Water water everywhere

I awoke on Monday morning with a completely empty mind. I had no idea what to explore this week. I went through my usual morning prayer and meditative routine which continued as I enjoyed my shower. Now as you may or may not know I have a brand new bathroom, with a wonderful shower. As I stood there washing and just enjoying the heat of the water splashing all over me, as my senses woke fully to life, it came to me what I wanted to explore this week, water.

Water the most basic element of life, both of the external life and our own bodies. We are made of water. We live on planet earth and yet truth be told if we look at picture of our world from space should we really call it planet earth, surely it is planet water. The surface of our planet is two thirds water. Physically we are mainly made up of water.

We are like water. Yes our physical form is solid and unbending but our psyche is not. It can be bent and shaped in all directions, much like water. The bending and the shaping does not really occur at the physical level, more the metaphysical one. People change, although physically they may well look the same.

Although our world is mainly water so many people live without this basic resource. I’m very aware how fortunate I am to live in a time and place where clean, hot, running water is readily available. A hundred years ago this was not necessarily the case in this country and it is not the case for so many people who live in many parts of the world today.

I remember being made aware of this during my trip to Transylvania a couple of years ago. I noticed that there were wells in several of the yards of the homes I visited in Maros St George. Now as it happens these were no longer in use as the town now had a general water supply. That said this was not the case for the more remote village of Icland. The homes there were still supplied by well water.

For many folk in many parts of the world the situation is far more desperate. How many lives perish each year because of the lack clean or any water at all?

We cannot live without water, well not for more than one week they say. I know I can't if you've ever seen me lead worship you will see I guzzle large amounts of it throughout the hour. What that is about is a mystery to me to, maybe it’s that living breathing spirit coming out of me? God knows!

With water being so central to life it is hardly surprising then that it would play such a large role in the many religious traditions of humanity. It is central to many of rituals of most faiths. It symbolises birth and re-birth and is seen not only as a sustaining substance but as a cleansing and therefore purifying one.

God or the Divine is often portrayed by water. This is hardly surprising when you think of its many qualities. It can bend into any shape and cover and over power all life. It is life giving and sustaining and can be immensely powerful. It brings to mind some words by Forrest Church on God. Forrest said “God is not God’s name. God is our name for that power that is greater than all and yet present in each.” Isn’t that what water is a power that is greater than all and yet present in each.

The spiritual, the religious life, is about living in a certain way. The question I suppose is what is the right way? Well maybe water or the qualities it possesses can teach us the way. Perhaps the way is to live like water; to live with the qualities that water has.

Taoism teaches this, claiming that we must go with the flow of life, like water:

Nothing in the world is softer than water,

Yet nothing is better at overcoming the hard and strong.

This is because nothing can alter it.

That soft overcomes the hard

And gentle overcomes the aggressive

Is something that everybody knows

But none can do themselves.

Therefore the sages say:

The one who accepts the dirt of the state

Becomes its master.

The one who accepts its calamity

Becomes king of the world.

The Martial Artist Bruce Lee offered similar advice when he said:

“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.

Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You can put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You can put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”

I believe that there is real wisdom in this. We can’t physically bend and shape much like water does, but I don’t think this is what is being meant here. I think this is talking about how we live. It’s our persona, our spirit, it is this that needs to bend and shape in order to be in harmony with all life and that eternal spirit that flows like water through all life.

There is something in this formlessness and the bending and shaping that speaks to me of truth, particularly religious truth. In the introduction to “One River Many Wells” Matthew Fox states:

“Meister Eckhart says: ‘Divinity is an Underground river that no one can stop and no one can dam up.” Fox himself says that “There is one underground river – but there are many wells into the river: an African well, a Taoist well, a Buddhist well, a Jewish well, a Muslim well, a Goddess well, a Christian well, an Aboriginal well. Many wells but one river. To go down a well is to practise a tradition, but we would make a grave mistake (an idolatrous one) if we confused the well itself with the flowing waters of the underground river. Many wells, one river. That is Deep Ecumenism.”

Again this teaches something of the qualities of water that we can learn form. We can access water as we can access truth but we can never get the full picture, the whole truth and how ever we access the truth is always limited. That said if we come together we can drink from one another’s sources and share the one universal river of life.

We are one we are interconnected as we are with all life.

