Awakening to the hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground

It was a bit wild last Sunday. I was impressed by the number of people that still managed to join us for worship despite the impact of "Storm Ciara". Ths weekend we have had to face another yet another, "Storm Dennis". I learnt last Sunday, just as I was arriving at Queens Road Urmston for the first service, that they had called the football off that afternoon, so it would appear that the congregants were hardier than those football fans. Actually the truth is that it was not safe to travel from London to Manchester and trains and trams were being cancelled.

As I left Urmston at 11am to return back to Altrincham Storm Ciara really took hold. It was the wildest weather I can ever remember driving in, there was debris all over the roads and the wind and the rain buffeted the car. I remember thinking to myself I’m glad I’m not driving over the top of the M62 today. I suspect that things were far worse in Yorkshire. I heard the next day that my sister and her husbands canal boat was a casualty and had sunk, thankfully they were not on board and they have insurance. Still very distressing all the same. They are a hardy pair and all will be well, but still they have invested some much love into their life together on that. By the way I also learnt that they had taken the journey over the top of the M62, earlier that day, as they had driven back from Liverpool.

Now maybe I am somewhat foolhardy, but as I drove down the Flixton mile road I felt little fear; I felt alive, and safe, and protected; I felt at one with the car and the weather. If truth be told I cannot remember ever feeling more awake and alive as I did for those twenty minutes. Now I had actually felt that way from the moment I had awoken that morning. I had not had a great deal of sleep, I had gone to bed later after a deeply fulfilling day, and yet felt incredibly refreshed that morning as I woke, I could feel it on the taste of my own breath.

Why was this you may well ask? Well I just had this deep sense of connection with everything in life. I was awake. I had spent quite a lot of time in prayer and meditation that week and I had been fully engaged in the stream of life, so this must have had something to do with it. When I ponder the purpose of prayer and meditation I always think of the following “Prayer doesn’t change things, prayer changes people and people change things.” Over the years I have discovered that it is prayer that enables me to open and connect to life in all its joy and suffering, it allows me to increase my sensitivity to life and thus be touched by life and in return respond in more loving and open ways. Prayer for me is a kind of opening of myself to something larger.

So, as a result, as I drove through the storm, I cannot remember ever feeling more connected and awake to everything. Over the years I have had many similar experiences. They do not seem to last forever, at least not in this heightened state, that said afterwards I have never been quite the same again.

This morning the following poem appeared as a facebook memory, it seemed to fit in with my thoughts here...

“A Journey” by Edward Field

When he got up that morning everything was different:
He enjoyed the bright spring day
But he did not realise it exactly, he just enjoyed it.

And walking down the street to the railroad station
Past magnolia trees with dying flowers like old socks
It was a long time since he had breathed so simply.

Tears filled his eyes and it felt good
but he held them back
Because men didn’t walk around crying in that town.

Waiting on the platform at the station
The fear came over him of something terrible about to happen:
The train was late and he recited the alphabet to keep hold.

And in its time it came screeching in
And as it went on making its usual stops,
People coming and going, telephone poles passing,

He hid his head behind a newspaper
No longer able to hold back the sobs, and willed his eyes
To follow the rational weavings of the seat fabrics.

He didn’t do anything violent as he had imagined.
He cried for a long time, but when he finally quieted down
A place in him that had been closed like a fist was open,

And at the end of the ride he stood up and got off that train:
And through the streets and in all the places he lived in later on
He walked, himself at last, a man among men,
With such radiance that everyone looked up and wondered.

The great traditions often spoke of this need to wake up, to awaken. Now this awakened state was not meant to be purely for ourselves. It was meant to enable us to act in the world, in this awakened state, and thus encourage others to do the same, leading them to act in loving and compassionate ways, to create a true sense of oneness. That there is no separation only a great unity in life. That there is no us and them. Certainly my understanding of the teaching of Jesus was that at its core it was all about this. Whether that was to release the prisoners and serve the underprivileged as in Luke’s Gospel or in a more spiritual sense as in Matthew’s. I felt this sense powerfully as I walked around Capernaum and Galilee this time last year. It was a year last Wednesday that Sue and I were there and I proposed to her. That day I felt powerfully the feeling that life should always be interpreted by love. During our visit to Galilee there were many moments like that feeling I experienced last Sunday. There was no storms to experience although I did witness the problems that can stem from we humans not seeing other humans as one. I witnessed it as I saw the division between those who see the land as Palestine and those who see it as Israel, I saw it in the past, the present and sadly the future. A deeply spiritual place and yet a land shaped by violence and division.

