Openness and Humility: Hearts, Eyes, Minds and Hands

Once upon a time there were six blind men. They lived in a town in India. They thought they were very clever. One day an elephant came into the town. The blind men did not know what an elephant looked like but they could smell it and they could hear it. 'What is this animal like?' they said. Each man touched a different part of the elephant.

The first man touched the elephant's body. It felt hard, big and wide. 'An elephant is like a wall,' he said.

The second man touched one of the elephant's tusks. It felt smooth and hard and sharp. 'An elephant is like a spear,' he said.

The third man touched the elephant's trunk. It felt long and thin and wiggly. 'An elephant is like a snake,' he said.

The fourth man touched one of the legs. It felt thick and rough and hard and round. 'An elephant is like a tree,' he said.

The fifth man touched one of the elephant's ears. It felt thin and it moved. 'An elephant is like a fan,' he said.

The sixth man touched the elephant's tail. It felt long and thin and strong. 'An elephant is like a rope,' he said.

The men argued. It's like a wall! No, it isn't! It's like a spear! No it isn't! It's like a snake! They did not agree. The king had been watching and listening to the men. 'You are not very clever. You only touched part of the elephant. You did not feel the whole animal. An elephant is not like a wall or a spear or a snake, or a tree or a fan or a rope.'

The men left the town still arguing. A little girl heard them and said 'Each of you is right but you are all wrong … but I know what you are talking about!'

Maybe if they learned to listen to each other, been open to another then together they might just have learned the truth of what an elephant is.

I received many lovely gifts for my birthday. Some arrived through the letter box , others given to me directly a few were left on my doorstep. I was given a wonderful book on Ralph Waldo Emerson written by a former member of Dunham Road Chapel Alexander Ireland, the father of the composer John Ireland. Alexander Ireland and Emerson were great friends. As Emerson said “The only way to have friends is to be one”, inspired by their lifelong friends. On my birthdays I often think that he greatest gifts I have in my life are my friends, the folk I get to walk the journey of life with. One friend sent me a lovely WattsApp message which included the following that opened my heart.

“When asked about the lens through which she chooses to see the world, Quaker songwriter Carrie Newcomer shares her practice of seeing with the eyes of love:

My life as a songwriter and a poet has asked me to consider how I look at the world on a daily, moment-to-moment kind of way…. Our first job is to pay attention and then to take in what we see with a certain kind of spirit and for me, a certain kind of love. I think it’s a practice and the more you practice it, the more you see; the more you see, the more you see with love….

The big things I love: I love my husband. I love my daughter. I love justice. I love mercy…. I love so many big things, but my life is also filled every day with all these glorious little loves…. There can be great meaning and great love in small things. I love blueberries and I love the smell of lilacs and I love how little kids hold each other’s hands when they go across the street….

In looking at the small moment and the small thing through love, it’s not always completely joyous…. You take it all. When you decide I’m going to be here, I’m going to be present, and I’m going to be present with love, you take it all.”

Thank you, Carrie, and thank you my friend for sending me this on my birthday.

It is not always easy taking it all, but there is no other way I have discovered. You have to look at it all with eyes wide open and heart, mind and soul too and then respond with hands open to all that is.

Like Carrie, I know it is often the little things that bring the greatest blessings in our lives. I continue on day by day. I share my blessing every morning upon awakening with friends on social media. I have a little quiet time, in prayer and then I reflect and share. I was thinking of the little blessings as I reflected on my birthday gifts and greetings, including a few friends, with mixed ability singing happy birthday on voice notes. As I did I looked down at my little blessing Molly who I collected 3 years ago. As you know I had gone for one of her sisters, but she insisted on coming home with me. A day of deep sorrow as it was also the day that our youngest cousin Cheryl died. Molly kept my heart open in that time of grief, as she does every day. I need to keep it open as sometimes I am tempted to close it to all the pain, anger and suffering abound, those things that trouble me deeply day by day.

I had a beautiful experience of open hearted conversation on Wednesday at the Urmston “Common Search for Meaning” Group. We were exploring and sharing about memory. It was a beautiful conversation and lifted several folk present out of their worries and anxieties as they connected with each other and the moment they were living it. We spoke with open minds and hearts. One thing that came up in the conversation was how folk can remember things so differently. How we experience life oh so differently. How vital it is to remain open to the experiences of others. A bit like the blind men and the elephant, we only get the full picture if we listen to one another, if we listen with the ears of heart to one another’s experience and somewhere in there we might discover something that resembles the truth. This is not always easy though. It is vital to remain open, or as open as possible and to remain humble too, especially when it comes to truth claims.

If I have learnt anything about spiritual living I have learnt that the key is openness; the key to spiritual living is to live with open hearts, open minds, open eyes and open hands. These four are spiritual living in practice, which I have come to believe is the essence religion. Not creed like religion but truly living breathing practising religion. A religion, a lived spiritually, that not only brings us to life, but it enables us to live truly alive and awake in this our shared world.

Unitarian minister James Vila Blake (1842-1925) wrote the following covenant, "Love is the spirit of this church, and service its law. This is our great covenant: To dwell together in peace, To seek the truth in love, And to help one another." I think in many ways this covenant articulates the essence of what it means to come together in love as a worshipping community. It has been adopted by many Unitarian Universalist and Free Christian communities. It expresses beautifully what it means to live in an open, living breathing spiritual community, what free religion ought to be about.

Openness is at the heart of my understanding of our Unitarian tradition. I have come to believe the essence of openness is humility, especially when it comes to truth claims.

Openness is very much a doing word. It’s not so much that you are open, more that you live openly. To do so religiously, is to be open in four ways. To live with open hands, open eyes, open hearts and open minds. To live faithfully is to do so with open eyes, an open heart and an open mind and so doing our hands will open so as to accept one another and to serve one another, this life and the living breathing spirit that connects all life, what I name God.

Now to practise the first three open mind, open heart and open eyes so as to enable us to live with open hands is no easy task. In fact to master them is virtually impossible. The key is to begin and to continue; the key is intentional practice. To live with open eyes is to see the world as is truly is; to see reality as it really is, warts and all and in its beauty spots too. To live with open eyes is to not turn away from the suffering present in life but also to pay attention to life’s beauty too, to notice those little things. To live with open eyes is to see the reality of the whole of life. This is not easy, so often we are tempted to turn away. To live fully connected lives, we need to live with open eyes, to see life with all its blessings and curses. This is my morning practice of sharing the little things I notice in life.

To live with an open mind is to be able to search for truth and meaning while maintaining an awareness of the tension between certitude and curiosity. It is the balance of being receptive to what is new and foreign, while at the same time holding onto what is most dear. It is to try to know while in the presence of the unknown and unknowable. This can make others feel uncomfortable and they may try to close an open mind or put their things in it. This does not mean that we do not discern that we don’t come to conclusions, quite the opposite actually. It is vital to come to conclusions, so that one can act in the world, it’s just that after the decision the openness must be maintained, it is never too late to change our minds. So, keep your minds open but please do be careful what you put in it.

The key to living with a loving and open heart is live with all our senses, including our sixth sense, our soul open to all the wonders and mystery of life. There are though dangers to this. Living with an open heart exposes us to pain and fear. To truly live with an open heart is to allow ourselves to be touched in the most tender of places. This can hurt sometimes. Remember Cupids arrow had to first of all pierce the flesh before it could penetrate the heart, love hurts. To live with an open heart is to follow the great commandment, it is Agape. It is to love others, no matter who they are what they have done, where they have come from, it is to love without condition. It is to follow the Golden Rule. It is to love our neighbour as we would wish to be loved ourselves. This requires love and compassion for ourselves of course, which can at times be the greatest challenge. It is to feel a deep connection with all that is, all that has been and all that will ever be. It is to recognise that in order to feel this connection requires that we share of ourselves. To love is to practice forgiveness, over and over again. Practicing living with a loving heart is to live willing to be transformed by what we encounter in our daily lives.

