Come, Come, Whoever You Are: Creating Spiritual Sanctuary"

I trust you have enjoyed the beautiful weather this week, I have. A part of me wishes it could have been like this a couple of weeks ago during a  break on the Yorkshire coast. Alas it was not and anyway what is the point of wishful thinking.

The other morning I was chatting with a friend enjoying the sun and coffee at Café Nero. As we were talking, I was reminded of a couple of moments, during the holiday, when the rain was “siling” down. We were in Bridlington and the shower was so heavy we sought shelter on the beautiful beach fronts. We shared the space with a bunch of the most “Yorkshire people” you could wish to meet. They were laughing and joking about the weather and other holiday destinations. Several said there was no better place than the Yorkshire coast. One man piped up saying “well I quite like Greece”, several agreed, there was much laughter. Then the most Yorkshire man you could ever meet said in a deadpan voice, but with a slight glint in his eye, “went to the New Forest once, it was very disappointing 25% of the beach was practically derelict”, followed by roaring laughter from those around. I whispered to Sue, welcome to Yorkshire. Anyhow the rain abated and we enjoyed the day.

If you ever seen “An American Werewolf in London” just think of that scene in “The Slaughtered Lamb”

A couple of days later we spent some time at Hemsley visiting the walled garden, castle and beginning at Rievaulx Abbey, all the while finding ways to shelter from the rain. Rievaulx had a powerful effect on me. It is an ancient abbey founded by St Bernard of Clairvaux, in 1098. It became one of the most remarkable of the 12^th century monastic reform movements, placing an emphasis on a return to an austere life and literal observance of the rules set out for monastic life by St Benedict in the 6th century. It grew enormously over the years, becoming influential, although it was devastated by the plague and finally pillaged and destroyed during the reign of Henry VIII. I don’t think my friend in Bridlington would have been too impressed with Rievaulx though, as it is 100% derelict.

Rievaulx most revered Abbot was Aelred, a brilliant scholar and writer, he doubled the community by the time he died, growing to 140 monks and 500 lay brothers. His greatest work was probably on De spiritali amicitia ("On Spiritual Friendship"). The life was hard at the abbey but there was deep love shared amongst the brothers, led by Aelred. It was a place of love of refuge. Truly the community was a sanctuary. Aelred has become a hero within the LGBTQI community. Some academics suggesting that he himself was gay. Who knows, celibacy was practiced in the community, although he had certainly enjoyed a wilder youth.

I was deeply affected by Rievaulx, imagining what life must have been like living there in the middle ages. The last time I felt such power in a place, such spiritual love, was in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and below the ground touching the western wall in Jerusalem. There is something special about the ruins of Rievaulx. A place of refuge, not just from the Yorkshire rain, but spiritual refuge, sustenance, a place of sanctuary.

One of the basic human needs is to feel safe and secure, something I have been considering in recent weeks as we continue to return to “normal” living. I’ve been thinking about the role of communities like the ones I sere, what we can offer spiritually to folks out there. Can we become a place of refuge, a spiritual sanctuary. I’ve been thinking of a verse from Hebrews chapter 13 “ ²Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”

Showing hospitality and caring for the vulnerable in society is a key aspect of the Judeo - Christian and Islamic tradition. You will find it deeply rooted in the Abrahamic traditions and virtually every other world religion too. Hospitality is an essential spiritual practice. It begins with an open heart and a generosity of spirit. It’s about recognising the good in life and in people. It’s about recognising ourselves in those very same people. It’s about being open and welcoming to all, where ever they have been, where ever they are going and where ever they find themselves now. Tibetan Buddhist monks great the strangers visiting their temples with “Welcome, friend, from what noble spiritual tradition do you come.” The Christian monastic tradition has a long held practise of taking in strangers and offering them sanctuary as if they were Christ, inspired by those very words from Hebrews. In so doing they are following the example of Jesus who mingled with all people, there was no one left outside the city gate, no untouchables.

Sadly, our age has become characterised by distrust, there is a fear of the strange and the stranger. This has perhaps grown since the beginning of the pandemic. As society rebuilds, we will have to learn how to be spiritually intimate with one another again; we will have to re-learn how to welcome one another and the stranger into community once again. If we do, we will not only be offering spiritual love to them but also liberate ourselves from the bondages of selfishness and self-centredness that we create. As Joan Chittister has said “Hospitality is the way we come out of ourselves. It is the first step toward dismantling the barriers of the world. Hospitality is the way we turn a prejudiced world around one heart at a time.” This is living by spiritual love, to offer sanctuary in our hearts. “

Sanctuary is probably a strange word, not one you hear very often. The first time I heard it was from the mouth of Charles Laughton playing the “Hunchback of Notre Dam”, those immortal words “Sanctuary, sanctuary, Esmeralda you gave me water.” I think the second time was in the song by The Cult “She Sells Sanctuary”. I’m not sure I understood it then though. I have been thinking about it once again as I reflected on what we can offer as a free religious community. I have also been thinking of all those beautiful souls that have opened themselves to me in so many ways and given me sanctuary materially, emotionally, mentally and spirituality.

