Dedication: To bless the space we're in

Last Sunday I attended the 80th birthday celebration of Peter Sampson at Cross street chapelm in Manchester (England). It was a joy and blessing to be there and celebrate this wonderful human being’s life. Peter is one of my favourite people and in so many ways epitomises what it is to be a Unitarian. Peter has dedicated his life to living Unitarianially, if such a word exists. He has also been a beloved member of Cross Street since even before the new chapel building was built in 1998. He travels in from Lancaster,sometimes three times a week. He has blessed this place with his dedicated service and loving presence. He has helped to truly make it holy ground. It was Peter who greeted me as I first walked through the door there some 14 years ago, as he has done for so many others.

Now during the celebration Rev Cody Coyne spoke of Peter’s dedication to Cross Street. I listened carefully and as I did my homiletic consciousness began to awaken. It got me thinking about dedication, about how we show our love through what we bless with our presence, it got me thinking about holy places, holy ground and how life becomes sanctified by loving dedication.

Now the word “dedication” itself is one of those words that has changed, nay been reduced in meaning as time has gone by. So here’s a little etymology for you. Dedication comes from an old French word “dedicacion which meant “concecration of a church or chapel”, coming from the Latin word “dedicare” meaning to concecrate, proclaim, affirm or set aside. It later came to mean to give yourself to a purpose. Over the years people have dedicated books and music to people as a thank you for inspiration and support.

When I think about Peter Sampson it is plain to me that he has dedicated his life to living Unitarianally. He has done so by blessing those he meets and living a life of loving presence. He has been his unique self and in so doing he has encouraged those blessed by his presence to become all that they could possibly be. He has dedicated his life to making the ground at his feet holy by blessing it with his presence. Peter is a man of dedication.

As Roy Castle sang as the end of "Record Breakers"

Dedication. Â Dedication. Â Dedication.
That’s what you need.
If you wanna be the best,
and you wanna beat the rest.
Oo-ooh! Â Dedications what you need.

Whenever I go to Cross I am always filled with many emotions, so many beautiful but also heart breaking too. My days there, many years ago, were so important to my spiritual development. It even has a special place in my early relationship with Sue. On the day of our first date we called into the place as we were waiting for the theatre to open. Cross Street is one of my holy places, I feel like I am on holy ground when I am there. I suspect that Cross Street is one of those “thin places” that the ancient Celts described. A place where there is only a very thin divide between the past, present and future. It certainly feels like that for me. In this place I reconnect with my past and perhaps get a glimpse into the future which enables me to truly connect with the present. Oddly in those moments time actually feels very “thick”, in the sense that I experience it richly and deeply. As a result of these feelings I tend to feel this blessing in most places, as I connect to the love present in life.

Once you have felt the power of sacred space and time you can experience it everywhere and as a result I have discovered that you can dedicate your life to love and learn to bless all time and place with your loving presence. Something I see clearly in the life of Peter Sampson, a man of true dedication.

Dedication. Â Dedication. Â Dedication.
That’s what you need.
If you wanna be the best,
and you wanna beat the rest.
Oo-ooh! Â Dedications what you need.

If we live in dedication to love and life we begin to bless all life, we make the ground at our feet holy ground as we consecrate it with our loving presence. This brings to mind perhaps one of the best known references to holy ground, found the Book of Exodus. It describes Moses catching sight of a bush which is on fire, but which is not being consumed by the flames. An odd sight indeed, which draws Moses nearer, to get a closer look. “God calls his name from the bush.” “Moses, Moses.” When Moses answers, “Here I am,” He is told to remove his shoes for he stands on holy ground.

Moses is called to deliver the Hebrew people out of Egypt, to free them from slavery. God says to Moses, “I have seen the misery of my people. I have heard them crying out and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come to rescue them from the land of the Egyptians. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharoah to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

Now Moses wondered why on earth the people would follow him, so he asked for a sign, he asked for a name that the people would believe. To which God told him to tell them that “I am” had sent him. He was not offering them certainty, just mystery. They would have to risk everything in order to reach the Promised Land.

