Seeking a Moral Compass in a Post Moral Age

“It Matters What We Believe” by Sophia Lyon Fahs

It matters what we believe. Some beliefs are like walled gardens. They encourage exclusiveness, and the feeling of being especially privileged.
Other beliefs are expansive and lead the way into wider and deeper sympathies.
Some beliefs are like shadows, clouding children's days and fears of unknown calamities.
Other beliefs are like sunshine, blessing children with the warmth of happiness.
Some beliefs are divisive, separating saved from unsaved, friends from enemies.
Other beliefs are bonds in a world community, where sincere differences beautify the pattern.
Some beliefs are like blinders, shutting off the power to choose one's own direction.
Other beliefs are like gateways opening wide vistas for exploration.
Some beliefs weaken a person's selfhood. They blight the growth of resourcefulness.
Other beliefs nurture self-confidence and enrich the feeling of personal worth.
Some beliefs are rigid, like the body of death, impotent in a changing world.
Other beliefs are pliable, like the young sapling, ever growing with the upward thrust of life.

The other Sunday afternoon and evening Sue and myself attended a friends birthday celebrations. It was an interesting time. It began with yoga sessions at the center in Altrincham. he yoga was followed by a meal at a Sushi restaurant followed by a Gong Sound bath. This was what I was looking forward to the most. From early in our relationship Sue and I have shared these wonderful things together, led by lovely couple that we have nicknamed the “Wizard and his Wife”, they could quite easily be characters from a Tolkein novel and they do love what we call them this.

By the way a Gong sound bath is created from a selection of Gongs that are played over an hour while you simply lie there sinking into the ground. It is a wonderful and powerful experience, I highly recommend it to anyone.

Now as we arrived we greeted the Wizard and his wife, they welcomed us in, and Sue took out her phone and found her compass. She wanted to find East. So she found due north and we took our spot. We then shared with many others in a truly wonderful experience.

As I lay there, sinking into the ground and the sound washed over me, I began to think about her compass and its northward facing needle. As I was doing so the phrase moral compass came into my mind. How we do we find our moral compass, how do we find the right direction in life, the way to face in order to make the appropriate moral decisions in life? Sounds simple, I know, but I’m not certain it is so easy.

Now morality has been on my mind quite a lot in recent weeks. I have just finished reading Bob Woodward’s (of Watergate and all the President’s Men fame) excellent new book “Fear: Trump in the White House”. It is an incredible and frightening book. The president’s morality has come into question for various reasons. The suggestion is that it is not so much that he is immoral, more that he is amoral; that essentially he is not ruled by a particular foundational moral code, other than the situation he is in. If he has a moral compass he is ruled by fear and instilling fear. There is a quote on the back of Woodward’s book in which Trump says “Real power is – I don’t even want to use the word – fear.” The suggestion being made is that if he lives from a moral compass it is one based on fear.

It brought to mind something I read many years ago “Leviathan” by Thomas Hobbes, written just after the English civil war. It is a striking, disturbing and bleak view of human nature.

Hobbes wrote

"Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of Warre (war), where every man is Enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withall. In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short."

I will just repeat the last few words

“And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short” Gosh that is hard.

For Hobbe’s what is required to overcome this state of fear is an ultimate authority to bring order to wayward humanity and subjugate our anarchic and brutish nature.

I suppose that you could say that this is some form of moral foundation, that this is something to aim for, but I am not convinced, although I do from time to time struggle with human nature, mine and others too.

Now while I reject this fear based view of humanity, I do have a sense that there is a goodness at the core of life, an ok-ness, I acknowledge that it is not always easy to find a guide. How do we find our true north? How do we find the right direction and make moral decisions about life, so as to give positively to the melting pot of humanity. It is suggested that there is no longer a single meta-narrative, that the foundation stones that we once built our lives on no longer have value. I am not convinced, I do find certain truths that have been with us for centuries and keep on resurfacing. I do believe that there is an ultimate goodness that we can connect to, a goodness that can be found in everything, in you, in me and in everything. A love that can always overcome any fear. For fear ultimately corrodes the soul and reduces life to nothing.

Last Sunday John Midgley led a wonderful service at Dunham Road, celebrating 50 years since he took up ministry here and at Queens Road, he will be delivering something similar at Queens Road next month. John was my first Unitarian minister at Cross Street in Manchester. While there he introduced me to the wonderful Carl Scovel. Now at the heart of his faith was something he described as the “Great Surmise” at a talk he delivered at the 1994 Unitarian Universalist General Assembly he described what he meant by it:

“The Great Surmise says simply this: At the heart of all creation lies a good intent, a purposeful goodness, from which we come, by which we live our fullest, and to which we shall at last return. This is the supreme mystery of our lives. This goodness is ultimate-not fate, not freedom, not mystery, energy, order, finite, but this good intent in creation is our source, our centre, and our destiny...Our work on earth is to explore, enjoy, and share this goodness. Neither duty nor suffering nor progress nor conflict-not even survival-is the aim of life, but joy. Deep, abiding, uncompromised joy.