By living with these three open eyes, open minds and open hearts we can then practice living with open hands. Hands that welcome, hands that humbly accept our interconnectedness, humble hands and hands that are willing to do what they can do to serve, to play their part in the world.

This means being willing to practice committing and recommitting to use my hands, my abilities, in the service of life. To take responsibility for attempting to create the kin-dom of love right here right now. Living with open hands is about being a loving presence, regardless of the world we inhabit. Our open eyes allow us to recognise where our hands can be of use in the world, if our minds and our hearts are open.

Open hands though are not just about what we do, they are also about connection and perhaps more importantly humility. It is humility that is the key to living openly.

Now humility is a word that is often misunderstood. To be humble is to be at home in our true humanity, to be grounded in our own reality and shared humanity. The key to humility is to recognise that we are a part of something larger than our singular selves.

Humility is not about being meek and mild and bowing and scraping, it is not about being self-deprecating or denigrating. Too often humility is seen in this way, particularly from a religious perspective, as an excuse for suffering and or meekness. To me this is not true humility; true humility is about living with open hands and doing what we can in the world, we can only do this if we live with open hearts, open minds and open eyes and by recognising our common humanity.

I believe that Dag Hammarskjold, the former Secretary General of the United Nations, expressed the true meaning of humility when he said:

"Humility is just as much the opposite of self-abasement as it is self-exaltation. To be humble is not to make comparisons. Secure in its reality, the self is neither better nor worse, bigger nor smaller, than anything else in the universe. It is-nothing, yet at the same time one with everything."

Humility is an interesting word, when understood correctly. It has its roots in the word “humus” which means earth. It also shares the same linguistic root as human and humanity. To be humble is to be grounded in this life; to be humble is to recognise our honest place in the world and life in general, whilst recognising that life itself does not revolve around us. Humility is the core of my chosen Unitarian faith. I believe that we are a humble faith. Our tradition is open and accepting, we welcome diversity, we honour one another’s points of view. Are these not by their very nature acts of humility? And in doing so are we not accepting that each of us have limits to our own individual perspectives; that we need to be open to one another in order to see new and deeper truths; that we cannot make sense of anything alone. This is free religion in its essence, this coming together and experiencing more than we could have imagined alone, by coming together, in love. We honour and acknowledge that on our own we cannot know everything and that by being open to others who may see and understand things differently we are challenged to expand our understandings, doing so in love and respect and honour these differences. Humility is about rejoicing in the challenge that others who see things differently can reveal to us and therefore expand our understanding.

The key is to live openly and of course the key to openness is humility. No one lives apart from anyone else we are all interdependent. Also, none of us knows everything, we all see through the glass dimly. There is limitlessness in openness. Who knows how much we can truly change and learn to love if we just stay open, in our hearts and minds and eyes. Who knows what we can do with our loving hands if we live with truly open eyes, open hearts and open minds.

The key is to live with open eyes, open hearts open minds and open hands; the key is to live with true humility, to see that we are grounded in our shared humanity; the key is to see that we are a part of something far greater than ourselves and that through recognising this we will know the love present in life and begin to bring that love alive, right here right now.

Every day is a day when we can bear witness to a Power Greater than ourselves. We do this when we love one another with open hands, when we see the world with truly open eyes, when we live with minds that are truly open and heart open to the love waiting to enter and to be poured out onto our world that really needs it.

I believe it is our task to live truly open lives. This is real spiritual living, this is true religions. I believe it is our task to bring love alive, through our openness. It is our task to allow God to incarnate through our lives. To do so we need to live with open hands and love this our shared world.

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

Pay It Forward: We Can Become the Blessings We Have Been Waiting For

A friend of mine, named Ronnie, no not Molly’s friend Ronnie the cross between a Jack Russel and a Border Collie, but a human also called Ronnie. Ronnie has been on a bit of a spiritual journey recently. He was away this weekend and was trying to put in practice things he has been learning. One was to do one good deed of generosity each day. He told me he was in the hairdressers the other day. Whilst there he noticed a couple, the man was also having a haircut. When he was finished he offered to pay for the man’s haircut as well as his own. The couple said that they couldn’t let him do that, it just didn’t seem right. Ronnie insisted and told them that he had to do so as he had to do a good deed each day and this was it. That by letting him pay, they were actually doing him a favour. Eventually they relented and let him pay for the haircut, as a favour to him.

It was a lovely tale and its great to see Ronnie progressing. Afterwards I suggested that the next time he finds himself in a similar situation that instead of asking recipients to do him a favour that he could ask them to pass the favour on, to pay it forward for someone else. He seemed to like the idea. I wonder how he has gone about his daily deed doing these last few days.

I shared the story with Annette who told me the following:

“Your friend Ronnie reminds me of two people. (Rev) Dick Boeke who believed in doing a good deed everyday. I was the recipient of lunch on a number of occasions. And also my Dad who did good deeds and when people said "How can I repay you?" always said "Don't repay me, help someone else when they need it."

Funnily enough one of the people who my Dad helped most often was our next door neighbour who had an antiques shop at the top of Stamford Road in Bowdon. The neighbour had a very old Rolls Royce and was always running out of petrol. My Dad would go off to wherever the neighbour needed him with a can of petrol. The antique dealer was also a verger at the parish church in Bowdon and our family always used to refer to him rather naughtily as "the foolish verger"”

Lovely stories that you Annette

The reason Ronnie shared the story with me was in response to myself sharing the wonderful “Love and the Cabbie” by Art Buchwald, which we heard earlier. A tale of hope and love that involves passing on blessings and compliments to others in the hope that they will do the same and thus lift the spirits of all that they meet. Yes, many may reject the good blessing, but others will respond positively and pass it on to others, thus spreading the joy and love. Doesn’t the world need this right now.

Here is the wonderful tale. The language probably seems a little dated now, but I hope you understand the spirit.

“Love and the Cabbie” by Art Buchwald

“I was in New York the other day and rode with a friend in a taxi. When we got out, my friend said to the driver, “Thank you for the ride. You did a superb job of driving.”

The taxi driver was stunned for a second. Then he said, “Are you a wise guy or something?”

“No, my dear man, and I’m not putting you on. I admire the way you keep cool in heavy traffic.”

“Yeah,” the driver said and drove off.

“What was that all about?” I asked.

I am trying to bring love back to New York,” he said. “I believe it’s the only thing that can save the city.”

“How can one man save New York?”

“It’s not one man. I believe I have made that taxi driver’s day. Suppose he has 20 fares. He’s going to be nice to those 20 fares because someone was nice to him. Those fares in turn will be kinder to their employees or shopkeepers or waiters or even their own families. Eventually the goodwill could spread to at least 1,000 people. Now that isn’t bad, is it?”

“But you’re depending on that taxi driver to pass your goodwill to others.”

“I’m not depending on it,” my friend said. “I’m aware that the system isn’t foolproof so I might deal with ten different people today. If out of ten I can make three happy, then eventually I can indirectly influence the attitudes of 3,000 more.”

“It sounds good on paper,” I admitted, “but I’m not sure it words in practice.”

“Nothing is lost if it doesn’t. It didn’t take any of my time to tell that man he was doing a good job. He neither received a larger tip nor a smaller tip. If it fell on deaf ears, so what? Tomorrow there will be another taxi driver I can try to make happy.”

“You’re some kind of a nut,” I said.

“That shows how cynical you have become. I have made a study of this. The thing that seems to be lacking, besides money of course, for our postal employees, is that no one tells people who work for the post office what a good job they’re doing.”

“But they’re not doing a good job.”

“They’re not doing a good job because they feel no one cares if they do or not. Why shouldn’t someone say a kind word to them?”

We were walking past a structure in the process of being built and passed five workmen eating their lunch. My friend stopped. “That’s a magnificent job you men have done. It must be difficult and dangerous work.”

The workmen eyed my friend suspiciously.

“When will it be finished?”

“June, a man grunted.

“Ah. That really is impressive. You must all be very proud.”

