Seeking the Spirit of Christmas

Last Sunday after I’d finished my third service at Styal Kath Walker said to me “It feels like Christmas has begun now.” I heard others expressing similar sentiments over the weekend. I heard after the Brass Band Carol Concert on Saturday. A deeply emotional occassion for so many, including the band themselves. They told us that it was their first concert since they played att eh chapel two Christmasses ago. The Eccles Borough Band are a talented and successful competion band. It has been a hard time for them. I do hope that you are getting into the spirit of the season, don’t we all need it. This is such a difficult time. I do hope at least, despite everything, that folk feel that Christmas has begun.

Now to be factually accurate we are wrong you know. Christmas hasn’t begun at all, well it hasn’t if you wish to be theologically accurate. Christmas doesn’t begin until sunset on Christmas Eve. I remember a rather Bah humbuggy Baptist tutor saying that he tried to stop his congregations singing carols in Advent, but never succeeded. I am glad to hear so Christmas is not about reason and fact, where are the glad tidings in this? Christmas is about heart and spirit and not theological correctness. Christmas is the ultimate universal mythos, bringing light and joy in the darkest and coldest time of the year. Something we all need, particularly at this time in our lives.

Do we need to believe in the theological accuracy of the Biblical accounts to believe in Christmas? I don’t think so. You can’t in any case as even they don’t agree. That said what is at the heart of Christmas? What is its universal message? What is the mythos deep within the story? Are you a hypocrite if you say you believe absolutely in Christmas but not that the events took place exactly as they are described?

Mythos isn’t about fact it is about universal truth. Well, there is a deep universal truth at the heart of the Christmas mythos, a truth that speaks through every generation. A truth that is needed today in 2021 just as much as it was in any other times and places. Gosh how I need to feel that spirit alive in this life. So yes, I believe in Christmas.

My mum recently shared a story of my brother coming to her distressed asking if Father Christmas was real. Apparently, a girl at school had said that he wasn’t. My brother is nearly two years older than me. I remember him telling me this was the case that evening. I simply said I know, I’ve known a long time. He asked why I said nothing. I said I didn’t want to spoil it for anyone else. Besides which I still believed in the power of Father Christmas and I believe in him even more today.

Yes, we all know that Christmas has its root in pre-Christianity. And yes we also know that Christmas has seemingly been taken over by consumerism. Many today say there is no spirit left too, that it is basically a secular holiday. There are many forces who do not seemingly believe in the spirit of Christmas. Mr Scrooge is not the only Bah Humbugger around. There are those who say it is just another day, what does it matter. I heard someone say recently it is just a slightly fancier meal.

Christmas isn’t just about the day its about giving birth to love and hope and don’t we all need that. I’m not interested in getting tied down by reason and fact, I believe in mythos. Christmas fills me with so much. It is a time for nostalgia, for connecting the past, to the present and building hope for the future, a bit like the three spirits who visited Mr Scrooge. Christmas reminds us how important generosity of spirit and heart is. It breeds goodwill to all, it helps us to see that there is one human family, despite all the forces around who would to divide us. Sadly, we live in such divisive times. The core of my faith is the search and creation of meaning in every moment and in all life, to sanctify life, to bring love to life though my humble humanity. The heart and spirit of Christmas helps me to bring that to life through my frail human being.

The fact that Christmas allows folk to pause and slow down and pay attention is a cause for celebration for me. Isn’t this worthy of decorations, of light, of music, of celebration. Isn’t the selecting and wrapping of gifts a symbol of generosity of the heart. As I once heard said “There is religion in the ribbons and wrapping paper” it is not just secular materialism, there is so much love that goes into the gift giving and selecting. Surely this fills our hearts and reminds us that life is about giving, that these are symboloic of that and that generosity should fuel our days. Isn’t self giving love the core message that was exemplified through the life of Jesus. Isn’t this what we celebrate the birth of. Aren’t these the true Christian values, that so often get lost in ridiculous theological arguments. Isn’t this the gift that humanity is still waiting for, the gift that can still save us all from ourselves. Isn’t this what will bring us back together in these deeply divisive times. My hope is that we take the risk to give birth to this love through our fragile lives. Christmas is a risk you know. As Rexford J. Styzens so beautifully put it.

“Christmas is a risk for us to take. Shall we allow ourselves to be touched by sentiment? Awakened by song and story? Drawn into festivities, when our joy depends upon the goodwill of others? Dare we risk the disappointment of hopes raised high and excited expectations? May we have the courage to celebrate the season fully.”

We need to take that risk. We need to in order to bring that spirit to life. Lets be holy fools and take the risk. Our world needs us to. Don’t we all need to.

Now of course for some of us it feels like too much. It feels like we can’t go through it, or we are just not in the mood for it. Or if you are like me, you just don’t have the time for it. I have to be very careful of the “I haven’t got time for this” mantra. Some times “ho, ho, ho!” is a bit too much for me, as it is for all of us. Sometimes it all seems too much and we are just not ready for it all.

Well, it comes anyway, regardless of us. There again I see something powerfully humbling. It comes even if I’m not ready, if we are not ready, sometimes others carry the burden and bring the spirit to life, even if we do not want it.

Regardless of the state of our hearts, the season of the heart is born again. Symbolised in the birth of the Christ child. We tell the story regardless. As we do we are reminded of his message of universal equality, compassion, forgiveness, and love. This is born over and over again, sometimes in spite of the state of our individual minds and hearts. And isn’t this the real miracle, that we cannot deny the possibility of hope, despite the state of our hearts and lives.

