May Our Lives Be Inspired By Beautiful Encounters

Life is full of encounters, opportunities and interactions; there are many opportunities that could lead us in all kinds of directions; we never know when we set out each day what the opportunities we face may just lead too.

A week last Wednesday I heard and witnessed a rather beautiful encounter. Whenever I lead worship, or one of the several groups I host, I always promote them on social media, it is an attempt to open our free religious tradition to others. I promoted the service I was doing at Cross Street Chapel and David a friend told me that he had a day off work and was interested in the title of the service. I was pleased to hear this. He has in the past responded to some of my blog posts but never attended an event or service.

I got to the chapel early and he arrived as others did about 15 minutes before the service began. We said hello and he sat quietly in the chapel. A few minutes before he had a woman who is a member of the chapel had also arrived, she did not take her seat immediately. A few minutes later she did and appeared to sit near my friend. I noticed that they began to talk and thought well that’s a good sign someone is making him feel welcome. I had no idea what was going on. I walked into the chapel and soon discovered what was happening, they were both beaming at each other. No it wasn’t the beginning of a new romance, although it seems that they had both experienced a brief encounter.

They had never met before that day but had actually, without realising it, on their way to the chapel. They had both come by tram. David lived further out and told me he had missed the tram he had intended and was worried he might be late. A few stops later this smiling lady got and sat next to him. They did not speak to each other but felt comfortable in each others silent company. The woman got off a stop before David in Manchester and he told me later that just before she did that he had this feeling that they were both going to the same place. He had no idea where it came from and wished he had said something then.

David got off the tram the stop after the woman and then followed directions on google maps to the chapel, he walked in , sat down and waited and then the woman entered the chapel sat down near him. He said hello. Low and behold it was that very same lovely smiling woman who had sat next to him on the tram. It blew his mind and it made his day as it did mind. Afterwards we talked and he told me that he had connected with the service and the whole day, one of a great many surprises and seeming coincidences. Sometimes life is like that, don’t you find, especially when you are tuned into the right frequency and not lost in your own little ego-centric world.

I wonder how often in life such seeming coincidences occur, how many opportunities or chance encounters come our way, how many doors open that could lead to something incredible and new. I wonder if these opportunities come just once or do that keep on coming again and again in one form or another. I’m not sure if I am honest, although I do know that when I’m truly tuned in they do seem to occur far more often than when I m not. I wonder how many times we have that feeling that David had on the tram and ignore it, rationalise it out and turn away from it, only to find the universe present it to me once again. Or perhaps it’s all just random chance, just chaos bumping into each other. Who knows for certain? Certainly not I.

We all wander through life, primarily living by the same daily, perhaps weekly patterns. The seasons change but we live by a similar pattern and rhythm and yet as we do so life changes, we change, others change and we have these interesting interactions from time to time. I wonder sometimes if such encounters, however brief, are constantly available to us. How many people do we pass in life and never speak or truly interact with and yet we never know what the interaction might lead to.

This brings to mind the the rather wonderful poem below by Wislawa Szyborska

"Love at First Sight" by Wislawa Szymborska's

They're both convinced
that a sudden passion joined them.
Such certainty is beautiful,
but uncertainty is more beautiful still.

Since they'd never met before, they're sure
that there'd been nothing between them.
But what's the word from the streets,
staircases, hallways —
perhaps they've passed by each other a
million times?

I want to ask them
if they don't remember —
a moment face to face
in some revolving door?
perhaps a "sorry" muttered in a crowd?
a curt "wrong number" caught in the receiver? —
but I know the answer.
No, they don't remember.
They'd be amazed to hear
that Chance has been toying with them
now for years.

Not quite ready yet
to become their Destiny,
it pushed them close, drove them apart,
it barred their path,
stifling a laugh,
and then leaped aside.

There were signs and signals,
even if they couldn't read them yet.
Perhaps, three years ago
or just last Tuesday
a certain leaf fluttered
from one shoulder to another?
Something was dropped and then picked up.
Who knows, maybe the ball that vanished
into childhood's thicket?

There were doorknobs and doorbells
where one touch had covered another
beforehand.
Suitcases, checked and standing side by side.
One night, perhaps, the same dream,
grown hazy by morning.

Every beginning
is only a sequel, after all,
and the book of events
is always open halfway through.

This beautiful poem “Love at first sight”, by Wislawa Szymborska, describes two lovers engaged in a display of public affection. I get the impression that the author is convinced that some guiding force is at work in their interaction. What begins as “Chance”, then becomes “Destiny” which “pushed them close, drove them apart”. The poems suggests that these lives were scripted long ago in a “book of events”, which cannot be altered, try as we might. The poem suggests that the lovers have passed by one another many times before, but were never aware or ready to make that first point of contact. That there were signs along the way and that one day this encounter would happen, but it was more than mere chance, something else was at work offering itself to both of them. It just took this moment for it to happen.

