Hope & Enthusiasm: A 200th Anniversary Celebration

Today we marked 200 years of our free religious tradition here in the town of Altrincham. 200 years ago they formed this fellowship of love and service in the town and they have continued sailing in it for many generations. They did so in hope and with genuine enthusiasm. I am very aware that today we stand on the shoulders of giants as we look ahead as a free religious faith offering hope to a community and world that does at times seem so divisive…I believe that this free religious tradition that I serve has much to offer our world, as those who came before us did. I live with hope in my heart that we can continue to build on those firm roots that those who came before us planted. A solid trunk grew from those roots and many branches have stretched from it, leading to buds and leaves and fruits that have flowered and nourished so many.

Today we celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Unitarian congregation in Altrincham.

We who live today are connected to both the past and the future, we are links in a chain of history. It is our task to do the best we can with this our link in this time and place. We cannot shape the whole world, but we can do something in this our time and place, in full knowledge that this will influence the whole of history…Everything matters you know, every breath, every feeling, every thought, every deed impacts in some way on the chain of life…Everything matters…

The fellowship of love that we sail in today is a place of nurture where the spirit can grow, but not alone. We do not sail this ship alone we do so in community with one another and with that eternal spirit that is present in all life and yet greater than it all. Our tradition is as much about community as it about individual freedom, something that seems lost in modern spirituality, something that is so needed in our time…We come together in love and to grow and flower in that same spirit…

Here we stand on holy ground. Here the spirit has spoken and been heard, just as the burning bush spoke to Moses. Here the Divine can speak to each of us, as it has for generations and encourage us to keep on moving forward to new freedoms. This though is not holy ground because it is especially sacred. No it is holy ground because we consecrate it with our presence and the spirit that grows in and through us, that we bring to this place. Our task here is to increase the holiness and then take it out into our world where the worst aspects of humanity keep on desecrating.

As Wendell Barry so beautifully put it. “There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places.” It is the task of this our free religious faith to nurture the sacredness from which we are formed and to carry that out into our world, through our lives…Everything matters you know, every breath, every feeling, every thought, every deed impacts in some way on the chain of life…Everything matters…

Trees and bushes have been speaking to me all this year, as have the beautiful flowers that grow from them. It really began at the end of last year, at a time of loss and pain in my own life and those I hold most dear. My sister, our Mand, told me of a single rose she had seen right in the midst of winter, both physical winter and a personal winter too. This rose lifted her spirit and as she told me of it, it lifted me too. That winter rose brought hope that love will survive any of the biting frost that can threaten our lives. This year I’ve been seeing roses everywhere, the most beautiful I have ever seen…They have become a symbol of hope to me…“And I’ll bring you hope, when hope is hard to find and I’ll bring a song of love and a rose in the winter time.”

Like absence of love a life lived without hope quickly becomes empty and meaningless. Please do not get me wrong I’m not talking about optimism here, they are not the same. Optimism is about an expectation of something to come, whereas hope is more about allowing something to grow from within. It is a form of love incarnating in life, something that begins in our own hearts. Hope is knowing that something beautiful will grow, even from what feels like the worst kind of suffering. Hope always overcomes despair as meaning emerges from the suffering…To paraphrase Vaclav Havel “ Hope is an orientation of the spirit...It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out.”

Or as Erich Fromm observed “To hope means to be ready at every moment for that which is not yet born, and yet not become desperate if there is no birth in our lifetime, Those whose hope is weak settle for comfort or for violence; those whose hope is strong see and cherish signs of new life and are ready every moment to help the birth of that which is ready to be born.”

I see symbols of hope every day and I am certainly ready to help bring them to birth. I see them on the side of the road as I drive. Just like "The Tree of Lost Soles" I saw one day travelling to Warrington. A beautiful symbol made from the stump of an old tree and old discarded shoes. A symbol that has stayed with me this year as I see folk coming to life in my midst. All souls can indeed be found and can begin life again. I’ve seen it in the eyes of so many this year. So I live in hope. Why? Because even in the midst of winter a rose can grow and bring hope to all our lives.

So what can we do in our time and place, how do we plant seeds of hope in our time and place? How do we take care of our link in the chain of life, in the chain of history? How can we ready ourselves “to help bring to birth that which is ready to be born”?