We walked away. I said to him, “I haven’t seen anyone like you since The Man From LaMancha.”

“When those men digest my words, they will feel better for it. Somehow the city will benefit from their happiness.”

“But you can’t do this all alone!” I protested. “You’re just one man.”

“The most important thing is not to get discouraged. Making people in the city become kind again is not an easy job, but if I can enlist other people in my campaign. . .”

You just winked at a very plain-looking woman,” I said.

“Yes, I know,” he replied. “And if she’s a schoolteacher, her class will be in for a fantastic day.”

I first heard this story maybe 20 years ago at Cross Street Chapel. I do like it, even if the language might be challenged a little today. What matters is its spirit, its heart. It challenges us to truly pay attention, something I’ve been going on about recently and to act in this world. It teaches how important connection is. How we interact with one another really matters and has an impact. In a world in which we can feel so powerless at times, it is important to understand that what do and do not do matters, they key is in knowing what we can and cannot do in any given situation. I am sure we can all think of interactions that have led to positive change and interaction in our lives. Spiritual living is about bringing these memories alive in our lives. It matters what we do and do not do, it really does. We are not God, but we can make a difference. We can be catalysts of change; all we have to do is accept the gift.

It is easy to look at our world and despair and give up and say “what’s the point? Everyone is out for themselves. If I go out of my way to help another, they’ll just take advantage and what will I ever get back in return?

There is though another way; the way that Ronnie is attempting. The principles found in the “Pay it Forward” concept; the way that Art Buchwald suggested in “Love and the Cabbie”. We can change our world, one act at a time. This is religion in its deepest and simplest form, binding up the broken, and manifesting God’s love in life. At its core is this life affirming principle that in spite of a great deal of evidence to the contrary faith, hope and love do in fact still remain. You see these ripples touch everybody both the giver and receiver and all who are eventually touched by them; both the giver and receiver are transformed by the experience; both giver and receiver are blessed abundantly.

Pay it forward is an interesting term, one of disputed origin. Some say it began with the ancient Greeks. Luminaries such as Benjamin Franklin and Ralph Waldo Emerson made reference to the principle. In his essay “Compensation” Emerson wrote: “In the order of nature we cannot render benefits to those whom we receive them, or only seldom. But the benefit we receive must be rendered again, line for line, deed for deed, cent for cent, to somebody.”

During the 1950’s the phrase “Pay it Forward” was popularised by Robert A Heinlein, initially by being referenced in his book “Between Planets.” Heinlein preached and practised this principle in his daily life and this led to the formation of the Heinlein society, a humanitarian organisation based on this principle.

In the year 2000 Catherine Ryan Hyde published the novel “Pay it Forward” which became a best seller and was soon made into a film by the same title. This led in time to the formation of the “Pay if Forward Foundation.” It even has its own day. Did you know that April 26th is “International Pay It Forward Day”. This is a day when millions of people intentionally commit to acts of kindness and caring.

Pay it forward is based on what is known today as the “ripple effect”, which is really based on Confucius concept of “Concentric Circles of Compassion”. Like a pebble dropped into a pond, our actions create ripples that go out and affect others beyond what we can imagine. It works on the premise that we can make our world a better place if we share, if we care as much for others as we do for ourselves. It is firmly grounded in the ethos of the “Golden Rule of Compassions” a concept found at the core of every single one of the world’s great religious traditions. It is an effort to change the world one small act at a time. Everything we do and everything we do not do really does matter. We affect our world, for good or for ill, with every feeling, every thought, word and or deed.

One of the great movements for social good of the twentieth century is enshrined in the concept of “paying it forward”. Alcoholics Anonymous and the near two hundred other fellowships that have sprung from its principles have brought about recovery for millions of people from all manners of addiction. When a person is released from their destructive addiction they are not asked to pay back what was freely given to them, instead they are asked to pass on what has been given to others in desperate need and when doing so to also pass on that they do not have to pay back what has been given to them, instead they too must pass it forward. This is the basis of the simple movement that has saved millions of lives.

When I look back at my life it blows my mind to think of all the good that people have done for me. I cannot pay them back, but then I do not have to. Instead what is required is live my life in remembrance by paying it forward.

To bless the world all we have to do is remember those wonderful examples that have touched our lives and blessed us with their loving example. No, we cannot pay back to them what they so freely gave to us, but then we don’t have to, all we have to do is pay it forward and become the blessing that we have all been waiting for.

It is easy to look at our world and despair and give up and say “what’s the point? Everyone is out for themselves. If I go out of my way to help another, they’ll just keep on taking advantage and what will I ever get back in return?

There is another way; this other way is the purpose of the “Pay it Forward” movement. We can change our world, one act at a time. This is religion in its deepest and simplest form, binding up the broken manifesting God’s love in life. At its core is this life affirming principle that in spite of a great deal of evidence to the contrary faith, hope and love do in fact still remain. You see these ripples touch everybody both the giver and receiver and all who are eventually touched by them; both the giver and receiver are transformed by the experience; both giver and receiver are blessed abundantly.

So let’s become the blessings we have all been searching for; let’s remember all those times in our lives when someone has gone out of their way to help us with no expectation of anything in return; whether they have helped us materially, intellectually, emotionally, or spirituality; let’s re-feel these occasions and to meditate on them and to come up with ways that we can pay these debts forward; let’s think of ways we can give back to our world; let’s create ripple effects that can impact in our shared world in ways we perhaps can’t even begin to dream of.

We can change our world today; we can become the blessing that we have all been waiting for.

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

  

No one is an island

I have just returned from a week at Summer School. It was quite a week away at Great Hucklow with 50 Unitarians and three dog’s. Molly had a wonderful time, a little spoilt perhaps. The subject this year was “Sustainable Living: Changing our ways and saving our world?” With an explanatory quote by Wendell Berry ‘The real work of planet-saving will be small, humble, and humbling, and (insofar as it involves love) pleasing and rewarding. Its jobs will be too many to count, too many to report, too many to be publicly noticed or rewarded, too small to make anyone rich or famous.’

I myself co-led a daily engagement group with Angela Maher titled “No One is an Island”. It was great to work with Angela, I think we complemented each other. We explored the things that sustain us as individuals and how we are connected and interconnected through a myriad of relationships. It was a wonderful group to work with and deeply enriching week. We have some fascinating people within our free religious tradition. I would recommend Summer School to anyone.

You may recall I was struggling a few weeks ago with the loss of a friend. I was carrying so much, it was weighing me down So much so that I wasn’t sure I would be able to lead the group for a whole week. The Saturday night, a week before Summer School began, I emailed the co-ordinator to inform them of my struggles. The next day, after leading worship, I spent time walking and sharing with a friend, the only person I was able to talk openly about the situation with. By Monday I was feeling much better. I had reached out beyond myself and connected. I admitted I couldn’t overcome my struggles alone. I spent time in prayer and meditation and in that place of humility and connection I found the strength, the resilience required to do what I am here to do. It was a truly wonderful week and I feel I have grown and been strengthened by it. As a result I feel better prepared to continue on with my ministry. I suspect though that if I hadn’t found the strength and humility to reach out for help, this may not have been the case. In fact in so doing it actually helped illustrate the subject we explored during the week.

No one pulls themselves up from their bootstraps completely alone, all by themselves. From the moment of our birth’s others are involved in creating who we are and who we become. As the old saying goes “It takes a village to raise a child.” No one lives entirely from themselves we are all a part of an interdependent web of relationships that are made of both visible and invisible helping hand. Life has once more taught me that asking for help is actually a sign of both strength and wisdom, rather than weakness. It is a sign of good, mental, emotional and spiritual health. Of course it is not enough to merely ask for help, true healthy humility is about accepting what is offered. We give to others when we allow them to give to us. Those numerous free meals we are given do not only feed us, they feed all. We eat and we are filled by the relationship. Maybe this is what is meant by the old clichéd saying, “there is no such thing as a free meal.” It isn’t true of course, sadly it is a cynical cliché that suggests that you shouldn’t trust generosity. Please don’t fall for it, give and receive abundantly so we can all eat and be filled. If you do it with joy, joy will be your reward. In fact if truth be told both those feeding and those being fed receive from the relationship. This is the strange arithmetic of giving, where the commodity increases the more we give it away. When we give from the heart, love grows and abundantly for all, giver, receiver and all who come into contact with them. This is the butterfly effect of love. No one is an island, everything is interconnected.