In many ways this is how I see life these days. So many possibilities are going on all around us. Some good, others not so good. So many joys, tragedies, triumphs, failures, frustrations, crises, endless possibilities good and bad. Life offers itself to us, but so often we close ourselves off from it. One thing I have noticed is that as I have allowed life itself to guide me I have become more open I am to life itself and the more connected I felt, the more aware I have become of experiencing meaning and making meaning filled decisions. As I have done so I experienced a greater sense of belonging to myself, those people I share my life with and this world in which we all live and breathe and share our being.

The more I have lived this way the more I have noticed the meaningful coincidences in life. Some say this is how it is meant to be, I am not wholly convinced of this, I prefer to see it as this how it could be if I allow myself to follow the rhythm of life. If I do I notice the so called coincidences, the synchronicities of life.

I accepted one of those opportunities two years almost to the day when after a “Singing Meditation” Sue asked me if I would like to go for food after something we were both attending, I said yes and look what followed. I wonder what would have happened if I had not. One of the “Sliding Doors” moments. In our two years together one thing that we have said we will do is say yes to life when it offers itself to us. We have mostly stuck to this and when we have done so it has always turned out right. The classic example being the trip magical trip to Israel that I was invited on.

I do believe that life speaks to us, if we are in tune enough to hear it, it speaks in so many ways too. I believe it spoke to David quite a lot that day. Some say it is the hand of God directing everything, others say it is just pure chance and others call it synchronicity. I am one of those who call it synchronicity. I also refer to it as the “Lure of Divine Love”.

Personally I do not hold with the view of a God who controls all our interaction,that life is preordained if you like. Neither do I hold a deistic understanding that a Creator started the processes of life but then left life to get on with it. Nor am I an atheist or even agnostic, I sense that there is a Divine presence in life. I have come to believe in the Divine Lure of Love. That the Divine lures life on, that we are co-creators, with all of life in a universal process. I sense this divine presence within me and I experience it in life itself, particularly in creativity or in deeply felt interactions. I have discovered that when I am awake to such things in life I experience synchronicity constantly. Life seems to direct me, when I am awake to it

That said intuition alone is not enough, discernment is vital in order to make wise decisions about life.

The word discernment is formed from the Latin word “discernere”, which means to separate, to distinguish, to sort out. Just think of prospectors panning for gold or sifting through the rocks and dirt in search of gem stones. They are separating, they are sorting through the muck for the jewels, they are distinguishing, they are discerning.

Discernment is the key to making wise decisions about our lives, about what our senses are saying to us. We need to discover what is of value and what needs to be discarded as our minds interpret our senses. We need to discard the dirt and muck to uncover the gold, the gems, to have clarity of thought, so that we can truly follow that Divine spark within each of us. This is not easy, especially when we think of all that information that swims around in our lives and are consciousness; information like an enormous shoal of fish swimming round and round aimlessly in a small tank and not really going anywhere. Our lives, our heads are just so full of stuff, our senses are constantly overloaded. How do we discern what is the right response? Well we need silence; we need time away from all this information and all these things that pull us in so many directions. We need to still our senses from time to time and thus tune into the source of all life. We need time to be still, time to be silent, time to connect to our bodies and our breathing; time to hear that still small voice of calm. A voice less than a whisper, but somehow more than silence.

We need to awaken to our true consciousness in order to make those sane and sensible decisions about life. We need to learn to separate those things that are of value and those that are not. We need to do this in order to hear that voice, that is less than whisper but that is somehow more than silence; that voice that has spoken down the centuries, to those who had ears that could hear it.

That voice that spoke to David on the tram and then again a little later as he sat down in Cross street chapel and share worship with a room full of strangers or if you prefer friends he had not yes met.

The choices we make matter. It matters what we are and what we do. I do not think that God chooses this for us. Yes God offers guidance, “The Lure of Divine Love” but it is up to us to choose the path that we follow.

So pay attention my friends. Take time to tune into your deeper selves and the deeper pulse of life, pay attention, trust your own heart but please discern, make wise choices about what life offers to do, for what you do and do not do really matters…

May you have interesting and beautiful encounters and may you trust them enough that you allow them to lead you to ever more beautiful lives.

Deliver Us To And Not From The Suffering In Our World: The Theodicy Dilemma

In the last "Blogspot" I explored Universalism in its many varied, dare I say universal, forms. When asked what kind of a Universalist I was? I said I was a Universalist, Universalist, Universalist. The service, that the "Blogspot" was based on, was delivered at three congregations that day. By the time I got to third I could almost have done so without notes. I had all kinds of interesting responses to the service, many folk seemed to identify strongly. Later that day, exhausted, I returned home and published this “blogspot” based upon it. Whoever read the post actually received what I had intended to deliver, where as those who heard it received versions as they manifested in the time and space. Again I got some very interesting responses, to the published version. At the time I did not have the energy to respond but thankfully others did. One stayed with me and and this "blogspot" has grown from it. The post read “ The thing is I worry about how much input a God of love is having, in that so many are hurt, killed, homeless, hungry etc”

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

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

Theodicy from the Greek words "theos" (God) and "dike" (justice)

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

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

This question encapsulates the whole Theodicy debate.