Now all this sounds a little strange, but there is meaning here, hidden in the beautiful universal mythos, a truth that can speak to all of us. When I read scripture I do not do so as history more meaningful mystery. For me the burning bush is about Moses uncovering his own meaning, his own purpose. It’s about him being caught by the flame. It’s about him paying attention to the ground at his feet and the people he lived with. It’s about him seeing that the ground at his feet is holy ground and that his task was to lead his people to the Promised Land. So they wandered for forty years in the desert looking for the Promised Land. Something we can all do in our lives searching for Heaven, for Nirvana when the truth is we are already in it. All we have to do is truly live on the land in which we find ourselves and to truly bless it and one another with our loving presence. We don’t need to be led to the Promised Land we just need to realise that we are already standing on it. We just need to bring this space and place alive. We need to risk everything by giving our love away.

We can all hear the call of the Holy from deep within us and from all around us, all we have to do is to listen is to pay attention. All we have to do is risk everything by giving our love away. We too can be like Moses and the Hebrews we can come to find ourselves, after many trials in the Promised Land by learning to live in the land that are feet are firmly planted in. all that’s needed is dedication.

All we have to do is live with dedication, to consecrate the ground at our feet and the people who we meet, all we have to do is live with dedication and become the blessing that we have all been searching for. In so doing we will find ourselves instantly in the “Promised Land”

Dedication. Â Dedication. Â Dedication.
That’s what you need.
If you wanna be the best,
and you wanna beat the rest.
Oo-ooh! Â Dedications what you need.

To live in dedication all we have to do is shake off our shoes and live our lives recognising that this truly is a holy place. Sacred living, holiness, dedication is about being fully alive. Holiness is a life fully lived, a life where we truly pay attention.

All we have to do to awaken the holy is to truly pay attention to the world and the people around us and truly inhabit the space in which we live and breathe and share our being. All we have to do is come to believe that we all walk on holy ground. All we have to do is wholly live our lives. All we have to do is live our lives in dedication to the holiest of holy purposes, to live in love.

All we need is dedication… 

Dedication. Â Dedication. Â Dedication.
That’s what you need.
If you wanna be the best,
and you wanna beat the rest.
Oo-ooh! Â Dedications what you need.

Sacred Spaces & Sacred Places

A few months ago I was talking with a friend about "Thin Places". A little while later they sent me the following by John Crossley Morgan.

"I was taking a morning walk down a path outside the Tintern Abbey in Wales when I discovered a rather small but sprawling tree, its branches beckoning to travellers who might rest under its shelter. I crawled under the branches and sat quietly to watch the morning sun break across the ancient abbey sky. It felt safe and even sacred there, a place you might go to rest and reflect on the mystery of life. I sensed the presence of others who had sat in that spot before.

Later over lunch I spoke with a local resident and told him how I had felt sitting under that tree. He looked at me and said quietly, “it’s called a thin place.” I had never heard the name before, so he patiently explained that to the Welsh a thin place is a very special place, a sacred spot, where you feel a presence so deep and mysterious that you have to stretch language to describe it. “That sounds like what inspires poetry.” I laughed. “Maybe that’s why the Welsh are such poets,” he said.

In the months that followed, I became more aware of “thin places” in my life, whether in my backyard garden or by a river. I came to understand that once you feel the power of thin places you tend to experience them often, in places you might have missed before. More surprisingly, I learned that when you carry a thin place in your mind and heart, you can go there wherever you feel the need. I did so not long ago before I was wheeled into surgery - scenes of a Welsh countryside before me rather than the white gowns of nurses and doctors.

Now I carry with me the idea of a thin - place where the veil separating this reality from another is temporarily lifted, so faith and imagination can catch a fleeting glimpse."

I thought it was beautiful and it got me thinking and feeling many things, many things that keep on returning...

