Step Into the Twilight Zone: Finding the Courage to Be

Have you ever got the lyrics of a pop song wrong, been singing the wrong lyrics for years. I have and I have heard of many hilarious examples of others too. One that I have only realised I have been singing wrongly to myself for forty years is “Twilight World” by “Swing Out Sister”. I have always known it as “Twilight Zone”. This is why when I searched it this week on Google, it didn’t immediately appear. Here’s the chorus

Don't be fooled by love songs and lonely hearts
You're living in a twilight world
Don't be fooled by love songs and lonely hearts
Don't give in to the twilight world

So not “Twilight Zone”, but “Twilight World”, it gives the song a very different meaning. Hopefully things will become clearer as the lights come on. Oh, by the way I love the phrase “Swing out sister”, which I have used for many years.

Sometimes life can feel a little like you are living in an episode of the “Twilight Zone” or “Alfred Hitchcock Present” or a personal favourite “Tales of the Unexpected”, programs that are repeated on “Sky Arts”. Or more contemporary versions such as “The X Files”, “American Gothic”, “The Outer Limits”, “Inside Number 9”, “Black Mirror”, or perhaps “Stranger Things”

And if I only could
I'd make a deal with God
And I'd get Him to swap our places
Be runnin' up that road
Be runnin' up that hill
Be runnin' up that building
Say, if I only could, oh

“Stranger Things” indeed!

I felt like I was in an Alfred Hitchcock movie the other evening. A friend had come round. After a while I noticed some crows from my window. They were making quite a racket; it was quite disturbing. Molly was certainly agitated. I said to my friend, it feels a bit like that Hitchcock movie “The Birds”, it was strangely disturbing. After a while Molly got really agitated and began barking at the door. I calmed her down, but she wasn’t happy. My friend eventually left, as he did Molly shot outside with him. There by the door was a crow. Molly investigated but didn’t attack it. It wandered into the garden whilst the other crows squawked and flew around. I directed Molly inside and my friend stood around. As he did the largest crow swooped down, pecked at his head and flew off. It was obviously attempting to protect its fallen friend. My friend was in a state of shock and bleeding from his scalp. It was quite disturbing. He texted his mother, who he cares for. She was quite upset with him, as she thought he was joking with her. While all this was going on she had been sat at home, with a friend who was taking care of her, they had been watching “The Birds” by Alfred Hitchcock.

“Living in the Twilight Zone”?

My friend is ok. He went for a tetanus injection and was looked over by a doctor and nurse. Both of whom had never heard of such a thing. His mum will not be watching “The Birds” again, but she is ok.

Molly wasn’t her usual self for a few days; she is ok now. On Sunday she did something she had never done before, and it terrified me. After the service on Sunday we walked to John Leigh park, down the back roads. We were meeting her friend Ronnie and my friend. We arrived early and Molly just ran down to the garden area, something she does often. I was talking on my phone and sauntered down the path to the bottom of the park, as if walking round the park. I don’t normally do this, usually we walk into the middle of the park. After a few minutes I called out to Molly, she did not appear. I went looking for her and no sign. I searched and searched and couldn’t find her. my friend arrived with Ronnie, still no sign. Fear then began to take a hold and the whole park was looking for her. I bumped into Jennie Louise who is a dog psychologist, she told me of her dog once doing something similar and that it ended up running all the way home. This though is not as far as Molly’s home. She explained that Molly will probably have re-appeared when she left me, found me not there, caught my scent and probably trotted home. My friend said she would walk the route back to my house, whilst I waited in the park. It was a very long 10 minutes, until my friend rang to tell me that Molly was sat happily waiting on my doorstep.

You can imagine the relief. I don’t think I’ve hugged anyone like I hugged Jennie and then I set off home so grateful and so full of relief. All was well.

It did show me the power fear. Life has settled down since, although I was exhausted by it all on Monday. A feeling that I have been feeling for a while. I talked with a few friends, met up with a couple too. That evening, I did something I’ve been thinking of doing for some time. I joined in with a choir, at the town hall. I had heard them singing a couple of weeks before. I joined some 60 people I didn’t know. They made me feel very welcome. I was quiet at first, but soon got into the spirit. I even knew one of the singers who took me under his wing. It was just what my heart desired. I was laughing about it the next morning with Rob, especially at some of the “luvvie’s” present, to which he said something like. Well in a few weeks you’ll be the biggest luvvie of them all.” He is no doubt right. Once I feel comfortable and find my voice, I will be flying. It was certainly what my soul needed as I found my bliss; as I found the courage to be truly me. Courage and the love at its heart will always transform fear.