The debate is also captured in the following poem by Czeslaw Milosz "Theodicy”

“Theodicy” by Czeslaw Milosz

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

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

I remember exploring “Theodicy”, in depth, while training for the ministry. I probably spent more time on the piece I wrote on the subject than any other, which showed in my final marks. I struggled and I wrestled, as so many have no doubt done. Looking back I can see how important it was for me to do so.- By the way I struggled once again while trying to put the service together, that this "Blogspot" is taken from.- I am grateful for the struggle as I have learnt, in my time as a minister, that a large part of the work is to be with others in their suffering, often seemingly senseless suffering by the way. It is of course suffering that brought me into ministry in the first place.

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

The Christian tradition has wrestled for centuries with the Theodicy question. One strand, beginning with Augustine of Hippo concluded that evil was the absence of good in a person’s life and was the consequence of God given free will. He believed that God was aware of the potential misuse of free will but allowed it, as to deny it would be worse than to allow the evil that could stem from it. He believed that the fall of Adam, his original sin, had permanently corrupted humanity and compelled people, through destructive behaviour, to develop habitual wickedness. He believed that the root of our troubles was our inability to accept our creation and all that it entails, therefore we do not submit to God and instead submit to habitual evil which creates suffering for all.

For the medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas evil resulted from the absence of God, the lack of a positive substance, in the same way that blindness is the absence of sight. He suggested that there is no such thing as pure evil, just that something created good has become defective.

One of the leading figures of the Reformation Jean Calvin believed in God’s “Divine Plan” or Predestination. He believed that nothing took place by chance and that God was involved in every aspect of life. Like Augustine he believed that evil was caused by man’s fall and that we are enslaved by this ‘original sin’.

During the Twentieth century theologians have attempted, from a variety of stand points, to understand the nature of evil, suffering and God. John Hick offered a view very different to that followed by Augustine, Aquinus and Calvin and traces his thinking back to Iraneas. He saw the world as a vale of soul making where people are shaped by God, who desires all creatures to grow into relationship with him. Therefore, suffering is essential for this to take place. He claimed that God is, in some sense, hidden within creation and that coming to terms with suffering is part of this process. This leads to salvation which occurs when humans enjoy this perfect relationship with God. Richard Swinburn’s “Natural Law Theodicy” follows a similar line claiming that natural evil has to exist if humans are to make the correct choices that will prevent human evil.

Dorothee Soellee critiqued Hick’s position claiming that suffering, caused by God, cannot be justified. “No heaven can rectify Auschwitz” She was critical of this Christian Masochism and its concomitant Theological Sadism, claiming that human beings have become powerless masochistic accomplices to the sadistic God. She believed that to truly know God is to see Him as the God who suffers with humanity. The key question for Soelle was, who are the victims and who are the oppressors? For her God suffers with the victim, that God is present there within the suffering. Her position was powerfully illustrated in the following, told by Eli Wiesel, of two men and a small boy being hung by SS guards, from his seminal work “The Night”. Wiesel recalls:

“Where is God? Where is He? Someone behind me asked...but the third rope was still moving, being so light, the child was still alive. For more than half an hour he stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes. And we had to look him full in the face...Behind me I heard the same man asking: “Where is God now?” And I heard a voice within me answer him: “Where is he? Here He is hanging here on the gallows.”

Process theology and those influenced by it have offered other explanations as to why suffering occurs. It sees all entities as self creative and therefore free. This includes the smallest particles, which like humans are capable of responding to God. Therefore they can reject God’s purpose and it is this that creates the suffering in the world.

Process theology does not see humanity as corrupt in nature instead it claims that often we fail to live up to our potential. It recognises God as being infinite but also relative, both imminent and transcendent.It offers an explanation for both human and natural suffering. It is suggested that as man has emerged from the natural world human feeling and emotions must be present in all of creation. In essence it suggests life can respond to the Lure of Divine Love, but does not always do so and thus suffering result.

I’m not sure any of the attempts to reconcile suffering with an all powerful loving God are adequate and all resort to some extent to mystery. None give a clear picture of all loving and powerful God, who never changes.

Does this mean that "God is Dead?" as Nietzsche suggested in "The Gay Science" and many others have since.

And what do I believe, you may well ask. Well I for one do respond to the idea of a God of Love, as my experiences and observations of life suggest this. I also experience this love coming to life as I am present with those who suffer and do all I can to be with them in their pain, but I cannot prove that beyond any doubt. Like the great and lesser theolgians, I too resort to mystery. I am sorry if this answer is inadequate, but it is my honest view. No doubt this inadequate response would lead to some to reject the whole idea of God. I cannot reject the whole God concept though, for I do know and experience the lure of Divine Love. This comes alive in mine and others response to suffering, it comes to life as I turn to rather than turn away from life itself.

My growing sense of Universalism helps me to live faithfully, in love, in a world in which there is so much beauty but also suffering. I accept that no matter how loving I and others live, that horrific, dare I say evil, things will happen both personally and universally. It is the God of love, that is so great and ever compelling to me, that allows one to overcome even the most horrific situations, with a response grown from a sacred reverence for life itself. This is the God of Love that I worship, that is beyond my understanding.

