Return to Love

“The Map and the Man” taken from "The shortest Distance: 101 Stories from the World's Spiritual Traditions" by Bill Darlison

It was a particularly rainy Saturday afternoon. Two children, John and Rebecca, were becoming increasingly bored, and their father, who was under strict orders to keep them entertained while their mother went shopping, was running out of ideas. He wanted to watch the sport on television and to read his newspaper, but the children had demanded his attention. He’d tried them with paper and coloured pencils, but this barely entertained them for five minutes. He’d tried the television, but didn’t even want to play on the computer. And there were still a couple of hours before mother returned!

Suddenly, he had an idea. Picking up a magazine from the table, he quickly flicked through the pages until he came to a map of the world. “Look at this, kids,” he said. “I’m going to cut this map into pieces - a bit like a jigsaw puzzle – and if you can put it together again, I’ll take you both to McDonald’s for tea! Is it a deal?

The children agreed to give it a try. Their father cut up the map, gave them a pot of glue, and set them to work on the kitchen table. He meanwhile, put on the kettle, made himself a cup of coffee, and sat down with his newspaper in the living room. He was feeling very pleased with himself. “It’ll take them at least an hour,” he thought with a smile.

But barely ten minutes later he heard, “finished dad!” He couldn’t believe it. He went through into the kitchen table and there, sure enough, sitting on the table, was the completed map. “How on earth did you finish it so quickly?” he asked.

“It was easy,” said John. “The map of the world was complicated, but on the other side was a picture of man. We just put the man together.”

“Yes”, said Rebecca. “If you get the man right, the world takes care of itself.”

...There is some real wisdom here...If we get the man right, the world takes care of itself...I hear the wisdom of "First things first here...I here the wisdom I was taught many years "If you are spiritually well, the rest will take care of itself...

Last Sunday was one of life's redemption days. Days I seem to experience increasingly as time goes by.

I had been invited to lead worship at Wakefield Westgate Chapel, back home in West Yorkshire. Little did I know when I began the journey that it would turn out to be one of the most beautiful days of my whole life. One of those days when fruits were finally born. Now as I set off you would not have called it beautiful. The rain was falling and the traffic was heavy. That said once I got on the M62 proper the roads began to clear, if not the weather. No that got decidedly worse as I hit the highest point of the motorway, just as you are leaving Lancashire and entering Yorkshire and approaching Stott Hall farm. It’s always a magical time for me, this sense of coming home. Emotion always begins to build and memory takes over as I re-feel so much. As I drove I had a feeling that something special was going to take place that day. There was a calmness over me as I felt held by the eternal hand of love. It was a strong and reassuring feeling. A feeling I have grown to know so well over the years. A silent kind of strength, not boastful or loud but loving and sustaining. Paul understood it perfectly in the famous words on Love in his letter to the Corinthians. That strength that holds and guides, as you do the things you are there to do in life, your duty for the want of a better word. Some have called it the loving hand of a father and I can understand that, although of course it transcends all human created gender boundaries.

Well amazing things occurred that day. One’s that even for me are too personal to share publicly. All I can say is that they were beautiful and moving deeply redemptive, as I once again witnessed the power of Love at work in human lives. As I drove home that day I wept with both joy and gratitude.

Of all the stories that Jesus told I think it is the “Parable of the Prodigal Son” (Luke Ch 15 vv 11-31) that speaks most powerfully to me. It is a universal tale that speaks on so many levels about the blessings and troubles with forgiveness and reconciliation. There are three characters in the tale a father and his two sons. The youngest son squanders his inheritance on a hedonistic lifestyle, he loses everything. In desperation he sells himself into slavery and due to a great famine finds himself close to starvation. It is at this point of utter despair and hopelessness that he remembers where he has come from, he remembers his father and reasons that even his father’s slaves have a better life than him. So he returns home to throw himself on his father's mercy, not as his son but as a slave. On hearing he is returning his father rushes to meet him. Now even before his son atones his father does more than forgive him. He kisses him, a beautiful touch of intimacy and then as he son throws himself at his father’s feet he orders that the fatted calf be slaughtered and a huge party of much rejoicing be held, to celebrate the return of his son who was once lost but now is found.