Well I believe that it begins with two things. The first is to truly see our world and our shared life as a blessing, as a beautiful gift that we are a part of. This begins by first of all understanding that we too are blessings. We need to let this form and grow in our souls, our hearts and our minds and then bring it to life. We need to be filled with this spirit, to be enthused by it. To be enthusiastic. By the way that’s what enthusiasm means, from entheos to be filled with the spirit, with God. We need to be filled with this spirit and to set it free and begin to consecrate our world once more. We need to let hope become an orientation of our spirit and to bless our world with this enthusiasm. And do you know what if we do our world will become overflowing with roses, even in the depths of winter time.

I’m going to end today with a little story, entitled “Building a Cathedral” (Taken from "Concentration and Compassion" by Bill Darlison)

When the great Cathedral of Chatres was being built in the 13th century, a traveller happened to be passing by the construction site. He was amazed at the number of workers involved in the project and the variety of jobs being done. He approached a carpenter and asked, “What exactly are you doing here?”

“I’m sawing wood, what on earth does it look like I’m doing?” came the curt reply.

The traveller then approached a stonemason and asked him the very same question, to which he replied,

“I’m earning a living, I’ve got a wife and children to support.”

However, a third man, an unskilled worker who looked to be sweeping up after the others, said with a beaming smile, “Can’t you see? I’m building a cathedral!”

So I say to you let’s go build Cathedrals in our own hearts, let’s take them out into our world and make every inch of this world holy ground once more…Let us consecrate, let us bless everything and everyone we touch...Everything matters you know, every breath, every feeling, every thought, every deed impacts in some way on the chain of life…Everything matters…

“Cos I’ll bring you hope, when hope is hard to find and I’ll bring a song of love and a rose in the winter time,”

Are You Awake? Consciousness and Self-Consciousness

It is said that soon after his enlightenment that the Buddha passed a man on the road who was struck by the Buddha's extraordinary radiance and peaceful presence. The man stopped and asked, "My friend, what are you? Are you a celestial being or a god?"

"No," said the Buddha.

"Well, then, are you some kind of magician or wizard?"

Again the Buddha answered, "No."

"Are you a man?" "No."

"Well, my friend, then what are you?"

The Buddha replied, "I am awake"

The Buddha was awake, he was fully conscious to all that is and all that will ever be. He was fully integrated, he did not see himself as separate, well he did not see himself at all.

Now this is not a claim I would or could make about myself. I believe I am more awake these days than I have ever been in the past, but I am very aware of a sense of separation from time to time. That said I am more conscious than I ever was before. There is a simple reason for this I am less self-conscious than I once was. I feel more connected, at one, with all that is, than at any other time in my life. I feel conscious, I feel awake, but I used to be terribly self-consciousness and I suspect that it was this that was the very root cause of so much of that aching loneliness that used to eat away at me. I felt, separate, cut off, alone. How many of us feel like this, it is so much the plague of the modern age.

The other day I was chatting with my mum, it was a wonderful conversation. She was doing most of the talking. This is the case in most of the conversation I have these days. I like it this way. “Now the ears of my ears are awake.”

We got talking about childhood things and what life was like back then. I asked her a question, which I haven’t asked for years about a birth defect I suffered from. She went into detail explaining how when I was born some of the nerve endings at the base of my spine were underdeveloped. It was something akin to spina bifida, but in a less severe form. As a child I had to frequently go for physiotherapy and there was a period when I was not allowed to engage in any sport. I hated the feeling it engendered in me as I looked at the other kids running around in the playground, knowing I wasn’t allowed to join in.

It was a few years later when the pain really hit me though, in my mid to later teens when I was painfully aware of the way I walked. I waddled when I moved, I still do now. When it was my time to be teased at school I would be called "Penguin, cripple, crip, criptic acid and spina bifida." I remember walking down the street of the town I grew up in and whenever I saw someone walking towards me I would stand up straight and attempt to push my feet inwards in the vain hope that they wouldn’t think that there was something wrong with me. I must have looked a right sight.

I was just so terribly self-consciousness. I was just so locked in on what I believed was wrong with me. I’ve been thinking about this over the last few days and do you know what I’m not wholly convinced that the problem was my perceived physical imperfections. I suspect that if I’d been born without this physical difficulty the problem would have manifested in other areas of my life. The problem was the self-consciousness, I was locked in myself and therefore not fully conscious, I was separate and felt alone.

One thing I’ve learnt over the years is that I am not alone in this. So many of us suffer from this from of self-consciouness. We feel lost, lonely and cut off because we are locked in what we believe is wrong with us. Sometimes it is harder to see what is right, than what is wrong. This is a deeply lonely, isolated, way to be.