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

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

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

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

I’m sorry if it does not answer why a God of love would allow suffering. I am sorry if that is not good enough. I am sorry.

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

I’m going to end this little chip of a "blogspot" with a poem by Billy Collins titled “See No Evil”

“See No Evil” by Billy Collins

No one expected all three of them
to sit there on their tree stumps forever,
their sense covered with their sinuous paws
so as to shut out the vile, nefarious world.

As it happened,
it was the one on the left
who was the first to desert his post,
uncupping his ears,
then loping off into the orbit of rumors and lies,
but also into the realm of symphonies,
the sound of water tumbling over rocks
and wind stirring the leafy domes of trees.

Then the monkey on the right lowered his hands
from his wide mouth and slipped away
in search of someone to talk to,
some news he could spread,
maybe something to curse or shout about.

And that left the monkey in the middle
alone with his silent vigil.
shielding his eyes from depravity’s spectacle,
blind to the man whipping his horse,
the woman shaking her baby in the air,
but also unable to see
the russet sun on a rough shelf of rock
and apples in the grass at the base of a tree.

Sometimes, he wonders about the other two,
listens for the faint sounds of their breathing
up there on the mantel alongside the clock and candlesticks.

And some nights in the quiet house
he wishes he could break the silence with a question,
but he knows the one on his right
would not be able to hear,
and the one to his left,
according to their sacred oath-
the one they all took with one paw raised-
is forbidden forever to speak, even in reply.

Reverence for Life

Albert Schweitzer on “Altruism”

'Wherever we find the love and sacrificial care of parents for offspring…we find this ethical power. Indeed, any instance of creatures giving aid to one another reveals it. Let me tell you of three instances which have been brought to my attention.

The first example was told me by someone from Scotland. It happened in a park where a flock of wild geese had settled to rest on a pond. One of the flock had been captured by a gardener, who had clipped its wings before releasing it. When the geese started to resume their flight, this one tried frantically, but vainly, to lift itself into the air. The others, observing his struggles, flew about in obvious efforts to encourage him; but it was no use. Thereupon, the entire flock settled back on the pond and waited, even though the urge to go on was strong within them. For several days they waited until the damaged feathers had grown sufficiently to permit the goose to fly. Meanwhile, the unethical gardener, having been converted by the ethical geese, gladly watched them as they finally rose together, and all resumed their long flight.

My second example is from my hospital in Lambarene. I have the [opportunity] of caring for all stray monkeys that come to our gate. Sometimes there will come to our monkey colony a wee baby monkey whose mother has been killed, leaving this orphaned infant. I must find one of the older monkeys to adopt and care for the baby. I never have any difficulty about it, except to decide which candidate shall be given the responsibility. Many a time it happens that the seemingly worst-tempered monkeys are most insistent upon having this sudden burden of foster-parenthood given to them.

My third example was given me by a friend in Hanover, who owned a small café. He would daily throw out crumbs for the sparrows in the neighbourhood. He noticed that one sparrow was injured, so that it had difficulty getting about. But he was interested to discover that the other sparrows, apparently by mutual agreement, would leave the crumbs which lay nearest to their crippled comrade, so that he could get his share, undisturbed...

(With thanks to Rev Feargus O'Connor for these words by Schweitzer on "Altruism")

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the death of Albert Schweitzer, one of the great figures of the twentieth century. He was incredibly gifted. By the time he was thirty he had achieved more than most of us could even dream of doing in our lifetimes. He was an accomplished musician, minister, theologian and university professor. Then in his early thirties he qualified as a medical doctor and devoted the rest of his life to serving the medical needs of the people of Africa. In 1953 he was awarded the Nobel peace prize.

In 1915, while interned in France during the First World War, Schweitzer began to struggle to understand what made life “purposeful”, eventually he came up with his universal ethical principle “Reverence for Life” He said “I am life that wants to live in the midst of other life that wants to live.” He recognised a universal “will to live” in all living beings and claimed that ethical humans would feel compelled to approach all life with the same reverence they have for their own lives. Claiming “‘good’ means to maintain life, to further life, to bring developing life to its highest value. ‘Evil’ means to destroy life, to hurt life, to keep life from developing.” This laid the foundation for his simple universal ethical principle. He saw that "Reverence for Life contains all the components of ethics: love, kindliness, sympathy, empathy, peacefulness, power to forgive." Reverence for life became the by-word of his life and teachings, he promoted the concept that to be an ethical person required us to honour all life and to be a friend of the world, cherishing all aspects of creation. As he wrote “Profound love demands a deep conception and out of this develops reverence for the mystery of life. It brings us close to all beings.”