Here in December 2021 in the midst of so many troubles don’t we all need to contemplate the potential for peace and healing in our lives and world. Sometimes it is hard to find, especially in times of literal or metaphorical darkness, like now. Then it comes. It comes as Christmas comes to remind us and it comes in the hearts and lives of those inspired by its spirit. It comes even if we do not want it to come. It comes and it saves us once again, if only from ourselves. It comes even if we do not believe we are worthy of receiving it, gosh we are, if only we believed it. We are all worthy of love, we are all loved as we are, isn’t that what is at the core of the love born in that stable.

We all have our struggles, our various griefs, our pain, our suffering, all of us. Let’s not forget that. Let us also not forget that Christmas reminds us that light was and is born within us, even in the darkest nights of our souls. That this light can be born once again within us.

So let us open the inn door once again, lets prepare the mangers of our hearts, even if we don’t feel up to it, even if we don’t want to believe in it. There is a love waiting to be born in each of us. We need it and our world needs it too.

Please never forget that we are each of us children of love, children of the universe. That in each birth there is this love, even it seems obscured at times. Isn’t Christmas the ultimate reminder of this. To quote Sophia Lyon Fahs “That every night a child is born is a holy night”. That love is waiting to be born in us again. Someone recently suggested that this should read "Each night a child is born is a holy night". Perhaps to be read correctly it should. That said I find something univeral, something about all time in the phrase "every" and I suspectt hat this is what Sophia is getting at.

So let us turn on those twinkling lights, play the songs and sing the carols. Buy those presents and wrap them, invite the strangers in the midst into our lives. Pay attention to the needs in our lives and if we are feeling alone and afraid, let someone know and let their love flow. For you are not alone, even though it can sometimes feel like you are, for we all feel like that some time.

The spirit of Christmas does something to us, there is a magic to it, it is more than reason and fact. It can’t be quantified and it cannot be measured, but it surely can be experienced and known, but only if we let it have its way with us. We just have to risk greeting strangers more openly and warmly.

The magic of Christmas is there in its spirit. For it is this that enables us to open up to our true nature. Christmas is wonderful, powerful and special because it helps us to become more comfortable about being open and giving. Its spirit helps us to give birth to the goodness that is waiting to come to life, within each of us and that is why we love it so much.

So let’s journey on through this Christmas season and truly open our hearts and engage in its spirit. May our hearts open wider, at this the heart of the year. May our experiences deepen as we remember to slow down as we rush through the business of our days. May we know the true gifts of the season; gifts of love, compassion and acceptance. May we bring the spirit of the season alive and in so doing learn to make it Christmas in the days yet to come.

Below is a video devotion based

on the material in this "blogspot"

Seeking a Moral Compass in a Post Moral Age

“It Matters What We Believe” by Sophia Lyon Fahs

It matters what we believe. Some beliefs are like walled gardens. They encourage exclusiveness, and the feeling of being especially privileged.
Other beliefs are expansive and lead the way into wider and deeper sympathies.
Some beliefs are like shadows, clouding children's days and fears of unknown calamities.
Other beliefs are like sunshine, blessing children with the warmth of happiness.
Some beliefs are divisive, separating saved from unsaved, friends from enemies.
Other beliefs are bonds in a world community, where sincere differences beautify the pattern.
Some beliefs are like blinders, shutting off the power to choose one's own direction.
Other beliefs are like gateways opening wide vistas for exploration.
Some beliefs weaken a person's selfhood. They blight the growth of resourcefulness.
Other beliefs nurture self-confidence and enrich the feeling of personal worth.
Some beliefs are rigid, like the body of death, impotent in a changing world.
Other beliefs are pliable, like the young sapling, ever growing with the upward thrust of life.

The other Sunday afternoon and evening Sue and myself attended a friends birthday celebrations. It was an interesting time. It began with yoga sessions at the center in Altrincham. he yoga was followed by a meal at a Sushi restaurant followed by a Gong Sound bath. This was what I was looking forward to the most. From early in our relationship Sue and I have shared these wonderful things together, led by lovely couple that we have nicknamed the “Wizard and his Wife”, they could quite easily be characters from a Tolkein novel and they do love what we call them this.

By the way a Gong sound bath is created from a selection of Gongs that are played over an hour while you simply lie there sinking into the ground. It is a wonderful and powerful experience, I highly recommend it to anyone.

Now as we arrived we greeted the Wizard and his wife, they welcomed us in, and Sue took out her phone and found her compass. She wanted to find East. So she found due north and we took our spot. We then shared with many others in a truly wonderful experience.

As I lay there, sinking into the ground and the sound washed over me, I began to think about her compass and its northward facing needle. As I was doing so the phrase moral compass came into my mind. How we do we find our moral compass, how do we find the right direction in life, the way to face in order to make the appropriate moral decisions in life? Sounds simple, I know, but I’m not certain it is so easy.

Now morality has been on my mind quite a lot in recent weeks. I have just finished reading Bob Woodward’s (of Watergate and all the President’s Men fame) excellent new book “Fear: Trump in the White House”. It is an incredible and frightening book. The president’s morality has come into question for various reasons. The suggestion is that it is not so much that he is immoral, more that he is amoral; that essentially he is not ruled by a particular foundational moral code, other than the situation he is in. If he has a moral compass he is ruled by fear and instilling fear. There is a quote on the back of Woodward’s book in which Trump says “Real power is – I don’t even want to use the word – fear.” The suggestion being made is that if he lives from a moral compass it is one based on fear.