The parable of "The Prodigal Son" is a beautiful tale of redemption and forgiveness, but is it a realistic one? If only it was that easy. Well actually there is so much more to this story than has already been discussed, there is another character who does not find forgiveness so easy to come by. There is the other brother who refuses to rejoice and celebrate the returning of his long lost sibling. Quite the opposite in fact, he is angry, he is indignant, he will not reconcile with his brother and is now at odds with his father. In fact he does not even refer to the "prodigal" as his own brother. Instead he names his as “This son of yours” and by doing so disowns him emotionally. He tells his father all he has done for him and yet has received nothing in return for his good and virtuous life. His father pleads with him and then utters the immortal words, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.” He tells his older son that all that is his belongs to him and also reminds him that this brother of his has returned from the dead. He reminds him that he is his brother and therefore a part of him. They were all three of them once bound together and now need to be once again reconciled, they need to be re-bound. Now this to me this is the essence of religious living. For I have come to believe that reconciliation is a deeply religious act.

I wonder sometimes if I myself have become like the older brother who really would rather not recognise the younger brother who is a part of me. It is not easy to forgive ourselves for our failings. I think sometimes I would prefer to disown that aspect of myself, but I know that this is not the right way, the loving way. I know if I want to truly be of service to this world I need to be fully reconciled with all that I am, so as to be able to love without prejudice. I also need to recognise that in each and every person exists each of the three “Prodigal Son” characters. The one who is returning seeking forgiveness, the one offering forgiveness and the one who can feel rejected and neglected by this expression of love. Reconciliation is a process and one that takes time; it is a long journey but one that is certainly worth embarking upon. It is far from easy, but it is without a shadow of a doubt worth embarking upon.

It brings to mind the following wonderful reflection "Mending the Broken World" by Kathleen Mctigue taken from her book of meditations "Shine and Shadow"

“Mending the Broken World” by Kathleen McTigue

In early September I stop to watch my neighbour at work repairing a stone wall that lines the road perpendicular to ours. Built as all the old field walls of our region have been built, the stones are held by balance and judicious choice rather than by mortar. The wall was built well, but the weight of many decades has broken it here and there, with some stones fallen out of place or carried away for some other use.

As I warm myself in the autumn sun and watch him work, I see about half of what he does is simply look at these stones in their haphazard piles, stroking his chin in thought, Then from time to time he rolls one from the pile onto the ground and turns it from side to side, pondering, or walks back to study again the place in the wall he’s trying to mend. When he finally makes his choice, he’s sure. Each stone waits for the right opening, the place where its particular heft and shape fit as though cradled. Once in place it is no longer merely a stone, but an essential piece of the wall, part of a larger thing taking shape as naturally as a tree flows from root to trunk to branch.

My neighbour is an ordinary working man, I know his name, and sometimes we talk together about life and horses and his willingness to help me haul manure to my garden one of these days before the first hard frost. But on this sunny September afternoon as I watch his eyes and hands become familiar with each stone and then lift it to shape the wall, it’s easy to imagine God at work in the immense universe, quietly humming, pulling our lives together into something strong and useful.

I don’t mean we’re mute or helpless, waiting passively for the great Stonemason to lift and move our lives or tell us where we belong. I mean only that there is a place for us, that our gifts – the shape of our minds and talents, the angles of our interest and concern – fit the needs of the world the way my neighbour’s stones anchor themselves in the lengthening wall. I mean that the world’s possibilities shift and change each time we put ourselves into building something large and strong and beautiful. Whether or not we find room in our theologies for the word God, the world itself calls us to imagine ourselves essential to this engaged holiness, bringing forth what is ours to give of creation and strength, toward mending the broken world.

