Holocaust Remembrance Day & some thoughts on mystery of humanity

Today 27^th January is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It marks what can only be described as the most horrific period in human history. Not that the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime are unique. Sadly we can find examples of attempted genocide throughout human history.

January 27^th is marked as Holocaust Remembrance Day because it was on this day in 1945 that the largest death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated by Soviet troops. It has been observed, on this day, in Britain since 2001, although other countries have chosen different dates. It was officially recognised by the United Nations General Assembly resolution 60/7, during 2005, to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Today the world uniformly recognises the 27^th of January as Holocaust Remembrance Day.

And why do we mark this day? It is not just out of respect for the 6 million Jewish people, the 3 million Soviet prisoners of war, the 1 million Roma, the quarter of a million disabled, the 10,000 homosexuals and the many many more who were so brutally murdered. We mark is to say never again. Never again can this be allowed to happen. Well it seems that we have failed. Attempted Genocide still goes on and brutality towards one another continues and has continued ever since. Maybe not on the same industrial scale as under the Nazi regime, but it has continued; it has continued not only in other lands, far, far away but in our land too and to some extent in our very communities. It continues every time we dehumanize another, or ourselves. It happens every time we fail to recognise the sacredness of life, our own or that of others; for to commit such brutality requires a human being to fail to recognise the sacredness of another’s humanity and that of all life. It requires us to reduce ourselves or others to nothingness; it requires nihilism; it requires us to reduce life or at least the life of another into something without meaning. To destroy life without conscience requires a human being to reject the sacredness of life.

I was sat trying to figure out how to approach this subject the other day. I was doing my usual broad sweep, looking at different angles of approach, when I remembered that the first Unitarian service I ever attended, some 8 years ago, must have been on or around Holocaust Remembrance Day. I know it was a cold Wednesday lunchtime in January, when I first walked through the entrance of Cross Street Chapel; I remember it like it had just happened; I can re-feel the whole experience now. It was at a time when so much was changing in my life and as a response I was attempting to make sense of things and exploring religious paths. I was looking for spiritual answers, because I knew that they did not lay in my former reductionist and materialist mindset. By the way I’ve not found the answers, unless the answer is to seek and to serve, which I suspect it might be.

I sat and listened intently and was touched deep down within the core of my being  by the minister John Midgely's short address. What sank into my soul was this idea that Germany had been overcome by a dark sickness, but that this was not unique to the German people. It could happen to any country and or any culture. I can think of no society or nation that has not committed atrocities against another and if not against others then against its own people. What I realised was that this darkness is in me as it is in everyone and everything, but it is not all that there is, goodness, love and compassion is present too. The key is to feed the love and not let the hate prevail. The basis of my own theology is that there is that of God in everything, but that this is not the only force at work. There is another force at work too and this force thrives on separation, on alienation. I see it at work whenever we separate each other whenever we see someone or something as lacking in worth and dignity. It operates whenever we make someone or something unwelcome; it works whenever we reject, whenever we refuse hospitality to someone or something; it operates whenever we lock someone or something outside of the city gates, including ourselves; it happens when we lose reverence for life itself.

Distrust and fear are deeply rooted within our psyche, within our culture. We do not trust one another, we are afraid of the stranger. Just think about how we greet each other. What do we do? We usually shake hands. Why do we do this? Well it stems from the middle ages. Back then we shook hands to check if our guest was carrying concealed weapons. It is not a greeting based on love, but one based on distrust. Only after they shook hands could the host sit comfortably with his guest. And what did the guest do as soon as he was poured a drink? He chinked his cup with that of his host. He did this to ensure that the host got some of his drink, therefore if he had been poisoned then so had his host.

Deep mistrust and suspicion is ingrained within our culture. Maybe this is why we find it difficult to welcome the stranger, to revere the other. We are taught to separate.

There must be another way, a way that does not encourage distrust. There is, the other way is reverence. The key is to learn to revere one another. After all we are all formed from the same substance and we have the same spirit running through us. Shakespeare expresses this so beautifully in Hamlet...

“What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculties! In form and moving, how express and admirable, how like an angel! In apprehension, how like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals!”

Hindu’s are taught to acknowledge one another reverentially whenever they meet. Their greeting ritual is not based on distrust it is based on reverence. They greet by bowing with hands joined together. They honour the sacred mystery they are encountering. This is the key I believe, this honouring of the sacred mystery in each of us.