Looking back I have felt at times like I’ve been living in “The Twilight Zone”, a place I do not wish to step into again. It also left me thinking about horror and thriller movies, why we watch them. I suspect it is rooted in this fascination with have with fear. I have also been looking at the birds around the house a little more closely. They are lovely and they sing the most beautiful songs and yet as I witnessed on Thursday they can turn when under threat.

Have you seen the film “The Birds”? It is a classic 1960’s horror/thriller directed by the great Alfred Hitchcock and loosely based on a story by Daphne du Maurier. The film is set in a Californian seaside town that is suddenly, and for reason never explained, the subject of a series of widespread and violent bird attacks; a terrifying film in its day that no doubt instilled a fear of birds into a whole generation. Hitchcock truly was the master of the suspense thriller; he knew how to tap into that fear that lurks within us all. I know as a child there were many films that tapped into the fear in me.

Fear has the power to inhibit but it also has the power of allure. I remember those terrifying public information broadcasts from the 1970’s, images that still stay with me, about the dangers of railway lines, and electric pylons and of course “Lonely Water”, with the terrifying voice on Donald Pleasence. Not that we headed the dangers, in many ways it kind of made them more enchanting for me and my friends. When I think of the more exciting childhood memories they were all laced with danger. I also remember a collection of “video nasty’s” that my stepdad must have got a hold of and of finding them and watching them and the waking nightmares and terrors that I suffered as a result. I was far too young to be watching such things.

The cinematic childhood memory that haunted me the most though was a Saturday night episode of “Hammer House of Horror”. It was a werewolf tale that vividly remains within my psyche. The image that had the greatest impact was of the beast at the window in the black of night and the person turning round and it being in the room with them. This was etched on my memory for years and to such an extent that I never dared look out through the glass of my room after dark. Even to this day there is a part of me that feels nervous if I look through “glass darkly”. A feeling re-felt with those crows the other evening.

There is a power and an allure in fear. It is something everyone experiences. It can overtake the rational mind and many exploit it in others. A feeling that seems to intensify in this age of muti-media and instant 24 hour rolling news. There are forces that feed fear and paranoia in folk, a power that at times can control people’s lives, beyond all reason. It can cause deep distrust and keep people penned in at home and paralysed.

Fear comes in many forms. We need not fear fear in and of itself. It is a vital part of our make-up, of our animal heart. It sets the pulse racing and heightens our awareness. Fright is a vital instinct. It points to danger; it’s a warning signal. That said there are other forms of fear which are not so useful. Perhaps the most debilitating of all is dread.

Dread and other forms of debilitating fear can overwhelm us and lead to crippling forms of anxiety which can inhibit us from simply living and being. When we are overcome by such emotions everything can appear bleak; our senses become dulled; it drains all the colour and taste from life. This leads to us projecting our anxiety and worry onto everything that we do in life; it takes the very life out of living and leads to abject misery. It drags us into pits of depression and traps us in the very things that we believe protect us from present dangers. As a result, we go deeper into ourselves and get lost and trapped in our black holes of doom and gloom. It can be very difficult to find our way out of these states of being. It sucks the life out of us and stops us being who we really are, all that we can be.

So how do we overcome the power of this debilitating fear? How do we find the courage just to be? Something I experienced once again on Monday.

Well I have discovered that it is not complicated. All it takes is just a little faith and a little love to create the courage just be. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Which of course it is, but it is far from easy.

This brings to mind a verse from one of my favourite hymns, that we sang earlier, “Others call it God”

The verse goes like this...

“A picket frozen on duty,
A mother starved for her brood,
And Socrates drinking hemlock,
And Jesus on the rood;
An millions, who though nameless,
The straight, hard pathway trod –
Some call it consecration,
And others call it God.”

The straight hard pathway of faith is not easy, but it is well trod.

