Stories are never just stories. We become the stories that we tell ourselves.

“The Two Tribes” by Mark Nepo

“In the beginning, when the first humans came across each other, it went two ways. Upon seeing someone different, the more fearful one said, "You're different. Go away." The other, upon seeing someone not like him, said, "You're different. Come, teach me what I don't know." While our reasoning has grown more complicated throughout the centuries, it's essentially the same. "Go away" or "Come, teach me."

Since the beginning, the two tribes have had their philosophies. The "Go away" tribe has always believed that human beings, by their nature, are self-serving and untrustworthy, in need of control. The "Go away" tribe believes in stringent laws and constraints, both moral and legal, to ensure that people don't run amuck. The "Come, teach me" tribe believes that human beings, by their nature, are kind and trustworthy. The "Come, teach me" tribe believes in empowering laws that cultivate freedom, to ensure that people actualize their web of gifts through relationship.

The truth is that we are born into both tribes and can move from one to the other, depending on the level of our fear. The times of genocide throughout history mark the extreme, malignant manifestation of the "Go away" tribe. Distorted by fear, it's not enough just to say, "Go away." For unbridled fear turns to anger, which normalized turns into prejudice and hate. Such deep, embedded fear dictates that we need to make sure that those who are different can't return. And so, we exile them, jail them, hurt them, and in extremely ugly cases, persecute and kill them.

However, the times of enlightenment throughout history mark the extreme manifestation of the "Come, teach me" tribe, which through learning and wonder leads to eras of compassion and cooperation. Empowered by trust, curiosity turns into interdependence and a belief that we are more together than alone. When allowed to blossom, we realize that we need each other and our diversity of gifts to make life whole.”

“Stories are never just stories. We become the stories that we tell ourselves.”

A traveller was riding through the countryside. He was heading to the city for a wedding. He had been riding for some time when he realised he had become lost. He noticed a man sauntering along, happy in his own thoughts. The traveller thought he had better approach him and ask for directions. Unfortunately, he was unaware that the man he was approaching was Nasruddin. There may be trouble ahead…

The man approached Nasruddin and asked, "What is the best way to get to the city.”

Nasruddin looked up at the man and then looked ahead, before looking backwards. He looked up at the sky, before looking down once more and contemplated for some time. He then looked up at the man again before looking ahead, only slightly to the right this time. He then looked back at the man and began to speak: "Well, if I were going there, I wouldn't start from here."

Whenever we set out on a journey, it matters where we start from, where our journey begins. Yes, it isn’t the journey, but it will impact on how we travel.

We never step into anything without a past; we carry the past with us to some degree or another. How we journey in life will be influenced by our starting point, by what we are taught either subliminally or deliberately. How we see ourselves, one another, and or the world, will impact on how we journey and how we meet life. It matters how we greet the world and how the world greets us. Where we begin from will have a bearing on the journey, on how we live each day. Are we come teach me people or go away people? It matters how we greet one another and or greet life.

The other day the following post appeared in my Facebook Feed. It is by social historian I follow “Rutger Bregman” Published on 20th February 2026

The BBC just released a new adaptation of Lord of the Flies, the classic novel by William Golding. It's beautifully made, but it's still telling the wrong story.

A few years ago, I went looking for the *real* Lord of the Flies. I wanted to know: has it ever actually happened? Have kids ever been shipwrecked on a deserted island?

It took me a year of research, but I found it. In 1965, six boys from a boarding school in Tonga stole a boat, got caught in a storm, and drifted for eight days without food or water. They washed up on 'Ata, a remote, uninhabited island in the Pacific. They stayed there for 15 months, and what happened on that island was the exact opposite of William Golding's novel.

These boys set up a small commune. They built a food garden, stored rainwater in hollowed-out tree trunks, created a gym with improvised weights, and built a badminton court. One of them, Stephen (who would later become an engineer) managed to start a fire using two sticks. They kept it burning the entire time.

Of course they fought too. But when they argued, they had a rule: go to opposite ends of the island, cool down, then come back and apologize. As one of them told me: ‘That's how we stayed friends.’