It brought to mind something I read many years ago “Leviathan” by Thomas Hobbes, written just after the English civil war. It is a striking, disturbing and bleak view of human nature.

Hobbes wrote

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

I will just repeat the last few words

“And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short” Gosh that is hard.

For Hobbe’s what is required to overcome this state of fear is an ultimate authority to bring order to wayward humanity and subjugate our anarchic and brutish nature.

I suppose that you could say that this is some form of moral foundation, that this is something to aim for, but I am not convinced, although I do from time to time struggle with human nature, mine and others too.

Now while I reject this fear based view of humanity, I do have a sense that there is a goodness at the core of life, an ok-ness, I acknowledge that it is not always easy to find a guide. How do we find our true north? How do we find the right direction and make moral decisions about life, so as to give positively to the melting pot of humanity. It is suggested that there is no longer a single meta-narrative, that the foundation stones that we once built our lives on no longer have value. I am not convinced, I do find certain truths that have been with us for centuries and keep on resurfacing. I do believe that there is an ultimate goodness that we can connect to, a goodness that can be found in everything, in you, in me and in everything. A love that can always overcome any fear. For fear ultimately corrodes the soul and reduces life to nothing.

Last Sunday John Midgley led a wonderful service at Dunham Road, celebrating 50 years since he took up ministry here and at Queens Road, he will be delivering something similar at Queens Road next month. John was my first Unitarian minister at Cross Street in Manchester. While there he introduced me to the wonderful Carl Scovel. Now at the heart of his faith was something he described as the “Great Surmise” at a talk he delivered at the 1994 Unitarian Universalist General Assembly he described what he meant by it:

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

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

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

I have discovered the simple joy of living even in life’s most challenging times. I have found that there is a love at the core of life. It is our moral task, I believe, to find it and being it to life through our own human being. To me this is essentially what Jesus meant when he spoke of the Kingdom of God, what I like to call the kin-dom of love. This is no easy task, but then again it never has been. There has never been an idealised time for any of us. The people Jesus spoke to 2,000 years ago were not living easy and comfortable lives. Those people knew about conflict, oppression, tragedy and almost constant grief. He told them that all that was wonderful, life-giving, life affirming, all that is meaningful was theirs. He said to them “Enter into my kingdom with joy.” He also told them that “This is my commandment, that you love one another.”

So maybe this is the key, to live by the “Golden Rule”, to love one another, to love our neighbour as ourselves. That though requires a belief that there is a love at the core of all life, our lives. Do we see this when we look in the mirror, do we see this when we look into each others eyes?

It matters, it really does.

I think the greatest danger to humanity, past present and future looking forward, is this idea that some people are superior to others, have greater value. It is a voice that we hear more and more, a voice that leads to separation, that breeds this idea of us and them. It is there in religion, but also secular society. Some religious groups talk about the saved and the unsaved, others talk of being God’s chosen people. When they speak this way they are talking of a God I do not recognise. The God I know accepts and loves all universally. Experience has revealed to me that we are all chosen by God, it’s just that so many of us turn away and cannot believe that there is a spirit that is there in all life.

Then of course there are the anti-religionists who ridicule people of faith; who see it all as purely infantile projections. They mock, they poke fun, they separate people into the stupid and the wise. In so doing they are saying that they are better than them.

When the epistle Paul talked of the oneness, the unity in Christianity, he wrote that in Christ “there is no longer Jew or Greek.” He did not say that there are no longer Jews or Greeks more that people are no longer separated by these distinctions; that they are all one in love, in body and in spirit; that if all people are viewed in the light they are brothers and sisters to one another.

As Tenzin Gyatso XIVth Dalai Lama has said “Mentally, physically and emotionally we are the same. We each have the potential to be good and bad and to be overcome by disturbing emotions such as anger, fear, hatred, suspicion and greed. These emotions can be the cause of many problems. On the other hand if you cultivate loving kindness, compassion and concern for others, there will be no room for anger, hatred and jealousy.

These words very much chime with a favourite story of mine, “The Two Wolves"

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life.

“A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.

“It’s a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, ego and it makes me cynical about life.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, faith and it fills me with enthusiasm for life. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

Maybe this is how we can find a foundation on which we can make moral choices and decisions. It begins by believing that at the core of life is a goodness and that if we feed that in the right way it can grow within us and that we can live in ways that will serve life in loving and positive ways. It will require us to believe that this same spirit is all life. It will require us to live from a place of love and not of fear.

The choice is ours. Do we live by the power of fear, of hate, of separation or do we take the risk to live by love? It’s up to us…Our lives and all life depend on the choices we will make.

It matters, it really does…But then again everything matters…Every feeling, every thought, every word and every deed.

Advent: Travelling Light & Travelling Dark

A man was walking home late one night when he saw the Mulla Nasrudin searching under a street light on hands and knees for something on the ground. "Mulla, what have you lost?" he asked.

"The key to my house," Nasrudin said.

"I'll help you look," the man said.

Soon, both men were down on their knees, looking for the key.

After a number of minutes, the man asked, "Where exactly did you drop it?" Nasrudin waved his arm back toward the darkness. "Over there, in my house." The first man jumped up. "Then why are you looking for it here?"

"Because there is more light here than inside my house."