A few months later, this Monday to be precise, I woke up with the question “What is sacred?” I have no idea why it was there that morning all I know is that it was all over me as I stepped into the day and I began the process of preparing myself to prepare the worship for Sunday.

I did what I always do each week. I posted the idea on facebook and waited to see if anyone would respond with thoughts. I then began to look for appropriate material, for readings etc. As the day progressed ideas began to form and formulate within me. The thoughts took me on a journey more towards places and spaces than general ideas about sacredness...as always it was an interesting journey.

The next morning after enjoying coffee with my usual Tuesday morning friends I walked up towards Dunham Road Chapel where I live to continue my work. As I approached the chapel I smiled as I read the banner marking 200 years of Unitarians in Altrincham. Ok we’ve not always worshipped in this building for two hundred years, but the sacred space has existed that long. There has been a community dedicated to free religious expression in Altrincham for 200 hundred years. A place where people can congregate and worship together unconstrained by creed and dogma. It is indeed a special place, a sacred place, I am coming to truly understand and appreciate this.

I sometimes like to go into the chapel and sit in different parts of it; I sometimes like to walk around it too and look at the many and varied aspects of the inside. Dunham Road Chapel has a Tardis quality about. It doesn't look much from the outside and yet when you walk inside it seems to grow in both size and beauty, it is an awesome space and place. I know it will take many years to fully know the place. I love the gardens too and often just like to stand in various spots there. I have recently developed affection for the rose trees, especially those one or two yellow winter roses that I have seen these last few weeks; I’ve been carrying a vision of those around with me these last few weeks.

Now I know Dunham Road is not one of those Celtic “Thin places” that John Crossley Morgan described above, at least not in the traditional sense and yet somehow it is. I completely connect with him when he writes “I came to understand that once you feel the power of thin places you tend to experience them often, in places you might have missed before. More surprisingly, I learned that when you carry a thin place in your mind and heart, you can go there wherever you feel the need. I did so not long ago before I was wheeled into surgery - scenes of a Welsh countryside before me rather than the white gowns of nurses and doctors.”

I carried the image of those yellow roses with me as I carried my grand dad’s coffin and spoke about his life, at his funeral a week last Thursday. It was a "thick" and deeply felt time. In that time and space I felt held by a greater reality as I have at other moments in my life, especially when I have needed it the most. There was an absolute sense of being at one with all time and space as the sacredness of the space held me in my grief. I have also felt it as the week has unfolded and I have spent time with family as we have come to terms with the loss of my step brother, our Allen. I don’t always feel this held, this connected, but then thankfully I don’t always need to.

I was recently sent the following poem "How to be poet" by Wendell Berry

“How To Be a Poet” by Wendell Berry

(to remind myself)

i

Make a place to sit down.

Sit down. Be quiet.

You must depend upon

affection, reading, knowledge,

skill—more of each

than you have—inspiration,

work, growing older, patience,

for patience joins time

to eternity. Any readers

who like your poems,

doubt their judgment.

ii

Breathe with unconditional breath

the unconditioned air.

Shun electric wire.

Communicate slowly. Live

a three-dimensioned life;

stay away from screens.

Stay away from anything

that obscures the place it is in.

There are no unsacred places;

there are only sacred places

and desecrated places.

iii

Accept what comes from silence.

Make the best you can of it.

Of the little words that come

out of the silence, like prayers

prayed back to the one who prays,

make a poem that does not disturb

the silence from which it came.

The poem is a reminder to Wendell Berry himself on how to truly be a poet. There is much in it that speaks to me as a creator of material for worship and to some extent a writer. I could write so much about but this blog is already longer than perhaps it ought to be, so instead I will discuss just three lines at the end of the second verse. These read:

“There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.”

In the poem he is speaking specifically of the space where he writes and the need to keep it pure. He seems to especially have a distrust of technology. Now I’m sure Wendell Berry would disapprove of the space that I sit and write at. I have wires and books and all sorts of papers piled up. I communicate through modern media all the time I am working and yet whatever needs to come through makes its journey there. It is most definitely not a desecrated place.