Water is the basic element of life. We are mainly made from it and we depend upon it. It unites everything that lives on this earth and links us not only to one another but to all that is. It is a power that we can work with and therefore live successfully or against and therefore struggle with.  If we remain rigid in all things we will struggle but if we can be moulded and bend ourselves to fit with life and that spirit that permeates all life we can be in harmony with everything.

Today I offer praise to water, that power that is greater than all and yet present in each.

Water the most basic ingredient of all life, may we absorb the lessons you offer us.

Bend us, shape us, form us in your image.

Amen

I will end this little chip of a blog with following words by Denise Levertov

“The Fountain” by Denise Levertov

Don’t say, don’t say there is no water

to solace the dryness at our hearts.

I have seen

the fountain springing out of the rock wall

and you drinking there. And I too

before your eyes

found footholds and climbed

to drink the cool water.

The woman of that place, shading her eyes,

frowned as she watched — but not because

she grudged the water,

only because she was waiting

to see we drank our fill and were

refreshed.

Don’t say, don’t say there is no water.

That fountain is there among its scalloped

green and gray stones,

it is still there and always there

with its quiet song and strange power

to spring in us,

up and out through the rock.

An Anniversary Waltz: You keep on inspiring me

I entered the blogosphere exactly one year ago to the day. It began after a presentation at the ministerial conference I attended at the annual meetings of the Unitarian and Free Christian denomination that I serve. I have been a very busy boy since. It seems I have quite a bit to say. I believe that this will be my 80th blog. I am sure I don't go about it the way you are supposed to, but hey who cares. I have found a way that works for me. I hope that these little blogs have helped those who have read them. I know by creating them they have helped me immensely.


I was wondering how I might celebrate "I Dream of the Ocean's" first birthday and then it came to me. I thought I would share words by other Unitarians, Universalists and Free Christians that have spoken to me personally. I will also throw in a bit of music about the sea, well why not?...let me know what you think...

The first piece is by my great hero Forrest Church...here is describing what he see's as a 21st century Universalist theology..."The Cathedral of the World":


Above all else, contemplate the windows. In the Cathedral of the World there are windows beyond number, some long forgotten, covered with many patinas of grime, others revered by millions, the most sacred of shrines. Each in its own way is beautiful. Some are abstract, others representational; some dark and meditative, others bright and dazzling. Each window tells a story about the creation of the world, the meaning of history, the purpose of life, the nature of humankind, the mystery of death. The windows of the cathedral are where the light shines through.

Because the cathedral is so vast, our life so short, and our vision so dim, over the course of our pilgrimage we are able to contemplate only a bit of the cathedral, explore a few apses, reflect on the play of light and darkness through a few of its myriad windows. Yet by pondering and acting on our ruminations, we discover insights that will invest our days with meaning.

A twenty-first-century theology based on the concept of one light and many windows offers to its adherents both breadth and focus. Honouring multiple religious approaches, it only excludes the truth claims of absolutists. This is because fundamentalists claim that the light shines through their window only. Some, as we know from painful experience, go so far as to beseech their followers to throw stones through other people’s windows.

Skeptics draw the opposite conclusion. Seeing the bewildering variety of windows and observing the folly of the worshippers, they conclude that there is no light. But the windows are not the light. They are where the light shines through.

We shall never see the light directly, only as refracted through the windows of the cathedral. Prompting humility, life’s mystery lies hidden. The light is veiled. Yet, being halfway in size between the creation itself and our body’s smallest constituent part, that we can encompass with our minds the universe that encompasses us is a cause for great wonder. Awakened by the light, we stand in the cathedral, trembling with awe.

Some people have trouble believing in a God who looks into any eyes but theirs. Others have trouble believing in a God they cannot see. But that none of us can look directly into God’s eyes certainly doesn’t mean God isn’t there, mysterious, unknowable, gazing into ours through the windows of the Cathedral of the World”

The second piece is by Jeffrey Lockwood. Jeffrey Lockwood is a professor of natural sciences and humanities at the University of Wyoming. The piece is titled "Go Fly a Kite". I love this attitude to life...

Wind has a dark power over us, the capacity to trigger depression, despondency, and even - according to eighteenth century physicians - madness. How is it that moving air, an invisible presence, can so deeply disturb the human psyche? We have created our own vulnerability. In an age of technological hubris, we must confront the realisation that the wind is absolutely uncontrollable.