Socrates said that “The unexamined life is not worth living”. Now while not wishing to argue with the great philosopher I do wonder if the “over examined life” can prove just as worthless. It is so easy to get lost in oneself, wrapped up in our own underwear to such an extent that we do not live at all. We can become so self-conscious that we fail to become conscious of all that is and all that as ever been. It is so easy to become wrapped up in our own perceived needs that we fail to live in the world with others and then complain about feeling lonely. Yes it is important to examine ourselves, to understand who we are and what makes us tick, but that should not be an end in itself, a destination. It is a staging post in the spiritual adventure, but not the final destination.

Some label extreme self-absorption as Narcissism. A word taken from name of a boy of ancient Greek mythology named Narcissus who fell so in love with his own reflection that he fell into the water and drowned. Now I don't believe that it is entirely correct to name the type of self-consciousness I am discussing here as Narcissistic self-love. There seems very little love here at all. Quite the opposite in fact the pre-occupation is with what is wrong. What I'm describing is a deep form of self hatred and or loathing, not love.

When you look at your own reflection in the mirror, what do you see? Do you see someone that you love? Do you see who you really are? While many of us see ourselves warts and all, how many of us see the beauty spots too? The kind of self-absorption that most people I come into contact with suffer from tends to be a deeply ingrained negative type. The preoccupation is often with what is wrong with them, with their shame, rather than how wonderful they are. This is certainly not what Narcissus suffered from.

This kind of self-consciousness can become so consuming that it takes over our every human interactions. I wonder how many of us suffer from the following kind of commentary when we meet up with people. “What will they think of me?” “How do I look?” “If I say something, will they think I’m an idiot?” and then a little later, “He gave me a funny look, he must have thought me a fool. Why on earth did I have to make that stupid remark? Gosh I’m such a freak, they all seem to be staring at me.”

This kind of inner dialogue can be so crippling. It can haunt us from the moment we wake and continue throughout our day, eating away at our every decision. Oh and of course because we doubt ourselves and every decision we make, we assume that everyone else must be doing exactly the same thing. This kind of self-consciousness can be so inhibiting, so much so that it can block us off almost entirely from the world around us. We can become utterly consumed by this kind of self-consciousness, leading to us seeing the world entirely from this point of view. When we do the world does not look like a pretty place at all.

So what can we do about it? How do we wake up to a greater consciousness? How do we break free from this crippling self-consciousness?

In the Gospel accounts Jesus taught his followers that they must lose themselves in order to be found. This beautiful paradox taught that by emptying ourselves of our self-absorption we begin to be filled with the spirit of neighbourliness. So that when we look deeply into the still waters we are not drawn in by narcissistic self-consciousness and loathing at our own reflection, but rather into a deeper contemplation of our shared lives. We become conscious of all that is, all that has been and all that will ever be. By opening ourselves to and for others we begin to shed that debilitating skin of self-consciousness that it is so easy to become imprisoned in.

Gandhi said “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in service of others”

The Buddha talked of Nirvana, of being freed from the suffering that was the blight of humanity. He showed that we all suffered and that it was in seeing our suffering as individual that led to this sense of separation. He suggested that we needed to break through our suffering not only to serve others but to reach a higher state of being, true consciousness, to be awake.

Now please don’t get me wrong I am not suggesting that we neglect ourselves and that we do not need to understand how we tick. All I am saying is that we must not get stuck there, we must not get lost there and we must not see this as a destination, more a staging post on the journey. The adolescent stage I suspect. Sadly for many folk, me included, this adolescent stage often goes on well into adulthood.

So how do we move from self-consciouness to consciousness. How do we lose ourselves so that we can be found? Well Forrest Church in his wonderful book “Lifecraft” offered three simple suggestions, which he called the three “E’s”, “empathy”, “ecstasy” and “enthusiasm”. The key he claimed could be found in the literal understanding of these words. “Empathy”, to suffer or feel with another; “Ecstasy”, to stand outside ourselves; “Enthusiasm”, to manifest the god (theos) within us.

Empathy is a deep felt compassion. When we open our hearts empathically to another we are courageously refusing to allow self-consciousness to stand in the way of a higher consciousness that comes into being as we feel what another is going through. In so doing we serve both ourselves and the other person, as well as that higher consciousness beyond our singular selves.

Ecstasy is one of those words that has often been misunderstood as some kind of hedonistic state and therefore self- indulgent, it is far from this. In its truest sense what it actually does is take us out of ourselves and lifts us beyond our self created confines. In so doing we transcend our self-consciousness and enter a realm in which purpose begins to emerge and meaning is found.