“Reverence for Life” though is more than ethics, it is a religious imperative. Hence the appropriate use of the word “Reverence”. “Reverence” is a word of real power. “Reverence” literally means “profound, adoring, awed, respect”. “Reverence for Life” has the power to transform, to change the way that life is experienced. Through it an ethical person not only respects life but experiences awe and adoration for every aspect of creation. It is the “Golden Rule” in its purest and most universal form. Through it you see all life as your neighbour and and you love all life as you would wish to be loved yourself.

Nothing in life is separate, everything is interconnected. “Reverence for Life” speaks of life as being interconnected that nothing is separate. Therefore when we disrespect one aspect of life we are disrespecting all and when we revere one aspect, we revere all life. Or to paraphrase Jesus What you do to the least of them, you do to me. Everything is interconnected, nothing lives separately from all life and I believe that is all connected by a Great Universal thread from which all life exists. I call this thread God.

The Great twentieth century theologian and Process philosopher Charles Hartshorne recognised this and as a result urged people of faith to widen their circle of kinship beyond the confines of their own species. He described the universe as a living network rather than a collection of inert forces or senseless objects, He asked: "Is it likely that God takes no delight whatever in the more than a million other living forms on this planet, yet does delight in, derive value from contemplating, the one human species lately emergent on the planet? If such an idea is not sheer anthropomorphic bias, what would be such bias?" Schweitzer did not suffer such speciesism, even as a young boy he recognised God’s love for the animals as he wrote “As a small child, I could not understand why I should pray for human beings only. When my mother first had kissed me good night, I used to add a silent prayer that I composed for all creatures.”

“Reverence for Life” helps us to recognise the importance of everything. It helps us see that everything matters. Every thought, every feeling, every word and every deed. It helps us recognise the intrinsic value of our own lives too. It reveals how we see life and how we live in life impacts on everything, including our own souls, our own beings. I am recognising this more and more as I live and breathe and enjoy my own being and that in which I live and breathe and share my being. In recent weeks as I have simply enjoyed walking round where I live I have felt more connected to the people and the nature that I pass and interact with. As my reverence and love for life has grown, so has my love for my own being too.

Today on the day that the congregations I serve pay homage to the animals and the gifts that they freely share with all life I would ask you the reader to also pay homage to Albert Schweitzer and his lasting legacy. When he died, more than 50 years ago, on 4th September 1965 he left a legacy which in my belief is very much at the core of liberal religious thought. This great humanitarian, musician, theologian, medical doctor and ethical philosopher believed that all life should be revered. That life really mattered, that each and every one of us matters, that this world matters and every living creator living in it matters too. That we do not live purely from or for ourselves and that we are connected and held together in so many ways. That if we share our suffering that we can together begin to lift ourselves from this suffering. That we, each of us, have within us the power to make the difference. I did not say change the world, but make a difference. You never know one small act of compassion might just begin a tidal wave of compassion that can impact throughout all life.

It can happen you know. You’ve just got to believe and then make that belief an action. It simply begins by recognising the Divine in all life. It begins with “Reverence for Life”

I'm going to end this little chip of a "blogspot" with the following meditation by Kenneth Collier. I have grown to love the stillness of deer in recent weeks, they bring out an awe filled reverence in me...


“The Deer” by Kenneth Collier

You must stand perfectly still and look like a peculiar tree. And if you move, it must look like it was the wind that blew your hand to your face. And the deer will look back at you without moving their tails. They will look right back at you without moving their tails. They will look, and you wil think that maybe they are not really there. But then, they will move their ears, and you will know they are real.

And that is what it is like. It is like the sweet, almost immovable deer. It sounds green, like rain falling through leaves. It sounds blue, like wind across the bay and the sea. It sounds silver and black, like the sky when there is nothing left of the day but sleep and soft sounds of breathing and dreams that drift upwards like smoke and disappear.

It moves as slowly and carefully as a heron stepping deliberately through the still water of the pond. And it is almost silent. Almost. Not quite. Silent like the falling snow is silent. It whispers against the window, or sings, or even hisses like a fire made of apple wood hisses.

Or maybe you won’t know it is there until it stops. Until the whispering is hushes. Maybe you won’t know it is there until it is not there. And then you will long for it, like the dry grass longs for the rain, And all you can do is be still and wait.

But do not worry. And do not hurry. For the clouds will gather eventually and the rain will fall with a rattle into the grass. The whisper will return like the deer that moved its ear and you will sigh a long, sweet sigh, And I know that it is there.

The throaty sound of knowledge, the sudden splash of understanding, washes over you like a waterfall, like starlight, like a dream that makes the day come alive. And you will know it in the little daily things; the smell of coffee, the touch of hands, the sound of light falling on grass, the taste of air after rain. You will never know it and never forget.

But maybe you ask, “What is this thing?” What is it that moves as silently as snow?”

And what shall I answer? It is nothing but the deer.

Father's Day and some thoughts on Panentheism

I love the following by one of my favourite human beings Peter Sampson. Peter was the first Unitarian I ever met as I walked through the door at Cross Street Chapel all those years ago. He has guided me in through the years in ways he will never truly know...