Some 600 years before the ministry of Jesus the Buddha began his search for enlightenment in India. Some suggest that Jesus had developed his belief system because he visited India himself and was thus exposed to Hinduism and Buddhism. It is not a story I accept personally. Instead I reckon that similar principles have manifested in many human forms throughout our history. I suspect that all of us are capable of awakening to this deep love. We can all wake up and realise the love at the core of all life. We may interpret it different due to the culture we are born into, the myths and stories may not be the same, but the essence is

Now while the lives of the Buddha and Jesus have parallels there was one crucial difference. The Buddha was born into privilege which he rejected and went off to discover, to his great dismay, both grinding poverty and death. By contrast Jesus was born into those very daily realities. They shared a path to wisdom through mindfulness, prayer, contemplation into an inner journey to their central core, to love, to God if you will. They became compassionate witnesses to the world of pain and suffering around them, taking into themselves the world’s pain, and they returned infinite compassion and boundless love embodied in the reassurance of resurrection and hope.

When the Buddha was asked, “What are you, a God, an angel and saint”, he answered no to each question. They persisted, and he replied enigmatically, “I am awake” as Jesus was to the duel reality of living in the face of death. Both intuitively understood that suffering could be turned to joy through sacred living, following the Dharma as Buddha put it (to salvation and Nirvana). Jesus called this eternal life. Through the lives they lived they modelled a better way of living, both examples to what we can be if we were to awaken the love within us.

Now this is all very interesting you may say, but what does it mean to wake up? What do we need to wake up to?

Well I would say look around you and within you. Take time in contemplation and it will awaken the senses that you have been given and enable you to respond to the needs around you.

Or to quote Rabindranath Tagore, a man deeply influenced by eastern and western traditions and who became a great influence both here and in India.

“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”

By waking up we will know the joy of living, through simple loving service. Isn’t this what it means to follow the great examples. To be awake, is to awaken to the world. Let us wake up to this world we live in; to its beauty and wonder, and also to its tragedy and pain. Let us wake up to the reality in which we live and to respond in loving ways. Let us wake up to the idea that our wholeness, our lives, are only as complete as the lives of those around us, of those we are inextricably tied to in a great web of mutuality, of which are all a part and to which we all belong.

Let us wake up and let us stay awake.

Now for some people waking up can be a terrifying feeling. There have been times in my life when I have not wanted to wake up and face another day. So many people experience this on a daily basis; so many people wake up frightened for a variety of reasons. To be truly awake is to be compassionate towards them; to be truly awake it is vital to acknowledge this suffering in life and be with those who suffer.

That said it is just as important to express the beauty of life and to express gratitude for the incredible joy that can be human living. This is precisely what I was experiencing as I was driving between the beautiful congregations I serve, in the wild wind and rain. I was living in the joy of service.

With this in mind I am going to leave you with another question, I know I keep on doing this.  It is a question that comes from the Sufi tradition of Islam, from the beautiful poetry of Rumi. It is a kind of antidote to the feeling that might come on those days when we wake up empty and frightened, as many people do and no doubt most of us have done as some point in time.

So here’s a question for this day, perhaps it’s a question for every day, what might to you, to “kneel and kiss the ground?”

Here are the verses

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

Rumi

What might it mean, to "kneel and kiss the ground?"

Love Service and Radical Amazement: Walking your Path with Joy

“Faith” by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

"Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart. Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement, to get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted.

Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.

Prayer begins at the edge of emptiness. Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge. Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy. We can never sneer at the stars, mock the dawn, or scoff at the totality of being.

Self-respect is the root of discipline: The sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself. The primary purpose of prayer is not to make requests. The primary purpose is to praise, to sing, to chant. Because the essence of prayer is a song, and man cannot live without a song.

