people because it uses words illiterally, it tells the truth slant as the poem suggested that truth should be spoken.

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant --
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind --

Now as many folks know one of my ministerial inspirations has been the writing of Forrest Church, who I only discovered shortly after he actually died. He speaks a language that hits my heart. He articulates something that makes sense to my head, heart and soul. I particularly love his view of faith and his attempt to articulate a metaphor for 21st century Universalism, a humble and a real approach to faith. This "blogspot" began with an extract from it.

His image of “The Cathedral of the World” is asking us to imagine the whole of humanity standing under the ceiling of the cathedral of the world. Around this cathedral are millions of stained glass windows. There is a light outside of the cathedral shinning through all of the windows; this is the light of truth, the light of God. No one inside is able to stare at the light directly, we all see it passing through a stained glass window. Each of the windows distorts the light in some way; they only allow some of the light to pass through. Sometimes the light is refracted, by the tinted windows and occasionally it is blocked by the opaque aspects of each window. In some places the light is almost completely obscured. By the way the light is not only coming into us from the outside the windows, but also from ourselves shinning out to the window. The light is in us too.

This metaphor is an attempt to describe a 21st century Universalist theology, one that speaks to the heart of me. There is one light outside of the window but there are many windows through which we can get a glimpse of the light. Each window is unique in its own way; each window is different; but none gives us a perfect image of the light. Each window is representing different religions, different ideologies, different philosophies, different dogmas, different views about life, the universe, everything. The key is to understand that each window has been fashioned by human hands, often with great skill, imagination, beauty, intelligence and artfulness that said through no one window is the light seen perfectly.

From where we view our particular perspective on the light we can begin to believe that what we see is the absolute truth and that the light only shines through our window. That only our window offers the true representation of the light. That what others see through their window is false, even stupid and irrational. Forrest Church’s Universalism though is saying something very different. He is saying that each window conveys part of the truth and that no one window has a monopoly on the truth. He is echoing those words of Paul Tillich, “that which reveals also hides”.

I think it is important to accept that none of us ever glimpses the whole truth, no matter which window we are looking through. Even if for s pit secend we could, we could never fully articulate this. Two people looking through the very same window can see something different or perhaps their attempts to put into exactly what they are experiencing may be very different. How on earth do any of us articulate this?

This humbles me, as most conversations I have with others about their faith humbles me. Humility is always the key by the way. This teaches us that we can only glimpse the truth and we can never make complete sense of what we see or ever adequately articulate it. Now the wonderful thing about this is that by genuinely accepting it we are opened up to a myriad of possibility that we probably believed were way beyond our capacity to experience. If we listen to one another lovingly we may just find a greater truth, if we can but just lay aside what we think we know, our prejudices.

The epistle Paul hints at this in his letter to the Corinthians (1ch 13), those beautiful words on love and charity. Here Paul gets to the very nature of humility when he says, “for now we see through a glass darkly”. He is making the point that even when our knowledge and understanding is not perfect, which I suspect, it never can be, we cannot go wrong if we follow love without prejudice as a guide. Love without prejudice is a universal principle found in virtually every one of the windows that the light is pouring through, it seems that the only ones not preaching it are the ones who are trying to throw rocks through the windows that others experience the light through. Not a different light, but a slightly different view and understanding of the light.

Universalism is a way of openness of truth seeking and love experiencing. They are not perfect though and they also glimpse the light imperfectly.

What’s the light like, that shines through your window?

This is my attempt to articulate something that is almost impossible. This is not easy. I hope it has helped you in some way to open you to the light which ever window you look through and attempt to share that with those you share your lives with and thus live more loving and charitable lives.

Let love continue long and show to us the way, it shines through every window.

Let it’s warmth transform us.

A Drop in the Ocean

"A Drop in the Bucket"