Life really is about how we see things, our perspective. Is life “Nasty, brutish and short”...Maybe, maybe not?

Or is it a “Deep, abiding, uncompromised joy ”...Maybe, maybe not?

I have discovered the simple joy of living even in life’s most challenging times. I have found that there is a love at the core of life. It is our moral task, I believe, to find it and being it to life through our own human being. To me this is essentially what Jesus meant when he spoke of the Kingdom of God, what I like to call the kin-dom of love. This is no easy task, but then again it never has been. There has never been an idealised time for any of us. The people Jesus spoke to 2,000 years ago were not living easy and comfortable lives. Those people knew about conflict, oppression, tragedy and almost constant grief. He told them that all that was wonderful, life-giving, life affirming, all that is meaningful was theirs. He said to them “Enter into my kingdom with joy.” He also told them that “This is my commandment, that you love one another.”

So maybe this is the key, to live by the “Golden Rule”, to love one another, to love our neighbour as ourselves. That though requires a belief that there is a love at the core of all life, our lives. Do we see this when we look in the mirror, do we see this when we look into each others eyes?

It matters, it really does.

I think the greatest danger to humanity, past present and future looking forward, is this idea that some people are superior to others, have greater value. It is a voice that we hear more and more, a voice that leads to separation, that breeds this idea of us and them. It is there in religion, but also secular society. Some religious groups talk about the saved and the unsaved, others talk of being God’s chosen people. When they speak this way they are talking of a God I do not recognise. The God I know accepts and loves all universally. Experience has revealed to me that we are all chosen by God, it’s just that so many of us turn away and cannot believe that there is a spirit that is there in all life.

Then of course there are the anti-religionists who ridicule people of faith; who see it all as purely infantile projections. They mock, they poke fun, they separate people into the stupid and the wise. In so doing they are saying that they are better than them.

When the epistle Paul talked of the oneness, the unity in Christianity, he wrote that in Christ “there is no longer Jew or Greek.” He did not say that there are no longer Jews or Greeks more that people are no longer separated by these distinctions; that they are all one in love, in body and in spirit; that if all people are viewed in the light they are brothers and sisters to one another.

As Tenzin Gyatso XIVth Dalai Lama has said “Mentally, physically and emotionally we are the same. We each have the potential to be good and bad and to be overcome by disturbing emotions such as anger, fear, hatred, suspicion and greed. These emotions can be the cause of many problems. On the other hand if you cultivate loving kindness, compassion and concern for others, there will be no room for anger, hatred and jealousy.

These words very much chime with a favourite story of mine, “The Two Wolves"

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life.

“A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.

“It’s a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, ego and it makes me cynical about life.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, faith and it fills me with enthusiasm for life. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

Maybe this is how we can find a foundation on which we can make moral choices and decisions. It begins by believing that at the core of life is a goodness and that if we feed that in the right way it can grow within us and that we can live in ways that will serve life in loving and positive ways. It will require us to believe that this same spirit is all life. It will require us to live from a place of love and not of fear.

The choice is ours. Do we live by the power of fear, of hate, of separation or do we take the risk to live by love? It’s up to us…Our lives and all life depend on the choices we will make.

It matters, it really does…But then again everything matters…Every feeling, every thought, every word and every deed.

Why is it so hard to speak of Joy?

I was recently given the honour of serving as minister of week at Summer School. The subject of the week was seeking joy in life despite its many real troubles. It got me thinking about Joy. What Joy might be and how to articulate it.

Joy is a characteristic of faith in life itself; faith in the joy of living, in all its mystery. Joy is the universal aspect of living life fully. It’s about spending our time in “thick” space, a life deep and rich in meaning. It is not the same as happiness, pleasure or fun. Joy is not about the material circumstances of our lives. Perhaps the true measure of joy is the experience of it, even in the most difficult of times, without guilt or apology. Joy is a deeply held spiritual quality, it exists beneath feelings and emotions. It is a quality that is always open to us, although not necessarily realised. Why you may well ask? Well because too often we are afraid to live by and through it, to reach out for it for fear of not achieving it and living in disappointment. I know disappointment every day and I know and experience what it means to live in and through joy. Or perhaps the reason we don’t know joy is because we are too afraid to let go of control and let life have its way, because deep down we do not have faith in life itself. The essence of joy is faith, faith in life itself, that there is a goodness, a Divine goodness at the core of life…

Here is an example of Joy in this sense by Unitarian Universalist minister Carl Scovel. He named the heart of his faith “The Great Surmise”

"The Great Surmise says simply this: At the heart of all creation lies a good intent, a purposeful goodness, from which we come, by which we live our fullest, and to which we shall at last return. This is the supreme mystery of our lives. This goodness is ultimate-not fate, not freedom, not mystery, energy, order, nor finitude, but this good intent in creation is our source, our center, and our destiny. . . Our work on earth is to explore, enjoy, and share this goodness. "Neither duty nor suffering nor progress nor conflict-not even survival-is the aim of life, but joy. Deep, abiding, uncompromised joy."