The wind is a wild beast with no regard for our rationality. It mauls our sense of dominion. Umbrellas keep us dry, moisturisers keep us wet, silk keeps us cool, wool keeps us warm, creams keep us from burning, but nothing vanquishes the wind. Those who are determined to dominate the world are antagonised by the wind. But those who accept the untamed forces of nature avoid such frustrations. And it is possible then to move from a mere defence of our sanity to genuine flourishing.

To be sane, embrace the wind. But to be joyous, fly a kite. Dance between caprice and control. The wind pulls the fragile sail upward and the flyer plays out the string. Left to the turbulence, the kite will be dashed to the ground or swept over the horizon. Left on the ground, the kite is moribund, stagnant. But between sky and earth is enchantment.

We are kites, buffeted by the vicissitudes of the spirit, the squalls of fortune, the breezes of intuition, and the glorious gusts of chance encounters. And we are stabilized by a tail - the solidity of the mind, the bedrock of reason, the granite of science. If our tail is too heavy, we never leave the ground. If it is too light, we spin crazily.

The people in our lives - family, lovers, friends, community - are the braided strands, a kite string that sustains the dynamic tension between heaven and earth. They are a lifeline that allows us to be uplifted, to see farther, to live more fully. And the higher we fly, the stronger our string must be. For when our connection becomes worn and frayed it can snap, and we will come tumbling back to earth, landing far from where we left, with nobody to repair our breaks or mend our tears.

and so rejoice in the wind - but attend to your string.

Here's a bit more Forrest Church...on religion...

"I define religion more inclusively than many others do. Religion is our human response to the dual reality of being alive and having to die. We are not the animal with tools or the animal with advanced language; we are the religious animal. Because we know that we are going to die, we question what life means. Death also throws meaning itself into question, for some people rendering it moot. Yet, for most of us, knowing that we are mortal inspires a search for answers that will remain valid in spite of our mortality. If religion is our response to the dual reality of being alive and having to die, the purpose of life is to live in such a way that our lives will prove worth dying for.”

Oh and a bit on God...

“God language can tie people into knots, of course. In part, that is because ‘God’ is not God's name. Referring to the highest power we can imagine, ‘God’ is our name for that which is greater than all and yet present in each. For some the highest imaginable power will be a petty and angry tribal baron ensconced high above the clouds on a golden throne, visiting punishment on all who don't believe in him. But for others, the highest power is love, goodness, justice, or the spirit of life itself. Each of us projects our limited experience on a cosmic screen in letters as big as our minds can fashion. For those whose vision is constricted (illiberal, narrow-minded people), this can have horrific consequences. But others respond to the munificence of creation with broad imagination and sympathy. Answering to the highest and best within and beyond themselves, they draw lessons and fathom meaning so redemptive that surely it touches the divine.” 

I love this little piece by Don Beaudreault. A superb Jazz pianist who served in Merseyside for a short while. It is entitled “Angels Among Us”

I believe that there are angels among us all the time, especially at Christmas. But what exactly is an angel? Here is how I suggest we can tell if we bump into one:

Angels deny they are angels. They don’t all have wings or halos or smiles – those are only the ones who like to dress up. Angels don’t expect anything in return for services rendered. They don’t always tell us what we want to hear.

Oh, yes, every once in a while, we think we see them! Angels aren’t all called Michael or Gabriel. We might even be angels and not realise it.

Yes, angels are here among us – giving us gifts beyond measure. Gifts of humour when we think the sun will never shine again, passion when we believe we are unlovable, inspiration when our life force wanes, confidentiality when we can’t tell anyone else our secrets, forgiveness when we sorely need it, advice when we don’t know which direction to turn, frankness when we try to tell less than the truth about who we really are, and the gift of just being there when we are so very alone.

You see, the angels are the people who care about us. This is their message as they sing over Bethlehem infant, hover at the bedsides of those who suffer greatly, walk hand-in-hand with those whose lives this year have been very tough, and who are there source of strength and understanding when life doesn’t seem to make any sense.

Yes, angels are real, and they can bring Christmas to us every day of the year if only we let them into our lives.

Truly, the angels are among us!