When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people. Know that every deed counts, that every word is power… Above all, remember that you must build your life as if it were a work of art."

~Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
(January 11, 1907 – December 23, 1972)

“Help us fulfil what lies within the circle of our lives – each day we ask no more, no less. Untangle the knots within, so we can mend our hearts’ simple ties to others…Free us to walk your path with joy!” by Neil Douglas-Klotz – “Prayers of the Cosmos”

Towards the end of August I have the honour of serving as “Minister of the Week” at “Hucklow Summer School”. The theme for this year is “‘Walk Your Path with Joy’- Finding Hope & Resisting Despair in Turbulent Times”. I will be serving those present and helping them spiritually, mentally and emotionally through what will be a deeply challenging week. It is not a holiday, I am there to serve, to minister to all present.

I am often amused by people’s responses to what I do as a vocation. I’m even more amused by what they call me. A couple whose wedding I recently conducted called me Father and others assume I am a vicar. I have heard of someone else calling me Pastor Dan. I’m sure I’m called many other things too, which I won’t repeat. Now while my title is reverend I am a minister and this is an entirely appropriate name for what I do. To minister literally means to serve and I believe this is what I do, I serve people, I serve life and I serve God. I am a minister and to minister is to serve. I often wonder when I listen to political leaders if they are truly aware of this, they are there purely to serve “we the people” and not the other way round. The Prime Minister ought to see themself as the number one servant in the land. Sadly power can go to anyone’s head.

Now some say I am an unorthodox minister. I remember a congregant once saying that “I was like no minister she had ever met before.” I remember Rev Bill Darlison’s response to this comment. He quipped “Danny you are unlike any minister that anyone has ever met before.”

So it appears true that I am an unorthodox minister and yet to me I simply do my best to fulfil my role, to simply serve life live through love. To show others the way of love and service and hope in the midst of suffering. I cannot take away anybody’s suffering, but I can walk with them and by doing so meaning emerges and despair is dispelled.

To quote Micah (Ch8 v 6)

“He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

Will you come and walk with me?

So how do we find hope and resist despair in the turbulent times. This is most definitely a pertinent question for everyone right now, we seem to be in midst of incredibly turbulent times. As a nation we are facing the most challenging period in my memory. There are many forces at work that seem to want to divide us. Our political class are at war and economic troubles on the increase, there is violence on the streets from haters of life and extremists of many kinds. Every day the news is filled with chaos and loss of life. Now I am not naive, this is not new. This has been happening all over the world throughout my lifetime, it’s just I’ve never seen it to this extent in this country. It is making us look at life wholly, as of course we should always do so. It is opening our senses to everything and this is painful. It should be painful. If it didn’t hurt then there would be something deeply wrong with us. Hell is indifference.

It is easy to feel powerless against this tide of suffering. How do we keep our heads up and our eyes and hearts open to one another and life, how do we find Hope in the midst of all of this? How do we transcend despair?

Well I believe it begins with what I have already witnessed. It begins in and through service. Rabindranath Tagore said “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.” It begins by baring witness to the love and service and the coming together I have witnessed on the same tv screens and also very close at hand as I have seen ordinary people helping, holding and inspiring one another. People walking together in their suffering, in love. I see it in the little things as well as the bigger things. It doesn’t take away the suffering but it brings to life the love present in each of us, a power that will always overcome the powers that divide us. To quote Jo Cox “There is more that unites us than divides us.” or in the words of Harry Stack Sullivan “ We are all much more simply human than otherwise, be we happy and successful, contented and detached, miserable and mentally disordered, or whatever.” We all live with the same struggles, we are all born from the same earth, live under the same sun and I believe have the same spirit running through us all.

As we serve others meaning emerges and we discover our own true hearts. It does not end the suffering but it creates Hope and meaning from the suffering and in so doing we build a legacy of the heart for those who follow. As we serve others we develop our own hearts and souls, in serving others we are working on ourselves, on our own souls; every act, every word, every gesture of genuine compassion naturally nourishes our own hearts and minds and souls. Service is soul work, it is the heart in action and it brings us fully to life. In so doing we transcend the very real suffering that is an aspect of all life; in so doing we transcend despair.