I have come to believe that Joy is the essence and the energy of life and yet we find it so hard to speak of. Why do we find it so hard to speak of joy?

Well for some it hasn't been so hard. Here is another example.

Rabindranath Tagore wrote…

“Joy is everywhere; it is in the earth’s green covering of grass; in the blue serenity of the sky; in the reckless exuberance of spring; in the severe abstinence of grey winter; in the living flesh that animates our bodily frame; in the perfect poise of the human figure, noble and upright; in living; in the exercise of all our powers; in the acquisition of knowledge; in fighting evils; in dying for gains we never can share. Joy is there everywhere.”

“Joy is there everywhere.” Do you believe this? What does your life teach you? What energises you? How do you feel when you are around a person filled with joy, en-joying life, en-joying who they are, singing the joy of living in all its mystery? What do you do when you are around such a person? I do hope you never try to clip their wings, to put them off being who they truly are, learning to fly free. I hope you never try to enslave them by the dangers of living with too much safety. In fact if you are going to be cautious about anything in life, it ought to safety. Be very careful about playing it safe, for it won’t guard you against the dangers of life, it will only strangle the joys of living, in all its mystery.

I was recently sat with friends enjoying coffee and chatting after sharing an hour together in meditation and deep conversation. We meet twice weekly at seven am and then some of us go off and continue the conversation in a local coffee shop. We are quite a shocking group to the locals and staff, due to the volume of laughter that rings out from us. Don’t get me wrong we speak seriously about many things, but we also know the joy of living. Anyway after an hour I declared “it’s time I moved” and got up to go for a gym session. Before I left I was asked how often I went and how long I spend at the gym. I said I go five times a week for between one and a half and two hours. Then followed the often heard comments about being too obsessive and not over doing it. I said little in response and just got up enthusiastically to get on with my session. Yes it’s tough and challenging, but I do enjoy how it is transforming my body and allowing me to be all I can be. I’ve never felt more alive.

All my life I’ve experienced people who have tried to curb my enthusiasm. It used to work as I allowed fear to inhibit my natural experience of joy, I didn’t want others to think I was a weirdo or nuts. By the way it worked for it sucked all the joy out of living as I suppressed my true human nature. People still try today but I know that it is more about their fear than anything I am doing or not doing. These days I always respectfully listen to others, but I do not take on board their fears and negativity. I would rather listen to the voice of joy and possibility deep within me; I prefer to live from a place of faith in life and not fear. Ever since I rediscovered faith in life itself, I have found the courage to be.

Now to live in joy, to have faith in life is not easy, it is even harder to describe. It is far easier to talk about pain and suffering, to talk about despair. Just enter any academic environment or follow social media or the daily news. People find it far easier to talk about their pain, than their joy.

Henri Nouwen observed that anxiety and suffering are far more easily expressed than joy. He wrote:

"I vividly remember how one of my university teachers spoke for a whole year about anxiety in human life. He discussed in great detail the thoughts of Kierkegaard, Sartre, Heidegger, and Camus and gave an impressive exposé of the anatomy of fear. One day, during the last month of the course, a few students found the courage to interrupt him and ask him to speak a little about joy before the course was over. At first he was taken aback. But then he promised to give it a try. The next class he started hesitantly to speak about joy. His words sounded less convincing and penetrating than when he spoke about anxiety and fear. Finally, after two more meetings, he told us that he had run out of ideas about joy and would continue his interrupted train of thought. This event made a deep impression on me, especially since I had such great admiration for my teacher. I kept asking myself why he was unable to teach about joy as eloquently as he had taught about anxiety.

It’s a good question, “why is it so much easier to speak about anxiety than joy?" We have no trouble describing our sadness, what is wrong, what sickens us as individuals and as a society. Nouwen observed there are far “more words for sickness than for health, more for abnormal conditions than for normal conditions. When my leg hurts, my head aches, my eyes burn, or my heart stings, I talk about it, often in elaborate ways, but when I am perfectly healthy I have little, if anything, to say about those parts of my body.”

Think about the word resentment. It comes from resentere which literally means to re-feel something. Now when we re-feel something a memory from our past life it doesn’t have to be a painful memory, something that makes us angry and yet the word resentment only has negative connotation. We do not have a word that means to re-feel something joyful. There is no specific word for this in the English language.