Here's a little more Forrest Church...here he discusses the sacredness of our tears...

In contrast to the Buddhist (and stoic) ideal of detachment or dispassion, the ancient Hebrews honoured suffering, viewing it as a sign of a deeply felt experience, a symbol of their passion. I encountered an intimate expression of this on a recent trip visit to Israel.

The Israel Museum in Jerusalem contains a collection of tiny ceramic cups. These were sacramental vessels. People cried into them.

Your mother has just died. Someone you love has cancer. Your spouse has left you. You are struggling at work. More likely, you have simply broken down. You burst into tears. So you pick up your tear cup, put it under your eye, and weep into it. When you are finished weeping, you cap it and put it away again. It is a way to save your tears.

Why save them? Because they are precious. It doesn’t matter why we cried, your tears are precious, for they show that you care. A full cup of tears is proof that you have felt deeply, suffered, and survived. Their value is ratified by this simple parable from Jewish lore. When his student complained that he was suffering and so deeply confused that he could no longer pray and study, Rebbe Mendl of Kotzk asked him, “What if God prefers your tears to your studying?”.

I stumbled across this a short while ago...I love it...I asked a member of the congregation to read it in worship and she loved it too...it is entitled "Old Tree" by Naomi Linnel

To everything there is a season.

And a time for every purpose under the heaven.

Ecclesiastes 3

I am the old tree in the corner of the forest;
Bark crumbling, I watch my dead wood fall;
I am hollow-hopeless, no squirrel enjoys my shelter;
My November-withered strength lies crushed beneath Spring's quiet glory.
Budless branches mocked by lustrous ferns,
I am a thing empty and barren in the midst of burgeoning plenty.

I am the old tree in the corner of the forest;
Around my dried out roots new life escapes the earth,
Oak seedlings and oxslips, hazel and juniper,
Wood sorrel and the common purple mallow;
Yellow-necked mice burrow beneath my rotting leaves,
Beaks full of insects, treecreepers spiral up my fissured trunk.

I am the old tree in the corner of the forest.
Dancing children circle me, singing in the shadowed sun of evening;
They have brought scarlet berries and blue-violet daisies
To decorate my cracked and rotting woody carapace,
Strewn sweet herbs and rose petals about me;
And their song to God the Mother is a Hymn of Praise

 Here's a bit more Forrest Church...here he discusses the importance of humility and openness...when I accept the limits of my human knowledge it opens me up to experiences I could never have even begun to imagine...certainly been how I ever experienced life these past few years...

“In every field of human inquiry, ignorance increases as knowledge grows. The Greek philosopher Socrates once said, “I am the most ignorant man in Athens.” He wasn’t indulging in false modesty. He was pointing out that others, knowing far less, had no idea how ignorant they were. Socrate’s ignorance, the knowledge of how much remained for him to learn, expanded in direct proportion to his learning. Of both belief and knowledge, the same is true for us. When reflecting on several years of contemplation on the origins of the cosmos, one cosmologist sighed, “It’s not only queerer than we imagined; it’s queerer than can be imagined.”

“Whether informed by religion or by science, our minds cannot unwrap life’s mystery. This is why, in offering evidence to corroborate religious truth, true believers may more honestly be accused of being too rational than too irrational. They are not alone. We all use our minds to figure out things that can’t be deciphered by anything as small as our minds. On the one hand, the attempt is a noble one. Trying to decode life’s mystery is what makes us human.”

“Balancing these two apparent contradictions. I base my own theology on contrasting principles: openness and humility. No ceiling limits the expansion of the human heart. Yet, humility teaches that when death visits, we will have attained only a flickering notion of what life and death are all about. The light we discover will be framed by darkness. But, when we ponder the nature of our shared mortality, meaning may begin to emerge. Not unlike when we leave a warm, brightly lit room, go outdoors, and contemplate a dark winter sky: one by one the stars come out.”

This piece was written by the first Unitarian I met when a walked through the doors of Cross Street Chapel one Wednesday lunchtime several years ago. This is what Peter Sampson has to say on the Incarnation.

The incarnation is true not of Christ exclusively but of Man universally and God everlastingly. He bends into the human to dwell there and humanity is the susceptible organ of the divine.

James Martineau (1805-1900)

James Martineau’s distinctly Unitarian ‘take’ on the transformation of God into our human – all too human – flesh and blood has been a constant inspiration to me.

