Births, Deaths & Marriages: Living the Dash

A week last Tuesday Sue and I had an appointment at Sale Registrars. We had gone to register our upcoming wedding. As we waited to be interviewed, first of all together and then individually, we noticed a young couple with a small child and new born baby. It was a blissful joy to be close to this family with this beautiful life, full of potential. in their hands. As we waited another couple came in with their own new born. I wondered what these two young lives would become. It was a beautiful feeling. I was first to be interviewed. I did not do a great job if I am honest, for some reason I couldn’t remember Sue’s house number, but I was passed. As I came out. and Sue went in for her interview, I noticed two older women sitting where one of the young couples had sat previously. The atmosphere had changed, they were there for a very different reason. They were there to register the death of one of the women’s husbands. The other woman was there to support her friend.

At one point the woman, who had lost her husband turned to me to ask if I was there to register our wedding, I made a slightly jokey comment about it and she smiled, although as she did I could see the tears in her eyes. The image has stayed with me ever since. Sue came out a little later with news of when we would be able to collect the Blue forms giving us permission to marry at Dunham Road. Sue said that it would be one year, exactly to the day, when I proposed to her by the Sea of Galilee.

As we left we talked about what we had just been a part of. We had seen the examples of three of the most significant experiences of human life, birth, marriage and death. Something we are both involved in creating services for. These are the three major occasions when loved ones gather together. There, in a seemingly ordinary building, in a small town in England, we witnessed most of life within us and around us. It certainly made me pause, in deep reverence for life itself. What a crazy ride this life is. The beauty, the joy, the anticipation, the mystery and the deep broken hearted grief all come together in a local government building. Yes plain old ordinary things and yet so deep and meaningful.

I’ve been thinking about the new babies I saw that day and the smiling woman with tears in her eyes. I have been thinking about the potential in the babies and the life the woman’s husband must have led. It got me thinking about the child blessing services I conduct. I call them blessings because in my understanding I am blessings these new lives in the hope that they themselves will become a blessing to life itself. All this brought to mind a wonderful poem that can be found by clicking on the following link The Dash by Linda Ellis

"The Dash" is a bit of a folksy poem, but its message is deep, powerful and meaning filled. The dash is the line between our date of birth and of death. The dash appears short and even thin and yet it can be deep and meaning filled. What matters the most is how we live "The Dash"

Sue and myself are going away for a couple of nights. One reason is a mini break from the hustle and bustle of our lives. The other though is to spend time together to create our wedding service. We are taking time together to reflect on the ritual we would like to create to share with the people we love. It means so much to both of us. In many ways the service is more important than anything else. It will speak of our lives before we reached this point, what our relationship means to both of us and what we are committing to as we move forward together. We are both in the second half of our lives. Even if we are blessed with good health we have past the half way point of our dashes. So we want the ritual to be deep and meaning filled and a threshold that leads to our new lives together.

As I have looked back at the day at the register office and forward to what is to come my mind has been dominated by thoughts about rituals, particularly rites of passage. The three major ones are marked legally at the Sale town hall, but the actual rituals take place elsewhere. These three primary rituals and rites are things that Sue and myself spend a lot of our adult lives involved in. They make up a large part of our professional lives, but they are not the only rituals that we engage in. All life is made up of ritual. Our dashes are held together by all kinds of rituals, although I am not sure we always notice this.

Everything we do in life can be done ritually and thus can become meaning filled. Even the most simple basic task can be enriched if we live reverently. If we live with reverence for life itself. If we see life as a deeply sacred thing. If we bless it with our true presence. It is not just marrying, burying or birthing that are enriched by ritual, even standing, sitting, walking, nay breathing can be done meaningfully, ritually. There is nothing more deeply ritualistic than deep listening. The real beauty of life lays in the ordinary, in observing and experiencing the meaning of life in the ordinary. By so doing the great moments are created.

Ronald L. Grimes captures this near perfectly in “Marrying and Burying: Rites of Passage in a Man’s Life”

"Ritual practice is the activity of cultivating extraordinary ordinariness. It is necessary, because human activity has a kind of entropy about it; life, like love, runs down. Things get tiresome and difficult. Body and soul cry out for something different, hence the impetus to ritualize. But if the ritually extraordinary becomes a goal or is severed from ordinariness, it loses its capacity to transform, which, after all, is what rites of passage are supposed to do."