The images depicted in this verse are of characters who had the courage to do what they believed they were there to do, whether a picket on duty, or a mother looking after her children or the likes of Jesus and Socrates who were willing to sacrifice their lives for love or truth...inspirations to me, inspirations to us all, inspirations that still sing to us down two millenniums or more.

Socrates was charged by the Athenian council with “corrupting the minds of the young, and of believing in deities of his own invention instead of the gods recognised by the state.”

He courageously contested the charges against him, but ultimately lost and as a result was condemned to die. He accepted the judgement of his peers, while responding with these immortal words “The difficulty is not so much to escape death...The real difficulty is to escape from doing wrong, which is far more fleet of foot.”

He did not fear death because he felt that it would take nothing from him of value. As he said to the court “I have never lived an ordinary life...I did not care for the things that most people care about – making money, having a comfortable home, high military or social rank.” Neither did he fear what death would bring which he saw as either the sweetest sleep or a journey to a better place, a place of justice. As he proclaimed, “nothing can harm a good man either in life or after death.”

Socrates would rather have surrendered his life, than his integrity. Both in life, as in death, he perfectly illustrated the courage to be. He had the integrity and therefore courage to say, “I have a more sincere belief than any of my accusers, and I leave to you and to God to judge me as it shall be best for me and for yourselves.”

“Jesus on the rood” (Jesus on the cross) like “Socrates drinking hemlock” is another incredible example of someone living out the courage to be. This is truly an example and beacon to us all. He was not immune from fear though. He experienced fear and doubt at the very end, as he hung dying on the cross. Who wouldn’t? In the Gospel accounts of his life, he rarely quoted scripture, but at this moment he did. That said he did not quote the comforting 23rd Psalm “I shall walk through the valley of the shadow of death and fear no evil for thou are with me”. No, instead he quoted the much starker 22nd Psalm “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me?” He did not quote the comforting words “My cup runneth over”, instead he cried out “I thirst”.

Some might say where is the courage here? Well, it is in what comes next, as he utters “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” In these words, lies the essence of his message of radical love. For Socrates integrity gave him the strength to be; whereas for Jesus it was love; the love of God and the love of neighbour as for self. He surrendered himself utterly to his purpose and to his God as he uttered those immortal words “Father, I commend my life unto thy spirit.”

This is where we find the courage to truly be, to overcome the power of unnatural fear, through living in and through love, truth and integrity. Love will always overcome fear; love will always enable us to find the courage to truly be all that we can be. Again as the verse depicts, it is love that enabled the picket to stand in the freezing cold, to stand up for what they believed in; it is love that motivated the mother to sacrifice herself for her children; it is love that enabled both Jesus and Socrates to make their ultimate sacrifices.

We will always know the emotion of fear; we will always feel fear. We need it, fear is a natural instinct. That said we need not be enslaved by it. We need not fear the crows perched above us. To be free all we need do is live in integrity, live in love and the courage to simply be will shine, from our very being. In doing so not only do we liberate ourselves, but we will become a light to others who in turn may be inspired to liberate themselves and others too.

Let love and truth show us the way to be all that we can be.

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

Do not fear the future: It is unwritten

We all stand at the beginning of a new year, none of us knowing what the future will hold, it truly is unwritten. The book of life is open waiting for us to mark it with our stories and when it is written to look back on it and give it whatever meaning we find. Yes the pages truly are blank and for some this can appear a scary proposition, but should we fear the unknown? Surely the excitement and the energy of life is in the unknown and the unknowing?

I have had time to take stock on the year now gone these last few days. On a purely material scale it has been a bad year, one filled with loss. There are several people I have loved deeply and who have loved me who are no longer in my life and I have felt and noticed this gap in recent weeks, especially around Christmas. Right from the beginning of the year up until Christmas I received sad news at the loss of people who have touched my life and I theirs. I have stood and wept at too many bedsides this last twelve months and attended and dare I say conducted more funerals than I would have wanted. I have probably shed more tears these last 12 months than during any other year of my life.