So to repeat the subject we explored was “No one is an island”. Here is the poem that inspired our week. “No Man is an Island” by John Donne

“No Man Is an Island” by John Donne

No man is an island,
Entire of itself;
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
As well as if a promontory were:
As well as if a manor of thy friend's
Or of thine own were.

Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.

John Donne, who wrote these words, lived from 1572 until 1631, deeply turbulent times in British history. He lived through many lives. He trained as a lawyer and became both an adventurer and a soldier. He grew up in a devoutly Catholic family which became illegal under the reign of Elizabeth I. He became a Protestant and was ordained at the age of 43 as an Anglican priest. Six years later he was appointed Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, the original one, that was burnt during the “Great Fire of London” of 1666. It was while he was Dean of St Paul’s that he wrote “No Man is an Island”. Earlier in his life he had written powerful love poems. He had an ability to express ideas that spoke to people in a none judgemental way. No doubt the death of his brother Henry from the plague whilst in prison and the torture and murder of a priest that his brother sheltered no doubt got the bells tolling for Donne. “No Man is an Island” speaks of a common humanity that transcend religious systems or anything that would separate us. A message powerfully relevant back then and today. We may not go to war over whether we boy to the Roman Church or the Church of England, but still we divide ourselves and still we persecute those considered to be the “other”. “What you do to the least of them, you do to me.”

No one is an island, no one lives completely from themselves, what affects one affects all. No one lives wholly from themselves, without care for another. We live interdependent lives. That said there is a danger here of relying on others in an unhealthy way. While absolute self-reliance is a delusion, there is another problem with depending unhealthily on others. This is especially true when it comes to matters of faith. We must never comply without reason. I do believe that the seat of authority in matters of faith must always lie in the heart of each of our consciences, something that could lead to torture and murder in Donne’s time. As we explored in our engagement group it is vital that we take care of our thread in order to play our role fully in the inter-connected web of life.

There is a place for self-reliance, at least in the sense that Ralph Waldo Emerson discussed it. To live fully in this world it is vital to listen to wisdom of the wise when they speak, to learn from to others, to learn in community. That said it is just as vital to trust in your own inner voice and to speak your truth for others.

Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay “Self-Reliance”, published in 1841 wrote:

“To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, — that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost.”

What concerned Emerson was the ease in which people accepted the judgments and opinions of others as objective truth while dismissing their own. This seems to speak powerfully to us who live today in this our 24hour multi-media world where we are bombarded with all kinds of truth. It amazes and troubles me how easily people follow the opinions of so called “Social influences” and figures on line. It is vital that we learn to trust our own heart and soul, whilst at the same time not living entirely from ourselves. We need to take care of our thread and interweave it with others. That said it is our own personal responsibility to discern what is true and not blindly follow and become unhealthily dependent on others.

Self-reliance, as it is understood today is not at all what Emerson was speaking of. Of course we have to learn to trust are own reasoning mind, this though does not mean that we live entirely separate lives. All gain when we come together in the spirit of love, we learn together and strengthen one another. The strength is in the relationship. Yes, we need to be responsible for who we are and the key to that is to build strong and healthy relationships. This is the key to sustainable living and it will guide and hold us through the storms of life when they come. There will be times when we will need help and there will be times when we need to be available to help one another. This to me is the whole point of spiritual community, to strengthen these ties so that we help one another when the time comes. Not in unhealthy co-dependent ways, but healthy interdependent ones.

Early in the week of our engagement group we talked about how vital it was to take care of our individual strings to guide us through the mazes of life, but also the storms too. At the end of the week we shared in a wonderful exercise that involved a ball of wool that we passed amongst ourselves, creating a web that moved between us all. The strings connected us together. When one was pulled it vibrated and several folk felt the vibration. The strings did not live wholly from themselves and they connected the ties between us without binding us down. That said we were all responsible for taking care of our string.

From the cradle to the grave we need to keep asking for help, when we need it and we need to make ourselves available to be of assistance to others in their need. This is not to say that we become unhealthily dependent on others and society as a whole, no not at all. We are though a part of a whole, a complex whole that makes life and community. As we grow and change and become the people that we are this changes shape and reforms constantly, it seems that we are being born again and again to new versions of ourselves. Of course we cannot do this alone. We cannot give birth to ourselves, no one can. We need help and sometimes we need to ask for help from others and in so doing we are of course doing not only a service for ourselves, but for them also. I experienced this again just a couple of weeks ago and it began to reform once again during that week away in summer school, in spiritual community with 50 other like hearted people and three dogs. People who were responsible for coming to their own terms in regards to matters of faith, but who gained so much from one another, by coming together and sharing in the spirit of love. Not one of us was an island in and of themselves. We loved and cared for one another, made space to become. When the bell tolled, it tolled for each and everyone one of us. Oh by the way we also had an awful lot of fun doing so. We sang and danced together, we told stories and jokes, we walked in the beautiful countryside and we ate together and were certainly filled. I am sure all were blessed by this time together.

No one is an island. We are communal beings entirely inter-dependent on each other and life itself. As Martin Luther King said in his final Christmas sermon “We are interdependent…all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” This has never been more true than today. When someone reaches out in a time of need it is our God given duty to help and when we need help we need to be faithful to ask for help too. Interdependence is a physical fact, but it is also a spiritual reality.

This to me is the whole point of spiritual community, of religious living. To see, understand and experience this oneness, this Divine Unity. To see that we are all one. To be of help to one another and to seek the help when it is needed. In this way we all grow and become the best that we can be and serve life to the utmost of our ability.

I will be carrying these thoughts and no doubt be nourished by them as we enter into the autumn together. I have already been asked to come back to “Summer School” next year, as has Molly. The subject is going to be “Finding My Religion”. It has been suggested I might have something interesting to say on the subject.

I think they might be right.

I will end this morning with following meditation “The Web of Life” by Robert T Weston. I would like you to listen to this words prayerfully. Therefore I ask you still yourselves in silence…let us pray…

"The Web of Life"

There is a living web that runs through us
To all the universe
Linking us each with each and through all life
On to the distant stars.
Each knows a ­little corner of the world, and lives
As if this were his all.
We no more see the farther reaches of the threads
Than we see of the future, yet they’re there.
Touch but one thread, no matter which;
The thoughtful eye may trace to distant lands
Its firm continuing strand, yet lose its filaments as they reach out,
But find at last it coming back to him from whom it led.
We move as in a fog, aware of self
But only dimly conscious of the rest
As they are close to us in sight or feeling.
New objects loom up for a time, fade in and out;
Then, sometimes, as we look on unawares, the fog lifts
And there’s the web in shimmering beauty,
Reaching past all horizons. We catch our breath;
Stretch out our eager hands, and then
In comes the fog again, and we go on,
Feeling a ­little foolish, doubting what we had seen.
The hands were right. The web is real.
Our folly is that we so soon forget.

By Robert T Weston

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

To Ask Is To Give

Sue and myself took a trip out to Cheshire Oaks, the other day. The plan was to purchase my wedding outfit. It was a successful couple of hours. Now even though we looked in every single menswear shop the suit I chose was the very first one that took my eye. As soon as I saw it I thought I like the look of that one and nothing we looked at afterwards came close. Now while Sue came along she knew I wouldn’t be overly influenced by her thoughts on things. I can be quite single minded over such matters, some might say stubborn. The suit seemed the easiest part of the process and the assistant was really helpful, without being too pushy. I had a mixture of experiences in other shops as I looked for a shirt, tie and shoes to complete the outfit. Now some of the shopping assistants we encountered were both encouraging and genuinely helpful, others were not, some were even dismissive, one or two were mocking. I know which I responded to and which just made me want to flee.