I do agree with Wendell Berry in his view that there are no unsacred places, everywhere is sacred although there are places that have from time to time become desecrated, by humanities inhumanity to humanity. This was very much on my mind last Monday, as I pondered what is sacred and what is profane in our world, on what was “Holocaust Remembrance Day”. I paused long and hard as I considered the places where inhumanity reighns. I also looked into my own heart and thought of the times I have failed to love and been overcome with hate. How many of us can truly say they have always honoured the sacredness of life and never desecrated anything or anyone, including ourselves?

All life is sacred every single aspect, even the things we don’t want and like; all life is sacred I have no doubt about that. All spaces are sacred too. That said there are still places and moments that touch us in much deeper ways. The Celts called them “Thin Places” and it seems they can be found anywhere and everywhere. And as I learnt again last week we can carry them with us when life gets a little too difficult.

Now while I do believe that everywhere is sacred I still find something extra-specially sacred about Dunham Road Unitarian Chapel, Altrincham and Queens Road Unitarian Free Church, Urmston,  especially during times of worship. So much of what I am and do is focused on what occurs at those places during specific times in the week. This time I share with the people I serve have become what I like to call “Thick Time” in  “Thin Places”. They have become a sacred times in sacred places. I see a growing purpose in the worship I share with the people I serve. I take it very seriously, although with some humour. There is nothing more serious than humour. I’ve been thinking a lot these last few months about the worship I share and how it is created. I have written before about the process, but really it’s beyond words. You can only stretch words so far.

Last September I attended a workshop led by the inspirational Unitarian Universalist Minister Mark Belletini. It was advertised as a workshop on preaching, but that was only a small part of it. It was really about creating worship in a free religious tradition. Mark shared his own personal experiences, which are vast as well as discussing what he saw as the purpose of worship. It really got me thinking about what I create and share and its purpose. More and more I see it as a sacred time in a sacred space, I see it as “thick time” in “thin places”.

A few weeks after Mark’s workshop I was reading The Unitarian magazine, particularly the editorial by Yvonne Abburrow that talked about the moments before worship begins. She talked of the need to make this time a holy time and the need to invoke “The Divine” to be present with us before worship began, it chimed very much with what I had come back from the workshop thinking. I had only a couple of Sunday’s before began to ask those I lead in worship to still themselves in silence and to "invite a loving presence to be here amongst us and to awaken within us". This was before the lighting of the chalice. It seemed important to separate that time from the ordinary and everyday; it seemed important to create time and space for worship. My intention was to create “thick” moments in these sacred times and spaces; my intention was to create “thick time” in these “thin places”

Now of course it has not been my intention to totally separate this time from the rest of time. I always end worship with a variation on the same theme with the blessings asking the congregation to take with them what we have experienced in our time together “in all that we feel, all that we think, all that we say and all that we do.” The intention is to carry the spirit that touches us in this hour out into the world in which we live; the intention is to bless the places and hearts we touch, with the light of our time together.

The congregations gather together each Sunday seeking something. They come for a reason, even if are not wholly sure what that reason is. Each week in the worship we share together I attempt to create through words, music, silence, imagery and more a sacred time and space that will enable us to open our hearts and help us connect to the Greater Mysteries of Life, to the Web of Being to know the Spirit of Life and Love, to experience God and for this to impact on how we live our day to day lives.

In these sacred spaces at these sacred times where generations have worshipped I hope our hearts are opened and our souls are touched. That we connect to that Greater Reality and that we leave these sacred spaces carrying with us at least the hope that we can make our lives and the lives of those we touch a little more sacred.

Finally I'd like to end this little "blogspot with some words by Tom Barrett “What’s in the Temple?”

"What's In The Temple?"

In the quiet spaces of my mind a thought lies still, but ready to spring.
It begs me to open the door so it can walk about.
The poets speak in obscure terms pointing madly at the unsayable.
The sages say nothing, but walk ahead patting their thigh calling for us to follow.

