Accepting this: There is no other place

"Accepting This"

Yes, it is true. I confess,
I have thought great thoughts,
and sung great songs—all of it
rehearsal for the majesty
of being held.

The dream is awakened
when thinking I love you
and life begins
when saying I love you
and joy moves like blood
when embracing others with love.

My efforts now turn
from trying to outrun suffering
to accepting love wherever
I can find it.

Stripped of causes and plans
and things to strive for,
I have discovered everything
I could need or ask for
is right here—
in flawed abundance.

We cannot eliminate hunger,
but we can feed each other.
We cannot eliminate loneliness,
but we can hold each other.
We cannot eliminate pain,
but we can live a life
of compassion.

Ultimately,
we are small living things
awakened in the stream,
not gods who carve out rivers.

Like human fish,
we are asked to experience
meaning in the life that moves
through the gill of our heart.

There is nothing to do
and nowhere to go.
Accepting this,
we can do everything
and go anywhere.

—Mark Nepo

One of my favourite places on earth is Crosby Beach. It’s not just vanity by the way, although I do love to stand next the sign that reads Greater Crosby. So maybe a little vanity…Maybe, maybe not…

What I love about Crosby Beach are the 100 identical sculptures, of those 7ft tall figures that go by the title “Another place”. There they stand staring out to sea, perhaps looking for another place, any place but here; these naked, lonely scarecrows staring out into the great big nothing, dreaming of another place.

Have you ever felt like that? I have. I have stood there staring out at into space so many times dreaming of something other than the life I was living. Who does not want to escape when the tides of suffering are coming in?

It’s a common hope, to dream of some other place beyond the life we have, beyond the suffering and pain we can all experience at times, or perhaps to dream of a place away from what can often be seen as the mundane aspects of normal life. We all at times hope for some Heaven, The Promised Land, Nirvana, the perfect life when all are troubles are behind us. It is common to all we humans to dream of some technicolour dream land, our own private Oz…


Someday I'll wish upon a star
Wake up where the clouds are far behind me
Where trouble melts like lemon drops
High above the chimney top
That's where you'll find me

Oh, somewhere over the rainbow bluebirds fly
And the dream that you dare to,
Oh why, oh why can't I?

Yes it’s such a common desire to dream of some other place beyond our current life. It’s dangerous though. Remember those words sung by Dorothy in the 1939 film “The Wizard of Oz”, brought with them the Tornado and none of us want that. As I have often heard, “be careful what you pray for.”

Dorothy dreamed of another place somewhere over the rainbow, a place away from dull, grey, flat Kansas. Is there another place that we dream about, that we Hope for, a Heaven, a Nirvana? Who knows? I don’t. Nobody knows.

This is not how it is meant to be. It is a waste of this precious gift that is our finite human lives, to wish it away. We are not meant to live our lives dreaming of another place, a place beyond this life. Our task, I have come to believe is to create heaven here and it begins within each and every one of us. I much prefer to follow that simple message in the “Sermon on the Mount”, to become the light of the world. To create the Kingdom, the kin-dom of love, right here, right now. We are here to bring alive the light within us, to hold one another, to live in love.

We bring heaven alive through our loving living or we create Hell by fearing one another, fearing life, turning away and dreaming of some other place, somewhere over the rainbow, somewhere beyond this life. Why do we waste our days wishing our lives away?

“Another Place” contains 100 identical figures all placed in different parts of Crosby beach. Some are way out to sea and some close to edge of the beach, almost on land. They disappear as the tide comes in and eventually all are consumed by the sea. None can hold back the tide, they are always overcome by it. The sea is a powerful force, a power far greater than our singular human selves. Every single one of those statues is eventually overwhelmed by the sea. They teach me a lesson in humility.


Oh how I love the sea.


I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I love to go to the sea from time to time. Sometimes I hear it calling powerfully to me. It’s a song I hear singing in my heart. I hear it with the ears of my heart. Now what it is that I love so much I am not entirely sure, I cannot tell. Only my heart knows and I have not yet fully perfected the language of heart. Yes I hear it, but I cannot yet adequately put it into words. I am trying.

My love probably has something to do with the vastness of it. Like King Canute I am humbled by the sea. I know it is a power far greater than little old me, but it is more than that, I also find it deeply connective too. While the waves move individually, the sea moves as one. The sea speaks powerfully to me about the spiritual nature of life, both personally and communally.

Like Nepo said

Ultimately,
we are small living things
awakened in the stream,
not gods who carve out rivers.

