The Wisdom of Winter & Ecclesiastes

“Ice Sculpture”

A Norwegian artist loved to make ice sculptures. When winter came he would travel to the Artic north and camp in a shack beside the frozen river. He would hack slabs of ice from the river and carve them into beautiful shapes.

People soon heard about his work and came from far and wide to see these sculptures.

“Doesn’t it sadden you”, they asked, “that, as soon as the spring thaw begins, your art will vanish back into the river?”

“Not at all”, he replied, “for this is our life. For a brief time we take material form, and have a unique opportunity to express something of the nature of the spirit within us. If we express that spirit truthfully and honestly, others will find inspiration from it. And then, when the time is right, we return peacefully to the river, and all is well.

by Margaret Silf

Last Monday, the 15th of January was a special day in the yearly calendar, did you mark it? In the USA it was a public holiday, Martin Luther King Day. A day when people remember the sacrifice he offered and the service he gave with his life and death. Now while it is a public holiday, it is a day that is not meant to be of rest, but a day of service. The idea is to follow the great man’s example and to be of service to the wider community.

Now while this is a special day, it is not the one we were supposed to mark here in the UK. Last Monday was “Blue Monday.” It is regarded as the hardest day of the year, the Christmas spirit has all gone, our bank accounts are empty and we are right in depths of winter. It is dark, it is cold and there is little light around, Spring seems so far away. There will not be another public holiday until Easter and that seems a long way away too. I am told that it began as a clever marketing ploy by a holiday company to encourage people to book a holiday in sun. I don't know if this true or not, but I do know that several of my friends are jetting off for a week in the sun this week. People will do anything to escape the cold and the dark of winter.

The day light hours will increase over the coming weeks but still we must face winter. January and February can be difficult as we feel stuck in the cold on these dark winter evenings.

Winter is not an easy time, so many of us want it over as soon as possible. We want spring and the new birth and life that it brings, but that is not the way to live and we know it. To live, always looking towards the spring yet to come, is to fail to fully experience what is present now. There is such richness in the dark cold of winter and we need to feel it and allow our eyes to adjust to the darkness. There is a beautiful wonder about winter that we would do well to embrace. There is a need to embrace and fully experience the darkness, the lifelessness and the starkness of this time of year. We should not wish it all away, for everything there is a season and a time for everything under the sun. We need winter, as hard it feels. All things need to properly come to an end in order for what is new to truly come to fruition. The beauty and the meaning of life comes in its finiteness.

Whenever I look at the winter world it looks barren and bleak. It looks bare as I look out there.

I was staring at a barren tree the other day. It looked vulnerable just standing there all alone and yet I knew it was alive as it stood there bold and upright. It reminded me of my own vulnerability and my exposure to the cold of winter and to the challenges of life, challenges I do not shrink from, even though I do from time to time feel tempted.

Like everyone I want to feel safe, protected and warm, not cold, exposed and vulnerable. It is a refuge that we all seek, often something that folk seek and believe they will find in religion and spirituality. This sense that we are protected and safe, but is it realistic? So often we seek protection from the troubles of life, from its winter. If life has taught me anything it has shown me that the insulation I often seek so easily becomes isolation. These attempts to protect myself from exposure only increase the suffering. If I have learnt anything in life it’s that self-protection just cuts you off and leaves you feeling all alone, once again.

One of the advantages of ministry is that it really forces you to pay attention to the passing seasons. By doing so you learn to appreciate what each has to offer. Winter has so much to offer if we would but let ourselves appreciate it I think the trees in winter have much to teach we who would prefer to hibernate. If I have learnt anything I have learnt that the spiritual life is about living openly and vulnerably, it’s about accepting the reality of life. It’s about standing their upright, arms outstretch in the cold vulnerability of life waiting for the time of re-birth and renewal in whatever form this takes, just like the trees in winter.