Our responsibility for our own lives and necessarily, for the lives of our brothers and sisters throughout the world lays upon us all a duty which cannot be dodged; our humanity is defined by how we serve and care for the needs of the human family. You can’t have faith without works and working for the good of all inspires our faith in God-given life.

It is a small comfort to me to be told that God died for our sins. I see every one of us missing the mark in our lives and whenever a fellow-creature is harmed we must pray for forgiveness for ourselves. We are all culpable but if we are to serve human progress we have to say ‘sorry’ from the bottom of our heart and move on.

When we look around us we tend to focus on what’s going wrong: suffering – often caused by human ignorance – waste, devastation, degradation, contempt, the whole sorry spectacle of “Man’s in humanity to Man”. I see this as a betrayal of our God-given humanity, a trivialisation of our God-endowed divinity.

Resorting to armaments and inflexible war-talk of politicians, shouting at those we don’t agree with and throwing our weight about if we don’t get our own way – I want to say “Come off it! Who do you think you are? There is that of God in every person, in every creature on the planet.

I’m going to end with several extracts from the book Forrest Church wrote as he was dying from Esophageal  cancer, “Love and Death: My Journey Through The Valley Of The Shadows” It may well be my favourite book.


Here he describes how his own faith changed during the latter years of his life and describes a deepening and much more personal relationships with God...Speaks powerfully to me...

"Those who return at times of trouble to the Twenty-third Psalm as a lifeline know the central role God can play in comforting a grief-stricken life. In my journey through the valley of the shadow, God leads me by the heart. When God dwells in my heart, I abide in God's presence. I live in an apartment of the creation furnished by the Creator. However humble my abode, its occupant but animated dust, the whole universe is my dwelling place. God's dominion is my domicile.

It hasn't always been this way for me. For years I dealt with grief and fear less imaginatively: I drank. Shortly after Princess Diana's death and one year before the terrorist attacks. I put an end to my lifelong affair with the bottle. Sobriety didn't change my theology, certainly not the premium it placed on the axis of love and death, but it did deepen it in one significant sense. I now fully felt what before I mostly thought. My heart had always been in play - how could it not with love and death my abiding theme - but now a trunk line opened from my mind straight to my heart, a line that was almost always open. My long standing belief in a distant God slowly transfigured itself into my felt experience of a loving God. Ah, what a world of difference: to feel, not merely know, what one believes.

During the final, most conflicted, decade of my drinking, I paid more lip service to God than I did devotion. My career continued to thrive. I didn't get drunk, I self-medicated. By outwards appearances, my life prospered. But it was increasingly hollow at the core. Delving into this hollowness taught me (as I had heard somewhere once) that when we don't really believe in God, it is not that we believe in nothing, rather we believe in almost anything. Because my wife, Carolyn, refused to look the other way, and because I had grown bone weary of my penchant for evasion, I couldn't live like this much longer. All my excuses and rationalisations had far outrun their expiration date. After several aborted attempts and long experimentation with variously successful half measures, with the turning of the millennium in the year 2000 I quit drinking."

Here he describes the importance of being cautious about our safety and daring to live before we eventually die...he reminds us that we do not sail this ship alone, we are in this ship together all the way..."an overexamined life is not worth living. I know that. some of you who come to me for couselling are so wrapped up in your own and your parents' underwear that I sometimes wonder if you will ever get out, if you will ever get naked. Just remember, you are not alone on the Titanic. we are all here together, on this extraordinary ship - different classes, yes, and not enough lifeboats - but when it comes to death there are never enough lifeboats. the ship is magnificent but one day it will sink. All hands will be lost.

This advice may return to haunt you, but I commend you to ignore life's dangers as readily as you protect yourself from them. Even as an overexamined life is not worth living, an overplanned life lacks wonder and sponteneity. The harder we work to get things exactly right, the more cautious we become, the more careful not to fail. Risking nothing, we stand to gain little beyond the security of battened-down existance. We miss the sea breeze and the ball. We will know little failure, or only little failures, but consider the cost. any sure thing is almost sure to be so carefully packaged that when we unwrap it, the size of the box will turn out to be so many times larger rhan the size of the gift that we cannot help but be dissapointed.