Through faith in life itself, by giving ourselves fully to life, we know joy. Joy is an attribute of a full, rich and deeply meaningful life. It is radically different to fun, pleasure and happiness, these are merely emotional qualities. Joy is a spiritual quality that is present within us, despite life’s circumstances. Joy is about connection, intimate connection. When I know joy I am at one with life and with myself. Through love and service we can begin to once again awaken to the amazement of life and know joy.

Joy for life itself can be known even during life’s troubles and difficulties. The people Jesus spoke to 2,000 years ago were not living easy and comfortable lives. Those people knew about conflict, oppression, tragedy and almost constant grief. He told them that all that was wonderful, life-giving, life affirming, all that is meaningful was theirs. He said to them “Enter into my kingdom with joy.” And “This is my commandment, that you love one another.”

The kingdom he spoke of can be with us right here right now, we can know and experience the commonwealth of love right here, right now. And how can we know it? Well by fulfilling the commandment to love one another. Love though is not some mushy sentiment, it is an act, it is a way of being. The commonwealth of love comes into being by giving ourselves fully to life, to one another; through giving ourselves fully to life and to one another we truly realise the joy of living. In so doing we will be awakened to the true amazement of what it means to actually be alive.

Tagore said: “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”

This is the purpose of the religious life to awaken joy through service to and for one another. Joy is about connection, intimate connection. When we give of ourselves to others and to life we know the joy that is truly living. That said when we live only for ourselves and live dis-connected from life, we quickly become joyless once again, we lose faith in God given life, our experience of life becomes dulled and meaningless.

Some people say “everything happens for a reason”, in so doing suggesting it is all part of God’s plan. I have never believed this and believe it simply opens the great theodicy question “How can an all-powerful and all loving God allow suffering? A question that comes into my consciousness constantly as a minister of religion.

My truth is that I do not believe that everything in life is pre-ordained or pre-determined, the future is unwritten. I do believe in the Lure of Divine Love, that all life is given free will and it is our task to bring love alive in life and to encourage others to do the same through our example, in this sense we are not powerless against the tide of despair. It is our responsibility to become beacons of hope to others in their suffering, to become the light of the world. Hope rises from the ashes of suffering and meaning emerges through our living and breathing. This is why everything matters, every thought, every breath, every feeling, every action, and every word. This is also one way in which joy can be found in life, through love and service for others, despite the very real turbulence all around us. I believe in life I am constantly in awe and amazement at it, despite the very real suffering present. I live with my eyes, with all my senses including the sixth sense fully open. It is the only way I know how to live fully alive.

Some may ask how and why can I believe this? My simple answer to this is “This is what my 45 years of living breathing and waking up has taught me.” I believe in life, it constantly amazes me.

Life amazes me, constantly. Despite all the darkness and destruction that is present, that can overwhelm it all, life and love always seems to find a way through. Like that little shoot that finds its way back to life every spring time, finding its way through all the obstacles in its way, insisting on reaching out beyond and finding life. That amazes me; I find that utterly amazing.

Abraham Joshua Heschel said that:

“Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement. ....get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.”

Through living in love and service I am awakened to the amazement of life. My senses are fully awake. But what is amazement you may well ask? What is radical amazement?

“Radical Amazement” captures those moments, those deeply human moments when we find ourselves intensely connected to the mystery and the majesty of existence. It is found not so much in the big moments, when we mark life’s achievements, it is more about what Heschell himself describes as “the common and the simple” those small things that reveal “the infinite significance” of existence. In many ways “radical amazement” is about paying attention and looking deeply at the routine moments of our lives and experiencing just how incredible they are. There are parallels to mindfulness here, but I think there is more to it than that, there is a sense of eye popping awe and wonder in looking through radically amazed eyes. It’s about seeing the miracle in existence. How many of us truly recognise and acknowledge just how amazing it is that we exist at all?