I attended the funeral of a dear sweet old friend only two days before Christmas. A young woman who died of an illness I thank God I found merciful release from, she was only 41. After the funeral myself and three old mates spent some time together and talked of old days, happier days and as we remembered laughter came forth. It was lovely to spend time with old friends. I only wish it could have been in happier circumstances. I drove back that afternoon, in the pouring rain with tears rolling down my cheeks as I thought of other friends, sadly no longer with us. About half way across the Pennines at that wonderful spot, Stott Hall Farm, my thoughts turned to friends I have got to know in more recent times, especially these last 12 emotional months. Thoughts of a young woman I have got to know in recent months came into my mind. It has been a real joy watching her grow spiritually and really come alive, following a difficult time in her life. What came to my mind was how much she reminded me of my friend Cath, whose funeral I had just attended. It was not so much that they looked alike, more how much they were alike in spirit, almost the very same personality. As I continued to drive in the pouring rain and the howling wind I found I just couldn’t get the image of her out of my mind.

Eventually I arrived back in Altrincham. Now for some reason before going home I decided to go to Tesco’s as I needed one or two things for a party I was attending that evening. A party I wasn’t sure I really had the stomach for at that precise moment in time. I drove around the car park trying desperately to find a space, feeling increasingly frustrated. Finally I did and then I headed into the store, tears still forming in my eyes. As I got to the top of the escalator I looked up and almost walked straight into a friend (a man who too had found merciful release from the same illness) who I had last seen at dear old Geoffrey Head’s funeral only a couple of weeks before. I had only discovered at the funeral that this man had lived next door to Geoffrey for many years. We spoke for a few minutes and as I walked away my friend said "the last thing you need on a day like this is the mayhem of a packed supermarket, why don’t you just go home." I thought for a moment that maybe I should, but said to myself. "no I need to get this shopping done." I wandered about in a bit of daze and picked up a few items and then headed for the check out. I stood there for a few moments and then something in me stirred me to go get something from another aisle and so I turned around and carried on shopping. And then I saw a sight that turned my face upside down…

There she was the very same young woman who had come into my mind, who so much had the same spirit as my dearly departed friend Cath. I approached her, said hi and we talked for quite some time. As we did I could feel myself once again coming back to life. I’m sure I was a bit odd, I’m sure she thought so as I recounted what had happened that day. By the way she too was buying supplies for the same party we were both going to that evening.

As I walked away I just smiled and laughed to myself and offered thanks and praise for this beautiful moment of synchronicity. As I walked away that beautiful poem by Wordsworth came to mind, words I always think of as I pass Stott Hall Farm, the very same place where images of that young woman had wandered into my mind.

“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.”

“Spots of time” are moments in our lives that have the potential to change us forever. Moments 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; moments when we experience reality on a deeper level.

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 soul. These moments are so special because they seem so rare. I suspect that they are a kind of grace; they seemingly come to us, from a place somewhere beyond ourselves.

As I reflect back on the last twelve months of my life such moments have become less rare. Now is this because they have happened more frequently or is it because I am just far more aware of them than I ever was before? All I know is that people, places and things that have lifted me up when I have seemingly fallen. All I can say is thank you for the blessings, despite the sadness.

So as I stand here at the beginning of a new year it would be easy to do so with a sense of fear, but I do not. Instead I stand here with a sense of anticipation of what might be if I continue to “Choose Life”, with all its blessings and curses and stay open and awake, with an undefended heart, as to what might just be.

It is so easy to take the opposite view, to look at the year just gone, to see all that has gone wrong and to therefore face the future in fear and or dread of how things might turn out. We really do not know, the future truly is unwritten.

Fear comes in many forms, but we need not live in fear of fear itself. Fear is a vital part of our makeup, of our animal heart. It sets the pulses racing and heightens our awareness. Fright is a vital instinct. It points to danger, it’s a warning signal. That said there are other forms of fear which are not so useful. Perhaps the most debilitating of all is dread.

Dread and other forms of debilitating fear can overwhelm us and lead to crippling forms of anxiety which can inhibit us from simply living and being. When we are overcome by such emotions everything can appear bleak; our senses become dulled; it drains all the colour and taste from life. This leads to us projecting our anxiety and worry onto everything that we do in life; it takes the very life out of living and leads to abject misery. It drags us into pits of depression and traps us in the very things that we believe protect us from present dangers. As a result we go deeper into ourselves and get lost and trapped in our black holes of doom and gloom. It can be very difficult to find our way out of these black holes. It sucks the life out of us and stops us being who we really are, all that we can be.