...I hear so much in these words that concept of building or perhaps re-building the "Kin-dom of Love right here right now in and amongst us...

Now of course this no easy task. If I have learnt anything it is that this rebuilding begins with forgiveness. An easy word to speak perhaps but a difficult state to achieve and the reconciliation that it brings with it even harder. That said I suspect it is the purest act of love we can engage in. Now the reason it is so hard, especially with old hurts, is that when we engage in it we bring these painful feelings right up to the surface. Forgiveness is an act of remembrance. In order to forgive we have to truly re-feel all that has happened. We don’t really forgive and forget. What we actually do, if we are to truly forgive is re-member. We re-bind the past to the present and can then begin to reconcile. This is why I say that reconciliation is a deeply religious act, because we are re-binding together what has been separated. That said by so doing we do truly begin to heal our world one stone at a time. It is so easy to look at the world in despair and say I am powerless, there is nothing I can do. The truth is that if we look at the world in this way that is true. That said if we look in our own hearts, in our families and our communities there is much that can be done. Perhaps if we begin here and reconcile ourselves with those closest to us there is much to be done. I wonder sometimes if by focusing on the bigger picture, the whole world, we lose sight of picture on the other side. As the story at the beginning of this "blogspot" teaches, “If you get the man right, the world takes care of itself.” And if we do so we begin to build "the kin-dom of Love" right here right now, what Jesus called the Kingdom of God, which I see as being one in the same.

It is said that “God is Love” and for me this portrayed perfectly in the Parable of the “Prodigal Son”, something that is not always portrayed within the Judaeo/Christian tradition and its imagery of the hard paternal father figure and not really the Abba that Jesus spoke of in the Gospels. Now of course if God is understood in a literal sense, when discussing this parable it is easy to see why God has been seen as a patriarchal figure and I see this as a mistake. Seeing God as Love is to see God not as super human figure, but instead as a way of being and doing and living and breathing. God as Love is to see God as the name for that which we hold of greatest value, for the mystery of existence. This is something surely theists and none theists can adhere to, unless of course they view life as being without meaning. And to see life as meaningless is to deny even the existence of love

When I think of this parable what I witness is a story of Love coming alive. It is a return to Love if you like. To me this is what is at the essence of spiritual living. It is about reconciliation. It is about turning away from merely ourselves and connecting with all. Not just with all that is now, but all that has ever been and probably ever will be. It is a story of turning or if you prefer returning to Love and once again coming alive. This comes alive as we begin that journey of reconciliation, almost immediately. As it did in the "Parable of the Prodigal Son". Remember as soon as the father heard the son was returning and even before he asked for forgiveness the father embraced him, he even kissed him and in so doing that powerful eternal Love came alive.

Here for me is the message in this story. In that beautiful intimate act is everything. The parable is about this power coming alive that can heal our wounded and often broken world. It is something that happens on an intimate and individual level, between each of us. It is also something that I believe we are all responsible for.

It begins here in our own individual lives. It begins in our own hearts as we reconcile ourselves with our whole lives. It begins with those who we have shared our lives with. It begins by focusing on the little picture. If we get that right the bigger picture will begin to take care of itself. Remember as the little girl in the story said “If you get the man right, the world takes care of itself.”

It begins with you and it begins with me. It begins by returning to Love.

Now I am going to end this little chip of a "blogspot" with some words by Robert T Weston entitled “If Love Be There”.

“If Love Be There”

This day, setting aside all that divides me from others;
This day, remembering that the world is beautiful
To him who is willing that it be so
And that into the open, eager heart
The beauty enters in, if love be there.

This day, I will make a part of the song of life.
There may be grief, but if there be love it will be overcome.
There may be pain, but it can be borne with dignity and courage.
There may be difficulty, but it can be turned to strength.
Remembering that the world is beautiful
If I will let it be so for others whom I meet,
This day I will make a part of the song of life.