The monk sits pen in hand poised to explain the cloud of unknowing.
The seeker seeks, just around the corner from the truth.
If she stands still it will catch up with her.
Pause with us here a while.
Put your ear to the wall of your heart.
Listen for the whisper of knowing there.
Love will touch you if you are very still.

If I say the word God, people run away.
They've been frightened--sat on 'till the spirit cried "uncle."
Now they play hide and seek with somebody they can't name.
They know he's out there looking for them, and they want to be found,
But there is all this stuff in the way.

I can't talk about God and make any sense,
And I can't not talk about God and make any sense.
So we talk about the weather, and we are talking about God.

I miss the old temples where you could hang out with God.
Still, we have pet pounds where you can feel love draped in warm fur,
and sense the whole tragedy of life and death.
You see there the consequences of carelessness,
And you feel there the yapping urgency of life that wants to be lived.
The only things lacking are the frankincense and myrrh.

We don't build many temples anymore.
Maybe we learned that the sacred can't be contained.
Or maybe it can't be sustained inside a building.
Buildings crumble.
It's the spirit that lives on.

If you had a temple in the secret spaces of your heart,
What would you worship there?
What would you bring to sacrifice?
What would be behind the curtain in the holy of holies?

Go there now.

by Tom Barrett

"Thin Places": Reconnecting Past, Present & Future

(This blogspot was originally published in 2013)

Over the last few weeks I have enjoyed reliving re-feeling some old memories. There are two reasons for this. One has been regularly taking the Wednesday lunchtime service Cross Street Chapel, while the minister Jane Barraclough has been recuperating from an operation. The second being the purchase of John Midgley’s book “Wednesday at the Oasis”. John’s book is based on a series of sermons, one for each week of the year, that he delivered at Cross Street while he was minister and I was a congregant there. What has been lovely is that as I have read them I have remembered many of them. These beautiful memories came flooding into my mind as I sat on the tram last Wednesday heading towards Cross Street.

I suspect that Cross Street is one of those “thin places” that the ancient Celts described. A place where there is only a very thin divide between the past, present and future. It certainly feels like that for me or at least it does when I go there on a Wednesday lunchtime. At such times and in this place I reconnect with my past and perhaps get a glimpse into the future which enables me to truly connect with the present. Oddly in those moments time actually feels very “thick”, in the sense that I experience it richly and deeply. In these moments I sense something beyond...

The last few weeks have allowed me to re-feel these memories; it has allowed me to remember them, to rebind my memories. When we remember we rebind our thoughts our memories together. It was not just in my mind though that I recalled these past events that are so vital to my life today. I have remembered through all my senses too; I have re-sensed these memories too. Now of course if I was to say that I re-sensed them you might think I was talking negatively about these memories; you might think that I was harbouring resentment towards my past. Well nothing could be further from the truth. It is another one of the quirks of the English language that the word for re-sensing something only really has a negative meaning. The word resentment comes from the French word “resentir” which meant to re-feel something. Well I’ve certainly been doing that these last few weeks, but not in a negative sense. Oh how I wish we had a word that meant the opposite of resentment, because that’s what I’ve been experiencing. As I sat on the tram last Wednesday I found myself smiling broadly as I remembered oh so much.

Now some may accuse me of being sentimental, nay nostalgic for the past and that this is futile, they may say that you’ve got to live in the present in the now. Now of course to some extent this is true, there is only the now to experience. That said if I’ve learnt anything in life I’ve learnt that you can only live in the present moment if you are peace with the past. You cannot live in the moment if you are plagued with resentment about the past, if re-feeling the past causes you pain.

Why you may well ask?

Well because if you disconnect emotionally from any aspect of your life you tend to disconnect from every aspect. If you are not feeling your past, you cannot feel the present.

Whenever I conduct a child blessing I like to use the following words by Dorothy Law Notte, during the ceremony.