I have come to believe that one reason that we struggle to speak of joy is that it is not a surface experience, it is not of the body or the mind, it is more about the spirit. It is harder to make sense of and or control with our minds and our language. Now some may say the reason for this is that joy is an abnormal state, but I have come to believe that the truth is the opposite of this. Joy is actually the essence of life, what Scovel called the “Great Surmise”. We can’t tame joy, we can’t control it and perhaps this is why we fear and distrust it in ourselves and others so much.

Joy is linked closely to ecstasy, no not the party drug, but ecstasy in its true meaning. It is derived from the Greek 'ekstasis,' formed from 'ek,' meaning out, and 'stasis,' a state of standstill. So to be ecstatic literally means to be outside of a static place. It is a constantly moving state, not a rigid or fixed one. Joy is the same, it is always new, it is about life, it is about creation. Thus, those who live ecstatic lives are always moving away from rigidly fixed situations and exploring new, unmapped dimensions of reality. This is the essence of joy.

Joy is always new; it is about life; it is about creation; it’s about energy. Think about those joy filled moments you had when you were really free, maybe while dancing, singing, playing, creating, running free, at the birth of a child whatever that might be. When you were like a child.

Can you remember the last time you got giddy? I get giddy with those folks I share meditation and coffee with twice a week and other places too, often in the pulpit.

We need to get “giddy” with it. By doing so we may well just begin to experience the joy of living. By the way “giddy” is one of the words that has been reduced in meaning over time. In medieval times it used to mean being 'possessed by a god or spirit.' Now this was not considered to be a good thing as to be in such a state was considered to be a form of insanity, simplemindedness or to be some kind of religious fanatic. Religion has shied away from such expressions and feelings. We Unitarians have sadly been at the vanguard of this, distrusting emotion and worshipping rationality. We were once known as “God’s frozen people?” Not any longer I hope. Never fear who you are, your true nature.

I suspect that the reason it is easier to talk about the pain, what is wrong with life, our fear, rather than the joy of living has something to do with how we view the nature of ourselves and life itself. That there is something wrong with life, that there is something wrong with human nature, that at the core we are bad and its time we accepted this. I’m not convinced that this is so.

The first chapter of the book of Genesis talks about God looking at his creation and seeing it as good. But is life with all its ups and downs good? What about violence, war and senseless tragedies? What about germs, disease and famine? What about the pain of our families, our friends, our loved ones? Isn’t life more like what Thomas Hobbes described in “The Leviathan” “And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short”. Is that what life is? Are we fallen and broken by nature, at war with ourselves and one another. We are told that the nature of life is competition, but is that correct? Recent biological research into the most basic life forms suggest that this is not so as even they have to cooperate in order to create, that this is in actual fact the energy of life. When we cooperate, work together in harmony, don’t we feel joyful? I know I do.

So something to consider. What is the nature and energy of life? Is joy the essence of life? Is it the energy that forms all life? Also how do we find ways to articulate and express this in ways that others can understand? I suspect that it might not be through the limit of words. Maybe we can’t tell, perhaps all we can do is show. So show it in all that you do and if you must, use words.

Radical OK-Ness & the Kindness of Strangers

A couple of weeks ago I attended the wedding of our Joe down in Devon. It really was a beautiful occasion as so many of his loved ones and friends came together. It’s been a difficult time for all of us in so many ways. Joe is the eldest son of our Allen, my brother, who died last year.

Now the journey to and from the wedding was quite epic. I was responsible for taking our youngest brother and sister to and from it. We got a little lost just finding the hotel we were staying at the night before and ended up down some country lanes which in my “townie” view were not fit for cars. They were grassed over paths really and I became very concerned about driving along them. At one point we met a horse and rider moving toward us. Thankfully the rider decided to turn round, walk down the hill and let us past. I suspect that she could tell I wasn’t a local. I really should have paid more attention to this, it was a sign of things to come.

The wedding the next day was incredible. The feeling of love had my heart full to overflowing and I know I wasn’t alone in this. We then headed off to the hotel for the reception. Now the hotel was at the top of a great hill and the roads leading to it were once again little more than grassed over paths. In fact many of them were unnamed on the Sat Nav. That part of the journey was not pleasant.

Finally we arrived and drew breath and then got on with the celebrations. I have to say that the speeches were incredible. All moving and highly amusing. I will not recount those given by the two best men as they were without doubt 18 rating and not PG. There was a great deal of laughter and tears, so many tears. Tears of joy and tears sorrow and grief too.