So how do we overcome the power of this debilitating fear? How do we find the courage to continue to “choose life”?

Well it takes just a little faith and a little love to create the courage to "choose life", to accept what is in front of us. Sounds simple doesn’t it? Which of course it is, but it is far from easy. I believe in love and I believe in life and through living in love and remaining open to life, despite its difficulties I find the courage to “choose life”, to overcome the power of unnatural fear. Love will always overcome fear; love will always enable us to find the courage to truly be all that we can be.

We will always know the emotion of fear, we will always feel it. We need it, it is a natural instinct. That said we need not be enslaved by it. We need not live in fear of fear itself. To be free all we need do is live with integrity, live in love and to continue to “choose life”. In doing so not only do we liberate ourselves, we will be a light to others who in turn may be inspired to liberate themselves and others too.

We cannot escape the pain and suffering that accompanies the joy of living. If we want to know the love present in life we also have to accept the pain and suffering we all experience in life too, no one is exempt from this. As we all know only too well.

As we all look back at the last 12 months of our lives I’m certain we have all experienced success and failure this year; that we have all known the joy of new life and experiences, I know that I have. I am certain too that we have all known the pain and suffering of illness and death, if not in our lives, then in the lives of those we hold most dear. Life truly is awry. It humbles me every day.

When the difficulties come we all cry out in pain and ask why is this happening to me? We ask for our own cup of suffering to be removed, but eventually most of us accept reality, we surrender to it and in our own ways cry out “Thy will, not mine, be done”. We get what we get in life, whether we deserve it or not, we certainly can’t avoid some things and if we try to all we really avoid is life’s beauty. No one can escape the suffering that is present in life. If we attempt to all that we succeed in doing is blocking ourselves off from life’s beauty and then we experience the worst kind of suffering; the suffering within the suffering, the ache of loneliness.

So my message to you as we step out into this New Year, this blank page, full of new possibilities is to continue to “choose life”, it is to live with your senses wide open to the love present in those many unexpected moments. If we do life will touch us and bless us even when it really hurts. If we keep our senses open we will be blessed by “spots of time”, that will truly lift us up when fallen.

I'm going to end this little chip of a blogspot with these beautiful thoughts...

“Beginning again on the continuous Journey” by Marta I Valentin

By the grace of the Divine Power,
which is larger hearted than we can ever imagine
we are constantly given the opportunity
to begin again
as the signposts along the continuous journey
suggest twists and turns we had not brought into view,
for the focus was on the mountain just up ahead
beyond the ridge….

By the faith of the Divine Power
that lives through the trust of our human ability
we are constantly offered the challenge to test the waters,
not just smooth the inevitable ripples
to a satiny gloss finish as if
that were the goal in life,
losing all character by not realizing:
the swells are what make life
interesting, intriguing, and indescribable.

By the law of the Divine Power,
whose very core is compassion
for our earthly missteps on this journey,
we are constantly given an opening
to remember that we each have a place
in the kin-dom* of humanity,
and the knowledge”
and courage to begin again toward a faith-filled,
loving grace that is our birthright.

*from Ana Maria Isasi-Diaz

Palm Sunday: Finding the Courage to Be

“Unbound from Yesterday’s Fears”

“If God is the ground of being, as I believe God is, then the only way you and I can worship God is by having the courage to be all that we can be – in the infinite variety of our humanity. Whether we are male or female, gay or straight, transgender or bisexual, white or black or yellow or brown, left-handed or right-handed, brilliant or not so brilliant.

No matter what the human difference is, you have something to offer in your own being. Nobody else can offer what you have to offer. And, the only way you can worship God is by daring to be all that you can be and not be bound by the fears of yesterday”

Words of John Shelby Spong in “Living the Question 2.0”

Today is Palm Sunday the day in the Christian Calendar that marks the “triumphant” entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. It is also the beginning of “Holy Week”, the most important week in the Christian Calendar. This is a week filled with all kinds of emotion and turbulence or so the story says. It ends with Easter Sunday a day of re-birth, resurrection and new beginnings. It is a week of love and betrayal, fear, courage and faith.

Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem was an important stage on his journey, a journey that was to end in betrayal, pain and humiliation. An end that he knew was coming, according to the Gospel accounts. In Luke’s Gospel he speaks of being fully aware of what he was heading towards. In chapter 9 vv 44 he tells his disciples “Let these words sink into your ears: The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human hands.” So he enters Jerusalem with knowledge of what he is going to have to endure. He knows and accepts that his journey is going to be hard and will cause a great deal of suffering, but he accepts what is ahead of him; he accepts the reality of the situation.

That said this is not without fear and doubt, both are present during this final week of Jesus’ life. In Gethsemane, just before he is betrayed he goes off to pray alone, as he often did to commune with God (Mark 14.36). He threw himself to the ground, wept bitterly and prayed a simple prayer “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet not what I want, but what you want.” In these words of desperation he is expressing the inner turmoil he is experiencing; he is expressing the real fear he is experiencing. He is facing his quest alone and he is obviously frightened, that said in this moment he accepts what is in front of him; he surrenders to it and accepts what he believes he must do. He then goes to meet his accusers face to face. He finds the courage to be.

Five days after the triumphant entry of Palm Sunday Jesus is crucified. He accepts that this is part of his journey, but not without fear and doubt. How could there not be fear and doubt? He has had face this agonising death alone, he has been rejected by everyone, even his closet companions. Remember the moments before he died he did not quote the comforting words of the 23^rd Psalm “I shall walk through the valley of the shadow of death and fear no evil for thou are with me.” No, instead he quoted the much starker 22^nd Psalm  “My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me? He did not quote the comforting words “My cup runneth over”, instead he cried out “I thirst”.

The story does not end there though, the real power in the narrative comes in what he utters next, as he cries out those immortal words “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” In these words lies the courage to be who he truly is; in these words he expresses his faith; in these words he expresses the power of love; the love of God and the love of neighbour as for self. In this moment he surrenders himself to his purpose and to his God as he utters those immortal words “Father, I commend my life unto thy spirit.”

Now it may be difficult for we who live in the 21^st century to identify with this. What can the Holy Week narrative teach we who live in our time and place? Surely we will never endure such agony and surely we will never be abandoned by everyone to face our struggle alone?

Well let’s look a little more closely. I’m sure we all experience paralysing fear from time to time and I am sure that we have all experienced that sense of utter abandonment as we have had to face our struggles alone, which in the end we all have to do from time to time. Yes of course we all have love and we have support, but sometimes we have to face the pain and struggle alone. No one else can give us the courage to be who we truly are, this only comes in facing up to life’s vicissitudes.

And where do we find that courage? Where do we find the courage to be, to live open and faithful lives, in spite of all the difficulties? Well no doubt we all understand that differently. For me it is prayer. When I stop fighting life and reconnect through prayer I always find the courage to be.

Now some people will tell us that if we are experiencing fear, that we are not living very faithful lives, but is this true? Well I for one do not believe that for one second. Faith is not diminished by the presence of fear. Quite the opposite actually faith is about finding the courage to be who we truly are, to do what we must do, in spite of the very real presence of fear. As Rabbi Earl Grollman said "Courage is not the absence of fear and pain, but the affirmation of life despite fear and pain."

Fear comes in many forms, but we need not live in fear of fear itself. Fear is a vital part of our makeup, of our animal heart. It sets the pulse racing and heightens our awareness. Fright is a vital instinct. It points to danger, it’s a warning signal. That said there are other forms of fear which are not so useful. Perhaps the most debilitating of all is dread.

Dread and other forms of debilitating fear can overwhelm us and lead to crippling forms of anxiety which can inhibit us from simply living and being. When we are overcome by such emotions everything can appear bleak; our senses become dulled; it drains all the colour and taste from life. This leads to us projecting our anxiety and worry onto everything that we do in life; it takes the very life out of living and leads to abject misery. It drags us into pits of depression and traps us in the very things that we believe protect us from present dangers. As a result we go deeper into ourselves and get lost and trapped in our black holes of doom and gloom. It can be very difficult to find our way out of these black holes. It sucks the life out of us and stops us being who we really are, all that we can be.

So how do we overcome the power of this debilitating fear? How do we find the courage just to be?

 Well it takes just a little faith and a little love to create the courage to just be, to accept what is in front of us. Sounds simple doesn’t it? Which of course it is, but it is far from easy. I believe in love and I believe in life and through living in love and remaining open to life, despite its difficulties I find the courage to truly be, to overcome the power of unnatural fear. Love will always overcome fear; love will always enable us to find the courage to truly be all that we can be.