Back home, everyone assumed that the boys – Luke, Stephen, Sione, David, Kolo and Mano — were dead. When they were finally discovered by an Australian captain named Peter Warner, he radioed their names to Tonga. After twenty minutes, a tearful response came back: ‘You found them! These boys have been given up for dead. Funerals have been held. If it's them, this is a miracle!’

Peter commissioned a new ship, hired all six boys as his crew, and named the boat the Ata, after the island where he found them. They remained friends for the rest of their lives – Peter and Mano even became soulmates. I tracked them down, and it became one of the central chapters of my book Humankind.

Here's what struck me most: William Golding (the author of Lord of the Flies) was a troubled man, an alcoholic who once said ‘I have always understood the Nazis, because I am of that sort by nature.’ I think he was projecting his own darkness onto children. And we turned it into a lesson about human nature that we teach to millions of kids around the world.

I think the real lesson is the opposite. When real children found themselves alone on a real island, they didn't descend into savagery. They cooperated. They took care of each other. They survived.

I'm not saying that the Tongan castaways were representative of all kids everywhere. But I am saying that every kid who has to read or watch the fictional Lord of the Flies also deserves to know what actually happened when it played out in real life.

Stories are never just stories. We become the stories that we tell ourselves.

I remember when I first learnt of this account back in 2020 at the beginning of lockdown it had a profound effect on me, as did his book “Humankind”. In the true story of the “Lord of Flies” when school boys were lost, stranded, on a desert island they did not descend into chaos and destruction. What they did do was take care of one another, in fact they found ways to not only survive, but to function as a community, until they were rescued. Why are we not taught this story? I didn’t learn about it in school. Why instead are we only taught the story of chaos and destruction, of distrust and greed. Why are we so carefully taught that we are by our nature wrong?

In the chapter “A New Realism” Rutger Bregman wrote in his book “Human Kind: A Hopeful History”

“Scenario:

An airplane makes an emergency landing, breaks into three parts, the cabin fills with smoke, everyone inside realises that they need to get out as soon as they can. Which scenario sounds more likely?

PLANET A: the passengers turn to their neighbours to ask if they’re ok, those needing assistance are helped out of the plane first, people are willing to risk their own lives to help random strangers.

PLANET B: everyone is left to fend for themselves, there is a mad rush for the exit, panic breaks out, there’s lots of pushing and shoving, the children/elderly/disabled are trampled by the mad crowd as they rush out

97% of people estimate that we live on Planet B, that mass panic is the most likely. But it has been found in almost every case that we live on Planet A – we are kind and we help each other where we can. If you watch the Titanic movie it looks like panic, but if you ask people who were actually there they say that the evacuation was actually quite orderly. Or think of September 11 – as the twin towers burned, thousands of people calmly descended the emergency stairs, even though their lives were in immediate danger. They stepped aside for firefighters, they let the injured be carried ahead of them. People would actually stop and say “no on, you go first” or “please take my place” – there was no madness.

There is a persistent myth that by our very nature humans are selfish, aggressive and quick to panic. Dutch biologist Frans de Waal calls this “veneer theory”, the notion that civilisation is nothing but a thin veneer that could crack under the slightest pressure. But in actual fact, in times of crisis (when bombs are being dropped or flood waters are rising), then we humans become our best selves. We may have a good side and a bad side, but there is considerable scientific evidence showing that in times of crisis we overwhelmingly turn to our good side.”

Much like Nepo highlights in the story I shared earlier we are both types of people “The come teach me people” and the “go away people”. The problem is that we seem to believe that generally speaking we are “Go Away People” by nature and so is everyone else. We believe we are the fiction of William Goulding rather than the Tongan schoolboys who created structures to take care of each other. They knew that their lives depended upon them cooperating together on the remote island of “Ata”.

I believe we have both aspects, both potentials within us, “The come teach me” and the “go away”, we inhabit both planet A and planet B. That the aspect that comes to prominence is the one we develop. It matters what stories we tell about ourselves and one another, as the stories we tell becomes the life we will lead and the world we live in. This is the place where we will begin every journey, every single day of our lives.