Like human fish,
we are asked to experience
meaning in the life that moves
through the gill of our heart.

I am not alone in being overwhelmed by the sea's power, thank God. Frederick Buechner in his beautiful meditation titled “Tears” wrote the following about the great twentieth century theologian Paul Tillich

“Tears” by Frederick Buechner

"They say that whenever the great Protestant theologian Paul Tillich went to the beach, he would pile up a mound of sand and sit on it gazing out at the ocean with tears running down his cheeks. One wonders what there was about it that moved him so.

The beauty and the power of it? The inexpressible mystery of it? The futility of all those waves endlessly flowing in and ebbing out again? The sense that it was out of the ocean that life originally came and that when life finally ends, it is the ocean that will still remain? Who knows? . . .

Maybe it was when he looked at the ocean that he caught a glimpse of the One he was praying to. Maybe what made him weep was how vast and overwhelming it was and yet at the same time as near as the breath of it in his nostrils, as salty as his own tears."

...I think I get it...

I feel fully human when I open my senses to the sea, it humbles and connects me to life. It reminds me that I am not God and yet that mysterious power is very close at hand. God is with us, in us, running through us. We swim in a sea of love, in the waters of life.

I bow before the majesty of it all. It truly humbles me. I bow before life, before the waters of life. I bow before the ground of all being of which I am a part of. I am human and I am finite. In accepting this I see I am a part of life and I can live my life as one fish swimming in the ocean of life. I suspect that is what it means to live in heaven. Heaven on earth. This is what it means to choose life in all its blessings and curses. It is to be at home in the earth or the sea in which you find yourself, to be truly present in your being, to truly belong here and live in the time and space you find yourself and to serve the life in and around you.

A pretty picture you might think, but is this just a dream? How do we do this? How do we serve the life we find ourselves in? How do we begin to swim in that sea? How do we begin to create that kin-dom of love right here right now? Is this just another’s dream?

Well we can’t simply transcend suffering, ours or other peoples. I don’t think we are meant to. Pain, as much as joy is something we live with. We have to let life sink into our very human being…

“Come with me on a journey under the skin, oh come with me on a journey under the skin…All you’ve gotta do, all you’ve gotta do, all you’ve gotta do is surrender…surrender…surrender…

I love “The Waterboys”

We have to sink into the ground at our feet, surrender the ground of all being. To begin where we find ourselves, start close in…in the earth, the hummus, be fully human. Simple but far from easy…

We seem to be living in very troubling times. We see this clearly when we look nationally and globally, but also when we look close at hand. It’s been a long hard winter in the congregations I serve, we have lost several people after long illnesses. It’s been a difficult time within my own family. My step brother Daniel, the son of my mum’s husband took his own life last week, ripping a deep hole in my family. As I stand here now I feel the pain of so many people I love deeply, within my family and my communities. We cannot escape this suffering and I cannot take away the pain of my loved ones, as much as I want to. Gosh if I could only perform miracles but I cannot. Ministry truly humbles me and so it should. I cannot take anyone’s burden from them, but I can walk with them and be with them in their pain and of course their joy and celebration, the blessings and curses of “choosing life”.

To repeat those beautiful by Mark Nepo

We cannot eliminate hunger,
but we can feed each other.
We cannot eliminate loneliness,
but we can hold each other.
We cannot eliminate pain,
but we can live a life
of compassion.

I have spent much of this winter and early spring standing with people as we held each other. Last Wednesday I stood with two of my sisters and we held each other tight, broken with tears rolling down our cheeks.

As individual people we cannot end suffering, but we can do small little things. This is how we create that kin-dom of love. Didn’t Jesus say it begins with the little things, the mustard seed?

David Whyte, formed in the same soil of West Yorkshire I was formed in, only with an Irish soul, in his wonderful poem, talked about starting close in. This is how we begin the courageous conversation as he called it, this is how we begin to live, to create that kin-dom of love right here right now. Through the authentic, the courageous conversation, we dwell in our own being and connect with all of life…but it begins close in with the first step.


“Start close in” by David Whyte

Start close in,
don’t take the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step
you don’t want to take.

Start with
the ground
you know,
the pale ground
beneath your feet,
your own
way of starting
the conversation.

Start with your own
question,
give up on other
people’s questions,
don’t let them
smother something
simple.

To find
another’s voice,
follow
your own voice,
wait until
that voice
becomes a
private ear
listening
to another.

Start right now
take a small step
you can call your own
don’t follow
someone else’s
heroics, be humble
and focused,
start close in,
don’t mistake
that other
for your own.