I love cold dark Tuesday mornings at this time of the year. That may sound like an odd thing to say, but I do love Tuesday mornings at this time of the year. Every Tuesday morning I attend a shared meditation. It begins at 7am in total darkness. Myself and others sit in silence and darkness and after a while we share one by one as the light begins to appear. By the time the hour is up, so is the sun and we go out into the world and back into the light and life. This Tuesday morning gathering is vital to my personal spiritual connection, it feeds me in ways I will probably never fully understand.

This week during the hour the phrase “travelling light” began to float around in the soul of the group and in me. “Travelling light” is one of those interesting phrases that can have several meanings.

When I heard the phrase the first thought that came into my mind was the idea of travelling without too many belongings. I remember a friend once recounting his many pilgrimages along “Camino de Santiago” and how on this beautiful and spiritual journey it was essential to travel with few physical belongings, he also told how through the journey he left behind things that had been holding him back spiritually in some way. He travelled light.

“Travelling Light” also makes me think of the need to tread carefully through life, to live but to do so without causing harm. To step lightly like a Jain monk might do…”Step lightly, stay free” as Mick Jones once sang.

"Travelling Light" also brings an image of a light that travels itself, that might move across the skyline.

“Travelling Light” also brings another image to mind. A light by which the wanderer and journeyer may travel by. A loving light that guides, holds and sustains them through what may trouble them as they wander through life.

And then my thoughts turned to the opposite of “Travelling Light”, it brought to mind the phrase “Travelling Dark”, which happened to be the title of an album by “The Palledino’s” who my brother had once played and toured all over America with. I am sure we have all spent time travelling, feeling lost at times in the dark. We ought not fear this you know. We need the dark just as much as the light. The dark allows us to prepare for the light, to be still and silent and to truly take root in the light. Sometimes it is the dark where the keys are to be found and not where the light is shining.

We should not be afraid of the dark times of life, of our being. They are a part of life just as much as the light. Rainer Maria once wrote:

“I Love the dark hours of my being” by Rainer Maria Rilke

I love the dark hours of my being.
My mind deepens into them.
There I can find, as in old letters,
the days of my life, already lived,
and held like a legend, and understood.

Then the knowing comes: I can open
to another life that's wide and timeless.

So I am sometimes like a tree
rustling over a gravesite
and making real the dream
of the one its living roots
embrace:

a dream once lost
among sorrows and songs.

Sometimes it is the in the darkness that life’s riches are discovered. Sometimes we need to journey in the dark and sometimes we need to carry our past with us and draw on the riches that were sown and planted their, that have yet to be harvested. There is a time and a place for everything under the sun. Or should it be under the moon?

Today the season of Advent officially begins. Yes I know Christmas seems to have begun very early this year. As soon as the Halloween masks were put away or the final bonfires went out on firework’s night” Christmas seemingly began. I don’t really like it you know. I love the Christmas season and the spirit that lies within it, so rich in spiritual meaning, the problem I have is that we let the light in or perhaps out too early and as a result it loses some of its magic. We need to wait for the moment of magic, we need to be patient, we need to prepare ourselves so it can fill our spirits properly and we can carry its light into our wounded and ever wounding world. By golly it needs it. We need to be ready for Christmas and this requires preparation. Thus the need to truly experience Advent.

The word “Advent” is derived from the Latin “Adventus”which means “coming”. It is a time for waiting; waiting in anticipation and hope. It is also a time for preparation. A quiet time when we are meant to patiently wait for the coming of a new light in the darkness.

Christianity teaches that 2,000 years ago angels heralded the news of a child who would be born who would save humanity. Prophets had prophesised this and wise sages and humble shepherds journeyed to great him. The wise sages travelled from afar following a star. This was their “travelling light”. There journey was not an overnight one, it took patience and time and did not end until what we would call the 12th day of Christmas, what is known as the Feast Day of Epiphany, or so the story goes.

 Christmas does not actually begin in early November regardless of what the shops and tv schedules claim, it actually begins on sunset on 24th of December. What we enter now is the period of anticipation and preparation that is Advent. A time that asks us to wait, a time that requires patience. A time when we need to allow the love that is the core of the Christmas “Mythos” to form in our hearts and to be born again in our lives and made manifest in our actions.

Advent is a beautiful reminder that the hope of all of humanity is reborn and renewed each night a child is born. For as Sophia Lyon Fah’s so beautifully put it “Every night a child is born is a holy night”. Advent is an invitation for every one of us to be both the child and traveller the prophet and the promise of what might yet be. Advent is the time to prepare ourselves spiritually to journey within and become the blessing of hope that we all need. That hope though needs time to form within our souls, so it can come to birth again in our every feeling, every thought, every word and every deed.

It is vital that we prepare ourselves and nurture that wonderful light that burns within each of us.

Advent is a time for waiting for allowing all that we have known and perhaps will ever know to come together at once. It’s a time to bring all the love we have known in our lives to form fully in our souls and to let it become one. This is by no means a passive time, although we so often see waiting in this way. It is not just about standing or sitting around it is also about bearing witness to what has been and to the world in which we presently find ourselves. Margaret Kirk highlights this in her meditation “Waiting” in “Hearts and Mind” she states

“…the word “wait” has a number of different roots. One of these roots is from the old French word “waitier”, which means to watch as well as to wait. Another is from the Old High German “wahta”, meaning watcher and “wahhon”, meaning to be awake. So quite deeply embedded in the meaning of our English word “wait” is the suggestion that however powerless we might feel, waiting brings with it an awakening…if we allow it to.”