There was one phrase in the speech given by the father of the bride, Ian Adams, that caught that place deep in the soul of me. He talked somewhat about the joys and sorrows of life and the pains and struggles we all go through and then he described an abiding love that is present in life that can hold us and sustain us in all of this. He named it “Radical OK-ness”. This phrase really caught the heart of me and awakened the soul of me. I thought yes that’s it and in my mind I began to sing song I once heard based on words by Julian of Norwich, the words were “All will be well, all will be well, all manner of things, they will be well.” At this point I drifted away from what he was saying and sank into that place of deep prayer within myself. I let out a deep, deep breath and offered thanks and praise. And then we partied the night away.

As I left I noticed that most folk had arrived and were leaving by taxi, although I also heard that taxi drivers did not like coming to this spot at night, due to the drive back down. I swallowed hard at this point got in my car and began the journey back to the hotel we were staying at. I have to say it was not a pleasant journey. Things seemed to be going well and then I made a slight error and missed a turning. Sat-Nav directed me to take the next left, which I duly did. This was a big mistake. I later learned that you do not turn left at this point. Let’s just say that my car got stuck, right across the road and in my attempts to get free I burnt out my clutch and could not move. This was not a great place to break down, in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night with my youngest brother and sister with me.

We got out of the car my sister called International Rescue and the AA, she has gold membership. Before you ask, yes International Rescue is a real thing, although we were not expecting “Thunderbird 3” to arrive. The road I was stuck across was actually a real road, pure tarmac and vehicles began to appear. Mainly taxis going to the wedding venue. Most looked and just passed by up the hill, a few turned round but one or two stopped. One kindly taxi cab driver even got out to help saying “I’m a really good driver, I will get you out”. Then he realised he couldn’t as there was no clutch. Eventually a policeman arrived, what a Godsend he was. Finally the rescue truck arrived and we were taken back to the hotel.

The next day I sorted things out with my own recovery people and I and my car were brought to Altrincham, while arrangements were made to get my brother and sister home too. As I was driven back home chatting away with the man in the recovery vehicle about life and everything I began to reflect on the encounters I had experienced over the last 24 hours. I also reflected on the phrase “Radical Ok-ness” and the concept that “all will be well”. Another phrase also came into my mind too, the “kindness of strangers”. My word I had met some lovely people, who were so helpful and understanding in Devon. It lifted my heart as I sat there trying not to feel sorry for myself as I listened to the driver tell me all about his life. It’s funny I did very little talking, but lots of listening as I feasted my eyes on the beautiful countryside that we passed through, heading north and heading home. All the way home the "ears of my ears were awake" and "the eyes of my eyes were open." What a beautiful journey home.

It is easy to look at the world through eyes of despair and say that it is not OK, there is something rotten in life. There is of course much that is not OK. I remember just as I journeyed down to Devon hearing of the awful incident of a man being stabbed by a stranger on the motorway. Almost every day as I listen to the news I hear of troubles in the middle-east, mass shootings in America, crises in Europe, politicians caught up in scandals and celebrities and athletes bringing themselves into bad repute. I also see other troubles much closer to home. Our Joe’s grandmother Val, the mother of two of my sister’s and of course our Allen’s mother suffered a severe stroke last week and was unable to attend her daughter our Karen’s wedding the weekend after Joe’s. This has weighed heavily on my nearest and dearest. A young woman, that I had come to know, was killed last week by a driver who I understand was on drugs. I also share in the troubles of other friends and family and of course the hardships that people in congregations I serve are experiencing, emotional, mental and physical. So yes it is easy to say that nothing is OK; it is easy to fall into the Hobbesian nightmare and believe has he said “And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short” or in the words of the confession in the Book of Common Prayer that “there is no health in us”. It is easy to see the suffering in life and the wrong we do to one another. Yes we human beings do some terrible things to one another and yet on the whole what I see is goodness and in the end goodness seems to prevail. I do see an OK-Ness in life, when we choose it. When we bring it to life. This begins I believe by first of all seeing it, by baring witness to this OK-Ness, but it is more than that. I suspect that radical OK-Ness is about bringing this goodness to life, in our very lives. When we do we begin to bring that “Kin-dom of Love” to life. When we respond with kind-ness to what we see and do not pass by on the other side of the road.

The last week or so has brought that famous old parable in to my mind “The Good Samaritan” found in 10th chapter of Luke’s Gospel vv 25-37. Interestingly the two verses that proceed the parable also seems relevant too vv 23-24 . Verses that begin with the words ‘Blessed are the eyes that see what you see!” I think that this parable is all about seeing and acting upon what we see. In the story both a priest and Levite go by and they both see him but they walk on by, they pass on the other side of the road. Then a Samaritan (who would be the enemy of the traveller from Jerusalem to Jericho) also see's him and when he see's him he is moved to action and not only helps but also brings him to a place of safety and pays for his boarding’s and lodging etc. He wants no recognition or thanks for his actions, he is motivated purely by compassion, this is pure altruism.