Start close in,
don’t take
the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step
you don’t want to take.

By David Whyte in, “River Flow: New and Selected Poems”

We cannot take away the pain of the world, it’s not our task, but we can humbly walk with one another. Again to repeat those words by Mark Nepo, from his poem “Accepting This”

We cannot eliminate hunger,
but we can feed each other.
We cannot eliminate loneliness,
but we can hold each other.
We cannot eliminate pain,
but we can live a life
of compassion.

“Accepting this” is a poem that touches the soul of me so deeply. Yes we are small things, but we are significant and we are living things, who truly are awakened when we swim in the stream, in the water of life. No we are not God but we can be enlightened by that spirit and experience meaning. We can know what it is to be fully alive, we just have to let that water flow through the gill of our hearts. We do not need to wish for some other place or even travel to some other place. We just need to accept the reality of our beautiful and finite humanity and we can do anything and truly go anywhere. If we take care of these small things we may just begin to build that kin-dom of love right here right now.

So let’s stop dreaming of some other place, somewhere over the rainbow, let’s instead inhabit the ground at our feet, let’s open the gills of our hearts and swim in the water of life and let’s build a land where we’ll bind up the broken, walk hand in hand and hold one another tight…

This is heaven on earth…All is well…All is well…All is well…

Radical Amazement

Every Sunday when I wake and prepare myself for leading worship I never know exactly what I’m letting myself in for, that said I have a better idea than the congregations I serve. As I take my seat in the worship space and quietly prepare myself I often look at those present and wonder what they have brought with themselves; I wonder what has been occurring in their lives, what joys and struggles are presently with them; I wonder what they are expecting from me that morning and if it will help them in anyway. I always hope that when they leave and return to their lives and the world outside of our windows, that they do so enriched in some way. My hope is that in some way a part of us all has been opened up to what it is to be alive and awake and fully human. That in some we have deepened our connection to ourselves, to one another, to life itself and to that eternal spirit that runs through it all, that I name God. It’s a risky business creating and leading worship, although I know it’s an even riskier one entrusting someone each week to lead you in it. I offer thanks and praise each week that people come and join and engage in this risky business with me…I offer thanks and praise that people open their hearts and minds and souls with me.

I’m often amazed by the feelings that life brings. They are always a mixed bag. The blessings and curses of “choosing life”, to paraphrase Moses. I felt some changes towards the end of last week, like something had shifted once again. I had taken a few days off and I suspect that my soul and body had once again re-aligned. Never a comfortable process, but always a beautiful one.

To be alive, to be human really is an amazing thing; to be alive to be here, is an amazing thing. We can go all over the world, we can blast off into space and look at all that is life and explore millions of galaxies and gaze at the wonder of it all and yet still miss the truly amazing thing, that we as people truly exist at all. Now some might call that the eighth wonder, but I say to you that it is the one true wonder and the one from which all other wonder extends from. How often do we stop and sense and truly feel that we are alive. Isn’t it amazing that we exist at all.

I feel like a child again; I feel amazed by it all again; I feel awake once again.

Life amazes me, constantly. Despite all the darkness and destruction that is present, that can overwhelm it all, life and love always seems to find a way through. Like that little shoot that finds its way back to life every spring time, finding its way through all the obstacles in its way, insisting on reaching out beyond and finding life. That amazes me; I find that utterly amazing.

Last week I was chatting away with a friend on facebook messenger when suddenly on my news feed a “Meme” appeared with a beautiful picture and a quote by Abraham Joshua Heschel that read

“Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement. ....get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.”

Now it’s one of those quotes that I’ve heard before, it does the rounds every now and again, but that day it really struck me. I paused and I listened to the words as they ran through my mind, my heart and my soul…especially the phrases “to be spiritual is to be amazed” and “Our goal should be to live in radical amazement.”

Now what on earth could that mean?

Well before I explore "Radical Amazement"I would like to just briefly tell you a little bit about the author of the quote. Abraham Joshua Heschel was a rabbi and a leading theologian in post war America. He was a contemporary and friend of Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr and marched arm in arm with him during the civil rights protests in Selma Alabama, which he described as “praying with his legs” . I have a wonderful little book of his titled “I Asked for Wonder” and I have shared extracts from it in worship over the years. He writes beautifully about the nature of God and Man and the religious life. There is something about his writing that touches soul and spirit in a real “earthy” way. It is deeply spiritual and yet firmly grounded in reality. The concept of “Radical Amazement” is a classic example of this.