“Radical Amazement” is about looking into the familiar with what Rumi called “fresh eyes”, it’s about recognising that even the most routine moments are in actual fact outrageous. Just think about our existence here on this spinning planet rushing through a universe some 13 billion years old, or so they tell us. We are formed from stardust and yet made from flesh that are homes to entire eco-systems and billions of cells that are neatly balanced so as to allows us to exist, that are constantly altering and changing and adjusting to all that we experience. We who are made from stardust are more than merely stardust though, we are made up of complex thoughts, emotions and experiences and there is a spirit within each of us. We are more than merely our biology; we are more than merely thinking meat. It is amazing and marvellous to truly be who we are.

We need to look at all life with eyes wide open, through “fresh eyes”, something that can be hard to do when turbulence strikes, when we experience and witness suffering, but we must if we are to live in the full amazement of existence. When we see life through such eyes all this that we are made from reacts in positive and powerful ways, something we can feel with real intensity at times. I know that there are times when our whole make up responds to the whole of the make-up of the universe and that this occurs every time that we see the miracle in existence, in a new way. This blows me away. It is amazing that we exist at all; it’s amazing that everything came from the same nothing.

Bang…and here we are in a fabulous place…what are you gunna do here…in this sacred place, in this sacred time, in these are sacred bodies, in these our sacred lives…

“Radical Amazement” is about looking into life with truly open eyes, it is an ethical act and an intentional decision, it is the ultimate spiritual practise and as such it is one that involves great risk. This is because it opens us up to all that is, as it truly is. This requires courage, because to see the beauty also requires us to see the horror too. This may seem too awful for some, but it is the awe that accompanies vulnerability that is required to be awakened to radical amazement.

To see the world with awakened eyes, fresh eyes, open eyes is look into life in “Radical Amazement”. It is life as it truly is in its awe filled beauty. It is to truly let life in and to fill us to the brim.

It seems to me that “Radical Amazement” is how to live and breathe our human spirituality. At its essence spirituality is about being amazed it is about cultivating greater openness and deeper awareness of the beauty, blessing and mystery of life.

Suffering is an aspect of living, it cannot be escaped. Everybody suffers. Life itself though is not suffering, love and joy are also an aspect of life too. How do we experience love and joy? Well it’s quite simple really. It comes through living with all our senses wide open. It begins by simply opening our eyes and our arms. It begins in love and service. It begins by simply walking humbly with one another and humbly giving thanks that we even exist at all. This is what it means to live in and through Hope and it is this that will lift us from despair despite the very real suffering in life. It begins by simply looking into the eyes of our neighbour and recognising the amazing thing that is their existence and continues as we look at the world in which we live and by simply giving thanks for life, for it truly is amazing that life exists at all.

May love guides us in the weeks ahead, may it lead us to Hope and away from Despair in spite of the very real suffering present in life.

"I acted and behold service was joy"

“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”

I love these words of wisdom by Rabindranath Tagore. There is such a universal truth revealed within them. A truth I have known from time to time. Even in the midst of difficulty, through service, I have experienced joy and happiness. I have learnt, although sometimes I do still forget, that beauty, truth and meaning truly emerges in and through love and service for life. Through giving myself fully to life I know joy; I know the joy of being alive. I sing the joy of living. Life has taught me that it truly is in giving that we receive.

Through faith in life itself, by giving ourselves fully to life, we know joy. Joy is an attribute of a full, rich and deeply meaningful life. It is radically different to fun, pleasure and happiness, these are merely emotional qualities. Joy is a spiritual quality that is present within us, despite life’s circumstances. Joy is about connection, intimate connection. When I know joy I am at one with life and with myself.

I was recently sat with a friend, his partner and their new born daughter Erin. It was an absolute joy to be in their company and to see the utter bliss that they were experiencing in this new life that had taken over theirs. Now this friend is also experiencing grief and pain right now as he has lost a very dear friend to an illness both he and I have found merciful release from. He is not in denial of the pain of his grief, he is feeling it deeply, that said at the same time he is able to truly know the joy in the life of his daughter. It is a joy we have all known I am sure in one way or another. The joy though is not just in the person, it comes in the connection he is experiencing  My friend’s joy is in that sense of connection he experiences between himself, his partner and their daughter, they are one, they are the one undivided whole. It is beautiful to behold.