This is what I will be doing as I enter this season of Advent and it will be what I am suggesting to those I serve and all I meet, to prepare and to wait, but to do so in a watchful and wakeful sense. To take time to look over the lives we have lived and the world in which we live today. To examine our whole lives, both the light and the dark. To take time in the dark and prepare ourselves fully to open up to what has been, what is now and what might just be; to find the light that we can travel and live by and to not only follow that which is beyond us but open ourselves fully to it and invite it to grow within and through us and to wander on.

Let us wander on, not alone, but together in harmony with all that has been and all that will ever be.

We are here for a reason…each and every one of us…that reason I believe is to be bearers of the light in our world…to bring hope to our world…so let us become the light of the world…Let us manifest hope in our hearts, minds and souls, let us become the hope of the world…


I'm going to end this little chip of a blogspot with the following by Kathleen McTigue...


“On the Cusp of Winter” by Kathleen McTigue


We’ve come to the season of waiting.

The colors of autumn are gone,

leaves faded and fallen, and branches rise bare to sky.

The deep quiet and frozen beauty of winter are coming

but not quite yet: we are in the season in between.



The world closes in on itself as breathing things

hunker down, burrow in, drop to the bottom

and store up nurture for the long cold.



Animals that we are, we feel in our bones

the shuttering of the windows.

Though freed from the need to burrow in,

may we still find guidance

in the rhythm that beats through our hearts.



In this season of waiting, may we let ourselves

slow down our pace,

ease out from beneath the burden of our speed

and bustle, our fretful worry

so that gratitude can saturate our days and colour our nights.



In this season of closing down, closing in,

may our hearts stay open,

Urging open our doors to the stranger,

our hands to the helpless,

And our spirit to all that calls us endlessly back to life.

Hope: It is better to light one candle than curse the darkness

There is an old Chinese proverb that has become the motto of Amnesty International “It is better to light one candle than curse the darkness.”

I like it. It speaks to me of the purpose of our lives. To live in such a way as to bring light into places of darkness and not just sit back and complain and blame. To live with Hope, not necessarily optimism, but definitely Hope. To do what we can. To live in faith and not to be paralysed by fear.

I have a great love of the "Holy Fool" Mulla Nasruddin. His seeming foolishness has a way of revealing profound truths. Here is one short tale.

Nasruddin was once asked:

"What do you think is most valuable to us the sun or the moon?"

He thought for a while and then he responded:

“Well, the sun is out during the daytime when there is light. The moon, on the other hand, provides light during the night when it’s dark. Thus, the moon is obviously much more valuable.”

Good old Nasrudin the "Holy Fool" the bringer of un-common sense. Now perhaps you are thinking what a ridiculous thing to say but please do look beyond the obvious here. Please put aside your literal faculties. There is a deep truth here. One light is a priceless commodity during times of darkness but of no real value when it is already light.

Here’s another short little wisdom tale for you...

Once there lived a blind man in a small town. He always carried a lighted lamp in his hand whenever he went out at night.

On one dark night he was going his merry way, lighted lamp in his hand, when he passed a group of young men travelling the other way.

On seeing the blind man they began to make fun of him, saying " O Blind man why do you carry the lighted lamp. You are blind and cannot see anything?"

At which the blind man politely responded, "This lamp is not for me, but for you people who have eyes. You may not see a blind man coming and walk right into him.”

At this the young men fell silent, looked at one another uncomfortably, apologised and shuffled off...

“It is better to light one candle than curse the darkness.”

One candle in the darkness speaks of what "Hope" is actually all about. Vaclav Havel wrote beautifully of "Hope" in the following poem. Hope as he says is not the same as optimism.

“Hope” by Vaclav Havel

Hope is a state of mind, not a state of the world
Either we have hope within us or we don’t.
Hope is not a prognostication—it’s an orientation of the spirit.
You can’t delegate that to anyone else.

Hope in this deep and powerful sense is not the same as joy
when things are going well,
or the willingness to invest in enterprises
that are obviously headed for early success,
but rather an ability to work for something to succeed.

Hope is definitely NOT the same as optimism.
It’s not the conviction that something will turn out well,
but the certainty that something makes sense,
regardless of how it turns out.

It is hope, above all, that gives us strength to live
and to continually try new things,
even in conditions that seem as hopeless as ours do, here and now.
In the face of this absurdity, life is too precious a thing
to permit its devaluation by living pointlessly, emptily,
without meaning, without love, and, finally, without hope.

To paraphrase Vaclav Havel “ Hope is an orientation of the spirit...It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out.”

Now people understand spirit differently. For me it is something that is present within each and everyone one of us and all life for that matter. I agree with Havel I see "Hope" as an orientation of this spirit. Hope is something that breathes life into us, something that fires us, something that sustains us, regardless of what is going on around us.

Hope should never be confused with blind optimism or unrealistic expectation for the future. If life has taught me anything it has shown me that things rarely turn out they way we expect them too. I always remain sceptical of “sooth sayers” or those who claim to be able to predict the future. None of us know what is coming.

Hope is something different it is an orientation of the spirit, it is something that holds us and sustains us right here right now. This may sound like a strange thing to say as we enter into Advent. After all “Advent” is derived from “adventus”, which means coming. It is a period of expectation, of anticipation; it is a time for waiting; it is a time for preparation. In the Christian tradition it is the time marked out for preparation for the coming of the new hope in the Christ Child. This suggests that it is a time to get ready for the hope that is to come and not something that is already here, already present within us.