Now I think this story is teaching something very simple and vital, each of us is capable of all the actions that take place here. We are all capable of walking on by and we are all capable of being Good Samaritans. We can all be good neighbours. I believe that to see the world through the hopefulness of our potential goodness is what “Radical OK-Ness” is all about. It’s about seeing the good and becoming the good, so that others can see it too. It’s also about not beating ourselves up too much when we fall short of what we can be.

As I have written many times before I truly believe that everything matters; every feeling, every thought, every word, every action and every look. I truly believe that how we look at the world really matters. And how do we look at the world? Well through our eyes.

They say that the eyes are the windows to the soul; they say that our eyes reveal who we are. That said I do not think it is our eyes alone that reveal the truth, but how we see through these very same eyes. It is how we look at one another and life itself that reveal who we are.

How we look at one another really matters. We can look at one another with compassion, or we can give one another a hard look. Think about it when someone gives us a hard look, what do we do? Well usually we either turn away in fear or we respond with hardness too. What about compassion? What happens when someone looks at us through loving eyes? Well usually we respond with compassion and our lips and eyes may even stretch to a smile. Or at least we do unless we have fallen so far into the pit of nihilistic despair that we respond to love with fear and hatred.

How we act towards others really matters. But it is not just about doing what is right, it’s also about the spirit in which each task is conducted. We can appear to be encouraging and loving and doing the right thing, but our eyes will say otherwise. Our eyes say it all. Think about a smile. We think we smile with our mouths, but we do not, we smile with our eyes. When I smile my eyes almost slant shut. What we do and however we do something our eyes will reveal the truth of our hearts and people will intuitively pick up on this. They will see it in our eyes.

The eyes say it all. If you see the world through loving eyes you will see love. The next time you look at someone, let your eyes stretch to a smile. If you do the eyes of life will stretch back at you with a loving smile too.

This is where it begins. “Radical Ok-ness” begins with our eyes, with how we see the world. Yes we need to acknowledge what is wrong, but also what is right and good and we need to act appropriately. We need to do what we can, even if that is just one small thing, because that one small thing may well lead to a tidal wave of compassion that covers our whole world. We need to recognise the love present in life, the OK-Ness, despite the presence of suffering and we need to also bring that love alive, right here, right now and then we might just begin to build that “Kin-dom of Love” right here, right now.

May we look at the world through loving eyes.


...If you really want to understand what I mean, just simply listen to this clip "All will be well" by Rev Meg Barnhouse...She say's it far better than I...

"I acted and behold service was joy"

“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”

I love these words of wisdom by Rabindranath Tagore. There is such a universal truth revealed within them. A truth I have known from time to time. Even in the midst of difficulty, through service, I have experienced joy and happiness. I have learnt, although sometimes I do still forget, that beauty, truth and meaning truly emerges in and through love and service for life. Through giving myself fully to life I know joy; I know the joy of being alive. I sing the joy of living. Life has taught me that it truly is in giving that we receive.

Through faith in life itself, by giving ourselves fully to life, we know joy. Joy is an attribute of a full, rich and deeply meaningful life. It is radically different to fun, pleasure and happiness, these are merely emotional qualities. Joy is a spiritual quality that is present within us, despite life’s circumstances. Joy is about connection, intimate connection. When I know joy I am at one with life and with myself.

I was recently sat with a friend, his partner and their new born daughter Erin. It was an absolute joy to be in their company and to see the utter bliss that they were experiencing in this new life that had taken over theirs. Now this friend is also experiencing grief and pain right now as he has lost a very dear friend to an illness both he and I have found merciful release from. He is not in denial of the pain of his grief, he is feeling it deeply, that said at the same time he is able to truly know the joy in the life of his daughter. It is a joy we have all known I am sure in one way or another. The joy though is not just in the person, it comes in the connection he is experiencing  My friend’s joy is in that sense of connection he experiences between himself, his partner and their daughter, they are one, they are the one undivided whole. It is beautiful to behold.

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I often feel this kind of joy in the company of people who are willing to truly be themselves, to let their guards down and truly let go. I feel it in the company of certain old mates and I often experience in Cafe Nero on a Tuesday morning after the weekly meditation I attend. In that time there is a real sense of connection, of being fully alive, of utter joy. This Tuesday morning time brings to mind some words by Walt Whitman I recently encountered.

“I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,

To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,

To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing,

Laughing flesh is enough,

To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm

Ever so lightly around his or her neck for a moment,

What is this

Then?

I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as in a sea.”

“To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, Laughing flesh is enough,”

Those couple of hours I share on a Tuesday morning, is utter bliss, complete joy and deeply inspirational. During this time I experience utter connection.