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I often feel this kind of joy in the company of people who are willing to truly be themselves, to let their guards down and truly let go. I feel it in the company of certain old mates and I often experience in Cafe Nero on a Tuesday morning after the weekly meditation I attend. In that time there is a real sense of connection, of being fully alive, of utter joy. This Tuesday morning time brings to mind some words by Walt Whitman I recently encountered.

“I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,

To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,

To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing,

Laughing flesh is enough,

To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm

Ever so lightly around his or her neck for a moment,

What is this

Then?

I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as in a sea.”

“To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, Laughing flesh is enough,”

Those couple of hours I share on a Tuesday morning, is utter bliss, complete joy and deeply inspirational. During this time I experience utter connection.

Now there are those who will say that joy is for the immature, the blind, the Pollyanna’s of life. How can you know joy when we are surrounded by so much unhappiness, when there is so much misery in the world? They say that life is not filled with joy, but, misery and suffering. The epitome of the anti joy brigade would be someone like Thomas Hobbes who in “The Leviathan” wrote:

"Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of Warre, where every man is Enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withall. In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short."

I will repeat the last few words “And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short”

Not a lot of joy to be found there me thinks...maybe maybe not...

Carl Scovel, whose writing was much loved by my old minister John Midgely, has taken a very different view of life. The heart of his faith was something he described as the “Great Surmise” at a talk he delivered at the 1994 Unitarian Universalist General Assembly he described what he meant by it:

“The Great Surmise says simply this: At the heart of all creation lies a good intent, a purposeful goodness, from which we come, by which we live our fullest, and to which we shall at last return. This is the supreme mystery of our lives. This goodness is ultimate-not fate, not freedom, not mystery, energy, order, finite, but this good intent in creation is our source, our centre, and our destiny...Our work on earth is to explore, enjoy, and share this goodness. Neither duty nor suffering nor progress nor conflict-not even survival-is the aim of life, but joy. Deep, abiding, uncompromised joy.

Life really is about how we see things, our perspective. Is life “Nasty, brutish and short”...Maybe, maybe not?

Or is it a “Deep, abiding, uncompromised joy ”...Maybe, maybe not?

Joy for life itself can be known even during life’s troubles and difficulties. The people Jesus spoke to 2,000 years ago were not living easy and comfortable lives. Those people knew about conflict, oppression, tragedy and almost constant grief. He told them that all that was wonderful, life-giving, life affirming, all that is meaningful was theirs. He said to them “Enter into my kingdom with joy.” He also told them that “This is my commandment, that you love one another.”

The kingdom he spoke of can be with us right here right now, we can know and experience the commonwealth of love right here, right now. And how can we know it? Well by following the commandment to love one another. Now please do not confuse this with some mushy sentiment; love is not this at all; love is an act, it is a way of being. The commonwealth of love comes into being by giving ourselves fully to life, to one another; through giving ourselves fully to life and to one another we truly realise the joy of living.

Tagore said: “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”

This is the purpose of the religious life to awaken joy through service to and for one another. Joy is about connection, intimate connection. When we give of ourselves to others and to life we know the joy that is truly living. That said when we live only for ourselves and live dis-connected from life, we quickly become joyless once again, we lose faith in God given life, our experience of life becomes dulled and meaningless.

True religion is all about connection; it’s about re-binding all of life together. It’s also about commitment, to each other and to life itself. I make that commitment in so many ways, I especially do so during that Tuesday morning meditation group. I see that same connection in the relationship that my friend and his partner have with their daughter.  These are commitments of love, they are commitments of service on so many different levels; service to something more than self; service that brings joy to life.

Tagore said: “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”

We can make that dream a reality; we can make joy a reality. It becomes a reality through love and service to and for one another. For it is in giving that we all receive.

As Gandhi wisely pointed out “...even as we serve others we are working on ourselves; every act, every word, every gesture of genuine compassion naturally nourishes our own hearts as well. It is not a question of who is healed first. When we attend to ourselves with compassion and mercy, more healing is made available for others. And when we serve others with an open and generous heart, great healing comes to us."