It is vital how a person responds when asked for help. I had an experience of this on Tuesday morning as I left the gym. I realised I needed to buy a card for my mum’s birthday. As I passed WH Smith’s I noticed an electric wheelchair, I felt I recognised it and discovered later it was Edna’s, a member at Dunham Road. As I continued on I noticed a large elderly woman struggling with her wheelchair, people seemed to walk on by, I was tempted to do as I was in a rush, but stopped, it was pouring down with rain.  There was a problem with one of wheels and she couldn’t propel herself. So I found myself pushing her to a shop at the other end of the high street. As we got there I asked the shop assistants to come out to help. She was not the easiest of people but I left her in safe hands. The woman needed help, was asking for it and gratefully received it when it came.

The two experiences led me to reflect on my own attitude towards asking for help. I am not someone who finds it easy to ask for help, pride is definitely my kryptonite. I am much more comfortable offering my hand than accepting that of another. That said the moments of the greatest personal spiritual growth for me have been those moments of humility, when I have felt powerless and completely lost and have had to surrender to the need to ask others to help me. It has happened on several occasions these last few years. I have learnt that asking for the help is not an abdication of responsibility, quite the opposite actually. The power of asking and gratefully receiving help has often been enough to lead to me to taking the appropriate action, to be responsible and to walk alongside others in mutual aid and inspiration. Asking for help is not about becoming dependent on others, it is actually a genuine act that recognises our human inter-relatedness. There is a time in all our lives when we need help from others and others need help from us. There are no singular givers and receivers in life, we all give and we all receive at times. Paradoxically the one who gives often receive abundantly in so many ways.  

That said I still find it difficult to humbly ask and receive help, it is my weakness, my kryptonite. Asking for help without giving nothing back in return is a real challenge. Maybe that is why I suit ministry. It is the same for others involved in caring work too, I have noticed.

I remember chuckling to myself a few years ago when I discovered the meaning of the word “minister”. To minister literally means to serve. I have wondered over the years if governmental minister’s grasp this. It ought to humble all who minister. Our Prime Minister, if they truly understood their work, ought to recognise that they are the number one servant to we the people, I doubt if many have.

Now within a free religious tradition, like the Unitarians, it is not only the appointed minister who serves, all who congregate together do so to some degree or another. All give and receive in such communities. Everyone has different gifts and talents and by combining together a loving community is created. It is the sum of all its parts that makes a spiritual community what it is.

I believe that is the point that the Epistle Paul was making in his first letter to the congregation at Corinth some 2,000 years ago (1 Corithians ch 12). In his letter he is pointing out that each of members possesses special gifts and that no gift is superior to the other. These gifts are there for the good of the whole. The key it would appear was to combine their gifts and use them together so that they could then build the Beloved Community that they sought.

This does not mean that the individual is lost in the whole, quite the opposite, in such an environment the individual can thrive and become all that they would hope to be, so long as thy do not surrender who they are in order the fit into what they consider the whole would want them to be. Spiritual autonomy and responsibility for our own journey is vital to the ethos of a free religious community. While each may lean on one another and ask for assistance when needed, each remains responsible for their own spiritual journeys. The minister is not some special, set apart mediator.  Each comes together in love and inspires one another, but no one conforms to will of another. Emersonian "Self-Reliance, in spiritual matters, is vital for the individual to thrive within such communities.

“Self Reliance”, at least in the context of Ralph Waldo Emerson is one of those phrases that have been misunderstood and misinterpreted over the years, I know that I have done so. It’s not about not caring for the needy and telling them that they need to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. It’s also not about refusing to ask for help, relying purely on their own resources. What Emerson meant by “Self-Reliance” was not what some economist would recognise it to mean today. What he was describing was more akin to cultural and spiritual autonomy and the need to know ourselves, to listen to our hearts and intuitions, to use these gifts given to us by nature, for the best purpose and not to use them lightly or selfishly. Self-reliance ought never to be confused with selfishness, they are in no way similar, although they have been misinterpreted over the years and understood similarly.

 No one pulls themselves up from their bootstraps completely alone, all by themselves. From the moment of our births others are involved in creating who we are and who we become. As the old saying goes “It takes a village to raise a child.” No one lives entirely from themselves we are all a part of an interdependent web of relationships. Life has taught me that asking for help is actually a sign of both strength and wisdom, rather than weakness. It is a sign of good, mental, emotional and spiritual health. Of course it is not enough to merely ask for health, true healthy humility is about accepting the help offered.

Asking for help usually begins in an acknowledgement of the need for help[ it is an acknowledgment of the truth that we are not an island. It comes as we look above and beyond ourselves and widen our purview. It brings to my mind the question that begins Psalm 121 “I lift up my eyes to the hills – from where will my help come?” Now in the Psalm the answer is that God will give the help. God who made the heaven and the earth as well as the hills that the Psalm is referring to. It seems that by looking up to the hills we raise our vision.

Now while the hills themselves may not be the power there is something powerful about both looking up to them and being up there looking down on life from them, something that is difficult when you live in flatlands. In many ways the thing I miss the most about Yorkshire are the hills, Cheshire is a very flat place.

Standing up on a hill top and looking down on the world in which we live and breath and have our being gives us space and perspective. It helps us rise above our worries and troubles and leads us to solutions that often cannot be found in the middle of the hustle and bustle of life. Somewhere in that space the answers as to what can be done, can be found. The answer though will never come until we acknowledge that we do not know the answer.

To ask is to give. From the cradle to the grave we need to keep asking for help and we need to make ourselves available to be of assistance to others in their need. Isn’t this the essence of human relationships. This is not to say that we become unhealthily dependent on others and society as a whole, no not at all. We are though a part of a whole, a complex whole that makes life and community. As we grow and change and become the people that we are this changes shape and reforms constantly, it seems that we are being born again and again to new versions of ourselves. Of course we cannot do this alone. We cannot give birth to ourselves, no one can. We need help and sometimes we need to ask for help from others and in so doing we are of course doing not only a service for ourselves, but for them also.

No one is an island. We are communal beings entirely dependent on each other and life itself. As Martin Luther King said in his final Christmas sermon “We are interdependent…all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” This has never been more true than today. When someone reaches out in a time of need it is our God given duty to help and when we need help we need to be faithful enough to ask for help too. Interdependence is a physical fact, but it is also a spiritual reality.

This to me is the whole point of spiritual community, of religious living. To see, understand and experience this oneness, this Divine Unity. To see that we are all one. To be of help to one another and to seek the help when it is needed. In this way we all grow and become the best that we can be and serve life to the utmost of our ability.

It is the purpose  of the communities like the ones I serve to be places where people practise serving one another. If I have learnt anything about the spiritual life I have learnt that at its core are two basic principles, love and service. Surely the spiritual life is not just about serving ourselves, but one another. By doing so we feed one another's spirits. I have learnt that in that relationship, in that space, we can experience the Love that is Divine.

So let us keep on asking and answering, giving and receiving, weaving communities of mutual love and understanding. Let us remember that to ask is to give, it is to begin to create that “Kin-dom” of love right here, right now. You do not need to seek heaven, you just need to awaken to that bit of heaven within each of others and give birth to it right here in life.

What do you give your heart to?

We live in an increasingly secular age. Less and less people attend places of worship. I am from this generation myself. For most of my life I had no interest in religion. I didn’t see the point. I only became interested due to several spiritual experiences that I wanted to make sense of. I have never found the answers just a life beyond imagining.

I am a religious person and I am also spiritual one too. It was not enough for me to experience my spirituality alone. I needed to find ways to express it and people to share it with. This is why I needed to community and this is why I eventually found a home with Unitarians, a community that does not demand that I conform to what it told me was the truth, more a space where I could live with my truth, my faith and doubt and to share that with others.

Thank you.