I do not take the traditional view. Instead for me Advent symbolises the hope that is born in every child. For every night a child is born is a holy night. Every life is a blessing. Every life has that same spirit flowing through it. Last Sunday I had the privilege of blessing my friend John’s daughter Erin. During the ceremony I touched her head, her hands and her feet; during the ceremony I blessed her thoughts and words and deeds. To me this was symbolic of awakening that orientation of the spirit, a watering of the seed of Hope already planted within her.

I am reminded here of those beautiful words by Sophia Lyon Fah’s, so appropriate for this time of year.

“And so the children come.
And so they have been coming.
Always in the same way they come --
Born of the seed of man and woman.
No angels herald their beginnings,
No prophets predict their future courses,
No wise men see a star to point their way
To find a babe that may save humankind.
Yet each night a child is born is a holy night.
Fathers and Mothers --
Sitting beside their children's cribs --
Feel glory in the wond'rous sight of life beginning.
They ask: "When or how will this new life end?
Or will it ever end?"
Each night a child is born is a holy night”

Every night a child is born is a holy night just as every day is a holy day. Each life is a blessing and a new hope. Each of us are made of the same stuff and have the potential to bring hope to the world. We each have that same spirit within us. We each can bless our world in so many ways. This is the hope I see in all of us, in all life. This hope can come from what we do and how we are. This is why each week when I deliver the Benediction, the blessing, at the end of the service I ask those present to carry that loving spirit with them “in all that we feel, all that we think, all that we say and all that we do”. It is my attempt to ask us to go out into our world and bless our world in daily interactions. It is so easy to despair at life and give up, but I believe in hope, in that inclination of the spirit. I believe in that old Chinese proverb “It is better to light one candle than curse the darkness.” Each week I ask us to be candles, to bring some light into our world. To do what we can. To me this is living religiously; to me this is the essence of true religion. It’s not just about what we think, or feel, or believe or reject, it is a way of being; it is an orientation of the heart. It’s about spirit coming to life; it’s about spirit incarnating.

My hope is that we can be blessings to our world; that we can bring glad tidings of comfort and joy to our world. Our world needs it we all need it.

With this in mind I thought I'd share some insights on blessing by the late John O’Donohue:

“Who has the power to bless? This question is not to be answered simply by the description of one’s institutional status or membership. But perhaps there are deeper questions hidden here: What do you bless with? Or where do you bless from? When you bless another, you first gather yourself; you reach below your surface mind and personality, down to the deeper source within you—namely, the soul. Blessing is from soul to soul.”

John teaches that a blessing brings wholeness that is intended not just for the one who receives it; it is linked with the wholeness of the whole world, to the wholeness of eternity. He says that:

“We never see the script of our lives; nor do we know what is coming toward us, or why our life takes on this particular shape or sequence. A blessing is different from a greeting, a hug, a salute, or an affirmation; it opens a different door in human encounter. One enters into the forecourt of the soul, the source of intimacy and the compass of destiny.

Our longing for the eternal kindles our imagination to bless. Regardless of how we configure the eternal, the human heart continues to dream of a state of wholeness, a place where everything comes together, where loss will be made good, where blindness will transform into vision, where damage will be made whole, where the clenched question will open in the house of surprise, where the travails of life’s journey will enjoy a homecoming. To invoke a blessing is to call some of that wholeness upon a person now.”

I have a request for you who read this piece; I have a request to you this Advent season. My request  is for you to use your power to bless all that you meet, to bring that orientation of the spirit to life. I also ask that you open yourselves up to the blessings this season offers to you, from one another and from all life, for that same spirit is present in everything. That spirit links us to the wholeness of life and the wholeness of eternity. It links us from our souls to the universal, to the eternal soul.

Advent of Hope

Today is Advent Sunday. This evening at the two congregations I serve we will be holding candle light services to celebrate the coming of the light in this time of darkness. During the service I will offer a time for all present to light a flame of thanks for someone who has brought the light of hope into our lives...to offer a prayer of thanks for their Immanuel...we will also share a time for quiet reflection to focus on hope for the future, either for ourselves, our loved ones, for humanity or for the whole of life, for what ever our hearts desire...

The word Advent is derived from "adventus", which means coming. It is a period of expectation, of anticipation; it is a time for waiting; it is a time for preparation. But what is that we are waiting for?

The Christian tradition teaches that two thousand years ago angels brought news that a child would be born, and that he would save humankind. The prophets predicted his arrival. They also predicted the humble shepherds and the wise sages travelling from afar following that wondrous star, so brilliant and yet so far away. They travelled in wonder and anticipation, but the journey took time. It took them quite some time to arrive at their physical destination as well as their spiritual realisation that the hope of humanity rested in the infinite potential of a newborn child.

Advent is a reminder that the hope for all of humanity is renewed every night a child is born. For as Sophia Lyon Fah’s said “Every night a child is born, is a holy night.” Every night is a holy night. Every moment is holy, if we are prepared to receive it this way.

Advent this holy time is an invitation to be the traveller as well as the child, to be the prophet as well as the promise. This season of Advent is a period that we are given to journey inwardly and to prepare ourselves for the blessings of hope and the possibilities of miracle.

The period of waiting will soon be over, for the light is about to come.

Advent "adventus", it means “coming”.

The hope of humanity is coming, with the birth of an ordinary child.

The promise of the light is coming, in the longest darkest night.

Something wonderful is coming.

Now is the time to prepare for it....