It is in these moments that we truly know joy. Not by chasing after it, like a kite that’s blown away in a storm. We will never catch up with it that way and even if we do it will get blown away come the next storm. Instead it comes to us when we give ourselves fully to life and those around us and connect to it all that is. It is in these moments that we realise that life itself is a joy.

To live life fully is to know joy; to live life fully is to serve one another; to serve one another is to be fulfilled; to be fulfilled is to experience and to know joy.

“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”

Rabindranath Tagore and "The Age of the Sound Bite"

This morning we were celebrating the first anniversary of a youth theatre group that are using the large schoolroom here at Dunham Road. I was invited along to have my picture taken with them and was then interviewed for the local press. I was asked to give a couple of “sound bites” about why we were supporting them using our building and what we hoped this might achieve.

We are told that the best way to communicate with people in this day and age is through “sound bites”; that if you’ve got something to say, you must be able to communicate it in no more than 140 characters.

Is this true? Well I personally do not think so, although I do accept that the “sound bite” is a useful method of communication and ought not to be dismissed.

A lot of the publicity material produced by Unitarians has the tag line “Many Beliefs, One Faith” a sound bite that I actually like. I believe that it portrays accurately, our faith tradition. I reckon that it could well open the door to people and lead to further inquiry. Could it lead to them asking Ciff Reed’s question “Unitarian, what’s that?” 
http://www.derbyunitarians.org.uk/unitarian_whats_that.html

Of course “Sound bites” have their limits. They are not created to offer answers merely stimulate questions. Isn’t this what the spiritual life is all about? Asking the questions? Well actually in my experience this is only part of it. If it is only about asking the questions, then the spiritual life is limited. This is why I am one of those folk who believe that spiritually, without religious community, will always be limited. As I have said before I believe that spirituality needs religion, just as religion needs spirituality. One without the other doesn’t really work. True religion is about free spiritual seeking, but in constructive activity with others, in the world that we actually inhabit. Spirituality, at least in many of its modern incarnations, seems to miss so much due to it’s over emphasis on the individual.  A free religious faith, where a diversity of beliefs is encouraged, is about the asking the questions in community with others and then living those questions in life itself. Or to put it another way, it’s about “Unity in Diversity”. Or as our current publicity reads “Many Beliefs, One Faith”.

The “Wayside Pulpit” is one method of displaying our message to outsiders. It is something that I have not fully got the hang of as of yet. Michael Jackson (not the recently deceased singer) a Buddhist/Christian solicitor is an avid reader of our “Wayside pulpit”, at Altrincham. He tells me the ones that he likes and the ones that he considers to be too wordy. Some of our recent one’s have been too wordy, he tells me. Yet another case of progress not perfection, I am working on this.

The current “Wayside Pulpit” at Dunham Road reads “I feel called to be faithful in two ways, inwardly to God and outwardly to man” by George Fox the 17^th century Quaker, who definitely followed both of his callings. He was a spiritually enlightened man, who lived out his religious convictions.

Fox’s “sound bite” is echoed in the teachings of Rabindranath Tagore who taught that God is found through personal discovery and human service.

2011 is the 150^th anniversary of Tagore’s birth, which is being celebrated by diverse groups of people in many parts of the world. We Unitarians are celebrating his life and teachings too. This is because we have been influenced by him and his work and we ourselves influenced his own personal spiritual development.

Rabindranath Tragore was born into privilege in Calcutta, to a family who combined Indian culture with western ideas. He was a child protégé who began writing poems at the age of eight. By the age of 17 he was a published author. He enjoyed a fine education, including a spell studying law at University College London.

Following his marriage in 1883 he moved to East Bengal now Bangladesh and began to collect folk stories. He wrote prolifically in the local language and had several books published during the latter years of the 19^th century. He wrote a variety of poems, prose, short stories and novels. In 1901 he founded a school near Calcutta, which taught a combination of both eastern and western philosophy.