What it says about inadequacy, futility, insignificance!
A drop in the bucket. What’s the sense? What’s the use?
We’re no longer in the center of things.
Copernicus removed the earth from the center of the solar system.
Darwin removed humans from the center of the earth.
Astronomy has removed the solar system from the center of the universe.
Well, who are we, then, and where are we?
Physiologists call us “weak, watery solutions, more or less jellified.”
Just suppose that we are the merest drops in a bucket.
There are unspoken assumptions here.
We assume that a full bucket is what we’re aiming at
and that until the bucket is full, nothing has been accomplished.
There is never a shortage of buckets.
The empty bucket litany is long and tedious:
racism, sexism, ableism, authoritarianism, oppression, injustice,
violence, environmental degradation, overpopulation.
You feel like a drop in the bucket?
Who asked you to fill the bucket - especially all alone?
Remember how many there are who share your concern.
We may feel daunted, but we are not one drop.
A sense of isolation is the parent of the drop-in-the-bucket feeling.
Sometimes one can decide the size of the bucket.
Don’t think you can do a large bucket? Try a smaller size.
Even imparting a bit of hope - a pat on the back, a financial contribution, a
few hours of volunteer service - every drop helps!
It might even be wise to remember why you need to help fill this bucket,
possibly to quench the thirst of someone hard at work on a larger one.
That buckets of whatever size are filled a drop at a time.
If you don’t help, it will take even longer.
That your drop may be one of the last ones needed.
(Why is it that our image is of the first drop in the bucket?)
Where we’d be if everybody gave up putting drops in the bucket? –
probably much worse off.
Persistence depends on patience, on keeping at it when there is little to reassure us.
It would be too bad to give up, to sit back, bemoan the sorry state of the world,
and wonder why somebody, anybody, everybody (but not me, thank you)
doesn’t do something about “it.”
After all, the Grand Canyon was fashioned by drops of water,
As ordinary as they seem.

from Out of the Ordinary, Meditations by Gordon B. McKeeman

I love to go to the sea from time to time. Sometimes I hear it calling powerfully to me. It’s a song I hear singing in my heart. I hear it with the ears of my heart. Now what it is that I love so much I am not sure. It probably has something to do with the vastness of it. Like King Canute I am humbled by the sea. I know it is a power far greater than little old me, but it is more than that, I also find it deeply connective too. While the waves move individually, the sea moves as one. The sea speaks powerfully to me about the spiritual nature of life, both personally and communally.

It seems I am not alone in this. Frederick Buechner in his beautiful meditation titled “Tears” wrote the follow about the great twentieth century theologian Paul Tillich

“Tears” by Frederick Buechner

"They say that whenever the great Protestant theologian Paul Tillich went to the beach, he would pile up a mound of sand and sit on it gazing out at the ocean with tears running down his cheeks. One wonders what there was about it that moved him so.

The beauty and the power of it? The inexpressible mystery of it? The futility of all those waves endlessly flowing in and ebbing out again? The sense that it was out of the ocean that life originally came and that when life finally ends, it is the ocean that will still remain? Who knows? . . .

Maybe it was when he looked at the ocean that he caught a glimpse of the One he was praying to. Maybe what made him weep was how vast and overwhelming it was and yet at the same time as near as the breath of it in his nostrils, as salty as his own tears."

...I think I get it...

I feel fully human when I open my senses to the sea, it humbles and connects me to life. It reminds me that I am not God.

Last weekend and at the early part of this week I felt tired and somewhat weak, I seemed to lack my usual energy. My mood wasn’t low though, my mind was still and I felt connected spiritually, but still I lacked energy. It troubled me somewhat. I began to ask myself what on earth was wrong with me. It took me the best part of week to get back to my usual self. I think it had something to do with being away with my ministry group for a few days and not exercising and eating as I normally would. These days I tend to eat a diet high in protein, fruit and vegetables and this was lacking in my diet during my time away and this impacted on me. I felt weak internally and I didn’t like it. Thankfully I was soon back into my healthier energising habits after a few days and got back to my usual self.

No one likes to feel weak, to experience a sense of powerlessness and yet to a great degree we have little control over the events that go on all around us. Like King Canute we cannot hold back the tides, we cannot control the nature of life. In fact when we try to we just end up going against the tides of life and get into an even bigger mess. Yes we are a part of life, but really just a drop in the ocean.

Now an awful lot of modern day spirituality doesn’t seem to recognise this. It suggest that actually we can do absolutely anything we want if we just believe that we can. We just need to manifest our desires and harness the energy. Now while it is true we can be held back by faulty beliefs that stop us becoming all that we were born to be, my life is absolute evidence of this. These last few years I have found myself overcoming all sorts of faulty beliefs that have held me back. That said I do know that I cannot do anything. I am not omnipotent, no one is. Even the mighty eventually fall. Hubris is perhaps the greatest danger to our own and others humanity.

The key I have found is to discover the power we each of us carry and bring that power alive lovingly for the good of all. To truly become the wave on the ocean. Remembering always that we are not the ocean, just a drop. A vital drop, but one drop all the same.