When I think of Advent what really comes to my mind is hope...hope that is yet to come...this time, the darkest of the year is a time of preparation...it is a time to prepare us for the light that will soon come from this the deepest darkest time of the year...

John Taylor says, “we human creatures, in spite of all that has happened to us and been done by us, are still hopeful. Something new, something vital, something promising, is always coming, and we are always expecting. Advent is a time of anticipation and as long as we expect, as long as we hope, someone will light a candle against the prevailing darkness – and neither the winds of hate nor the gales of evil will extinguish it.”

This is the time of darkness, but it is also a time of hope of waiting for the new light that is soon to come. I suspect that we are all waiting for something, I wonder what it is that you the reader are waiting for. Maybe some dream for the future, something you've always wanted to try, but were too afraid to. Or maybe it's a wish for a loved one, someone in your family or the wider community. Maybe it's a wish for the whole of humanity. Advent is a time to form these wishes in the minds of our hearts and to prepare ourselves for them.

Advent is about the hope that emerges from the darkness of winter. Over the coming weeks I would like you who reads this to think about hope, I’d like you to envision it. I would like you to develop hope in your soul, to long for it. Hope you see is really about longing. There is always something that we could, perhaps should, be striving for. There are always improvements to be made. I’d like you to join with me and others and to attempt to develop this in the coming weeks and then to perhaps commit to it in the New Year. What are you waiting for, what does your heart desire, if not for yourselves, then for someone else? For what do you long?

You may think that everything is perfect. Well if that is so, then we do not need hope; the perfect life does not need hope. But are we perfect? Do we live in a perfect society? I know that I am far from perfect. This is why I need hope. I need hope because it draws me out of myself and enables me to engage with others. Don’t we all need to be drawn out of ourselves. Don’t we all need to fully engage with each other and all of life for that matter.

So I would like you the reader to hope, I would like you to long, but I would also ask you to wait. I would like you to wait, at least until the turning of the year before you engage with what it is you desire either for yourself or for someone else. For now, in this advent season, I would like you to wait. I would like you to contemplate and yearn for what it is that you would like, for what it is that you desire to change. If you do you will be ready to engage with whatever it is that needs to be done in order to bring about the change that you have begun to envision.

Now is the time to prepare...now is the time to envision...now is the time to wait...now is the time to wait in anticipation... 

Myth & Mystery: Glad Tidings of Reason and Fact

From “Lifecraft” by Forrest Church from the chapter “A Mystery Story”

"Reckon the odds. That we should even exist staggers the imagination. Then take it back further, back to the ur-paramecium. All of us are connected genetically to the beginning of life and kinetically to the beginning of time. The universe was pregnant with us when it was born. I find this far more amazing and inspiring than most theological reflections. Simply being here - my having written, your reading - is a miracle. Consider my awe at the underwater world on the Great Barrier Reef, how impossible is was to be blasé in the presence of a giant clam. We should never be blasé when reflecting on the creation or our place in it. As it is written in thirtieth chapter of the book of proverbs,

Three things are too wonderful for me;

four I do not understand:

the way of an eagle in the sky,

the way of a snake on a rock,

the way of a ship on the high seas,

and the way of a man with a woman.

Physics, anatomy, biology, and psychology can begin to decode such mysteries. Yet knowledge has its limits. Quoting an academic study, novelist Saul Bellow observed “that an average weekday New York Times contains more information than any contemporary of Shakespeare would have acquired in a lifetime.” That includes Shakespeare himself. The Times is a fine paper. I read it every day. But for all its information, it only hints, and then only occasionally, at what Shakespeare knew so very well: that the beauty of the bird, the symbol of the snake, the courage of the pilot, and the wonder of human love will always be touched by mystery."

Oh I do love Forrest Church...he speaks to my condition...

I was round at a friend’s house the other night, we were just chatting away about a few things that we as adults see as being so important. My friend has a six year old son and during our rather serious conversation his son burst in with incredible excitement. A tooth had fallen out and obviously he wanted to show it to his dad. I am told that the going rate for a tooth these days is £5 and a set of football cards. It seems that the global recession has not yet impacted on the tooth fairies. A little later he burst in again this time desperate to show something he’d received on his laptop. It was a personalised video message from Santa Claus. Santa addressed him by name and was in possession of a great many details about his life, He had pictures too. Santa discussed how my friend’s son had been behaving for the last few months. At the end of the message Santa told him to be nicer to his brother.

It was an absolute delight to hear this little boy asking when his brother would be home, as he wanted to give him a hug. It was beautifully magical just getting lost in this family's little world, if only for a short time. I had gone to the house to help someone, spiritually I suppose, I had gone to teach. That said I left feeling I was the one who had learnt a lesson and I was one who had received the greatest gift; the gift of joy and wonder; the gift of seeing life through the eyes of a child. A priceless gift if ever I have received one. We can learn so much from children.

They do indeed bring “Glad tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy”

Sophia Lyon Fah’s is so right when she says that every night a child is born is a holy night. For in every child is that wonderful gift of potential. It is important to always remember that we did absolutely nothing to deserve the gift and privilege of being born; we truly had no say in it, it is a gift freely given. What we do with the Grace that is life itself though is another matter all together. This we do have some say in, but we did absolutely nothing to deserve it.