Children learn what they live.
If a child lives with criticism, she learns to condemn.
If a child lives with hostility, he learns to fight.
If a child lives with ridicule, she learns to be shy.
If a child lives with shame, he learns to feel guilt.
If a child lives with tolerance, she learns to be patient.
If a child lives with encouragement, he learns with confidence.
If a child lives with praise, she learns to appreciate.
If a child lives with fairness, he learns justice.
If a child lives with security, she learns to have faith.
If a child lives with approval, he learns to like herself.
If a child lives with acceptance, she learns to find love in the world. 

The early years of our lives are oh so important. If we are not taught how to love and respect and to connect, or if we are taught shame and hate for ourselves or others we can easily become desensitise both to ourselves and to the lives of others. This can lead to a total disconnection from life. It can lead to a sense of alienation that can be deeply destructive. I wonder how many folk wander around feeling unnoticed, as if they don’t belong, completely disconnected from life.

These thoughts bring to mind a quote by William James that a friend recently recounted to me.

"No more fiendish punishment could be devised, were such a thing physically possible, than that one should be turned loose in society and remain absolutely unnoticed by all members thereof. If no one turned around when we entered, answered when we spoke, or minded what we did, but if every person we met 'cut us dead', and acted as if we were non-existent things, a kind of rage and impotent despair would long well up in us, from which the cruellest torture would be relief."

A sense of disconnection and alienation is hell; I can think of no more accurate a description.

It’s amazing how powerful three little letters can be, “D I S” can completely change the meaning of something.

Those simple three letters “D I S” “dis” have been on my mind of late. It’s amazing how powerful those three letters, at least linguistically can be. To “dis” is to pull things apart, to tear asunder, to spoil. Think about words like dis-abling, dis-orientating, dis-ease, dis-appear, dis-connect, dis-miss. When we diss someone we are speaking badly of them we are rejecting them. To diss someone is to isolate them, to lock them outside of the gate, to reject them and if we ourselves diss life, then we reject life we denounce life, we hate life.

Have you ever felt disconnected from life? If so how did you reconnect? How do we help those who experience a sense of disconnection to reconnect?

Well for me this is the task of religion, perhaps its main task. The role of religion is to bind up the broken. One of religions root meanings is “religio” meaning to re-bind, to re-connect. Even those of us who were taught love and worth from our childhoods can still experience the need to rebind with all life, with love. We all feel excluded from love, from life from time to time, no matter how loving our lives may have been. This is why communal worship is so vital, it allows us to begin that process of reconnection.

Those early days at Cross Street, all those years ago, helped me so much. They helped me connect beyond myself, to something more than me. In worship I connected to a power greater than myself as well as the people I was in communion with. Paradoxically by doing so I was able to connect to the greater aspects of my true self and it was this that allowed me to connect with all life, with my past and potential future and to fully experience the present moment, the gift of life.

A few weeks after I began attending Cross Street I spent a few days back home in Yorkshire. One day I decided I wanted to retrace the footsteps of my child hood and revisited places that I use to play and do lots of things young lads do. It was one of the most beautiful and moving days of my life as I re-felt my childhood years. I re-felt some very painful memories and as I did I loosened up so much joy and happiness. It was one of those days that changed me forever. It was one of those days when I began to re-write my own history. It’s not that the pain and suffering disappeared it’s just that they began to be put into proper proportion with all the joy and happiness and love that had always been present, but that had somehow got lost.

I suspect that like Cross Street that little part of Birstall is one of those “thin places” that the Celts spoke of. Certainly when I walk around there today there seems to be only a very thin divide between the past, present and future and that which is beyond time and place. It certainly helps me to reconnect with my past and perhaps get a glimpse into the future which enables me to truly connect with the present. Ever since that day that I revisited my childhood my life has become richer and deeper in meaning.

I suspect that everyone has there own "thin places". I wonder where the "thin places" in your lives are. Places where you are able to fully connect with the past and therefore present and perhaps get a glimpse of the future, of the eternal. Why don't you think about and perhaps revisit and re-feel those experiences.