"She Sells Sanctuary" The Cult

In its original understanding a “sanctuary” was a sacred place, such as a shrine. These places became safe havens for people in desperate need and fleeing persecution in medieval times. The word has developed and expanded in meaning over the centuries into a place of safety for humans and animals too. A place where we can be welcomed and made to feel at home and therefore thrive. I believe that we can extend it further, expand its meaning. We as individuals could become sanctuaries too, to the spiritually lost. I have also been thinking about how we as individuals find refuge and sanctuary in our lives. Where have you sought solace this last year or so? This is something we could share with one another, to help one another, to offer spiritual love to one another and to those in our wider community.

We all need sanctuary, we need to find spiritual shelter. Parker J Palmer has said: “Sanctuary is wherever I find safe space to regain my bearings, reclaim my soul, heal my wounds, and return to the world as a wounded healer. It’s not merely about finding shelter from the storm: it’s about spiritual survival.”

I often find sanctuary in poetry. I have loved sharing many poems with friends this last year or so, it has opened and filled my heart at times, it has also brought me close to people, despite our physical separation. A good poem offers sanctuary. It reminds me of the necessity, power and beauty of contemplation. Something that Aelred’s monks spent much of time in. I may not contemplate exactly as they did, but poetry helps me reach those deeper aspects of my heart. Here’s a favourite that always brings me solace when caught up in the storms of life. It offers me shelter from the storm.

“The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry

 When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

The poem also offers something else that is refuge, solace and sanctuary for many, including myself, that of nature. For some it is the trees and plants, for others, including me, it is the animals, whether the birds or mammals or all those wonderful varieties of dogs, they open my heart as do so many people who I am seeing more and more of.

I believe that the primary purpose of a free religious community, such as the ones I serve, is to be a spiritual sanctuary to the folk out there. At our best we are a place where people can come and feel secure and safe as they are and then begin to thrive and grow spiritually with us. In so doing they can become sanctuaries and places of welcome and hospitality in the world. They can live with openness and give to those they meet in a loving way. For me being a Unitarian minister is about creating sanctuaries wherever I go and encouraging others to do likewise. Encouraging them to live openly and lovingly in a world that needs it more and more. It’s about encouraging people to do what they can, whatever that might be. In so doing they may well encounter angels.

So where can you offer hospitality and welcome in this world? Something perhaps to think about How can you become a sanctuary? Where is the place of need in the world around? How do we begin to heal our world and offer hope in the despair of our world?

How can you offer sanctuary, sanctuary, how can you offer spiritual sustenance and spiritual water?

Here is a video based on the material in this "blogspot"

The Yorkshire Coast: Connecting Past, Present & Future

Sue and myself had a wonderful week away on the Yorkshire coast. We needed time away together, It was oh so needed. A time to refresh and recuperate as well as enjoy the beautiful countryside history and heritage of the region. We have signed up to a years membership of English Heritage too, it will help us to get out and about more over the summer, when time allows. Our hearts, souls, minds and spirits will need it, our bodies too, we walked a lot last week. It was great to breath in that invigorating sea air. The weather could have been better, but we didn’t seem to mind too much.

It was a week away and yet I could not completely escape my present or my past. Thankfully, Sue has got used to the fact that I cannot go anywhere without bumping into someone I know. We often joke about who we are likely to bump into or meet up with wherever we go. Well, it seems that to some degree or other the whole of my life was tapping me on the shoulder last week. I had gone to soak up and experience the gift of the present moment, but the past was always with me, following like headlights on my tail. During the week I also relived many childhood memories, some of which were seemingly long lost and yet came to life during our time away. Many old ghosts seemingly came out to greet me, some unexpectedly. Some were beautiful, others painful, but all were meaningful.