Do not fear the future: It is unwritten

We all stand at the beginning of a new year, none of us knowing what the future will hold, it truly is unwritten. The book of life is open waiting for us to mark it with our stories and when it is written to look back on it and give it whatever meaning we find. Yes the pages truly are blank and for some this can appear a scary proposition, but should we fear the unknown? Surely the excitement and the energy of life is in the unknown and the unknowing?

I have had time to take stock on the year now gone these last few days. On a purely material scale it has been a bad year, one filled with loss. There are several people I have loved deeply and who have loved me who are no longer in my life and I have felt and noticed this gap in recent weeks, especially around Christmas. Right from the beginning of the year up until Christmas I received sad news at the loss of people who have touched my life and I theirs. I have stood and wept at too many bedsides this last twelve months and attended and dare I say conducted more funerals than I would have wanted. I have probably shed more tears these last 12 months than during any other year of my life.

I attended the funeral of a dear sweet old friend only two days before Christmas. A young woman who died of an illness I thank God I found merciful release from, she was only 41. After the funeral myself and three old mates spent some time together and talked of old days, happier days and as we remembered laughter came forth. It was lovely to spend time with old friends. I only wish it could have been in happier circumstances. I drove back that afternoon, in the pouring rain with tears rolling down my cheeks as I thought of other friends, sadly no longer with us. About half way across the Pennines at that wonderful spot, Stott Hall Farm, my thoughts turned to friends I have got to know in more recent times, especially these last 12 emotional months. Thoughts of a young woman I have got to know in recent months came into my mind. It has been a real joy watching her grow spiritually and really come alive, following a difficult time in her life. What came to my mind was how much she reminded me of my friend Cath, whose funeral I had just attended. It was not so much that they looked alike, more how much they were alike in spirit, almost the very same personality. As I continued to drive in the pouring rain and the howling wind I found I just couldn’t get the image of her out of my mind.

Eventually I arrived back in Altrincham. Now for some reason before going home I decided to go to Tesco’s as I needed one or two things for a party I was attending that evening. A party I wasn’t sure I really had the stomach for at that precise moment in time. I drove around the car park trying desperately to find a space, feeling increasingly frustrated. Finally I did and then I headed into the store, tears still forming in my eyes. As I got to the top of the escalator I looked up and almost walked straight into a friend (a man who too had found merciful release from the same illness) who I had last seen at dear old Geoffrey Head’s funeral only a couple of weeks before. I had only discovered at the funeral that this man had lived next door to Geoffrey for many years. We spoke for a few minutes and as I walked away my friend said "the last thing you need on a day like this is the mayhem of a packed supermarket, why don’t you just go home." I thought for a moment that maybe I should, but said to myself. "no I need to get this shopping done." I wandered about in a bit of daze and picked up a few items and then headed for the check out. I stood there for a few moments and then something in me stirred me to go get something from another aisle and so I turned around and carried on shopping. And then I saw a sight that turned my face upside down…

There she was the very same young woman who had come into my mind, who so much had the same spirit as my dearly departed friend Cath. I approached her, said hi and we talked for quite some time. As we did I could feel myself once again coming back to life. I’m sure I was a bit odd, I’m sure she thought so as I recounted what had happened that day. By the way she too was buying supplies for the same party we were both going to that evening.

As I walked away I just smiled and laughed to myself and offered thanks and praise for this beautiful moment of synchronicity. As I walked away that beautiful poem by Wordsworth came to mind, words I always think of as I pass Stott Hall Farm, the very same place where images of that young woman had wandered into my mind.

“There are in our existence spots of time,
That with distinct pre-eminence retain
A renovating virtue, whence–depressed
By false opinion and contentious thought,
Or aught of heavier or more deadly weight,
In trivial occupations, and the round
Of ordinary intercourse–our minds
Are nourished and invisibly repaired;
A virtue, by which pleasure is enhanced,
That penetrates, enables us to mount,
When high, more high, and lifts us up when fallen.”