We are all part of the one human family, the family of life. When we separate, we dehumanize, we fail to acknowledge one another’s sacred mystery. We are not all exactly the same we have different qualities, different characteristics, different gifts to offer as well as different needs. That said we are all made of the same substance, the very same substance that the whole universe is made of, or at least the matter we have knowledge of and I believe that the same spirit runs through all life. I do not personally believe it controls all of it, but it is certainly present, always there offering the lure of its love. It is our task to choose this love, because if we do not then we will begin to separate and alienate and I believe that it is this that causes the distrust and fear that leads to hatred and dehumanising violence.

The solution is simple, I believe, as solutions usually are. The solution is reverence, reverence for life itself. We need to offer welcome to everyone and everything including that which we find uncomfortable.

Today we remember the Holocaust and the millions that have been murdered by the hands of fear, distrust and hatred. Today we recommit to the ideal that we never let this happen again. We do so recognising that it happens all the time. And that it begins to happen again every time we separate one from another every time we fail to revere the sacred mystery of one another and the sacred mystery of life.

So let us begin again in love, by learning to revere one another and all that is life and beyond...

...It seems approapriate to end this blog with the following words by my colleague the recently retired Rev Cliff Reed 

"Marking the Holocaust"

I ask you now please to stand in solemn silence and remember the names that stand for genocide –

Auschwitz, Sobibor, Majdanek; Dachau, Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen; the list goes on and on...

Tasmania, Wounded Knee, Armenia; Halabja, Bosnia, Rwanda; the list goes on and on...

The names of places where humanity failed to be human. The names of places where we reached the depths.

We stand in solemn silence. We hear the words of the Kaddish spoken in memory of the millions dead, each one an individual, a murdered person.

We honour them as lost kin. We honour those who resisted evil. We honour the righteous of the nations. Would that we had been among them...

Amen

Animals: Soul Brothers and Spirit Sisters

At 7am every Tuesday morning I attend a meditation. It has become central to my personal spiritual development; it has become a key part of my week. Now some weeks as I leave the house at not long after 6.30am I don’t really want to go. I have noticed this resistance the last couple of weeks as I awake to the darkness and dampness of Autumnal mornings. This Tuesday the resistance felt particularly strong and yet as soon as I opened my front door, it seemed to instantly fade away. Why you may well ask? Well thankfully my ears tend to wake up much before my other senses and this morning I was greeted by two or three little birds singing away to their hearts content. As soon as I heard them a broad smile appeared on my face and I offered a prayer of thanks for life. They were singing the joy of living and they helped me to do the same...”We sing the joy of living, we sing the mystery”.

As a child I loved the dawn chorus, but as I grew older I somehow fell out of love with it, as I fell out of love with so many things. I began to fall for it once again as I refound my love for life and my love for music and song and as I refound my own voice. The birds would sing and I would sing back at them. Kindred spirits I reckon.

I became particularly aware of these angels, these winged messengers, these angel voices almost exactly four years ago. I was a student minister at the time, living at Luther King House in Manchester. Luther King House is a beautiful spot near to Platt Fields Park, the place where I fell in love with the Geese I wrote about in a previous blog. I will never forget how those and other simple animals took me out of myself and helped me to deal with the anxiety I faced every Thursday morning as I struggled with learning to drive. It’s amazing how just a simple walk around the park watching these creatures, just simply living, helped me to connect beyond myself and the confines of my fear.

I digress - Going back to the dawn chorus - Every Sunday morning I would begin a long trek, to Macclesfield. I was a student minister at the Unitarian congregation there. It was a long journey by bus and train and often replacement bus as they were working on the line on Sunday’s. Before leaving home I would prepare myself as I always do and yet somehow just hearing those angel voices as I left my flat seem to lift me way beyond myself and enabled me to connect and be still as I began the long adventure. Those little songs helped me to connect to my own song within me and the greater song beyond me and carried me on my journey.

Now although I am not really one for pets myself. I do appreciate what they bring to the lives of those who love them. That said for me personally animals are for the outdoors. I love and respect them deeply and they have taught me so much, especially the winged messengers. Let that Love continue long and keep on showing me the way.