This is beautifully illustrated in the following story:

An old man said to his grandson, “there’s a fight going on inside me, a terrible fight between two wolves. One is evil – angry, greedy, jealous, arrogant and cowardly. The other is good – peaceful, loving, modest, generous, honest, and trustworthy. These two wolves are fighting within you too… and every other person on the planet”

After a moment the boy asks “which wolf will win?”.

The old man smiles: “The One You Feed”.

It matters the stories that we tell of ourselves and one another. We have a natural reticence to speak of the good we do. In fact, those who do the most, prefer to do so anonymously. We do not follow the directive of Jesus from the “Sermon on the Mount”, we hide our light it would seem. The story we tell is not to speak of the good we do. Not everyone of course and actually those who do boast about their achievements can often overstate them. I don’t feel comfortable singing my praises or when others sing them to me. I know how uncomfortable I felt the other week when Jane Brophy the Mayor of Trafford did so publicly. This has been on my mind as have written and delivered eulogies for some wonderful folk recently. We seem to feel comfortable singing the praises of folk after they have died, but not while they are still alive.

How often have I heard people say when they do good things that they often disguise them behind some kind of selfish motive. Why do we tell these stories about ourselves, why do we make ourselves sound worse than we are? Why do we promote negative stories about ourselves? Why are we so uncomfortable with praise? I have seen examples only this week of people apologising for the good that they have done. It is charming and lovely and I recognise it in myself. That said it serves no one and actually leads to us telling negative stories about ourselves.

As Rutger Bregman noted in “Humankind”

“Unfortunately, this reticence works like a nocebo. When you disguise yourself as an egoist, you reinforce other people’s cynical assumptions about human nature. Worse by cloaking your good deeds, you place them in quarantine, where they can’t serve as an example for others. And that’s a shame, because Homo puppy’s secret superpower is that we’re so great at copying one another.”

Bregman suggest that we “come out” about our generosity as an example to others, to encourage them to do the same. To counteract the narrative of so-called human selfishness. That it is our nature to learn, to almost copy and mimic others, we like to fit in. therefore if we teach a frightening and scary and untrustworthy nature then this will be mimicked in others, thus creating a nocebo effect.

So maybe it is time to come out of the closet about who we are, to stop hiding our light. To stop suppressing our humanity. To recognise the instincts that are a part of our humanity. Yes, we are capable of hideous and heinous things. We only have to pick up any daily newspaper to see evidence of this, but this is not all that we are. We only hear the bad news about everything. We need to become the good news, the news the world needs to hear. Maybe it is time to start telling a different story about ourselves and one another.

“Stories are never just stories. We become the stories that we tell ourselves.”

I was recently talking to a young man. He is someone I have got to know over the last couple of years. It has been wonderful to see him grow as a person. That said he is like so many folk, he has a pretty cynical view of life and the state of the world. He tells me his generation is the hopeless one; he told me he had little or no hope for the world. I spoke with him and pointed out that humanity as been through much worse times that now and we have not destroyed ourselves. I told him that while I may not be a “cockeyed optimist” I do live in and by hope. I believe in our capacity. Yes, we are living through troubled times, but hope will carry us through, if we live by it, if it grows from our hearts. If we tell ourselves that all hope is not lost, that this can be the story we will live by and the road we can follow. I left him with the following quotation by Vaclav Havel

“Either we have hope within us or we don’t; it is a dimension of the soul, and it’s not dependent on some observation of the world. Hope is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond the horizons.

Hope in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.

Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism.

It is not the conviction, that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. It is Hope, above all, which gives the strength to live and continually try new things.”

I know how vital it is that hope is the starting point of each and every journey. It is what makes my heart sing.

“Stories are never just stories. We become the stories that we tell ourselves.”