The spiritual life teaches me not to cling to things, but to let life flow freely through me. The power of our finite lives is in the impermanence. Thus giving us a time for everything under the sun, including death. The power and beauty of our lives comes in its finiteness. Nothing ever lasts forever. That said although our lives and the lives of our loved ones someday come to an end, life does go on and love does indeed remain. To quote Ecclesiastes 1 v 4 “Generations come and generations go, but the earth abides forever”

For everything there is a season. Winter is the most difficult in many ways. This winter has been a challenge for me as a minister, the demands are greater than ever and there is much heart ache within both congregations I serve, many are seriously ill. For some this will be the final year of life.

The wisdom contained within the book Ecclesiastes, particularly the well known  verses from the third chapter, has stood the test of time. There is good reason for this; it speaks an eternal and universal truth that generation after generation have found that they can relate to. The power of this ancient source lays in its ability to link we who live today with the generations that have walked the earth before us. We all of us have travelled many and varied journeys and lived through all the seasons of life. Nothing is permanent and nothing lasts forever. No one will ever escape the pain of life, but that ought not bring despair because if we remain open we will also know life’s joy. Yes there is a time to mourn, but there is also a time to dance; there is a time to weep, but there is also a time to laugh.

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.”There are many seasons in our lives, just as there are many different emotions. Yes sometimes we can experience all those emotions in one single day, just as we can experience four seasons in one day. There is a time and perhaps a place for all them, for to diminish any of them is deny what it is to be fully human. Yes there is a time to weep, just as there is a time to laugh and there is a time to mourn, just as much as there is a time to dance.

I have wept several times this last week and have held others in their suffering too, that said I have also laughed many times, I have seen joy and I have seen how life continues on. Again to repeat Ecclesiastes 1 v 4 “Generations come and generations go, but the earth abides forever”

It is the realness of Ecclesiastes that really speaks to me, it reveals and authentic truth. I have a growing love for Ecclesiastes. I love it because it is real, it is authentic. Like the changing seasons life is forever changing, it is impermanent, nothing last forever. As Rami Shapiro writes of its wisdom:

"The world revealed in Ecclesiastes is an impermanent world of continual emptying. Ecclesiastes calls this hevel. Trying to grasp something in this world, trying to hold on to anything in this world, leaves you breathless, exhausted, and anxious. This impermanence is the nature of nature, and because this is so, the world lacks surety and certainty; change and the unknowing that change carries with it are the hallmarks of life. In Ecclesiastes you spend no time longing for escape from impermanence, but rather learn to live well in the midst of it. This is what the Book of Ecclesiastes wants to tell us. This is why it was written. This is why it is still read some twenty-five hundred years later."

Eccleciates teaches me what it means to live authentically and truly religiously. That said it is a religion that is not pointing to Salvation beyond this life, but in this life. This to me is the essence of my Unitarian faith. It is not pointing to something beyond this life, but within this life. Which you can only truly experience by letting go of control and allow life to have its way with you, every season of life and every feeling of life. In so doing you will live the life you have been given, the ultimate gift, the ultimate grace.

Last Monday was meant to be the most miserable day of the year, Blue Monday. I didn’t feel that myself. Yes there was pain and suffering present in my life and certainly in those around me. I have been with many people experiencing the most difficult kinds of suffering. There is much pain in those I hold dearly to my heart too. I also relive my own grief and suffering when I am with others going through the same pain. Whenever I walk into a hospital ward I do relive those times I have gone to be those I love the most those whose lives are coming to end or have already ended. That pain is the price I pay for daring to love, a pearl of the greatest price. It is the refusal to close myself to this pain that allows me to do the things I am here to do. It gives me meaning even in the most painful suffering.

“Generations come and generations go, but the earth abides forever” So does love. Something beautiful remains. I’ve been thinking all week about the legacy of Dr King and his view of religion of the creation of the beloved community. He knew intense suffering but never lost faith in the power of love to always overcome. He spoke about building the kingdom now. This is faith that I can believe in and it’s something I and all of us can be responsible for. We cannot escape the suffering in life. We cannot cling to anything even those things and those people we love the most. The generations come and the generations go, just as the seasons do also. That said we can plant seeds of love right here right now. We can walk side by side with one another, we can hold each other and bear witness to one another’s tears. We can also laugh and dance and make merry even in the midst of real suffering too. We can live our lives fully regardless of how many seasons we have left. And when the time comes we can let go of our lives with dignity and grace.