So if you are struggling with a relationship, out of touch with an old friend, unsure of whether to risk a new job, uncomfortably estranged from your father; if you are hiding to be safe, taking care not to be wrong, I suggest you take a chance. Don't wait until you are sure. Don't wait until you have it right. Though waiting till we have it right works for some things - mostly little things - often our most important decisions and actions are so fraught with danger that we will never surely get them right. If we don't fire before we take perfect aim, we may never fire at all.

Life is filled with danger. that's just the way it is. finally, the Titanic always hits the iceberg. Hence this simple, if imprudent, bit of advice. Before it does, pick up the phone. Pick up the gauntlet. Do whatever it takes. take a few chances. Dare to live before you die"

I love this final little piece. I have for sometime talked of a theory I have named as "The chaos theory of Love"...which is a more anarchic and spontaneous version of Confucius "Concentric Circles of Compassion...

"Why is kindness a pure virtue? Precisely because kindness is a gift that demands no response. For each such acts of kindness, you get nothing tangible in return, save the feeling, the sacrament, of human sympathy. Kindness is by no means inferior to love. In fact it is a kind of love, agape, God's love, poured out upon the earth without a quid pro quo - a pure unadulterated gift" 

A Dreamers Odyssey: The Sea is Calling Me

During the last couple of weeks I have felt an overpowering urge to be beside the seaside, to be beside the sea...it keeps on calling me...Something from the depths of my being is crying out to go and stare at that wide open vastness. Or maybe it's a call from beyond...is God calling me?...All I know is that it is an irresistible urge...the sea keeps on calling me.

As I'm sure you've noticed the title of my blog is “I Dream of the Ocean”. Now truth to say is I don’t actually dream of the ocean. I am rarely even aware of dreaming. This, I am told, is due to the fact that I sleep so deeply that I am rarely conscious of my unconscious. I am only really aware of dreaming three or four times a year and this is usually when I’m suffering from anxiety or dealing with guilt.

A friend recently told me that water in dreams is tied in with our emotions and that it symbolises something moving from an unconscious level to the conscious level. The sea it would seem represents the transition between the two. It suggests the coming of a new perspective and a new hope no matter what the current difficulties may be.

This makes some sense to me. Maybe this yearning for the sea is keeping me looking forward in hope. It is drawing me out of myself, I do believe in “The Lure of Divine Love”. I have come to know it so well. 

I am not dreaming of the ocean though am I? I am experiencing this urge, this calling, in my conscious moments. It is occurring in my waking hours and not my sleeping ones. Well actually I’m sure it is occurring during my sleeping hours, it’s just that I’m only aware of it while I’m physically awake.

This calling has had a grip on me for about a year now. It struck on a trip to Blackpool. I had gone to the Aquatic centre. It’s an amazing place, but it did not hold my interest that day. All I wanted to do was go outside and look at the sea and feel the wind all around me. I wanted the space and I wanted the freedom. I will never forget looking up and seeing the seagull floating above as I stared out to sea. On reflection I suppose that all of this was deeply symbolic. A relationship was sadly coming to an end and I was in denial about it. The sea and the seagull were drawing me out of myself, I can see this now.

The call of the sea really took a hold at last year’s Unitarian Annual Meetings in Swansea. They were set by the sea and each day I would walk on the beach alone, stare out into the nothingness and feel the wind coursing all around me. The relationship had just about come to an end by then and I was no longer in denial about this. The walks on the beach and the staring out into the abyss were partially about me letting go, but they were also about reconnecting to hope, to God and understanding what I am here to do. That “Lure of Divine Love”, felt very strong there. Those few days in Swansea were a celebration of Bob Pounder, Daniel Costley and myself becoming Unitarian ministers.

As soon as I returned from Swansea I began my blogging adventure. I gave my blog the title “I Dream of The Ocean” after a line in the New Model Army song “Ocean Rising”. One of the major themes of my blogs is hope growing from despair and I think that this is what this call to the ocean is all about.

"Ocean Rising" by New Model Army

The call to the ocean and the call to the sea is a common theme. Our history and literature is rich with such stories. Several friends of mine have recounted personal tales when they were called to sea over the last few days.