Enthusiasm means to be filled with spirit, with holy energy. Enthusiasm allows us to be fully involved and engaged in whatever it is we are doing. It allows us to see beyond the confines we have created. Forrest himself states, drawing on the imagery of Narcissus, that “Here, once again, consciousness displaces self-consciousness. We escape from our mirrored room. Its mirrors turn into windows. Or the pond grows so still that we can see beyond our own reflection to the trees and clouds and birds and sun. There is, by the way, no higher form of spiritual practice. When we step out of our own shadow, consciousness replaces self-consciousness.”

Experience has revealed to me that in so doing we are set free to walk with others in our own faltering ways. Instead of being lost in what we believe is wrong with us we are set free to do what we can in this our shared world and in so doing we encourage others to do the same, as perfectly imperfect children of God, children of Love.

As I understand it the whole purpose of the spiritual life is to develop a deepening sense of connection. We all have our troubles and our worries either within ourselves, those around us or the wider world. We need to see them for what they are, we need to acknowledge the truth, but we must not get stuck there, for that will paralyse us and stop us doing what we can. We cannot change the way the world is but that need not prevent us from doing what we can do and in doing so we will grow spiritually as we become integrated into all that has been, all that exists and all that will ever.

As a kind of conclusion I’d like to end this little chip of a blog with one final thought, inspired by some wisdom that Forrest Church shared right at the end of his life.

So much of modern spiritually gets it wrong because it is seeking the wrong thing. There is so much talk of finding ourselves, when in actual fact what we ought to be doing is losing ourselves. What we ought to be striving for is integration and to let go of those aspects within ourselves that block this. We all ask the question “Who am I?” when really we ought to asking is “How am I doing? And if we are still feeling utterly dis-connected we need to ask why? And how can I integrate once again? You see if we can begin to integrate with all that is, all that has been and all that has ever been we begin to truly cohere. In doing so we transcend our self-consciousness and become conscious. We become spiritually mature. We become like the Buddha, awake.

So how conscious are you today? Are you truly awake?

Never Curb Your Enthusiasm

In “One Minute Wisdom” Anthony de Mello wrote

“To the woman who complained that riches hadn’t made her happy the Master said, ‘You speak as if luxury and comfort were ingredients of happiness; whereas all you need to be really happy, my dear, is something to be enthusiastic about’”

All you need is something to be enthusiastic about!

I received two very different phone calls on Monday evening from two people I hold very dear to my heart. The first was from someone really suffering with life, someone who had lost all the zest all the spirit from themselves. It was a real cry for help. They just could not face the world that day, they’d had enough. I listened; I really listened, as hard as it was to hear someone you love in such a desolate state. I empathised too as I had been in that very same place myself about 11 years ago. By the end of the conversation things seemed a little better, my loved one put down the phone in hope.

A little later I received a phone call from another friend, who was just full of it. He was full of the spirit of life, of love, of God. He was saying I know you are busy but in half an hour a new series of “Sorry I haven’t got a clue” is starting and Jack Dee (A very British Larry David) is the new compare, it will be really funny etc...It was just wonderful to hear this. Not because of what he was telling me, but just to hear the enthusiasm in his voice. Only eighteen months previously this friend had given up, he had had enough. He was suicidal and seriously so. That’s what brought such joy to my heart, to hear someone who had gone from the depths of his own private hell to such enthusiasm about a programme on radio 4.

Those two conversations once again showed to me how life, just like the sherbet lemons I love, can be so bitter sweet. It also once again showed that there is always hope, no matter how despairing things can seem.

I was naturally enthusiastic as a child, I think most children are. I use to more or less wet myself when going on new adventures or just fairground rides. The first time I flew I was shaking so much I could hardly get on the plane. I wasn’t shaking with fear, it was pure excitement and it was flowing out of me. I also remember how excited my brother use to get too. Every year as children we would go on holiday to Scarborough and one year, actually it was 1981 and just after Ian Botham’s defeat of the Australian’s at Headingley. We were staying at the same hotel as the Yorkshire cricket team; nothing could have been more exciting for two boys from Yorkshire. We had great fun with them. I was taught how to swim by Chris Old’s glamorous wife and how to drink whiskey and lemonade by Chris Old and David Bairstow. My brother though was more interested in getting his bat signed. He’d got the whole team to sign it, except for one, our greatest hero, Geoffrey Boycott.  One morning he saw him sat reading his newspaper and he plucked up the courage to ask him for his signature “Mr Boycott, Mr Boycott will you please sign my cricket bat.” There was no answer. So he asked him again “Mr Boycott, Mr Boycott will you please sign my cricket bat,” still no answer. Finally he asked him a third time “Mr Boycott, Mr Boycott, will you please sign my cricket bat.” This time he looked up ever so slightly and peered over his paper and said “I heard you the first time” and held out his hand and signed the bat and then returned to his paper. He said nothing more. This destroyed my brother; it completely curbed his enthusiasm for quite some time.