Remembering always that while our individual lives come and go, just like the seasons, both the earth and love abides forever.

I'm going to end this "blogspot" with the following inspired by a verse I have reapeted from Ecclesiastes 1 vv 4 “Generations come and generations go, but the earth abides forever”

“The Earth Abides Forever” by Richard S Gilbert

The seasons come and the seasons go,
But the earth abides forever.
The cold-whetted wind blew autumn from my mind,
The white snow whipped across my landscape
And reminded me of the changing seasons.

Another transition, paying no attention to the calendars,
Simply doing what it had to do to follow Nature’s law.
The seasons are capricious here;
They come and go without warning;
They flaunt our human artifacts and devices;
They remind us of our finitude
And call to mind our dependence.

There is a strange beauty in their passing,
Something mysterious in the subtle or not so subtle
Changing of the guard.
The seasons seem indifferent to us
Who, after all, are in charge here, aren’t we?
They act as if they do not need our permission to be or not to be.

It is a humbling reminder of irresistible forces
Meeting immovable objects
With inexorable persistence.
And we, with our little lives, tossed into his playground of Nature,
Strutting importantly about our business,
Try to learn to play our small part within the larger drama
In which we find ourselves.
The seasons come and the seasons go.
So do we
But the earth abides forever..

The Ache of Loneliness Continued: To Everything there is a Season

I have spent much of the last few weeks watching the world from my car window. Several moments have really stood out for me and I’ve been carrying them with me in the memory bank of my soul. The first was the journey to Great Hucklow for the Urmston Christmas dinner. It was a beautiful sight to behold, the pure white fields and the lonely winter trees, stretching out from cold pale ground. There is something very beautiful about the trees in winter. These lifeless stick like sculptures stretching out from the ground are stripped right down to the bone. They look vulnerable and exposed, but they are not. By next spring life will have returned and I know this scene will be very different. If I travel that way again I will see the new lambs and the rolling fields, separated by dry stone walls and the trees will once again be bursting into life.

To everything there is definitely a season

I have also been carrying the most wondrous image of the deepest richest coloured rainbow I have ever seen. I saw it on the morning of the Advent Service on my way to Urmston. I always like to travel the back way there and it was a beautiful morning that day. I saw the rainbow as I got near the football training grounds - no it wasn’t coming from United’s or City’s or Sale Shark’s for that matter. It was stretching from the Lymm area and it only seemed half formed when I first caught sight of it - As I turned towards Flixton I saw the other side of the rainbow. It seems that the pot of gold is actually in Flixton and not those training grounds full of those rich and famous men.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time on the M62 these past couple of weeks, travelling to and from Yorkshire, visiting family and friends. I love that time in the car, looking ahead, focused but relaxed about what I am doing and listening to music I love. So many times as I pass the white rose symbol at the side of the road I am listening to “Green and Grey” a song by my great love New Model Army. It is a song about where I come from in the world and it’s also a song about never forgetting where you come from; it is a song about remembering your roots, where ever you are in the world on your journey of life. This always brings “The Wizard of Oz” and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and that simple message of “there’s no place like home”, to my mind. Home for me these days in anywhere I no longer feel alone.

I have been reflecting and talking a lot about the ache of loneliness this winter, ever since I heard the news of the suicide of Gary Speed. Gary was one of my footballing heroes, part of that great Leeds United midfield that pipped Alex Fergusons Manchester United to the title. Fame and fortune does not make us immune from life’s troubles. That beautiful rainbow stretched to Flixton, it did not land on the training grounds of Carrington.