The other week I shared some of the story of Oscar Hammerstein II, at the interfaith entertainment evening. I spoke of his Universalism, a faith whose story is one of Hope; that this Hope inspired his life and work; that he wrote songs of love and hope and social change. Here’s a classic from “South Pacific”

"A Cockeyed Optimist" Lyrics

When the sky is a bright canary yellow
I forget ev’ry cloud I’ve ever seen—
So they call me a cockeyed optimist,
Immature and incurably green!

I have heard people rant and rave and bellow
That we’re done and we might as well be dead—
But I’m only a cockeyed optimist,
And I can’t get it into my head.

I hear the human race
Is falling on its face
And hasn’t very far to go,
But ev’ry whip-poor-will
Is selling me a bill
And telling me it just ain’t so!

I could say life is just a bowl of Jell-O
And appear more intelligent and smart,
But I’m stuck like a dope
With a thing called hope,
And I can’t get it out of my heart!
Not this heart!

Now someone who is considered a “cockeyed optimist” is often mocked as naive, Pollyanna-ish and maybe they are. Maybe optimism in the sense of expectation is unrealistic, that said so is cynicism in the sense that this is how something will work out, that it is inevitable. I wouldn’t start any journey from that place. That said if you step out in hope in a belief in the potential, in our capacity then you might step out on a very different journey. This is Hope rather than optimism.

“Stories are never just stories. We become the stories that we tell ourselves.”

Now of course the story we often tell of ourselves, even if it is done so subliminally, is one of distrust, that there is something wrong with our nature. I was recently talking with a friend who has a real problem with the word “sin” when he hears the word his toes curl. This is due to the story he was told growing up, that he was a sinner to the core. His problem is with the idea of “Original Sin”, the story that we are wrong by nature and can only be saved by a certain kind of faith. I do not believe in “Original Sin”, that said I do believe in “Sin” of a sort, in the sense of falling short of what I am capable of being. I am as human as the next person and I fall short. That said I reject any idea that I am permanently flawed in nature, that any of us are. Well, the rational part of me rejects it. Sadly, there is a part of me where this idea that there is something wrong in me, still exist somewhere beneath my rational mind. Why because this is the story I and others keep telling about ourselves and others. It is the story at the heart of the fictional “Lord of the Flies” and it is at the heart of many other stories we tell about ourselves, and yet it isn’t the whole story is it, and it certainly isn’t the story of the “The Real Lord of the Flies”. It is not the story of the boys on the island of Eta.

“Stories are never just stories. We become the stories that we tell ourselves.”

It seems we are being carefully taught that we are fundamentally and irredeemably flawed. Maybe it is time we started telling another story. The story of Hope. Maybe it is time to stop hiding the light of what we are capable of being. Maybe one day they will make a big budget movie about the 6 Tongan Boys who created a community and took care of each other on the island of “Eta”, who created a civilised society and not only survived, but thrived.

Where and how are you going to begin your journey. It matters you know, it really does. For “Stories are never just stories. We become the stories that we tell ourselves.”

I am going to end this morning with a bit more from South Pacific, another from Oscar Hammerstein II

"You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught"

You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear,
You’ve got to be taught from year to year,
It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear—
You’ve got to be carefully taught!

You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a different shade—
You’ve got to be carefully taught.

You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate—
You’ve got to be carefully taught!
You’ve got to be carefully taught!

“Stories are never just stories. We become the stories that we tell ourselves.”

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

So here we stand together 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 an open book 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. We know what the past has been, or at least we have our perspective on it. Whatever we may have thought of the last year, we have all lived it. I wonder what will go into the book in 2026.

I have been thinking of books a lot recently. How they tell a story of something. We have our own tales to tell. I have enjoyed the mini public library outside the town hall in Altrincham, part of the OYEZ art collective that have taken over the place. I have placed books there myself, some of which have been taken. I wonder what these books say about those who lend and borrow them. I believe that sharing the books we read is a wonderful and beautiful way of sharing ourselves.

This year has been designated the “National Year of Reading”. People in the UK are invited to rediscover the joy of reading. I would say more than enjoy, but to share what they are reading. I read a lot, but I rarely read fiction, something I should do more oof. Maybe re-disover the joy of it.