The wedding is going to be a deeply special day, for a multitude of reasons; it is made special by the moments in our dashes and so many other people’s dashes; it is the "specialness" of the lives we have created that will make the day so exceptional. That ritual will be made meaningful by the rituals that we live by in the ordinariness of our days and the days that will follow, however long we are blessed with.

All this reminded me of beautiful piece of wisdom from Forrest Church’s masterpiece “Love and Death: My Journey Through the Valley of the Shadow”, written while he was dying of oesophageal cancer. He asked "knowing that we will die, what should we do?" To which he answered "we should live, we should laugh, and we should love." He then recalled a lesson he learnt from his children, about living. One day, when they were young, he was walking them to school, on a busy New York street. Suddenly a car swerved round a corner and almost killed them all. Forrest was incensed by this, but he remembers, "my kids just laughed, romping blithely down the sidewalk, jumping from tree to tree as they always did, trying to touch the leaves." The kids were celebrating, nay singing the joy of living, and they "had the right idea. Why didn't I think to jump and touch the leaves?"

Forrest believed that it was living, loving and laughing that took real courage, they required heart, while dying didn’t really take much courage at all, in his eyes that just came naturally. Something he was experiencing as he wrote these words.

Now to really live Forrest suggested a simple little mantra:" Want what you have. Do what you can. Be who you are." He didn’t suggest that this would be easy but it is the only way to live and in so doing we will live in such a way that our lives will prove worth dying for by the love we leave behind.

Perhaps somewhere in that little mantra is an answer as to how we bring deep meaning to the ordinariness of our lives. Perhaps this is what we need to ritualise. To want the things that make up our lives and not wish for something else and in so doing we might just begin to be who we truly are, instead of wishing we were someone else. In so doing we can do the things that we are able to do and thus bring deep meaning to the little bit of the dash that we are living right now.

This is the gift of life, the beautiful gift of being alive in this ordinary moment, a moment that can become deep and meaningful, not only for ourselves but for those we get to share our lives with. For we never know how long we’ve got left how close we are to the end of the line, the last part of dash. Nor do we know how close those we love are to the end of theirs.

I'm going to end with a wonderful poem by one of the greats of the last few decades, Mary Oliver. Her dash came to an end a year ago last week.

“The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down --
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

Awakening to the Possbilities of a New Life: An Easter Reflection

“Rolling Away the Stone” by Sarah Gilbert

"In the tomb of the soul, we carry secret yearnings, pains, frustrations, loneliness, fears, regrets, worries.
In the tomb of the soul, we wrap ourselves in the security of darkness.
Sometimes this is a comfort, Sometimes it is an escape. Sometimes it prepares us for experience. Sometimes it insulates us from life.
Sometimes this tomb-life gives us time to feel the pain of the world and reach out to heal others.
Sometimes it numbs us and locks us up with our own concerns.
In this season where light and dark balance the day, we seek balance for ourselves.
Grateful for the darkness that has nourished us, we push away the stone and invite the light to awaken us to the possibilities within us and among us-possibilities for new life in ourselves and in our world."

Easter begins with the empty tomb; Easter begins with despair and fear; Easter begins with a sense of emptiness of nothingness. In the account in Mark’s Gospel when the women go to the tomb and find it empty they flee in terror and say nothing. The real miracle is in what follows, the power of love that comes to life from nothingness, from the emptiness.

This is something we can all surely relate to at one time or another this sense of losing everything, of everything being lost. This though is the essence of the whole Easter Mythos that Love can once again grow from the nothingness, from the emptiness. That abundant love can once again grow in our own hearts and our own spirits and that we can incarnate this in our own lives. That this love can be poured out onto our world that so desperately needs it, as much today as when they found the tomb empty some two thousand years ago.

This is our task I believe, our religious task, to once again bring the love that was so evidently present in the life of Jesus alive once again in our oh so human flesh. We can do it, we do not have to be afraid, we do not need to flee in fear, we just need courage gentle courage and this will sustain us. We just need to fill the empty tomb with that abundant love that is present in all life, fill it to overflowing and then let it pour out in all of life…

We need to awaken to the new possibilities, we can start living at any time once again...

These thoughts bring to mind the following wisdom from “What Happens When We Stop Living?” by Nathan C Walker

The question is not,
“What happens when we die?”
Nobody really knows.
The real question is,
“What happens when we stop living?”

The stoicism we face on a daily basis
is a symptom of a larger illness
called a dually-dulled life.