"Headlights" by New Model Army (Live)

On the first day we wandered round Scarborough, witnessing everything beginning to open up again, as we retraced many of my childhood steps. I was somewhat surprised at how familiar it all was. The town is perhaps not as beautiful as it once was, but its spirit is still there and it did bring to life some powerful memories. While we were there I received a phone call from a fellowship friend who was going to be in Bridlington the next day with his mother. We decided to go there and meet up with them. We also visited Flamborough Head. The next day we met up with my auntie Catherine in Filey and talked and talked. She showed me some letters I had written to her many years ago, they were the first steps in healing family rifts, it was strangely beautiful reading them. We also talked of old family holidays as we walked around the town, including one in Filey. It was a beautiful but emotional day as so much of my past came alive in that moment. There was a deeper sense of healing going on, it felt like the whole of my life was alive in the moment, the past, the present and the future. The next day we took the steam train from Pickering to Whitby on the “North Yorkshire Moors Railway” as we were boarding I swore I saw a retired colleague Rev Dr Vernon Marshall walk down the platform. It was a beautiful journey through the countryside but the day in Whitby was spoilt by the weather. It was wild but we kept on we fulfilled several “Whitby Rites of Passage”. We walking on and out to the edge of the Jetty, as the rain came down and waves crashed over and we walked up to the Abbey and old church up the 199 steps. We couldn’t go to the Abby as it was closed due to filming. Now as we approached the 199 steps I saw the man again who had boarded the steam train we travelled on, it was indeed Vernon Marshall. I called out to him and we talked for a while, he was with his family on a break too. He didn’t recognize me at first, as it has been a few years since we last spoke. Over the next couple of days we took in many of the cultural sights of the area, just beautiful. We had joined English heritage for the year at Scarborough Castle, we reckon it will get us out and about this summer, when we have the time. On the final day we decided to drive up to Robin Hoods Bay and Staithes, we actually had time to go back to Whitby too and enjoy it in more pleasant weather. It was a beautiful day and one when I kept on meeting ghosts from my past. Whilst walking to the beach at Robin Hoods Bay I saw a face I recognised, they recognised me too and after taking a double perhaps triple take we approached each other and spoke. It was a guy called Andy Butterworth who I have not seen since 1988 and Batley Grammar school. His partner took a picture of us, I did not, but my mind and heart captured the memory. Later that day, in Whitby, we passed my nephew “Our Paul” who was out with his wife and friends on a drinking weekend. We talked for a while before moving on. It was quite a week, enjoying the present, while re-feeling the past and looking forward to an unknown future. So many snap shot moments, that have awakened so much deep in the soul of me.

Last week I experienced “Retrouvaille” (pronounced reh-troo-vahy-uh), which is the joy that comes from seeing someone again after a very long time. It was a kind of reunion and certainly a rediscovery and it reawakened so much deep in my soul.

One thing we noticed at the weekend was that there were many other people visiting these beautiful places for very different reasons to us. You could see all the characters from “Viz” descending on Whitby over the weekend and from what my friend Oliver has told me Scarborough was madness too. That said these places mean different things to each of us. For me is about my past, my present and future coming together, for others it was something completely different. I tried to take in as much of the experience as I possible could, to truly live in the present. I tried to keep my homiletic consciousness quiet too, to try not to think too much about what I was going to write afterwards. I allowed by senses to awaken, to drink it all up and enjoy our time together away from the stresses and strains of our lives, but you can never do so completely, and as you can see my past is always tapping me on the shoulder. As Sue says, “we cannot go anywhere”.

The week brought to my mind the following:

“In the Present” by Robert Walsh taken from “Stone Blessings”

"On a sunny day, I walked alone in a broad valley in Nepal, through an old forest with vines and flowering trees and intermittent vistas of the snow-covered Himalayas. I came upon a clearing in the woods, and saw there a holy man – a monk in an orange robe, head shaved, back bent with age – chopping wood.

I had conflicting impulses. I wanted to ask him questions. What was his name? Where did he live? What was his life like? I wanted his blessing, and I wanted to give mine. And I wanted to pass by invisibly, noiselessly, doing nothing that would disturb him.

Instead, I took out my camera and took a picture of him. I tried to be discreet as possible about it; I waited until he was not looking in my direction. I don’t know whether he heard the sound. Then I put the camera away and moved on down the trail.

I took the picture because I wanted to tell you the story. Now I have a small, still, two-dimensional memento of that moment. We can look at it. It will last for a while. The actual moment completely surrounded me. It had sounds and smells and movement, and it was only real for a moment. Now it’s gone, and it will never happen again.

I moved through the experience with my attention alternating between the present moment and a future time, when I would be back home, telling the story. It’s what preachers call homiletic consciousness, which means going through life thinking, Can I use this in a sermon? But it’s not just preachers who do it. I imagine a painter would do the same. Or a poet. Or a novelist, teacher, composer, or a storyteller – anyone who uses the experiences of life in order to give something to someone else.

But the more we stay in the future, thinking about telling the story, the less we are open to the power of the experience itself. The more we put a frame around the picture, the more it becomes only a picture and not a real event. Instead of living life each day, we are busy getting ready for life.

Yet if were not for story tellers and photographers, I would never have gone to Nepal.

So I will try to find a balance between being fully in the moment and being present to the whole of life – past, present, and future, here and there. That I may live this day today, and also tell the story tomorrow."