Power is often misused. Some use their power to control and manipulate others; while still others surrender their power to those who they consider more powerful than them. The daily news seems to be filled with examples of the misuse of power on a daily basis. Thankfully, eventually; life has a way of bringing even the mightiest down. Not without casualties though, how many innocents are left damaged by the misuses and abuse of power? I pay homage to those who take responsibility and speak up against such abuses of power that we witness every day.

Now misuse and abuse of power has occurred throughout history. I suspect that it stems from forms of Hubris that some are considered above or higher than others. We can see examples of supremacist ideas everywhere. Some of the worst horrors committed by humanity have been justified by such ideas. It still goes on by the way, in this land and others too.

It happens in families and communities too, where bullying occurs when individuals try and have their own way regardless of others. I know this feeling well. I grew up such an environment and thankfully it is something that has repulsed me all my life. That said I do from time to time not take full responsibility, I turn away and do not always face such behaviour. I do not use the power I have within me for the good of all, through my own fear. I’m better than I used to be, but I’ve still got a long way to go.

Life has taught me many things. Perhaps one of the greatest lessons is that people who try and laud their power over others, those who act in supremacist ways, are not as strong as they wish to appear. It is generally the weak who desperately hunger for power in order to compensate for their feelings of vulnerability and fragility. It is one way in which they can delude themselves into believing that they can somehow hold back the tide. It can be so terribly destructive. So often of course we surrender ourselves and our own power to such figures. Some bully their way there and others do it through manipulation.

The solution, I have come to believe is to find ways to access the power we all have within us, to become our own authority and to play our roll fully in the sea of life; the key I have come to believe is to become the drop in the ocean, to fully contribute to the sea of life. You see when we wake up to the power we already have within us, that same power that is at the core of all life, a loving power, a connecting power that does not seek supremacy, when we awaken to this power we become our own authority. In so doing we do not need to seek power over others, nor surrender to those who we perceive to be more powerful than we are. In so doing we become authors of our own ideas and actions and we participate fully in the ocean of life. This is essentially true leadership, because by doing we inspire others to do the same. To inspire is to awaken the spirit within another, that source of power within us all. This is true leadership, this is what the great spiritual teachers throughout human history did. This is the task of the spiritually mature.

I have come to believe that this is what is at the core of the ministry of Jesus. That he was attempting to show those of his time to seek the power within themselves, to become all that they able to be and to serve one another and life, to overcome those who ruled them in their time. When he tells the crowd on “The Sermon on the Mount” that they are the light of the world and that they must become beacons to others this seems pretty clear. The parables about the kingdom seem all about this as do other accounts such the story of him calming of the sea. Now this story sadly portrays the disciples as failing to see this, instead they seemingly marvelled at his power to calm the sea. He wanted to show them the power to overcome the fear was within them, but they instead wanted him to calm the storm for them. Faith though is not about calming the storm, it’s actually about coming through the storm together, encouraging and inspiring one another not to be afraid, to become responsible for the welfare of the community, to build the kingdom of love right here right now. Where no one has supremacy over another, that all are at one in the ocean of love.

We cannot calm the sea, we cannot hold it back. That said we can become at one with it and we need not fear it. We do not sail this ship alone. We are in this together all the way.

So how do we begin? Well first of all we need to accept that we are not the all-powerful. That like King Canute we cannot hold back the tide. Neither can we expect another to simply take all our troubles away, we must not surrender responsibility for our lives to someone we consider to be more powerful than ourselves. We then need to recognise that the same power that is at the core of life is also at the core of our being, we need to recognise that great reality deep down within each of us and to bring this to life, to become the light of the world. We need to share that in loving community with one another, to become that drop in the ocean. In so doing we know that we belong and we will no longer feel the need to laud our power over others.

How do we begin? Well I will offer an answer with this simple story that speaks of the power within us, the power to begin to create the ocean of love.

From “Invisible Acts of Power: Personal Choices that Create Miracles” by Caroline Myss

"Years ago I had a conversation with a man who told me that the most important truth he had learned was to be kind. He learned this, he recounted, during a cab ride in New York City. As he was paying the driver, he said, 'Thank you, sir.' At this, the driver leaped, ran around the back of the cab, and opened the door for his passenger. Startled, the man got out and said to the cab driver, 'You didn't have to do that,' to which the driver responded, 'I wanted to. You are the first person in this country to honor me by calling me sir, and I thank you for that respect.' The man had never before considered the power inherent in a respectful gesture, but from them on, kindness became the pillar on which he built his life and the legacy he hoped to pass on to his children. That exchange, he said, changed his life."

May we all become drops in the ocean of love. You never know you might just change someone’s life for the better.

Amen