“Spots of time” are moments in our lives that have the potential to change us forever. Moments when life not only feeds but truly nourishes us on a deep, deep level, deeper than the marrow of our bones; moments when the common becomes uncommon; moments when the veils we create ourselves seem to slip away; moments when we seemingly see beyond the ordinary; moments when we experience reality on a deeper level.

These “spots of time” are sacred moments that are made holy by their mysterious ability to nourish us and perhaps even repair us in body, mind, heart and soul. These moments are so special because they seem so rare. I suspect that they are a kind of grace; they seemingly come to us, from a place somewhere beyond ourselves.

As I reflect back on the last twelve months of my life such moments have become less rare. Now is this because they have happened more frequently or is it because I am just far more aware of them than I ever was before? All I know is that people, places and things that have lifted me up when I have seemingly fallen. All I can say is thank you for the blessings, despite the sadness.

So as I stand here at the beginning of a new year it would be easy to do so with a sense of fear, but I do not. Instead I stand here with a sense of anticipation of what might be if I continue to “Choose Life”, with all its blessings and curses and stay open and awake, with an undefended heart, as to what might just be.

It is so easy to take the opposite view, to look at the year just gone, to see all that has gone wrong and to therefore face the future in fear and or dread of how things might turn out. We really do not know, the future truly is unwritten.

Fear comes in many forms, but we need not live in fear of fear itself. Fear is a vital part of our makeup, of our animal heart. It sets the pulses racing and heightens our awareness. Fright is a vital instinct. It points to danger, it’s a warning signal. That said there are other forms of fear which are not so useful. Perhaps the most debilitating of all is dread.

Dread and other forms of debilitating fear can overwhelm us and lead to crippling forms of anxiety which can inhibit us from simply living and being. When we are overcome by such emotions everything can appear bleak; our senses become dulled; it drains all the colour and taste from life. This leads to us projecting our anxiety and worry onto everything that we do in life; it takes the very life out of living and leads to abject misery. It drags us into pits of depression and traps us in the very things that we believe protect us from present dangers. As a result we go deeper into ourselves and get lost and trapped in our black holes of doom and gloom. It can be very difficult to find our way out of these black holes. It sucks the life out of us and stops us being who we really are, all that we can be.

So how do we overcome the power of this debilitating fear? How do we find the courage to continue to “choose life”?

Well it takes just a little faith and a little love to create the courage to "choose life", to accept what is in front of us. Sounds simple doesn’t it? Which of course it is, but it is far from easy. I believe in love and I believe in life and through living in love and remaining open to life, despite its difficulties I find the courage to “choose life”, to overcome the power of unnatural fear. Love will always overcome fear; love will always enable us to find the courage to truly be all that we can be.

We will always know the emotion of fear, we will always feel it. We need it, it is a natural instinct. That said we need not be enslaved by it. We need not live in fear of fear itself. To be free all we need do is live with integrity, live in love and to continue to “choose life”. In doing so not only do we liberate ourselves, we will be a light to others who in turn may be inspired to liberate themselves and others too.

We cannot escape the pain and suffering that accompanies the joy of living. If we want to know the love present in life we also have to accept the pain and suffering we all experience in life too, no one is exempt from this. As we all know only too well.

As we all look back at the last 12 months of our lives I’m certain we have all experienced success and failure this year; that we have all known the joy of new life and experiences, I know that I have. I am certain too that we have all known the pain and suffering of illness and death, if not in our lives, then in the lives of those we hold most dear. Life truly is awry. It humbles me every day.

When the difficulties come we all cry out in pain and ask why is this happening to me? We ask for our own cup of suffering to be removed, but eventually most of us accept reality, we surrender to it and in our own ways cry out “Thy will, not mine, be done”. We get what we get in life, whether we deserve it or not, we certainly can’t avoid some things and if we try to all we really avoid is life’s beauty. No one can escape the suffering that is present in life. If we attempt to all that we succeed in doing is blocking ourselves off from life’s beauty and then we experience the worst kind of suffering; the suffering within the suffering, the ache of loneliness.