Now there are those who will say that joy is for the immature, the blind, the Pollyanna’s of life. How can you know joy when we are surrounded by so much unhappiness, when there is so much misery in the world? They say that life is not filled with joy, but, misery and suffering. The epitome of the anti joy brigade would be someone like Thomas Hobbes who in “The Leviathan” wrote:

"Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of Warre, where every man is Enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withall. In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short."

I will repeat the last few words “And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short”

Not a lot of joy to be found there me thinks...maybe maybe not...

Carl Scovel, whose writing was much loved by my old minister John Midgely, has taken a very different view of life. The heart of his faith was something he described as the “Great Surmise” at a talk he delivered at the 1994 Unitarian Universalist General Assembly he described what he meant by it:

“The Great Surmise says simply this: At the heart of all creation lies a good intent, a purposeful goodness, from which we come, by which we live our fullest, and to which we shall at last return. This is the supreme mystery of our lives. This goodness is ultimate-not fate, not freedom, not mystery, energy, order, finite, but this good intent in creation is our source, our centre, and our destiny...Our work on earth is to explore, enjoy, and share this goodness. Neither duty nor suffering nor progress nor conflict-not even survival-is the aim of life, but joy. Deep, abiding, uncompromised joy.

Life really is about how we see things, our perspective. Is life “Nasty, brutish and short”...Maybe, maybe not?

Or is it a “Deep, abiding, uncompromised joy ”...Maybe, maybe not?

Joy for life itself can be known even during life’s troubles and difficulties. The people Jesus spoke to 2,000 years ago were not living easy and comfortable lives. Those people knew about conflict, oppression, tragedy and almost constant grief. He told them that all that was wonderful, life-giving, life affirming, all that is meaningful was theirs. He said to them “Enter into my kingdom with joy.” He also told them that “This is my commandment, that you love one another.”

The kingdom he spoke of can be with us right here right now, we can know and experience the commonwealth of love right here, right now. And how can we know it? Well by following the commandment to love one another. Now please do not confuse this with some mushy sentiment; love is not this at all; love is an act, it is a way of being. The commonwealth of love comes into being by giving ourselves fully to life, to one another; through giving ourselves fully to life and to one another we truly realise the joy of living.

Tagore said: “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”

This is the purpose of the religious life to awaken joy through service to and for one another. Joy is about connection, intimate connection. When we give of ourselves to others and to life we know the joy that is truly living. That said when we live only for ourselves and live dis-connected from life, we quickly become joyless once again, we lose faith in God given life, our experience of life becomes dulled and meaningless.

True religion is all about connection; it’s about re-binding all of life together. It’s also about commitment, to each other and to life itself. I make that commitment in so many ways, I especially do so during that Tuesday morning meditation group. I see that same connection in the relationship that my friend and his partner have with their daughter.  These are commitments of love, they are commitments of service on so many different levels; service to something more than self; service that brings joy to life.

Tagore said: “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”

We can make that dream a reality; we can make joy a reality. It becomes a reality through love and service to and for one another. For it is in giving that we all receive.

As Gandhi wisely pointed out “...even as we serve others we are working on ourselves; every act, every word, every gesture of genuine compassion naturally nourishes our own hearts as well. It is not a question of who is healed first. When we attend to ourselves with compassion and mercy, more healing is made available for others. And when we serve others with an open and generous heart, great healing comes to us."

It is in these moments that we truly know joy. Not by chasing after it, like a kite that’s blown away in a storm. We will never catch up with it that way and even if we do it will get blown away come the next storm. Instead it comes to us when we give ourselves fully to life and those around us and connect to it all that is. It is in these moments that we realise that life itself is a joy.

To live life fully is to know joy; to live life fully is to serve one another; to serve one another is to be fulfilled; to be fulfilled is to experience and to know joy.

“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”

Pollyanna's Original Blessing

The phrase Pollyanna is often used as a term of ridicule for the kind of person who lives with a child-like enthusiasm for life. Such people are told that they need to grow and see the world for what it really is.

Is this true? Do such people need to see the world for what it is?

I decided a while back, what with it being the 400^th anniversary of the King James Bible, that I would read this version from cover to cover. Like most people of my generation, this is something I have never done. I was reading Genesis 1 and noted that when God takes a step back and looks at his creation he keeps on repeating the phrase “and God saw that it was good”, or as I recently heard someone say “very good indeed”. It got me thinking. Not about the merits of the science of Genesis, I’ve never considered it to be a literal understanding of how the world came to be. No it got me thinking about life and whether, with all its ups and downs it could be considered good. What about violence, war and senseless tragedies? What about germs, disease and famine? What about the pain of our families, our friends, our loved ones?

Is life “very good indeed”?