We will always know the emotion of fear, we will always feel it. We need it, it is a natural instinct. That said we need not be enslaved by it. We need not live in fear of fear itself. To be free all we need do is live with integrity, live in love and the courage to simply be will shine out of us. In doing so not only do we liberate ourselves, we will be a light to others who in turn may be inspired to liberate themselves and others too.

We cannot escape the pain and suffering that accompanies the joy of living. If we want to know the love present in life we also have to accept the pain and suffering we all experience in life too, no one is exempt from this. As we all know only too well.

Just look at the last 12 months of you who reads this blogs life and the lives of those around you. I’m certain you have experienced success and failure this year and that you have also known the joy of new life and experiences, I know that I have. I am certain too that we have all known the pain and suffering of illness and death, if not in our lives, then in the lives of those we hold most dear. Life truly is awry.

When the difficulties come we all cry out in pain and ask why is this happening to me? We ask for our own cup of suffering to be removed, but eventually most of us accept reality, we surrender to it and in our own ways cry out “Thy will, not mine, be done”. We get what we get in life, whether we deserve it or not, we certainly can’t avoid some things and if we try to all we really avoid is life’s beauty. No one can escape the suffering that is present in life. If we attempt to all that we succeed in doing is blocking ourselves off from life’s beauty and then we experience the worst kind of suffering; the suffering within the suffering, the ache of loneliness.

There is a universal message in the Palm Sunday Narrative and I believe that this where the power lies. Jesus enters Jerusalem ready to take on the might of the Roman empire, to set his people free and it appears that everyone is behind him. They lay down their palms and welcome both him and his message of radical love, this continues and builds during the first half of Holy Week. And then what happens? Within days he is betrayed, abandoned, tortured and executed. He is left alone in fear to face his fate. He resists, he fights against it and then he surrenders and finds the courage to be all that he is meant to be and in the end love prevails. From what appears to be utter failure, somehow love shines through in the most unexpected of ways.

This is where hope is found in this place of utter despair, love shines through eternal. Isn’t this what it’s all about? If we live in faith and find the courage to be who we truly are, to live in love despite life’s difficulties, we will be all that we are meant to be. We will know love and we will know what it is to be free.

Remember Easter is nearly here. Easter a day of re-birth, resurrection and new beginnings. Winter is over and spring is singing out it’s re-birth.

I will end this little chip of a blog with the following by Thich Nhat Hanh

 After a long meditation, I wrote this poem. In it, there are three people: the twelve-year-old girl, the pirate, and me. Can we look at each other and recognize ourselves in each other? The title of the poem is "Please Call Me by My True Names," because I have so many names. When I hear one of the of these names, I have to say, "Yes."

Call Me by My True Names

Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow 

because even today I still arrive.

Look deeply: I arrive in every second 

to be a bud on a spring branch, 

to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile, 

learning to sing in my new nest, 

to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower, 

to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry, 

in order to fear and to hope. 

The rhythm of my heart is the birth and 

death of all that are alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river,

and I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time 

to eat the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily in the clear pond, 

and I am also the grass-snake who, approaching in silence, 

feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones, 

my legs as thin as bamboo sticks, 

and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat,

who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate,

and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my hands,

and I am the man who has to pay his "debt of blood" to, my people,

dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all

walks of life.

My pain if like a river of tears, so full it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names, 

so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once, 

so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names, 

so I can wake up, 

and so the door of my heart can be left open, 

the door of compassion.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Dread: “A ship in the harbour is safe, but that's not what ships are built for.”

The other morning I was walking to my car, about to set off, when I saw a woman getting out of hers about to go into the large school room, for an exercise class. I looked at her, nodded, smiled and said hello. She had a terrified look on her face and then she began to speak. She said “Every week I come here and when I set off I do not know why I am coming.” She continued “Every week I have this horrendous feeling of dread in my stomach, I almost feel sick with fear” “And yet every week once I get started I really enjoy it and feel so much better afterwards.” We spoke for a few minutes about, fear anxiety and faith and then some of the other women arrived for the class, so I left and went about my business. It was interesting to note that although she dreaded coming every week, she was still the first to arrive.