It is so easy to destroy the enthusiasm in others, especially if they are a little on the fragile side. That said we can also help to build enthusiasm in others too. Enthusiasm and cynicism are just as infectious as each other. I think this autumn we have been going through a cynical cycle. Some are probably relieved to witness this. For some folk the enthusiasm and high spiritedness of the summer was probably a bit a too much. Maybe we need a bit of both; perhaps they balance one another out. “Maybe, maybe not”! Personally I do not agree in curbing anyone’s enthusiasm, we need more of it! There can never be too much enthusiasm!

Oh by the way enthusiasm is one of those words that have changed in meaning over time. The etymology of words is something I am getting increasingly enthusiastic about. It is amazing to me how many words have been reduced in meaning and impact as time as gone on. Enthusiasm is one of those words.

Enthusiasm comes from two Greek words “Theos” (meaning “God”) and “En” (which means “in”). The words put together create “En-theos-ism, which literally means “to be filled with God” or “to have God within”.

When we think of enthusiasm today we think of being thrilled or uncontrollably excited about something. Like the first time I flew in an aeroplane as a child and I was shaking with enthusiasm or when my brother discovered that we were staying in the same hotel as the Yorkshire cricket team. Enthusiasm in its truest sense is actually much more than this, it is one of those words that we have tried to tame and it has therefore been reduced in meaning. Enthusiasm has a deeper and much more sustained and longer lasting quality, than the current understanding we have of it. It has a truly deeply spiritual quality. It means to be filled with the great spirit of all life; it’s about being in touch with that highest quality of life already within us and all life; it means that we are able to live and express this quality in all that we do. This becomes infectious as we pass it on to others and it becomes manifest in our daily human actions. My friend, who called the other day, was bursting with it and yet just eighteen months earlier he had lost the will to live, life had become empty and meaningless, he had lost the taste for it.

Enthusiasm gives us is the ability to be fully engaged with all of life, whether that’s a radio program, the sunrise, a conversation with an old or new friend, a walk alone in the park or the hug of a loved one, or just simply settling down with a good book. Enthusiasm is a deeply spiritual quality that allows us to fully live in the richness that is life, in our time and place.

To be truly happy in life all we need is something to be enthusiastic about. This can allow and enable us to do great things and it can inspire others to do the same.

Margaret M Stevens tells a story of three bricklayers who were asked by a passing stranger what they were building? The first answered rather gruffly “I’m just laying bricks”, he didn’t even look up to acknowledge the person asking the question. The second did look up for a brief moment and simply said “I’m putting up a wall” and then carried on. The third put down his trowel and rose to his feet and with great enthusiasm and obvious pride said “I’m building a cathedral”.

“I’m building a cathedral”

A person overflowing with enthusiasm gives all that they have. They tend to hold nothing back. They can do great things and they can inspire others to do likewise. They give all that is in them to life and life tends to reward them in turn. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said “Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. The way of life is beautiful; it is by abandonment.” Enthusiasm is about believing in life itself; it’s about being filled with life; with the spirit of life; it’s about knowing that God is in us. It is more than that though; it’s about expressing that in our lives and allowing it to spread throughout our world. The conversation I had with my friend on Monday certainly did that for me.

Enthusiasm can be infectious it can start to spread. In previous blogs I have written of my belief in the chaos theory of compassion. Well I believe that the same theory applies to enthusiasm. This can be infectious too. Last summer we were all lifted by the sporting spectacles throughout Britain, as my brother and I were by Botham and Willis’ heroics at that beloved cricketing cathedral of Headingly in 1981. This autumn we seem to have begun to slip back into cynicism once again as we have seen the negative side of humanity gain prominence. Both have power over us, both can live in and through us, but which one is it better to live by? Which one serves life? Well I for one want to live with enthusiasm and to share that with the world. If you like this is my religion.

In my view the purpose of the religious life is to discover ways to find and develop that natural enthusiasm at the core of our being and to share it with our world. You never know but that one phone call by my friend on Monday may lead to a tidal wave of enthusiasm all over this world. It certainly picked me up after a rather painful phone call had ended only minutes earlier.

I’d like to end this little chip of a blog by repeating a story I have shared before. I believe that it is definitely worth repeating. This is the story of “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.”

So I say never curb your enthusiasm, feed it and let that flavour flood out of you.

Life needs it.

Below is one of my favourite YouTube clips