I recently conducted my first funeral with Sue. It was for the mother of a mutual friend. It was a deeply emotional occasion and I was moved observing family and friends coming together in mutual love and support. Like most families there was history and complication but I observed the members coming in devotional support for one another. The father of the grandchildren is Muslim and he and the whole of his family had come to offer respect to the loss in the family and of course to support the three children. This is something I see often in this work and it suggest to me how much we still need places where we can come together in love and share loving support. I believe that we humans need to offer devotion to one another and to life itself, whether we believe in God or not. We also need to worship. Well the truth is that we do in fact all worship, even if we are unaware of the fact that we are doing so. We all hold something of highest value in life, even if we are not fully aware of it.

For as it says In Matthews Gospel Chapter 6 v 21 “21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” What we treasure the most, what we offer our heart to is what we worship.

Ralph Waldo Emerson the great 19th century Transcendentalist had something interesting to say about worship. He wrote:

“A person will worship something, have no doubt that. We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts, but it will out. That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and our character. Therefore, it behoves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming.”

These words by Emerson have been vibrating in the core of my being, the marrow of my bones for quite some time now. Like I have said, a few years ago I would have dismissed them out of hand. I would have simply rejected them and said I don’t worship, how can I worship I don’t believe in anything. That said things did dominate my imaginations and my thoughts and they did determine my character, by falling into non-being and nothingness, by rejecting life I had become nihilistic and this did dominate my thoughts.

But is this worship?

Well let’s take a look at what we mean by worship.

Worship has its roots in Anglo-Saxon English “worthscipe” or similar variations and meant a condition of being worthy, honoured or renowned . It only became connected to reverence paid to a supernatural being during the 13th century. Worship is not something that is only conducted in places such as here at certain times of the week. We worship all the time; we worship whatever it is that we hold in highest regard. As Mr Emerson says what we worship is what dominates our lives our actions. Therefore it is important that we are careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping me are becoming.

I remember a while ago coming across a “Meme” on facebook that read “If money is the root of all evil why does the church keep asking for it”. Now I know that this was a critique of organised religion, especially the wealth of churches etc and I’m certainly not one to argue against such a critique. That said the Meme is misquoting badly here and failing to understand what the passage from 1 Timothy ch 6 v 10 is saying. The actual quote is “For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil...” It is not so much money that is the problem, but the love of it. By loving money you make it the thing of greatest value in your life. You place its value above anything and everything else and therefore by doing so you may begin to neglect everything else; everything else decreases in value. In Matthew ch 6 v 24 Jesus said something similar when he stated “no one can serve two masters. Either you will hate one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

I do not actually believe that these quotes are really about money at all by the, they are more about what we value the most in life, about what is of ultimate worth to us. We need to pay attention to the things that matter in our lives. We all worship, even if we do not believe that we do. We all give our love, our attention, to something and it is this that dominates our lives.

What we treasure, what we offer our heart to, what we worship really matters. For we all worship something or perhaps someone. By the way I suspect the worship of individual people is perhaps the most dangerous form of worship. I was recently in a rather shocking conversation with someone who suggested that as far as Demagogues go Donald Trump isn’t so bad. I found myself half agreeing when compared to some of the demagogues of the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century and then thought, hang on a minute there is no such thing as a good demagogue. A demagogue is a demagogue and the a personality cult of any kind is so often deadly dangerous.

You who come and worship together here, do not all believe alike. Something that I believe we all celebrate, certainly something our free religious tradition celebrates. Our tradition, I believe is not so much believing alike, but loving alike. It’s about celebrating difference and working towards acceptance. This is not easy. To me it requires deep faith.

To be a Unitarian is both a blessing and a curse. To be a Unitarian religiously is not easy. To believe in and follow the Unitarian religious ethos is not the easier softer option. Far from it!

As Burdette Backus said "We sometimes hear it said by some of our own members that you can believe whatever you please. Actually we are confronted with a paradox; we are not free to believe what we please, we are free to believe what we must."

Yes we do believe that everyone has the right to seek truth and meaning for themselves and that each individual’s life experience and their reflections upon these experiences must form their own understanding of their own truth. Our communities accept people as they are warts and all and beauty spots too. That said to truly call yourself a Unitarian is not just to believe whatever you like. We as individuals must stand by what we believe. Reason and rationality are as much cornerstones of our tradition as are freedom and tolerance.

It is not easy being a Unitarian, but then who ever claimed that life was meant to be that way. That said it can be incredibly rewarding because to me it's the only way I've found that can reveal what I would describe as acceptable truth and perhaps most importantly give my heart to that that which I believe, to devote my life to it, to worship.

So what is it that you give your heart to? What do you worship? Where is your treasure to be found? For what you give your heart to will shape your life? Something to ponder perhaps.

What we worship matters, as Emerson said “A person will worship something have no doubt about that...that which dominates our imaginations and thoughts will determine our lives and character...for what we are worshipping we are becoming.”

What we worship, what we love, what we give our heart to dominates who are and we how we are. Therefore it is vital that we are mindful, attentive and critical about our habits. We need to understand what it is that we hold of highest value in our lives and why we do so. This is why we need to pay attention to our lives. This is why communal worship is of such high value to me. Yes ok it was life changing spiritual experiences that brought me in search of answers in spiritual communities, but it is not this that held me there. I found so much more by coming to commune, to worship with others. I discovered that by worshipping with others , if only for one hour a week I was then better able to focus my attention to what really matters during the rest of my time.

Everyone desires and we all possess imagination; everyone holds something of highest value in their lives. We worship whatever it is that dominates our hearts. This is why it is important what we worship, because as Emerson said “What we are worshipping, we are becoming.”

So be careful what you worship because we all do so, whether we care to admit it or not.

A friend in need is a friend indeed: Weaving the threads of life

They say a friend in need is a friend indeed, well don’t we all need a friend? Oh yes indeed. Aren’t we all in need of a friend at times? Oh yes indeed.

I have recently spent some time with old friends. I attended an old friend’s wedding recently. It was great to spend time celebrating with them, it was also wonderful to spend time with mutual friends, some of whom I have shared so many experiences with in the past. Some wonderful, some deeply painful. It was lovely to sit and talk and share with them as I re-felt and remembered. We also remembered old friends no longer with us. A few days later I met up with some old recovery friends as we celebrated one of our numbers 16th sobriety "birthday". Again it was deeply moving to remember old times and friends and re-feel these experiences. Then a few days later I spent time with one of my oldest friends, someone I have known since I was a teenager, we were even in a band together. It was wonderful to talk about old days, to reconnect, to remember, to re-feel all kinds of emotions. Some so happy and joyous and again others much sadder, especially as we remembered old friends no longer with us or current friends who are struggling with life.

The wonderful thing about being with old friends, people you have been through so much with is that as soon as you come together it’s as if you had never been apart. We are bound together by threads, so strong and in some strange way so deep.

I think the greatest blessing of my life has been my friends. I have many friends, loyal friends and loving friends. Friends who have stood up for me and loved me at some pretty dark times in the past.

I have always been blessed with wonderful friends…What about you? Perhaps that’s something to think about…the friends who have blessed and continue to bless your life…

As I look back at my friends and friendships I wonder what it was and is that allowed the connection, that made the connection, or do I mean connections, a web of connections of mutual love. Some people became my friend quickly, while others took longer. I have weaved what Emerson has described as social threads of my own, a new web of creation. I wonder how many threads will be weaved what new web of creation will I become a part of. I love the way that these threads intertwine with the threads of others as new webs are weaved.

There is an old Chinese proverb that states the fifth cup of tea between friends is the best. In days gone by Chinese Tea was made by simply pouring hot water over loose tea leaves in a cup. So it did not come in bags like today. When Yorkshire Tea claims “like tea used to be” it is not exactly being truthful. By the way a good friend of mine gave me some Lancashire Tea for my birthday last year, it’s nice to have good friends. I didn’t drink it of course. As I said at the time “Are you trying to poison me!?!”