It is the story of Odysseus that always springs to my mind when I think of the sea.  Homer’s Odyssey is rich in metaphor and speaks to a universal human condition. He sets out from Troy for the Isle of Ithaca where his wife and son await his homecoming. The journey is fraught with danger and distractions.

Trouble begins when Odysseus blinds one of the sons of Poseidon during battle. Poseidon in his rage blows his crew off course by sending storm after storm and brings all kinds of trouble to the adventurers. At one point they land on the Isle of Lotus Eaters. Here they eat poisonous leaves which produce a memory erasing, death inducing waking sleep; as a result they lose sight of home and become lost. Eventually they escape and fortune appears to turn in their favour as they arrive at the island home of Aeolus, the king of the winds. Here the weary travellers finds rest bite and Aeolus puts all the winds that have been blowing them off course in a bag and sets them back on track, they can now head for home. But just as they sight Ithaca, the men let the winds out of the bag and once again they are blown off course. They land on the isle of Aeaea, home of the Greek Goddess Circe. Here they become trapped and spell bound by the beautiful allures of the island. The men are cursed and turned to pigs. The curse is only lifted when Odysseus agrees to become Circe's consort. Once again disaster appears to have befallen them but somehow Odysseus is rescued from the comfort of her arms and persuaded to continue on his journey home, by his men.

On the way back to Ithaca the crew pass through the Underworld. Here Odysseus is guided by the blind prophet Teiresias, who reveals the dangers he has yet to face before he can once again gain Poseidon’s favour. He is offered full knowledge of the dangers of the Sirens songs and even a solution to them, which he passes on to his crew. The crew ignore the warnings and become trapped by the Sirens songs. Odysseus secures himself by chaining himself to the mast, but most of his crew, enchanted by the sirens songs, plunge into the reef and to their deaths.

Odysseus must now navigate the channel between the six headed monster Scylla and the whirlpool of Charybdis. He has by now lost most of his crew and in order to pass through must sacrifice six more men. He passes through and is finally washed up on the shores of Phaecia. Here he tells his story and wins Poseidons forgiveness. Finally he can return home.

Finally Odysseus reaches Ithaca, but fails to recognise it as home. In his despair he drags himself along the shoreline and comes across the goddess Athena, dressed as a young shepherd. Exhausted and seemingly close to death he begs her tell him where he is. She gazes at him through her star like eyes and replies “Sir, you must be a simpleton or have travelled very far from your home to ask me what country this is.”

How true this, how few of us recognise the treasure we are surrounded by. We go on wild adventures seeking oh so many things and we lose so much on the way, including friends who are dear to our hearts. The truth is, of course, that what we were searching for was there all along, we just couldn’t recognise it. We still can’t recognise it some days, even when we return to that place of love after we have escaped from disaster. We rarely recognise the treasures in our very hands. We already have the answer deep within us, imprinted in our DNA we just need to connect to it.

The Odyssey is a story that speaks powerfully to me. I fell in love with it due to the Coen Brother’s modern day adaptation “Oh Brother Where Art Thou”. A film that offers bitter sweet memories for me. You see the film always brings Ethan to my mind, a song from it was played at his funeral “Fly Away, Oh Fly Away.” The seagull on the beach in Blackpool got me to think of him too, I felt his presence there and then. I always do when I feel a little lost.

Birds are just as important to me today as the sea is. They keep calling me too. In many traditions the bird is of course a symbol of the soul and as I have said before it was Ethan, in his short life, who showed me how to connect to my soul and to the universal soul that I call God.

We can all connect to that that is deep within us and all life. No matter how far we get blown off course we can return home. We cannot control the wind, we do not get to choose what happens to us; but we do get to choose how we respond to these event. We can set our sails accordingly.  Remember Odysseus and his crew were given directions on how to avoid the sirens but most of the crew chose to ignore this advice and as a result they perished.

These days I try to head the call, however it comes to me; whether it’s the call from the sea or the birds in the air or the birds in the tree, or from the folk around me. Yes sometimes I still go off on my own and I get lost and sometimes I even flee but eventually I remember that everything I’m searching for is already here. The gifts are bountiful and all around me, I’ve just got to open my eyes and see.

Love is universal it is open to all, no one is excluded from it and no one can flee its range and reach. All that we have to do is learn to recognise it, because I know that sometimes it is hard to see. Even so it is always there calling, calling us out to sea.