In 1913 Tagore won the Nobel Prize for literature, he was the first non-westerner to do so. How this came about is cloaked in mystery. In 1912 he sailed for England with 100 translations of his poems, which would become the anthology “Gitanjali” (“song offerings”). He carelessly left them on the tube and thought they were lost. While in London he met WB Yeates who became a passionate supporter and helped him to get his work published in England. He quickly became a global phenomenon, due in no small part to him being awarded the Nobel Prize.  He was the embodiment of the synthesis between east and west. He was the first Guru, more than half a century before the Beatles went on their pilgrimage to India.

He is portrayed by many Unitarians as a beacon of religious inclusivity. He was a member of the Liberal Hindu movement Brahmo Samaj, which was heavily influenced by western thinking. Not only did he want to share his culture with the west; he also wanted to learn about the west. He wanted to combine the best of both of these worlds. As he said his dream was to unite “the introspective vision of the universal soul (eastern spirituality) with the spirit of its outward expression in service (western religion).

This brings to my mind the parable of Mary and Martha (Luke Ch 10 vv 38-42). Many Biblical scholars have seen Mary as the representative of contemplation, prayer the inner life; whereas Martha is seen as the representative of social action, of good works for others. Together they represent the “Golden Rule of Compassion”, the love of God and the love of neighbour. Mary represents the east and Martha the west; Mary represents spirituality and Martha religion. They are the perfect embodiment of our current Wayside pulpit, spoken in the 17^th century, by George Fox “I feel called to be faithful in two ways, inwardly to God and outwardly to man”. Sound bites are not a modern phenomena, Jesus used them...”Let he who is without sin cast the first stone”, “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven” and many, many more.

Tagore played a leading role in the Indian reform movements of the inter-war period. He and Gandhi were friends and allies for quite some time, although they did fall out over what Tagore saw as Gandhi’s idealisation of cottage cotton spinning. Tagore did not want to live in the past and criticised Gandhi for idealising it. Tagore wanted the best of both east and west and not the total rejection of either. Gandhi saw Tagore as being too complex and positive about life and Tagore viewed Gandhi as being too simplistic and negative with regard to India and her problems. That said, although they disagreed, they continued to show respect for one another and their different religious views.

Tagore was a strong believer in the dignity of the individual, he upheld the value of freedom. He believed in the divine purpose and of the diversity of language, religion and culture that was at the heart of Indian life. He championed “Unity in Diversity” and believed that every language, religion and culture had its place in India. Multi-culturalism is not a modern invention; many of the ancient civilisations were multi-cultural. He saw India as the great exemplar of this and believed that its contribution to world civilisation lay in its example of unity in diversity to the whole world. Sadly this was damaged due to partition and the nationalism that accompanied it.

I believe that my Unitarian tradition owes a debt to Tagore for this concept of “Unity in Diversity”, exemplified in our current “sound bite” “Many Beliefs One Faith”. Paradoxically it is both a simple and yet complex message. Many beliefs suggests a broad questioning spirituality; where as one faith is speaking of a community coming together and impacting on the society in which it lives and breathes. Yes it is diverse, while also bringing individuals into oneness with each other, their world and with God however each understands this word.

I believe that we all have that Divine spark within us. We are all capable of so much more than we sometime allow ourselves to be. We are capable of moving beyond self centred accumulation to a life of service with and for one another. We can dedicate ourselves to the cause of truth and beauty, to unrewarded service for others. We can dedicate ourselves to love for self and neighbour, the love of nature and we can grow in harmony with all existence.

All are capable of heeding George Fox’s call:

“I feel called to be faithful in two ways, inwardly to God and outwardly to man”

I will end this piece with some words of Tagore. I will not call them a “sound bite” and they are too long for a future “Wayside Pulpit”, nevertheless are believe they are worth reflecting on

 “All my work and all my dealings with people feel very easy. Actually, everything is simple. There is one straight road - if you open your eyes you can go along it. I don’t see the need to search for all sorts of clever short cuts. Happiness and sadness are both on the road - there is no road that avoids them - but peace is found only on this road, nowhere else.”

By the way it’s a very Broad Highway, not a narrow path.

Does that sound like an ok “sound bite”? I'd better ask Michael Jackson.