Of course we all have our own libraries, our personal, our inner libraries. There is a very beautiful French term for this “blibliotheque interieure”, which means your “inner library”, this invisible shelf that we carry inside ourselves. A shelf filled with every story that has shaped our lives. What are the stories that have shaped our lives this last year?

This “inner library” contains every book that you have read that has touched your heart and soul. All the heartbreaks and struggles you have survived and grown through. Every quote remembered and everything you have heard said that has shaped your soul. All those memories that have made you who you are. All these experiences are there alive in our inner library. They sing the song that tells who we are and what we have lived through, what has shaped us. These stories remind us of who we are and where we have been on this journey of life. Remembering always that a journey is what we do in a day. We have lived through another 365 journeys this last year and have already begun to embark on another 365.

So, as the new year begins it is vital to look back and recognise what is on the shelf of our inner library. There have been tough times, I have had my share. There have been incredible things too. So now we get to begin a new book, one that is yet unwritten. We have been blessed with another year, we can now place last years on the shelf.

I know that my life grows richer by the year, even though I am not often aware of this, well not until I share my story. This is the key you know, we are not isolated beings, we do not journey alone. We are here to lend our personal libraries to one another, just like that little box outside the town hall in Altrincham, that little lending library. In sharing our stories we encourage one another to journey on together. Yes, we share our struggles, but also our joy and laughter of lives well lived. It is so vital to remind each other who we truly are. So, let’s begin by sharing our inner libraries with one another. For our stories truly are our life’s blessings.

We carry our stories with us through impermanence and ever changing nature of life. Impermanence is the beauty and the energy of life. Life is forever changing and transforming and turning into something new. Nothing ever stays exactly the same and nothing is ever repeated in exactly the same way again. This was wonderfully expressed by the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus some 2,500 years ago. Who said, among many other things, “Everything flows, nothing stands still.” “No one ever steps into the same river twice.” And “Nothing endures but change.” He was saying that the only constant in life was and is change, that life was constantly in flux and that everything is impermanent.

As I look back at the year that has passed so much seems so different and yet if truth be told much is still the same. I have a few more scars no doubt and experienced unexpected blessings. I have stories to share, often with a glint of humour.

As I look around at the world in which I live I witness much that disturbs me. Division and fear does seem to be on the increase as does instability. People do seem anxious, are living with fear of what might be. And yet as I walk around the town in which I live every day, life is much the same. People are much the same as they have always been. Yes, everything changes and yet somehow everything still seems much the same. People are the same as they have always, let us not become victims of our own bad dreams.

On Monday I was feeling a little better after being ill over Christmas. I took Molly out in the morning and later in the afternoon and bumped into many of the people I usually do in the two local parks. There was much conversation and sharing of concern, there was also an awful lot of laughter. It lifted my spirits and showed me I was once again that my health was returning. I in better health, certainly good humour. Thank goodness. All the people I met had passed through their own Christmasses and were now on the other side, about to step into a New Year. Some things had changed and yet everything was much as it always was. Sadly the last couple of days I’ve been feeling a little under the weather again.

Life is constantly changing, nothing ever stays exactly the same and no moment is exactly like any other. We all experience these moments differently too; we each bring our pasts with us into each moment and this always impacts on the present.

That said despite the changing nature of our material lives there are things that do seem permanent, that do not change. There are some things that hold us and sustain us despite the constant changing nature of life. The last twenty odd years of my life has proven this to me, there have been three unchanging things that have held and sustained me and kept me open to life despite its uncertainty. Things that have held me even during some deeply painful experiences. The three are faith, hope and love. Much of what I place on my inner library are tales about these three. Yes they are tales of faith, of hope and of love.

It was Paul of Tarsus, in the 13th Chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians who named these three that have held me and led these last 20 odd years. I have seen many others held by them too, through many storms in their lives. There is something eternal about, something universal and they were at work long before he wrote about them. We can rely upon these three, but only if we nurture and strengthen them. We can depend upon these three faith, hope and love. But what do these three mean?