So my message to you as we step out into this New Year, this blank page, full of new possibilities is to continue to “choose life”, it is to live with your senses wide open to the love present in those many unexpected moments. If we do life will touch us and bless us even when it really hurts. If we keep our senses open we will be blessed by “spots of time”, that will truly lift us up when fallen.

I'm going to end this little chip of a blogspot with these beautiful thoughts...

“Beginning again on the continuous Journey” by Marta I Valentin

By the grace of the Divine Power,
which is larger hearted than we can ever imagine
we are constantly given the opportunity
to begin again
as the signposts along the continuous journey
suggest twists and turns we had not brought into view,
for the focus was on the mountain just up ahead
beyond the ridge….

By the faith of the Divine Power
that lives through the trust of our human ability
we are constantly offered the challenge to test the waters,
not just smooth the inevitable ripples
to a satiny gloss finish as if
that were the goal in life,
losing all character by not realizing:
the swells are what make life
interesting, intriguing, and indescribable.

By the law of the Divine Power,
whose very core is compassion
for our earthly missteps on this journey,
we are constantly given an opening
to remember that we each have a place
in the kin-dom* of humanity,
and the knowledge”
and courage to begin again toward a faith-filled,
loving grace that is our birthright.

*from Ana Maria Isasi-Diaz

Amazing Grace How Sweet The Sound

“Amazing Grace how sweet the sound...”

I was recently asked to lead the singing of the classic "Amazing Grace" at a friend’s wedding. It was an incredible experience. What a gift! It is the first time I have done so at a wedding. I have sung it in the past to end spiritual gatherings I have a part of. I also sang it at my grandma’s funeral and I was asked to sing it at the side of Ethan’s grave. God only knows how I found the strength that day. That was pure grace, as his short life was perhaps the ultimate grace; the greatest free gift of my life.

I took a few days off last week. I spent quite a bit of it with family. On the morning before I set off over to Yorkshire I was awoken very early, at the crack of dawn, by the most beautiful singing. It seemed to be a new song that I’ve not heard before and I wasn’t sure exactly where it was coming from. I discovered the answer on my return a few days later. As I was getting out of my car I once again heard this same song and began to look around to find out exactly where it was coming from. I eventually looked upwards and found the vocalist, perched on the roof of my cottage. It was a magnificent blackbird. I paid homage to him and even sang back at him. As I did he seemed to change his tune ever so slightly. At which point I bowed as his was the superior tune and went inside. He carried on singing, as he keeps on singing.

I digress. That morning I took my usual route on the M62 and as I drove up the Pennines and past the White Rose sign and towards Stott Hall Farm I began to think of grace of the free gifts that have been given me in my life; life itself being one of them. “Amazing Grace” was on my mind too and the times I have sung it. I was, as I often am on this journey, filling with tears. Not with sadness, but with an overwhelming sense of gratitude for life, for the gift of life and the gift of love despite all the troubles in our world. Over the next couple of days I enjoyed the gift of family and loved ones as I simply listened to them and remembered and reconnected.

Amazing Grace is a classic hymn that has grown in popularity over the years. Some of the words can be challenging. That said it is one of those pieces that can send a shiver down my spine. The hymn itself may well be a grace.

It has been described as a classic.  David Tracy claimed that classics are "those texts, events, images, persons, rituals and symbols which are assumed to disclose permanent possibilities of meaning and truth”. Amazing Grace certainly fulfills this requirement. It has been doing so for over two hundred years. It is quoted in Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" It was adapted by Cherokee Native Americans during their forced migration, known as the trail of tears. It became and remains a favourite amongst the civil rights movement.