"Things my father could do" By Peter Sampson

Spit into the back of the fire

Turn a piece of metal on a lathe

Dance a quick-step

Ride his bicycle for miles with me on the cross-bar

Solve an intractable mathematical problem for his tearful son

Sing a comic song in the Sunday School pantomime

Play the overture "Poet and Peasant" on the piano

Build a perfect replica of a pullman car for my model railway.

The last thing I saw him do was

Fight the pain in his chest to wrestle with the clasps

On the tin trunk which was to be sent off to Cambridge

Containing all my worldly possessions.

When I received a telegram just before Christmas

To tell me I had won an award at Cambridge

He hugged me; he wept.

When he saw me play Richard the Second at school

He was full of wonder that his own son could be somebody

So different from the boy he thought he knew.

As a boy I had never seemed to be able

To satisfy his stern demands

By doing what he wanted or would have liked me to do

- maths, making models, fighting to defend myself –

But when I started to do the things I wanted to do

(Things I could do) he did not stint his praise,

Almost as if he was glad that I could cope

With what he could never understand.

Almost as if

When he knew that I could do without him

it made his day.

A couple of weeks ago I was collecting for Christian Aid at Urmston Sainsbury’s with Derek Brown the chair of  Queens Road Unitarian Free Church, one of the two congregations I serve. Derek is one of those people who knows everybody and I enjoyed observing him engaging in so many conversations. Derek is also the chair of governors at a local primary school. Three of the people he spoke to were casually dressed men who it turned out were teachers at the school. I commented that it was surprising to see so many male teachers at the school. Derek told me that actually the three men were the only ones at the school. I chuckled to myself as I thought that it was only the male teachers who came to the supermarket to buy their lunch and wondered if the female teachers had prepared their own. I’m not sure what that says about anything all I know is that it made me smile.

There was an item on the news this week reporting on the low number of male teachers, especially in primary schools. Statistics shown that one in four primary schools have no male teachers; that there are only 48 male teachers in state nurseries; that three quarters of all teachers were women; that only 12% of primary school teachers were male. This report appears to coincide with concerns in many areas of society that many children are growing up without any male “role models”, either at home, at school, or within the wider community. Some may say that this is a good thing, but I’m not sure how this can be.

Certainly when I look back at my own life I am very aware of the importance of male role models in my own personal development. Surely in 21^st century Britain we all accept the need for both men and women in the development of children and adults for that matter. I know that throughout my ministry and certainly during training that there have been several ministers, men and women, who have been important role models to me. These are people who have shown me the way; people I have turned to as I struggled to find myself within my calling; people who have offered me gentle encouragement as I have doubted myself. Not that I have put them on pedestals, if I have learnt anything in life I have learnt that nobody is perfect, we all have “feet of clay”, I know I make mistakes everyday.

In Exodus Ch 20 you will find the 10 commandments familiar I am sure to most of us. The fifth commandment reads (Unless you are Catholic when it is the fourth commandment) “Honour your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” To me this is essentially what days like Father’s Day and Mothering Sunday (Mother’s Day) are really about. They are days set aside to pay honour and homage to those people who have parented each of us; those imperfect people who have guided our development. Now of course this can be challenging, especially if we have experienced difficult relationships with those people who have parented us. For some people such days can often be the hardest of the year, it is vital to honour this pain too.

As children we may well have looked at our fathers as almost Godlike, certainly I have at times. I still remember the pain when my dad fell of the pedestal I had created for him. The truth is of course that when I placed him there I was not truly honouring him, because by doing so I was not fully recognising his humanity. To truly honour those who have fathered us we need to recognise them for who they truly are warts and all and beauty spots too. Nobody is perfect we are all incomplete we are all constrained by our lives and the pressure it brings and we all make mistakes. No one is immune from selfishness and unloving behaviour, I know I am not.

My father had quite a “romantic” view of life, he often lived with his head in the clouds and he was not always the most responsible of people and he could certainly be deeply selfish. That said he was a lot of fun and was certainly a good story teller. In the few years that I knew him he told me many tales, many of which have stayed with me. How many of them were actually true, I'm not sure. That said I don’t think it actually matters because they all had truth within them; they possessed something of that universal "mythos" within them.

I remember when he was ill and towards the end of his life he recounted a tale when he was once at Appleby horse fare, a place he loved; where he was probably at his happiest. He was talking to me about faith and God. It was during a time of my life when I was a man of little or no faith; I certainly had no belief in God. He recounted that he saw a priest staring down into the water from a bridge. He asked the priest what he was doing and he told him that he was staring into God’s eyes. My father looked into the water and said he could only see himself and the priest. At which point the priest replied that this is where God dwells within you, within me and within everything.

Now whether this actually happened or not I do not really know. I have certainly heard versions of this tale in recent years. Here is a version I came across last week by Mark Link:

“A Little girl was standing with her grandfather by an old-fashioned open well. They had just lowered a bucket to draw some water to drink. “Grandfather,” asked the little girl, “Where does God live?”

The man picked up the little girl and held her over the open well. “Look down into the water,” he said, “and tell me what you see.” “I see myself,” said the little girl. “That’s where God lives,” said the old man. “He lives in you.”