Faith is about trusting in life itself; it is about living as openly and honestly as possible; it is about accepting that there is pain in life, but that there is also so much joy; it is realising that the mere fact that we exist at all is life’s greatest gift. This allows us to sing the joy of living, in all its mystery. It is also about seeing that we are all in this together, that we all live in the one lifeboat. We need to connect as much as possible to the boat of life in which we share. We need to ensure that our lifelines are secure and not worn or frayed at the edges. This is something we need to hold onto and not let go of. Why, you may well ask? Well because it sustains us through the vicissitudes of life. Life does not offer much certainty, but we need not despair at this, or at least not stay in despair. There are many stories off faith that have been placed on the shelf of my inner library this year.

Hope is the second of those eternal, universal truths. Hope is rooted in despair; it grows from the same place. To live in hope is to believe that if we live with conviction and compassion that we can effect positive change in our world, even if we ourselves do not get see to see its full fruition. Hope is about planting those seeds when and where ever we can.

To live with hope is to live with the attitude that the future is genuinely open. The God of my understanding works with us and guides us but leaves life open, it is not pre-ordained. “The Lure of Divine Love” draws us out of ourselves, but it also allows life to develop freely. I accept that the past does have power, I have a strong sense of history, this is very important. That said I do not believe that the past defines the future, not everything is inevitable. The future is unwritten. There are many more books of life waiting to be written by our living and being. Our inner shelves can hold so much more.

Life is definitely a journey worth taking, even during its toughest moments. Yes we all despair at times and we all live with uncertainty, but the beacon of hope is always there. The writer of the book of proverbs reminds us “Where there is no vision (no hope) the people perish.” Hope is a vital lifeline it both holds and sustains us. It is an eternal and universal principle and one that also requires nurture. There are many stories off hope that have been placed on the shelf of my inner library this year.

What about love? How can it sustain us? By the way I am not talking of romance here, I am talking of spiritual love. Spiritual love is that power that connects us to our true selves, one another, the life we share and whatever it is that connects all life. What I myself call God; that power that is greater than all and yet present in each. It is love that powers the lifeboat, that puts wind in its sails. Love is about caring deeply and passionately about life itself. This of course requires attention; it is a life line that requires nurture. Love reminds me that we do not live for ourselves alone or by ourselves alone. “no man is an island” or as Kurt Vonnegut once put it “one human being is no human being”. The universal and eternal truth is that we need the love, the care, the companionship of others in order to fully experience what it is to be alive. By ourselves we are never fully alive. There are many stories off love that have been placed on the shelf of my inner library this year.

If we live by these three faith, hope and love we will know what it means to truly live and experience the joy of living, even in the dark days.

The beginning of a new year is a time for new beginnings, a time for hope of what might be and a time to reflect on what has been before us. It is a time to take stock of our inner libraries, the resources that carry us through life, our stories of faith, hope and love that will sustain us through struggle and inspire us to write and share stories both new and old.

So, let’s look forward with new eyes, with fresh eyes. Let’s look back and learn from our pasts and commit to live more faithfully, hopefully and lovingly from them. Let’s learn to live with increased sense of faith, hope and love.

Whatever this year brings us, let us resolve as individuals and as a community to build a home of faith, hope and love.

Let’s begin again this day and every day, lets begin again in love.

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

Advent: Plant Yourself at the Gates of Hope

"The Sun Versus the Moon"

What do you think is most valuable to us the sun or the moon?

Well interestingly the wise fool Nasrudin was once asked this question and this was his reply.

Nasrudin: “Well, the sun is out during the daytime when there is light. The moon, on the other hand, provides light during the night when it’s dark. Thus, the moon is obviously much more valuable.”

Good old Nasrudin the holy fool the bringer of un-common sense. Now I know some of you are thinking what a ridiculous thing to say but please do look beyond the obvious here. Please put aside your literal faculties. There is a deep truth here. Light is a priceless commodity during times of darkness but of far less value when it is already light.