Amazing Grace is usually sung to the hymn tune "New Britain". It has been recorded by a rich diversity of artists including Rev J.M Gates, Judy Collins, The Royal Scottish Dragoon guards, Aretha Franklin, Kylie Minogue and Joan Baez. It was even played by Mr. Scott at Mr. Spock's funeral in the film Stark Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. It has surfaced and resurfaced in a variety of forms, both religious and secular and across the generations and there seems little doubt that it will continue to do so.

But what exactly is “Grace”? Well the word itself has both secular and religious connotations. We can be given a period of grace with regard to payment of goods procured. We can be in someone else “good grace”, meaning we are in someone’s good books, we have gained their favour. We might compliment a person by saying they are graceful in the way they hold themselves or gracious in the way they act with others. In music a composer may add “grace notes”. These are added extras that are not essential but may add an artistic flourish to the piece.

At the recent ministers conference the ministerial fellowship’s president suddenly asked me to offer a grace. I was flummoxed at the time but somehow found something to utter. Many people offer a “grace” before mealtime. Something I am unfamiliar with, but am becoming more use to it. It is certainly something that is part of my duty as a minister. Bizarrely it is something I had no experience of until I became a Unitarian. A grace at mealtime is basically a prayer of thanks giving for the food we are about to eat and the company we are about to share in. By saying the grace before the mealtime we are of course acknowledging the sacredness of breaking bread together, the sacredness of life and of course the sacredness of one another.

Now of course classically speaking the “Grace of God” is a freely given gift of spirit that is unearned and undeserved; something that comes to us, from beyond ourselves. You can’t touch it, but you can know it. You could say that grace is a favour or perhaps a fortune that comes to us unbidden. It does not come because we have done anything to deserve it or not deserve it, it just comes. The part we can play is in recognizing it when it comes and making the most of what it offers. Life itself is probably the ultimate of graces. Think about it we did absolutely nothing to deserve the gift of life itself, in all its joy and suffering. 

As is my way I had a look at the etymology of Grace. It is related to thankfulness, certainly in the Latin languages. Think of the Spanish “gracias”, the Italian “grazie and Latin “gratia”. Both grace and gratitude are clearly linked. One step beyond is the Latin word “gratus” which means pleasing and from which words like gratifying and gratuity are formed. On the other side of the coin comes the phrase “persona non grata” which means an unwelcome person. Likewise a person who has fallen from grace may be known as a disgrace. These though are often deserved states, they are the result of actions, therefore they do seem somewhat removed from the original meaning of grace.

Does any of this help us? Does any of this tell us what Grace actually is? No not really. Why? You may well ask. Well because Grace is an experience. It is something that you have either known and therefore recognised or you haven’t.

So what is Grace?

Paul Tillich in “Shaking the Foundations” stated that

 "Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than usual, because we have violated another life, a life which we loved, or from which we were estranged. It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our weakness, our hostility, and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us. It strikes us when year, after year, the longed for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsion reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness. If that happens to us, we experience grace. After such an experience, we may not be better than before, and we may not believe more than before. But everything is transformed."

"Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness.” This speaks to me of my experiences although it’s usually my ears that attune to it more than my eyes, it often speaks to me in birds and song…”a melody of love”. It first came to me at my darkest hour a few years ago and it has kept on coming to me ever since. It stirs something inside of me that enables me to connect to life, to live with purpose and meaning and to know love. That moment changed me forever. You can’t really describe Grace, only the impact it has upon you.

It is the impact that Grace has had upon me that I was thinking of during that drive through the Pennines. Of that first little bird that spoke to me and then flew away and of all the other times they have spoken to me and continue to speak to me. They truly are a Grace that saves and inspires and keeps on moving me forward. 

“Amazing Grace how sweet the sound”

Grace is all around us. Life itself is the ultimate Grace; the ultimate free gift. Let’s give thanks for it.

I continue to be amazed by "Grace" it is the sweetest of sounds...