I witnessed a beautiful manmade site from my car window. It happened on Boxing Day as I travelled back to Altrincham. I was approaching Stott Hall farm (the farm in the middle of the two carriageways of the M62), coming towards me was this stream of yellow lights and moving away from me was this stream of red lights and smack bang in the middle of all of this was this farm, this island. Two streams of traffic going in opposite directions, to who knows where and who knows why. For some reason this brought Ecclesiastes 3 to my mind, especially the lines “a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and time to dance.” I suppose this view from my window brought these words to my mind because this is exactly how I have experienced the last few weeks.  I have known moments of joy and great laughter but also mourning, sadness and some weeping. There have been times to cry.

Ecclesiastes 3 has stood the test of time. There is good reason for this; it speaks an eternal and universal truth that everyone can relate to. These words from this ancient source link we who live today with the generations that have walked the earth before us. People who have travelled one way or another, ok they may not have travelled in streams of red and yellow lights, but they have journeyed through life. They have travelled through their own dark valleys and emerged at the other side. These words remind me that the strength and patience that can elude all of us at our worst moments has felt elusive to all people in all generations at some point or another and yet they came through the tough times.

I see parallels here with the phrase “This too shall pass”. Nothing is permanent and nothing lasts forever. Some folk are travelling in one direction and others perhaps in another and we all usually travel back the same way at some time. No one will ever escape the pain of life, but that’s ok because if we remain open we will also know life’s joy. Yes there is a time to mourn, but there is also a time to dance; there is a time to weep, but there is also a time to laugh.

I was invited to party on Christmas Eve. There were many people there, most of who I have come to know during my time in Altrincham. It was a really good time, lots of jollity and laughter was had by all. In the middle of the party I got into conversation with someone I quite like, someone it would seem I have grown to love to talk to in short time I’ve known her. She knows a little bit about my life and was asking some questions, that I found difficult to engage with. The subject of Ethan and Claire came up and for whatever reason I found it difficult to talk about them, there and then. I suspect that this is because I haven’t for a while or maybe it was because I was in a public place and I was afraid to express my pain. This is probably the more honest reason. I am someone who still finds it hard to show their pain, to express my vulnerability. I am making progress though.

It is a familiar trait that so many of we men seem to suffer from, some women do too, but I suspect that it is we males who suffer from it more. I suspect that half the reason is that we fear that if we let the pain out we may never be able to make it stop. This is of course crazy and a denial of our humanity. There is a time to cry. During times of loss an acknowledgement of weakness and softness suggest a tender heart. If there exists, in this world, a single person who cannot find something worth crying about I do not think that I would like to meet them. Such people frighten me.

I spent a few hours with Claire last Monday evening and we talked and shared and remembered her remarkable little boy and all that he brought to our lives and so many other people in the short time that he lived. I shed my tears and she let me. Afterwards I could see that this had been the trouble recently I had not been able to talk about my pain and grief for my loss and it would appear that in actual fact she is the only person with whom I can share these things. I had forgotten this and it would seem I had been seeking elsewhere.

Grief truly is the price we pay for love, to not grieve is to not truly live and to deny this grief is to deny this love and I am no longer into the denial of life, not these days...there is a time to cry.

The author of Ecclesiastes is so correct in saying “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” I have shed a few tears these last few days as I have remembered the people who have loved me and who I have loved, but who are no longer physically in my life. They are of course still with me though, I know this because I have experience of the truth that love never dies. As a result I noticed that some of those barriers that block me from life, from love, from God have been removed; I feel that I have been opened up once again.

There are many seasons in our lives, just as there are many different emotions. Yes sometimes we can experience all those emotions in one single day, just as we can experience four seasons in one day. There is a time and perhaps a place for all them, for to diminish any of them is deny what it is to be fully human. Yes there is a time to weep, just as there is a time to laugh and there is a time to mourn, just as much as there is a time to dance.

 Living a full, productive, and involved life is a wild ride at times. There are many hills and valleys, there is green and grey, but there are rainbows and pots of gold too. If we are ready for whatever comes our way we will find rich blessings amongst life’s trials and tribulations.

Let’s keep on looking out of our windows, let’s keep our heads held high and our minds, hearts and souls open.