I recently came across these words by Rev Cliff Reid. It’s really a prayer but it can be enjoyed in a none prayerful way. It is titled “Winged Messengers”

“Let us give thanks for the winged messengers.

With beauty of song and plumage, with grace of flight and form, they speak to us of life’s everlasting miracle, of the divine creation that never stops creating.

They speak to us of the land we live in, with voices of forest and marshland, seashore and garden; of hedgerow, heath, and moorland, reminding us of the heritage that is ours to treasure and pass on.

They speak to us of lands far away, bringing the cries of arctic wastes, the breath of streaming jungles, searing deserts, open oceans, reminding us that the world is one, without borders or divisions.

We give thanks for the winged messengers in all their variety. Let us head the messages with which god entrusts them.

Amen.”

Well they have certainly spoken to me over the years...when I have had ears that could hear...I know that they will always sing their songs, I just hope I am able to hear them...I just need to make sure that the ears of my ears are awake...For I know that if I listen with the ears of my heart...the language of the heart will always be heard.

We can learn so much from animals. The word animal itself come from the Latin “animalis” which means “having a soul”; it is closely linked to “animus” which in its feminine root means “breath” or “spirit”. Now of course many people will deride any idea of soul or spirit, certainly in animals and also humans. The reductionists say we are just flesh and bone. I once felt this way myself, but not anymore. I see this same spirit that I see in humans in animals too, more and more so actually. Just as when I lovingly engage with fellow humans I feel this spirit come to life, so I increasingly find this same spirit in operation in nature and animals too. In my case with the birds, but other animals as well and I seem more aware of it this autumn, than ever before.

Anyone who has spent real time with animals will tell you that they do indeed have a soul, a spirit. That we can learn so much from them and that they are very much alive, full of curiosity and totally in tune with their senses. They have emotion too, they feel just as we feel. They suffer grief, guilt, anger, disappointment, fear and anger as well as joy contentment, excitement and gratitude. They care for their families and loved ones as well as those beyond their families. They can display an altruistic love which can deeply touch our hearts.

In many religious traditions birds are often symbolic of spirit or soul. In Hinduism what is often understood in the west as the soul, is symbolised by birds. This is known as the Atman which refers to the eternal none material aspect of the self. This never changes and is distinct from the mind and body. This real self is beyond the temporary characteristics of race, gender, even species. Ideas about reincarnation are natural extensions of this concept. For Hindu’s consciousness, in whatever way it manifests, is merely a symptom of the soul. Therefore for the physical life to have awareness it requires the soul.

When I listen to the birds of the air or observe the animals on the ground I know that I am connected to them. They are my soul brothers and my spirit sisters.

Last Thursday 4^th October was the Feast Day of St Francis, the patron saint of animals. He lived during the later 12^th and early 13^th century. He lived a mixed life, but following a conversion experience he devoted his life to following the Gospel. He truly was a Christian man who took the Gospel literally, not in a narrow fundamentalist sense, but by actually following the teachings of Jesus and living by the way of self giving love. Francis had a deep love of animals and held them in such high esteem that he addressed them as brothers and sisters. They were his equal in every sense and he saw the same spirit in them as in all life.

There are many stories told of St Francis and his love for animals. Following his death a collection of tales, portraying his humble approach to nature, sprang up known as “Fioretti” or “Little Flowers”. “It is said that one day, while Francis was travelling with some companions, they happened upon a place in the road where birds filled the trees on either side. Francis told his companions to ‘wait for me while I go preach to my sisters the birds.’ The birds surrounded him, intrigued by the power of his voice, and not one of them flew away.”

Echoes of Saint Francis are still with us. In fact increasingly we are seeing the benefits that a spiritual relationship with animals can give to human life.  Pets are not only considered companions to us, but healers too, physically, emotionally and spiritually. Research shows that pets can reduce stress and therefore blood pressure. There is a great deal of evidence to suggest that they can help with deep trauma and emotional disturbance. Cats, dogs and birds are being increasingly used to help bring healing to emotionally disturbed children, the mentally ill, and the isolated and lonely elderly cooped up in nursing homes. It would appear that the therapeutic value of a deepening relationship with animals knows no bound. I know I have experienced it over the years and I know that many others have too.

So let us honour the animals in our lives this and every day. They bring healing and they bring love. They reveal the love that is God to us all

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