Our lives can be hypnotized
by the monotonous commutes,
multiplied by the flickering florescent light
that falls upon the micromanaging boss
who thinks everything you do in your cubicle
is an extension of his or her power.

Who here is dying a slow and numbing death?

There’s no time to be lulled by monotony.
There is no time to be blaming
other people for our own feelings.
If you don’t like it, change it.

There’s no time for crying, or complaining,
or gossiping, or clinging to that fashionable grudge bag.

No. It is time to wake up, to rise up,
and to carry ourselves into a day worth living.

Let us live one day—this day—
with passion and a sense of collective synergy.

Let us live one day—this day—
by asking questions that truly challenge us
and make us feel alive.

For today’s question is not
“What happens when we die?” it is
“What happens when we stop living?”

 “What Happens When We Stop Living?” excerpted from Nathan C. Walker (2014) Exorcising Preaching: Crafting Intellectually Honest Worship. St. Louis: Chalice Press

Easter is seen through many lenses, some are very clear precise, they are certain as to what Easter is about. Others  though see Easter through a kaleidoscope of ever changing colours and shapes. What comes to your heart and mind when you think of Easter?

Easter is a deeply universal festival in my eyes, I think there are so many layers to this mythos, that if we allow it to can touch all of us. In order to be touched by the magic of Easter you do not have to believe in the actual bodily resurrection of Jesus, you can believe in Easter without having to accept that this actually happened. In fact perhaps it loses some of its power if we focus purely on this. Maybe actually if we view Easter through this very clear lense we will miss much of what it can teach us. Maybe it is better to view Easter through a kaleidoscope or at least partially clouded glass, maybe we see more through the mystery than the seeming clarity.

What is clear to me is that Easter is about the Power of Love that grew from that empty tomb. Whatever we may think about bodily resurrection, something definitely lived on beyond the physical death of Jesus. While his body may no longer have remained in the empty tomb, some beautiful aspect of his life certainly remained. Love was born again, even after the body as killed.

Resurrection probably means something different to each and every person. As the meaning of Easter probably means something different to each and every person. Whatever it means to you I hope you live out that belief in your lives. I do my best to.

I have experienced many deaths to what I thought I knew throughout my life and have experienced what it means to live once again. I know what is means to experience resurrection, to finally wake up from an earth bound slumber, and I do not believe I am alone in this.

 Resurrection for me is about bringing to life the love that was born again on Easter morning. I have come to believe that this is truly our religious task. I believe that this is what it means to bring to life the “Kingdom of Heaven” that was constantly spoken of in the Gospel accounts.

Now of course many believe that the Kingdom is the place that we go to when we die, if chosen. I do not believe that this is what Jesus was speaking of in the Gospels. Remember he said that the “kingdom is within you” or that it is “at hand” (here now). I believe that he was teaching that the key is to bring the kingdom alive within ourselves and to share that with our world, therefore building the beloved community of love. I have come to believe that this is the love that is born again as the stone was rolled away and seemingly found to be empty, because from that emptiness love was once again, born again.

From nothing comes everything.

 I have heard it said that the greatest sin is the unlived life; to find yourself at the end of your life full of regret for the things you have done, or failed to do; to not make the most of the incredible gift that is this life; to not bring alive what is within you. So often in life we postpone what our heart desires, usually because of fear. I know I have. I have allowed fear to stop me living this life I have been given. I have allowed my heart and soul to become inhibited by fear, not always my fear but the fear of others. What I feared the most was what was within me.
And yet by bringing forth hat is within me I have begun to create the Kingdom of Love right here right now and in so doing I have begun to live fully alive…

We all have this day, we all have this time, what shall we do with it? The key I believe is to fully live it. To bring forth what is within us. To incarnate love in our lives is to become fully alive. The second century philosopher Irenaeus said “The glory of God is the human person fully alive.” This to me is the word becoming flesh and dwelling amongst us, this is the divine love fully alive. This is truly bringing forth the kingdom that is within us. If you want to experience the divine in life, then all you have to do is to find the courage to live fully alive and then to bless the world with your very presence and thus inspire others to do the same. And thus enjoy the kingdom of God, the kin-dom of love right now.

It’s time to bring the kin-dom of love to life. It is time to begin living this one wonderful life we have been given…

This is the Love that is born again on the eternal Easter morning. This is what grows from the emptiness of the tomb when the stone is rolled away…From nothing to everything…

I’m going to end this little chip of a "blogspot" with the following poem by Mary Oliver “Summer’s Day

 “The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

...So what do you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Happy Easter