We are now well and truly into the Christmas season. The music is being played in the coffee shops and the other shops too no doubt. I am yet to venture into the other shops and can only vouch for what is being played in Cafe Nero in Altrincham. The adverts are everywhere. The season of Christmas re-runs has already begun. As has the bah humbugging. I heard a bit of it the other morning from a friend. A friend who always makes me chuckle when I sit with him. He makes me chuckle because he reminds me of the cynical guy that I was a few years ago, I was the emperor of scepticism. This was back in the day when my brother would call me Alan Rickman. This was because I reminded him of the character he played in Galaxy Quest, I used to be a real ranter back in the day. And yes Christmas really was a humbug. The awe and wonder at the mystery of life that I had once possessed had become covered by a cloak of cynicism and bah humbug.

Advent is about preparation. Now I used to be someone who was well prepared for misery, I sought it out in actual fact. You may well say I was utterly addicted to it. I certainly worshipped it. What I am becoming increasingly aware of is that I now have to make myself equally prepared for joy. This is my focus at the moment to open myself up as much as possible to the joy that is there in life. This will not take away the pain and disappointment that is there in all our lives. That will hit me just has hard as it always has. That said it will not have the same impact as it once did, because I am also working on preparing within myself a nest, a home, for the joy that is present in life, in love, in mystery. I am learning not to dwell on my troubles, because I keep remembering the lessons that the children I have known in my life have taught me. This advent for me is about preparing for joy and magic and mystery.

A friend recently sent me this play on the Christmas carol “God rest thee merry gentlemen”, it was written by the Unitarian Universalist minister Rev Chris Raible. He is playfully mocking himself and our tradition for its idolatry of reason. Reason and fact aren’t everything. There is more to humanity, and to life itself than we are ever capable of seeing and knowing. True humility always leads to a greater openness to new and wonder filled experience.

"Glad Tidings of Reason and Fact" by Rev Chris Raible

  God rest ye, Unitarians,            
  Let nothing you dismay!             
  Remember that there is no proof     
  There was a Christmas Day            
  For Christmas really started as     
  A pagan holiday.                    

  Oh, glad tidings of reason and fact, 
  Reason and fact. 
  Glad tidings of reason and fact. 

  No wise men travelled from the East, 
  The journey's far too long. 
  There were no shepherds in the fields, 
  The time of year's all wrong; 
  We don't believe in angels; 
  That rules out the angels' song!    

  (Chorus) 

  We're too sophisticated to 
  Believe in tales so old. 
  We know that human avarice means 
  Too much bought and sold; 
  We only celebrate because 
  This season is so cold. 
   
  (Chorus)

            

Now I will not argue with the factual accuracy of the words, but is this really what the Christmas story is about?  Is it really about what actually happened or didn’t happen all those years ago? Does this really bring glad tidings of anything? Does it help us to live better lives, to offer love and compassion to one another?

Advent is about preparing us for the coming of hope that can be found in a humble birth of a lowly child in a lowly stable. A child with incredible potential and yet who is rejected. Isn’t this a universal tale? Doesn’t it speak of all of us at times? There is more to the Christmas myth than the historical accuracy or inaccuracy of the Biblical accounts. In fact to get lost in detail of what did or didn’t actually happen is to miss the whole point of the story. It sounds as ludicrous as those medieval theologians who argued over how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. Is that what really matters? Surely there is more to the story than reason and fact. Gosh I’m starting to sound a bit like Alan Rickman again.

Joseph Campbell taught that myths such as the nativity story are actually metaphors for human life. That they are eternal and universal tales that can teach us about our lives right here right now. He believed that by understanding these mysteries we can begin to understand who we truly are and what life is all about.

Carl Jung taught that these myths originate within our “collective unconscious”. He said that we each have a conscious level that we are aware of in our waking moments (this is what is operating now as you read this blog, or at least I hope it is, are you still awake?). Beneath this is our personal unconscious level, our closet. This is where we store memories, experiences, desires, fears, urges, compulsions etc. It is here that our personal “stuff” is stored, which from time to time we dip into. Some of this stuff is beautiful and some of it is terrifying. This is the domain of our devils and demons.

Jung described our “collective unconscious” as our “collective closet”. He uncovered common themes, symbols and motifs while working with his patients and he noticed that these same themes, symbols and motifs were also to be found in the religious stories and myths. From this he concluded that these common myths and stories are part of humanity's “common closet”. These myths are drawn from a common human well of memory and thought and that they teach us about ourselves and the mysteries of existence. The problem today is that when we hear the word myth we equate it with an untruth, a lie, instead of seeing them as revealers of deeper universal truths. As Campbell observed, to view them as lies is to actually get “stuck in the metaphor” and to fail to see the deeper universal truth that is being revealed.

Why these are imprinted into our human consciousness I cannot answer. Richard Dawkins talks of the evolution of the meme (pronounced like cream) that these ideas, tunes, catchphrases and stories are just past on down the line to help us cope with life. He sees the myths as untruths as lies, as I once did and my friend in the coffee shop still does. Today though I see more; there is something in the corner of my life that I cannot quite see and yet I can experience, so long as I don't get stuck in the metaphor.

Yes the reductionist can dissect life and understand the minutiae but by doing so they can still miss out on its beauty and true meaning. You see the truth is the more we know, the more we realise how little we can ever know and so the mystery grows. I suppose it is here where the magic is and where the God of my misunderstanding is discovered, in the unknown and unknowing. This power is both redemptive and it is divine. It brings out our heart and it brings out our soul. By opening myself up to the unknown I have discovered the hope and joy that I had once lost and I have found the peace that passeth all understanding.

So yes this advent I am preparing myself for the coming of hope, love, peace and joy. I invite you to come and join in too.

Come Christmas come...most needed of seasons.