Some people seem to live with unending tragedy; they seem to experience it far more than the average person. What always blows me away is that it is often these very same people find the most joy in life, even in extreme pain and suffering. These are the kind of people that stand out as beacons to us all. They are often the most joy and hoped filled. They are angels in our midst. They have learnt to balance the good with the bad, the joy with the suffering. They are able to see the goodness in their lives as a generous, if at times mysterious, gift. For them life is a blessing and not a curse; a challenge to rise to rather than a burden to be endured. They affirm life as “very good indeed” despite the sadness that they know only too well, despite the real or imagined threats of violence from natural and manmade sources that are all around everyone of us. They see life as being “very good indeed” because of the gifts that it bestows upon us, the gifts that it gives us that can sustain us through the losses that we all experience in life. It is wrong to mock them as “Pollyanna’s” they are people of genuine faith, who know and experience “Love’s Way”

Such people see life as “very good indeed” not because they do not see the darkness present in life and no doubt within themselves, but because they are able to rise above such challenges and even shine some light upon them. Such light can guide us out of our own troubles if we only took the time to pay attention to how these people live their lives and stopped mocking them as “Pollyanna’s”

It is so easy to see life as a curse as a “vale of tears”. I remember when I was at university reading “Leviathan” by Thomas Hobbes, written just after the English civil war. I was struck and disturbed by the bleakness of his view. I did not like it, but it has stuck with me ever since and in my darkest moments, a few years later, I probably agreed with his diagnosis.

Hobbes said:

"Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of Warre (war), where every man is Enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withall. In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short."

“And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short” Gosh that is hard.

For Hobbe’s what is required is an ultimate authority to bring order to wayward humanity and subjugate our anarchic and brutish nature. I see similarities here to the traditional Christian view, at least in the west, of humanities nature; that we are fallen and broken, “rotten to our timbers”; due to Adam’s original disobedience in the “Garden of Eden”, which led to humanity being cast out of paradise and being forced to suffer.

But are we fallen, broken and sinful by nature, rotten to core? Well this has been questioned throughout the history of Christianity, my tradition has certainly questioned it, and is a view not shared by other faiths.

I have always loved what the former Dominican priest Rev Matthew Fox has to say on this matter. In his book “Original Blessing” he wrote.

“Let us take a closer look at this pivotal doctrine of original sin. The concept is not a Jewish one. Even though the Jewish people knew Genesis for a thousand years before Christianity, they did not read original sin into it. As the twentieth century Jewish prophet Eli Weisel points out, ‘The concept of original sin is alien to Jewish tradition. This is strong language...to call a doctrine “alien” that Christians believe they found in Jewish scripture.’”

Fox goes further than this claiming that Christian scholars today agree that “Original Sin” is not to be found in the Bible.

This is not to say that there is no such thing as Jewish guilt, of course. Quite the opposite is in fact true; as many Jewish comedians, who have forged a career out of talking about their guilt, will no doubt testify. This guilt though did not originate in the fall, that’s a whole new kettle of fish.

Matthew Fox’s “Original Blessing” claims that blessing runs like a thread through the whole creation story. He says “ ‘Original Blessing’ underlies all being, all creation, all time, all space, all unfolding and evolving of what is.” And quotes Rabbi Herschell who said “Just to be is a blessing, just to live is holy”

He does not claim that humanity is incapable of wrong doing, even evil. Quite the opposite, as history has shown. Of course there is human frailty and obvious limitations. There is no denial of sin, just “original sin”. What he is saying is that this brokenness can never outweigh the many gifts that we do have to offer and that life has to offer us.

He says that:

“A theology of blessing is a theology about a different kind of power. Not the power of control or the power of being over or under, but the power of fertility. Blessing is fertility to the people of Israel and to the Native American and other pre-patriarchal religions.”

These teachings are close to the earth, to the cosmos. They are linked to Jesus’s teachings expressed in the Beatitudes “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness; blessed are the peace makers...” There is nothing new in the teachings he is simply saying that we share our blessings by giving of ourselves to others, by being a bright spot in people lives. It is an active, living, breathing way. It is “Love’s Way”.

On Sunday I will be conducting the Baptism of a new child who has recently been born into our community. Water will be used in the ceremony but not to wash away sin, our tradition rejected this concept long ago. No child is born into this world carrying any baggage; I cannot and will not accept that. Instead what we will do is celebrate and bless the life of this child. I will touch her brow, her lips and her hands to bless her thoughts, her words and her deeds and we will all make promises to her and her family to offer her guidance in life.

Life is the greatest gift of them all. It is not a veil of tears; it is not “solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.". Yes it has its troubles and challenges and we all experience suffering from time to time. Even so it is a gift, a blessing.

As Rabbi Herschell said “Just to be is a blessing, just to live is holy”

We make life a blessing through our thoughts are words and our deeds.

By doing so we make life “very good indeed”