Whether or not the story my dad told me 20 years ago actually happened to him or not, doesn't really matter to me. He did teach me a truth that has grown in meaning over the years. It stayed with me and survived my darkest days, it kept on re-surfacing. The ghost of my father still haunts me. Does yours haunt you?

When I think of God I always go back to the story my father told me, it finally began to make sense when things began to change within me some 10 or more years ago as I began to recognise the truth in it. I realise today that my greatest barrier to faith was that I did not believe that I was lovely of God's love, that I was not formed from it. These days though I see Gof in everything. This is why when I first heard  Forrest Church’s phrase “God is not God’s name. God is our name for that power that is Greater than all and yet present in each,” it immediately made sense, it echoed in my heart. This is why “Process Theology” and Panentheism (not to be confused with Pantheism) speak to me, they chime in my soul. They speak of an essence that is somehow more than life and yet it is present in all of life drawing us on but not controlling everything. Some have described this as the “Lure of Divine Love” that never leaves us; we just need to turn to it. The characteristics of which are both male and female and yet way beyond the limits of gender; way beyond the limit of time and space and human conceived constraints. When I think of God these days I think of a guiding loving hand that holds, guides and sustains and encourages you to be all that you can be.

Father’s Day brings me back to images of children learning to ride backs, or to swim, or more recently in my case learning to drive. How when you first attempt to do these things you are terrified, I know I was; how you don’t want the person guiding you to let you go. Just think about your own attempts to ride a bike. As you begin your body doesn’t seem to be working, you become aware of your awkwardness, as you start pushing at the peddles, as you wobble and no doubt fall a few times, but eventually you manage it, you are guided through it and eventually you make it. Once you do it the first time, you can do it for ever.

Did we do this on our own, no we were helped we were encouraged; we were guided through these fears we were held until we could trust ourselves. Father’s day is about honouring those who have guided us encouraged us and held us when life seemed too scary; those who gave us the faith to trust in ourselves and to trust in life and those who taught us that the divine presence is always with us.  They may not have been our biological fathers, they may not have been men, but we should honour them.

None of them were perfect and to truly honour them is to recognise their imperfection, just as to honour ourselves is to recognise and love who we are warts and all and beauty spots too.

Father’s I pay honour to you on this your special day

Happy Father’s Day

"Ghost of your father" by New Model Army

Creativity, mythos and the lure of Love

Extract taken from Letters to my Son by Kent Nerburn

"I can measure my life by the moments when art transformed me—standing in front of Michelangelo’s Duomo pieta, listening to Dylan Thomas read his poetry, hearing Bach’s cello suites for the first time.

But not only there.

Sitting at a table in a smoky club listening to Muddy Waters and Little Walter talk back and forth to each other through their instruments; listening to a tiny Japanese girl play a violin sonata at a youth symphony concert; standing in a clapboard gift shop on the edge of Hudson Bay staring at a crudely carved Inuit image of a bear turning into a man.

It can happen anywhere, anytime. You do not have to be in some setting hallowed by greatness, or in the presence of an artist honored around the world. Art can work its magic any time you are in the presence of a work created by someone who has gone inside the act of creation to become what they are creating. When this takes place time stands still and if our hearts are open to the experience, our spirits soar and then our imaginations fly unfettered.

You need these moments if you are ever to have a life that is more than the sum of the daily moments of humdrum affairs.

If you can create these moments—if you are a painter or a poet or a musician or an actor—you carry within you a prize of great worth. If you cannot create them, you must learn to love one of the arts in a way that allows the power of another’s creation to come alive within you.

Once you love an art enough that you can be taken up in it, you are able to experience an echo of the great creative act that mysteriously has given life to us all.

It may be the closest any of us can get to God."

Increasingly I am noticing the word Zen appearing at the beginning of any number of activities. It would appear that if you prefix anything with the word Zen it increases its meaningfulness.

Think about it Zen walking, Zen shopping, Zen doodling, Zen knitting, Zen cooking, Zen blogging even. I am sure there are many more. Now do not get me wrong I am fully aware that any activity can become meaningful if it is practised mindfully. That said it is important to note that it is not so much the activity itself that creates the meaning, more the fact that the person engaging with it is fully present. This is because they are no longer distracted, they are in the moment and therefore released from guilt, resentment and fear. Activities do not become deep and meaningful because we give them fancy names; they become deep and meaningful because of how we engage with them and the impact they have on our souls.

One activity that takes me beyond myself is singing. When singing I can feel totally connected and yet at the same time completely free. I have had some incredibly powerful experiences while singing; experiences that  were more than mere pleasure, they were transformative. In recent times I have been exploring singing more deeply. This has been primarily through the singing meditation I have created and begun to share with the wider world. I have also recently attended several workshops that have used sound and the voice to touch those hard to reach spots within all of us. I have enjoyed each session immensely and felt that I have reached some amazing places at times. I have also met some very interesting people at these events and gained so much from my interactions with them. I attended an “overtone singing” session, which was amazing and a lot of fun as well as a workshop on Solfeggio singing and another that incorporated singing bowls. All these touched me on a deep and profound level and got my creative juices flowing.  I am somebody who really connects with sound; it touches those creative elements at the core of my being.