Anyway I drove off and began ruminating about Dread! Like you do!

Fear comes in many forms. Fright is a vital part of our human make up, we really need it. It points to danger etc, it’s a warning signal. There are though other forms of fear which are not useful at all. Perhaps the most debilitating is dread.

Dread is a crippling form of anxiety. It is fed by our desire to control what is beyond our control, the world in which we live. We want to be safe, we want to be secure, but is this realistic? Is life really about being safe and secure? I am not convinced that it is. Sadly, it would appear, when some folk begin to see this reality they can become crippled by the dread of life itself.

Dread is the ultimate in negativity. It can make everything appear bleak. It dulls the senses, turns colours into shades of grey and takes all the taste out of life. It leads to folk projecting all their anxiety and worry onto everything that they do in life and thus takes the very life out of living. It leads to misery.

At it’s worse dread can lead to us into a pit of depression. It traps us with the very things that we believe protect us from the dangers that we see in life. As a result we go deeper into ourselves, until we become lost and trapped within our own black hole. It can be very difficult to find our way out of this black hole. We certainly can’t just dig ourselves out.

I am of course familiar with dread, it did in days gone by rule much of my life. From a young age it would often come over me on Sunday afternoons and evenings, usually when Bullseye was on or Surprise Surprise, I think that’s why I preferred to out of the house, so as to deny the reality of returning to school. It was the same in my late teens and twenties, but by then alcohol had become a solution to that hideous feeling in my stomach and everything else for that matter. I really didn’t enjoy having to conform to reality. I am of course a much different man today. I have discovered the gift of reality, I know that this is where the joy of living is to be found.

A friend of mine recently posted this on Facebook:

“A ship in the harbour is safe, but that's not what ships are built for.”

Of course this isn’t entirely true, ships aren’t always safe in the harbour. Think about the destruction of the American fleet at Pearl Harbour. That said I did get her point. By living safely in what we know, the old familiar we may well remain safe, but that really isn’t what life is about. It’s about living, it’s about taking risks, it’s about being out of this state of control from time to time. We cannot protect ourselves from life’s dangers, from suffering. In fact by even trying to do so we end up suffering from something far worse “The suffering within the suffering”, we end up not living at all, we stagnate, we lose everything that makes us human, we do not make best use of the gifts we have been given. What a waste! Dread can be soul destroying and life taking. It disconnects us from life itself.

Grief can often lead to dread, whether through the loss of a loved one or through repeated failure or rejection in life. These losses, these defeats can lead us to believe that we will never know joy again. As Forrest Church highlights Dread combines the fear of death with the fear of life. It makes us fully aware of the fragility of life, but  without  an appreciation of its preciousness. Therefore the risk required to find colour and flavour in life is seen as hopeless. We say “why take any chance”; we say  “nothing ventured, nothing lost”; we say “Why bother?” We withdraw from life, retreat into ourselves until it all looks grey and bleak again. We lose our taste for life. We live disconnected lives.

So what’s the solution? Well for me it’s quite simply to have a little faith; to not allow that feeling in your stomach to rule. The lady I met outside the large school room seemed to have it, in spite of her fear, she just needs to learn how not to spoil her morning before arriving at the class. But does this truly deal with the causes of dread? No not really, it only offers a temporary solution to the immediate difficulty. It deals with anxiety one dread at a time, but it doesn’t fully solve the real problem. What about the big picture?

Well it won’t surprise my regular readers to hear that I believe Forrest Church offers a solution.

He said:

"...When suffering overwhelms hope, as it sometimes will, life’s burden feels too heavy for us to shoulder; it may in fact be too heavy to shoulder on our own. We must then turn to others and to God for strength. And for encouragement. Encouraged, we once again take heart. In the face of dread’s most persuasive argument, mustering the courage to act, love, and be, we answer fear’s no with a saving yes”

We are not alone and we do not need to try and face life alone. By reaching beyond ourselves we can find the courage to live and to be all that we are able to be. If we do we will see life in all its colour and taste it in all its flavour. Sometimes that will mean we will get hurt and even seemingly fail, but at least we will be fully alive. We will be connected to life itself.

So yes a ship is seemingly safe if left in the harbour, but it really isn’t what they are made for.