I love how Robert Walsh describes trying to balance the power of the moment he was experiencing, observing a holy man in Nepal, whilst also struggling with ideas of wanting to know him and also tell him all about himself, to almost justify his presence. Instead, he took a snapshot, hoping perhaps that by taking a picture you would capture the essence of an experience that would help him tell the tale later. Of course, taking a picture does not capture the power and beauty of any moment or experience, but it does perhaps help one to remember. I spent my week surrendering to the experience of the Yorkshire, with past flowing through, whilst trying to share this with Sue. Yes, I knew I would talk about them later, but I tried to suppress the rationalising in the moment, and just allow my senses to take it all in. That wasn’t the difficult challenge, this came from the past as it kept on constantly creeping up on me and tapping me on the shoulder.

During our week on the Yorkshire coast we shared many magic moments, beautiful moments, that will live in my heart. Those moments also brought to life that fed into the wonder of it all.

There was another interesting tie that helped to link together the past, present and future. Sue and I stayed at a place named “Gallows Hill” in Brompton by Sawdon, which is half way between Scarborough and Pickering. It is run by a lovely couple who are originally from Birmingham but have lived in North Yorkshire for forty years. I highly recommend it, just beautiful. “Gallows Hill” was the family home of William Wordsworth’s wife Mary Hutchinson. Wordsworth came into my mind on and off all week as I enjoyed the experiences we were sharing, in the moment, whilst also being transported to so many moments from past, some beautiful and others heartbreakingly painful. The beautiful moments whether in the present or past brought to my heart and mind “Spots of Time” from The Prelude (Book XI, ls 258-278) by Wordsworth

 “There are in our existence spots of time,

That with distinct pre-eminence retain

A renovating virtue, whence–depressed

By false opinion and contentious thought,

Or aught of heavier or more deadly weight,

In trivial occupations, and the round

Of ordinary intercourse–our minds

Are nourished and invisibly repaired;

A virtue, by which pleasure is enhanced,

That penetrates, enables us to mount,

When high, more high, and lifts us up when fallen.”

 William Wordsworth, The Prelude (Book XI, ls 258-278)

Don’t we all experience such magic moments, these “spots of time” when life not only feeds but truly nourishes us on a deep, deep level, deeper than the marrow of our bones; moments when the common becomes uncommon,; moments when the veils we create ourselves seem to slip away; moments when we seemingly see beyond the ordinary, when we experience reality on a deeper level. Gosh there were so many last week.

These “spots of time” are sacred moments that are made holy by their mysterious ability to nourish us and perhaps even repair us in body, mind, heart and spirit. These moments are a kind of grace; they seemingly come to us, from a place somewhere beyond ourselves. They cannot be forced; I do not believe that we can just simply create them for ourselves, although we do of course play a vital role in their creation and in the way that they are experienced.

These moments can happen anywhere. For Wordsworth these “spots of time” occurred primarily in nature. We all experience them in different ways, in different states and in different settings. Those moments when time seemingly stands still; those moments that touch us at the core of our being; those moments that transform our lives; those magic moments. Time seemingly becomes compressed or concentrated in these moments when the senses become heightened, when life seemingly has a deeper meaning. These are not necessarily supernatural moments by the way; no, they are firmly grounded in reality.

In these moments time appears to be slowing down, although obviously it does not. Time does not so much stop as become compressed, the moment becomes concentrated. There just seems to be more of life in that moment, but it lasts just as long. Maybe the moment is deeper, not longer. Time is time after all. Some call this Kairos time, or God’s time.

I experienced some such moments last week and I was reminded of many others from my past too. I was reminded by the places we visited as well as the people I bumped into, that brought to mind so many other moments in my life. Wonder filled moments indeed, moments that have shaped me as a human being, but never painlessly, sometimes deeply painfully. Haven’t we all known such moments in our lives.

Last week was beautiful, it also taught me a valuable lesson about life. The lesson was about how important it is to balance time in our lives. It reminded me how vital it is that we practice not only living in the moment that we find ourselves, but to truly bring that moment to life. To allow your whole life to fully inhabit that space, to bring it with you into the moment, without allowing it to dominate, whilst at the same time allowing that moment to prepare you for an unknown future. A future that is truly unwritten. For none of us know what is coming.

May we all find the balance between being fully in the moment and being present to the whole of life, past, present, and future, here and there and everywhere, whereever we find ourselves. If you are anything like me you cannot get away from either your past or present, because it will just appear right there in front of you. That said do we ever need to? No, we just need to be awake, fully present and the moment will work its magic.

So let us all live this day, fully alive today and let us live well enough to tell the story tomorrow, because tomorrow always comes.

Please find below a video based on the material in this "blogspot"