Thankfully we are not all the same and many folk are touched by other creative activities. Increasingly I understand how different people are in the ways that they connect to and express who they are. Yes we are made of the same stuff and yet we think differently, we feel differently and we express ourselves differently. I celebrate this.

The thing is to find what connects with us, what wakes us up, what connects deeply with us. The key is to increases our sensitivity to life and therefore enable ourselves to truly express who we are and to share it with the world. Whatever gifts and talents we have and we all have them, they are not for us to keep, to be hoarded selfishly, they are there to be shared with everyone. I believe that this is what the epistle Paul was hinting at in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 when he talks of the variety of gifts that the spirit gives to each individual. These gifts are not given for the individual to use selfishly or to give them a privileged place in society but for the good of all. The gifts are given to the individual for them to express in life itself and for everyone to benefit from them.

This summer we witnessed some immensely talented sporting individuals fulfilling their potential and sharing it with us all. Their achievements lifted the whole nation. Creativity has the ability to do the same. I believe that it can do more than this though; I believe that it is also a pathway to the sacred. Every religious tradition gives credence to the idea that art pleases God and that our spiritual journeys are both fuelled and enhanced by creativity. As Kent Nerburn said in his letter to his son "It may be the closest any of us can get to God."

The creative process is born from life itself, but how does it come into existence? Why did I wake up on Monday morning with this need, this desire, to explore creativity? It did not merely grow from me, it seemed to come from a place somewhere beyond, but I am not sure where.

The ancient Greeks believed that the Muses were the sources of creativity. They believed that these Goddesses would come to a person in the night and whisper an idea into their ear. I find something very beautiful in this mythos and it does seem to reveal a universal truth. Seemingly something comes to us, in our subconscious, while we sleep.

Now please do not get me wrong I do not believe that a little winged creature flew into my room during Sunday night and whispered in my ear. Of course this is not what actually happened. And yet somehow these ideas do seem to be whispered into the ears of our hearts, into our souls, the core of our beings. Somehow this creative idea burst into my consciousness as I awoke on Monday morning.

This mythos speaks of a creative process that begins and ends beyond the individual; it speaks of an alchemy of brain, experience and wisdom that adds up to more than the individual who created the work; it speaks of a greater mystery. There is something divine occurring in the process; there is something at work here that calls the creation out of the individual; there is something going on here that is more than self, that cannot be controlled. I know myself that some weeks I am so full of ideas that they are seemingly bursting out of my ears and yet other weeks the well is dry. Some days I am completely blocked and then suddenly, as if something had just whispered in my ears, the idea just comes bursting out of me and I start writing again. Could this be God? Is God controlling this? Who knows?

Personally I do not hold with the view of a God who controls all our interaction, nor do I have a deistic understanding of a Creator who started the process but then left life to get on with it. Nor am I an atheist or even agnostic, I know a Divine presence in life. I believe in the Divine Lure of Love. That the Divine lures life on, that we are co-creators, with all of life in a universal process. I sense this divine presence within me and I experience it in life itself, particularly in creativity or in deeply felt interactions.  

The Unitarian process theologian Henry Nelson Weiman (1884-1975) defined God as a process that leads people to act in ways that sustain and nurture life. Creativity is at the heart of this. Whenever we create we turn our whole selves inside out. This enables us to become aware of who we truly are, thus revealing what sustains and nurtures us. When we create we allow others to see deep within our humanity, thus enabling them to widen their view of human need and possibility.

Also whatever we create only becomes complete when we share it with others; this blog is only complete when you read and perhaps respond to it. Such creations are meant to communicate beyond their very selves. Weiman called this “Creative Interchange”. We all create and we all pay attention to the creations of others; we are all craft workers and craft consumers.

By you reading this blog that I have created we are engaing in creative interchange!

When we interact with one another’s creations we are deeply engaged with one another and all of life for that matter. You can pre-fix it with the word Zen, but I do not think it is necessary. When we create we open windows into each other’s humanity. As we do so we create windows that can lead to a deeper understanding of what sustains all life. This I believe leads us to living a life that is for the good of all and not just ourselves.

We are all born with the ability to create and to appreciate the creativity of others. We are all craft workers and craft consumers. As we create and consume we experience a sense of interconnection with all of life, which enables us to nurture and sustain our world. For it is up to us to do so as we dance our dance with the divine creator.

I am going to end this little chip of blog with some words by Desmond Tutu

“We were made to enjoy music, to enjoy beautiful sunsets, to enjoy looking at the billows of the sea and to be thrilled with a rose that is bedecked with dew...Human beings are actually created for the transcendent, for the sublime, for the beautiful, for the truthful...and all of us are given the task of trying to make this world a little more hospitable to these beautiful things.”

You are all beautiful...never forget that...it will bring you closer to God...