Anyhow, back to the proverb…

The Chinese proverb is teaching that when friends meet, busy and tense from the outside world, the first drink shared is done hastily and with little grace. The second pouring of water takes longer to steep the tea leaves, by now the friends are more relaxed and thus the tea is better. The third cup requires even more time, so by now the friends are truly relaxed in one another’s company. By the time they get to the fifth cup it has to stand for quite some time to reach the required strength. It is this fifth cup that becomes the symbol of friendship at its best. This passage of time, measured in cups of tea, defines the deepest friendship. This fifth cup brings wholeness to the relationship, it is the quintessence, the fifth essence, which of course means wholeness.

I was thinking of this as I and my friend shared cups of Yorkshire Tea together as we caught up with one another the other day, as our souls caught up with one another’s bodies.

The great nineteenth century Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson recognised the true value of friendship and the many webs of relationship that make up our lives. Here follows his thoughts on Margaret Fuller after her death, as he describes his understanding of the value of friendship.

"She wore this circle of friends, when I first knew her, as a necklace of diamonds about her neck. They were so much to each other that Margaret seemed to represent them all, and to know her was to acquire a place with them. The confidences given her were their best, and she held them to them. She was an active, inspiring companion and correspondent, and all the art, the thought, the nobleness in New England seemed at that moment related to her and she to it. She was everywhere a welcome guest."

For Emerson “a friend is a sane man who exercises not my ingenuity, but me. My friend gives me entertainment without requiring any stipulation on my part…so that a friend may well be recognized the masterpiece of nature.”

For Emerson it mattered enormously that we matter to others, that we are not isolated beings drifting through life. Gosh how true is this? Doesn’t it matter enormously that we matter to others, and that we are not alone; that are lives are made up of webs of relationships; that our lives thread through many others and that this really matters? We are not isolated beings floating through life, only concerned for ourselves. To me this seems to strike right at the heart of what friendship is all about.

This becomes clearer as I look at the web of relationships that I am part of, but what about you, what are threads that make up your life?

Emerson said “Who hears me, who understands me, becomes mine, — a possession for all time. Nor is nature so poor but she gives me this joy several times, and thus we weave social threads of our own, a new web of relations; and, as many thoughts in succession substantiate themselves, we shall by and by stand in a new world of our own creation, and no longer strangers and pilgrims in a traditionary globe.”

All life is connected, everything is connected all of life is relational.

This brings to mind a rather lovely children’s story, that illustrates both friendship and unconditional love. The story is “Charlotte’s Web”.

Near the end of the story Wilbur the pig is confronted with the awful news that his 'true friend,' Charlotte, is going to die and will not return to their shared barn with her babies. Charlotte had saved Wilbur from the smokehouse and the Christmas dinner plate. He asks Charlotte 'Why did you do all this for me? . . . I've never done anything for you.'

To which she replied 'You have been my friend, that in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I like you. . . . By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that.'

To which Wilbur replies 'I would gladly give my life for you — I really would.'

Wilbur lives on and as he does he carries Charlotte’s love with him. He takes charge of her egg sac. He returns it to the safety of the barn and protects it until the spiders hatch, most fly off on the sticky webs, but three remain with Wilbur to continue Charlotte’s lineage in the barn doorway. As Wilbur lived on he had many friends, but none of them took Charlotte’s place in his heart.

Charlotte’s Web is a beautiful illustration of the power of love and friendship, of these threads that weave these mutual webs of friendship that make up our lives. It is a story of unconditional love, of friendship grounded in giving to one another. It’s about relationships rooted in humility, love and giving of ourselves to one another. It’s not about selfishness and self-centredness, but mutual webs of interconnection. Isn’t this the nature of life?

A friend in need truly is a friend indeed, we all need good friends. Yes, we do indeed. We all need and we all need to be friends at times. As I look back at the web I am a part of I see many threads that make it up and I see there are many threads that will continue on when I am no longer weaving my own. We are all a part of the web of creation, we are all weavers of the social threads of life.

So lets keep on weaving those threads of mutual love and intertwining our threads with others. For a friend in need truly is a friend indeed.

That's what friends are for

One of my favourite childhood films was “The Jungle Book”, the Walt Disney version. I loved it so much that I didn’t go and see the remake that came out last year, for fear it my ruin my memory of the original. We even had an album of the movie soundtrack which I used to love to listen to on a Sunday afternoon at my grandma’s. I loved the songs, so many classics.

One of my favourite songs came back into my memory the other day. It was sung by the quartet of vultures who had a more than passing resemblance to the “Fab Four” “The Beatles”. They sang it to Mowgli who was feeling very lost and lonely in the jungle, without any friends. The song was of course “That’s what friends are for.” Composed by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman

"That's what friends are for!"

Friends and friendship have been on my mind quite a bit these last few weeks. It

was sparked off by a posting by my oldest and maybe dearest friend on Facebook. It had taken him months to pluck up the courage to do so and it touched me and many of our mutual friends deeply.

A few months previously he had been diagnosed with a form of Asperger’s Syndrome and had written this post to let his friends know. He talked about many of his struggles with certain aspects of communication throughout his life and apologised if he had ever offended anyone of us. The many responses from friends, of some 40 odd years of life, were beautifully moving. He is a deeply loved man and the reason for this is that he has always been a caring and loving friend to so many people, if a little “different”, from the so-called “norm”. He certainly has never done anything to offend me. I cannot say the same about me offending him by the way.

As I read the many loving and supportive posts I remembered our friendship and the many friends we had shared together. Going right back to second year at Batley Grammar school. I remembered going to watch Leeds United, our first terrifying encounters with the opposite sex and making music together and many other years that followed. We have not been as close for the last dozen or more years, but my goodness we shared so much together. When I think of many of the friends we shared and hung out with we were mostly misfits, never quite the norm. They say birds of a feather stick together, I think that there is a lot of truth in that.

As I remembered all the many friends I have shared over the years the quality that stands out the most is the level of acceptance of one another, despite all our peculiarities. This still stands today. Joan Chittister was so right when she said “Acceptance is the universal currency of real friendship. . . .It does not warp or shape or wrench a person to be anything other than what they are.” Acceptance is the true sign of friendship, radical acceptance of one another, exactly as we are. Perhaps that’s what a truly open religious community is, a collection of real friends. Friends who accept one another exactly as they are.

I think the greatest blessing of my life has been my friends. I have many friends, loyal friends and loving friends. Friends who have stood up for me and loved me at some pretty dark times in the past.

Friends have always stood up for me, going right back to primary school. I remember an incident when I would have been about 11 years old and had just begun to be allowed to do sport again. I was pretty useless, but very determined and others appreciated this. I remember there being an inter schools cross country event and all the schools in the district entered. Each had to pick a team and this was selected over a series of races. I wanted to compete, I don’t know why today as there was no chance of me getting into the team, on athletic ability. Each week though I ran in the race and each week I scored few points, certainly not enough to qualify, but I stuck at it. It came to the final race and I went for it. I was not doing well enough though as another lad who also wanted to run was ahead of me. Then something amazing happened. The star athlete of the school decided to help me out. He did it in a rather unsporting way by convincing this other lad to let me beat him and thus qualify at his expense. I do not know to this day why he did it, but I will never forget Darren’s gesture. Yes I felt bad for the other lad, but I can’t tell you how much it meant to me to run in the team. We ran, we didn’t win and I didn’t come last, actually about half way, better than I could ever have dreamed of. I just ran and ran as best I could across the muddy fields, lap after lap. I even lost one shoe half way round but just kept on going not daring to stop to pick it up for fear I wouldn't be able to begin again. One lad crossed the line a little after me with my shoe in his hand looking rather puzzled. I just grinned and thanked him as I claimed it back. I can think of countless other times when friends have been there for me, protected and helped me in so many ways. Other times when they have encouraged and spurred me on to be a better me. Too many to mention here today. It happened recently after something I posted on line, which irritated someone, who became quite critical of the comment and me personally. I chose not to respond to the criticism, but some of my friends did. Their responses were beautiful and touched me deeply. I am a lucky man, to have been blessed by so many good and loyal and loving friends.