“Radical Amazement” captures those moments, those deeply human moments when we find ourselves intensely connected to the mystery and the majesty of existence. Now Heschel is not really talking about the big moments here when we mark life’s achievements. Instead what he is speaking of is what he himself describes as “the common and the simple” those small things that reveal “the infinite significance” of existence. In many ways “radical amazement” is about paying attention and looking deeply at the routine moments of our lives and experiencing just how incredible they are. There are parallels to mindfulness here, but I think there is more to it than that, there is a sense of eye popping awe and wonder in looking through radically amazed eyes. It’s about seeing the miracle in existence. How many of us truly recognise and acknowledge just how amazing it is that we exist at all?

“Radical Amazement” is about looking into the familiar with what Rumi called “fresh eyes”, it’s about recognising that even the most routine moments are in actual fact outrageous. Just think about our existence here on this spinning planet rushing through a universe some 13 billion years old, or so they tell us. We are formed from stardust and yet made from flesh that are homes to entire eco-systems and billions of cells that are neatly balanced so as to allows us to exist, that are constantly altering and changing and adjusting to all that we experience. We who are made from stardust are more than merely stardust though, we are made up of complex thoughts, emotions and experiences and there is a spirit within each of us. We are more than merely our biology; we are more than merely thinking meat. It is amazing and marvellous to truly be who we are.

And when we see life through “fresh eyes” all this that we are made from reacts in positive and powerful ways, something we can feel it with real intensity at times. I strongly believe that there are times when our whole make up responds to the whole of the make-up of the universe and that this occurs every time that we see the miracle in existence, in a new way. Sometimes this blows me away. It is amazing that we exist at all; it’s amazing that everything came from the same nothing.

Bang…and here we are in a fabulous place…what are you gunna do here…in this sacred place, in this sacred time, in these are sacred bodies, in these are sacred lives…

“Radical Amazement” is about looking into life with truly open eyes, it is an ethical act and an intentional decision, it is the ultimate spiritual practise and as such it is one that involves great risk. This is because it opens us up to all that is, as it truly is. This requires courage, because to see the beauty also requires us to see the horror too. This may seem too awful for some, but it is the awe that accompanies vulnerability that is required to be awakened to radical amazement.

Victoria Safford in the meditation “Open Eyes” asks us to

“Think of yourself as a prism made of glass, reflecting everything as it is, unable to exists dishonestly – reflecting beauty where there’s beauty, violence where there’s violence, loveliness and unexpected joy where there is joy, violation where there’s violation.”

To see the world with awakened eyes, fresh eyes, open eyes is look into the life in “Radical Amazement”. It is life as it truly is in its awe filled beauty. It is to truly let life in and to fill us to the brim.

Victoria Safford sees this as refraction, taking in all that is life and thus allowing it to transform us so that we can begin again anew. She calls it holy work as once we are transformed by it we can let is shine out of us in the prism of our ordinary daily actions as we live in life.

She says that

“To see clearly is an act of will and conscience. It will make you very vulnerable. It is persistent, holy, world transforming work."

It seems to me that “Radical Amazement” is how to live and breathe our human spirituality. At its essence spirituality is about being amazed it is about cultivating greater openness and deeper awareness of the beauty, blessing and mystery of life. Now to me this is the essence of my chosen Unitarian faith.

Openness is at the core of my understanding of the Unitarian spiritual tradition. At our best we encourage and celebrate the kind of openness and intentionality that enables “Radical Amazement” to be possible. When I lead worship each week my hope is to encourage, to challenge and to inspire those who join with me to not get stuck in a frame work of belief or un-belief but instead to cultivate their own experiences and see deep within them so as to bring meaning into each of our lives and thus to bring about transformation both within each of us and the world in which we interact and have our being.

Yes it’s a risky business we enter into each week, but one worth engaging in.

I’m going to end this little blogspot with a short anecdote from the life of Abraham Joshua Heschel.

Whenever he gave an evening lecture he would begin with the following words.

"Ladies and gentlemen, a great miracle has just occurred!"

As the audience began to stir in puzzlement, the great theologian would elaborate…

"Ladies and gentlemen, a great miracle has just take place...the sun has gone down."

How often in life do we even take the time to pay attention to the wondrous workings of the Sun and the Earth that sustains all life that enables our existence?

Never mind anything else, isn’t this amazing in and of itself?

Let’s open our eyes and look into the magnificent mystery of life. Let us live with “Radical Amazement”. Let us not lose our sense of wonder at the miracle that is sheer being.

For it truly is a risk worth taking.