Thank you

I have always been blessed with wonderful friends…What about you? Perhaps that’s something to think about…the friends who have blessed and continue to bless your life…

There is a phrase about friendship that has always irritated me, “Merely friends”, or “We are just friends”, as if being a friend wasn't important, didn't matter. Friendship matters oh so much. Friends are the people we share our lives with, who in so many ways make our lives what they are. Friends are, to quote Fredrich Buechner, the people we choose to “make part of our lives just because we feel like it.” There is no such thing as “Just friends”

Aristotle said, “What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.”

A friend is someone you can trust, you can rely upon, someone who will be there for you. Certainly my friends have always been there for me. We have laughed and we have cried together. We have enjoyed some wild and crazy times together and we have grieved as we have lost one of our number. I have lost a lot of friends over the years, far too many.

A friend will stand by you of this I am certain, but that does not mean they will not criticise you or hold you to account. My best friends have shown this kind of love to me during my life. In fact sometimes your best friend is the one who is unafraid to call you out when you are wrong, when no one else will. This is the kind of friend who will help you learn life’s lessons.

Emerson also wrote, “Let us approach our friend with an audacious trust in the truth of his heart.”

This brings to mind the following tale:

From "The Heart of the Enlightened A Book of Story Meditation: 250 stories from many religions and cultures on spirituality" by Anthony DeMello

"There was once a rabbi who was revered by the people as a man of God. Not a day went by when a crowd of people wasn't standing at his door seeking advice or healing or the holy man's blessing. And each time the rabbi spoke, the people would hang on his lips, drinking in his every word.

"There was, however, in the audience a disagreeable fellow who never missed a chance to contradict the master. He would observe the rabbi's weaknesses and make fun of his defects to the dismay of the disciples, who began to look on him as the devil incarnate.

"Well, one day the 'devil' took ill and died. Everyone heaved a sigh of relief. Outwardly they looked appropriately solemn but in their hearts they were glad for no longer would the master's inspiring talks be interrupted or his behavior criticized by this disrespectful heretic.

"So the people were surprised to see the master plunged in genuine grief at the funeral. When asked by a disciple later if he was mourning over the eternal fate of the dead man, he said, 'No, no. Why should I mourn over our friend who is now in heaven? It was for myself I was grieving. That man was the only friend I had. Here I am surrounded by people who revere me. He was the only one who challenged me. I fear that with him gone, I shall stop growing.' And as he said these words, the master burst into tears."

A friend helps you become a better person, certainly my friends have helped me to do so, they have spurred me on by their example and encouragement and occasional criticism. This was a central claim of Aristotle’s “Ethics” who envisioned an escalating competition in goodness. He suggested that people try to do their best so as to be valued and respected by their friends thus inspiring them to do likewise.

Friendship is a key component of Buddhism. This is illustrated in the following tale a friend recently sent me:

One day while the Buddha was out walking with his attendant Ananda, who declared, “Teacher, to have companions and comrades on the great way is so amazing! I have come to realise that friendship is fully half of an authentic spiritual life.” They continued walking in silence when eventually the Buddha responded. “No, dear one. Without companions and comrades, no one can live into the deep, finding the true harmonies of life, to achieve authentic wisdom. To say it simply, friendship is the whole of the spiritual life.”

Could this be true? Is friendship the whole of the spiritual life?

Jesus said to his disciples, in John’s Gospel “I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything.” To me this what a true relationship with God is about, friendship. Something that we are meant to mirror in our lives. This if you like is the Kingdom coming alive in our lives. We gain knowledge of the spiritual life through living in such an intimate relationship with God, with life and with one another.

I’m with the Buddha and Jesus, I believe that friendship is the whole of the spiritual life. In fact to live spiritually is to truly be a friend to life. This is how knowledge is truly revealed. This is the kingdom of love, coming alive in our lives. This is how we make our lives a scared space. This is how we manifest love in our lives, by being a friend to life. This is what being a part of a spiritual community is. Becoming a friend to life and to all that we meet.

It begins with radical acceptance. To accept those we meet as they are, exactly as they are. This does not mean we don’t point out when someone is in the wrong, no it just means we love and accept them right or wrong. It’s also about raising one another up through our example. You see by being the best we can be, in loving friendship, we automatically encourage our friends to be the best version of themselves that they too can be.

So my friends I invite you to join with me in the sacred space of friendship. I invite you to remember the friends you have known in your lives, the ones that touched and sometimes broke your hearts, the ones who accepted you just as you are and the ones who inspired you to be the best you, you could be. I also invite you to be the best fiend you can be to life and thus inspire all that you meet on your journey through life, to be the best version of themselves that they can be too.

Let’s become good friends, not just friends, not merely friends…Let us become friends to one another and friends to life…

I'm going to with this lovely tale from a short term friendship from Kent Nerburn ...some friends are just passing through...

From "Small Graces: The Quiet Gifts of Everyday Life" by Kent Nerburn

“A Neighbour and a Friend”

"I see her standing in her front yard, glowering. She is jabbing at a patch of offending leaves with a rake.

Myra is ornery, hard to like. Raised on the plains of North Dakota, she asks no quarter and gives none. The world as she sees it is full of fools, damn fools, and crooks. I am not sure into which category I fall. Our relationship has been an uneasy truce. Though we are neighbours, we have never become close.

“She had a hard life. She’s got a good heart,” I tell myself. “Treat her with kindness.” But it is not so easy. She turns every conversation to herself, berates people that I know to be gentle and generous, and shoots at cats with buckshot.

I would dismiss her altogether if it were not for Craig, and the lesson he taught me long ago.

Craig passed through my life briefly but intensely – much the way he did everything. He was one of those people who brought energy and life into any room he entered. He had an uncanny ability to focus his entire attention on you while you were talking, so you suddenly felt more important and more responsible than you had before he was listening. He made you better by being around him. People loved him.

One autumn day we were sitting together; half talking and half working on some now forgotten projects for our graduate degrees. I was staring out the window when I noticed one of my professors crossing the street. He had been away all summer and we had not parted on good terms. I had taken great offence at some suggestion he had made, and had in turn given great offence in my answer. We had not seen each other since that day.

“Damn it,” I said to Craig. “I don’t want to see him.”

“Why not?” Craig asked.

“We don’t get along,” I said. “The guy just doesn’t like me.”

Craig looked down at the passing figure. “Maybe you’ve got it wrong,” he said. “Maybe you’re the one who’s turning away, and you’re just doing that because you’re afraid. He probably thinks you don’t like him, so he’s not friendly. People like people who like them. It’s that simple. Someone’s got to break the cycle.”

His words smarted. I walked hesitantly down the stairs into the parking lot. I greeted my professor warmly and asked how his summer had gone. He looked at me, genuinely surprised. He put his arm over my shoulder. We walked off together talking. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Craig at the window smiling broadly.

It was so simple, yet I had never seen it. I was coming to all my encounters with a fear that others were judging me, when in fact, they were worrying about how I would judge them. We were all living in fear of each other’s judgement, while the empty space between us was waiting to be filled by a simple gesture of honest caring.

Craig understood this. He knew that all we need is to open our hearts and show a genuine concern for others and what is important in their lives.

That was what made him so special. He basked in people like basking in sunlight. Their lives warmed him and they loved sharing themselves with him.

Myra has gathered the offending leaves and dispatched them to a pile in the corner of her yard.

“Damn leaves,” she says as I pass.
“A conspiracy between God and gravity,” I respond.
Then I think.
“That’s a pretty sweater,” I say.
She snorts.
“If I didn’t have a wife,” I continue,” we’d go out dancing.”
She snorts again. I continue on my way. But as I pass, I see her push an errant strand of hair back into place and adjust the collar on her sweater.
She looks around to make sure that no one was watching, then returns to her raking.