“Under the cover of darkness the moon was laughing at the sun, you can’t outshine me here”

A single flame, a simple light is of immense value in the dark, but is of no use when the light of the world is shinning oh so bright. One single light has to capacity to illuminate darkness, for a light shone in the dark and the darkness did not overcome it. We need more light, more hope in the winter time, winter is here.

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

I fell in love with this hymn many years ago, it was at the time that our oldest brother, our Allen was dying. Our Mandy told me that she had visited him in the hospice and as she left she saw a single rose in the garden. I reckon it was a peace rose from her description as it is hardy rose that can survive anything, including winter. There it was offering her hope in the winter both seasonally and the heart of our family. I shared the hymn “Rose in the Winter Time” with her, it has given us great meaning ever since, deep hope. I share it with many folk in times of despair, when they need a little light in the dark times. You don’t really need it when you are walking, even dancing in the sunlight of the spirit. I like to plant a rose, plant myself at the gates of hope. It helps to keep us through the night.

In another piece from Victoria Safford on hope she related being told by a psychiatrist at college who had recently lost a woman to suicide humbly admitting “You know I cannot save them. I am not here to save anybody or to save the world. All I can do — what I am called to do — is to plant myself at the gates of Hope. Sometimes they come in; sometimes they walk by. But I stand there every day and I call out till my lungs are sore with calling, and beckon and urge them in toward beautiful life and love…”

We are here to plant ourselves at the gates of hope. To shine some light in the dark places of this our world.

Have you ever met someone who has just powerfully affected you, to the core of their being, a person who just exudes pure love. A person who shone like the brightest of light. I have met a few people in my life who just had this profound effect on me. Some I met just briefly, others I knew for periods of time, some decades. I have been thinking of a few of those souls in recent months. I have been remembering many souls who have touched my life. The last 18 months seem to have been one of constant grief. I have lost so many folk, from all aspects of my life. It has weighed heavy on me at times. These last few weeks this has led me to think of the lives that have touched me, especially those who planted themselves at the gates of hope. Those that lit the flame of hope by just being themselves. Those lights that shone in the darkness and the darkness and the darkness did not overcome them

Now I could talk of ordinary examples and there are many, but I would like to tell you about a better known one. I have spoken of her before. She is one from my childhood, who I met a few years ago. This is Baroness Floella Benjamin. I fell in love with her as little boy in the 1970’s as she took us through the windows of “Playschool”. For those younger than me “Playschool” was a children’s television program in the 1970’s. Floella has lived an incredible life and was made a life peer a few years ago. I met her when I was asked to attend a parliamentary forum on “Men’s Health”. She listened intently as I spoke and then she approached me and asked if she could hug me. I of course obliged. It was the most incredibly loving experience I have ever known. It was pure love. She exudes this incredible spirit. She is famous for her hugs and I now know why. Floella Benjamin is someone who plants herself at the gates of hope. She lifts people. There is nothing cynical about her. She embodies what it means to live as we are capable of living. She encourages others to be the same. She embodies those famous words of Albert Schweitzer

“At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.”

“oh come you now unto the flame, keep it through the night. Shelter and embrace it’s warmth and keep it’s precious light.”

She is one of those people that lights the flame of hope in others. Is there anything more beautiful in this world. Is there anything more needed in these darkening times. It is certainly true that we are living through dark times. It is winter and we need to find those lights of hope to guide us through. It reminds of those by Victoria Safford that Parker J. Palmer shared in the earlier reading. Rev Victoria Safford serves the White Bear Unitarian Universalist Church in Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA. She said:

“Our mission is to plant ourselves at the gates of hope — not the prudent gates of Optimism, which are somewhat narrower; nor the stalwart, boring gates of Common Sense; nor the strident gates of self-righteousness, which creak on shrill and angry hinges; nor the cheerful, flimsy garden gate of “Everything is gonna be all right,” but a very different, sometimes very lonely place, the place of truth-telling, about your own soul first of all and its condition, the place of resistance and defiance, the piece of ground from which you see the world both as it is and as it could be, as it might be, as it will be; the place from which you glimpse not only struggle, but joy in the struggle — and we stand there, beckoning and calling, telling people what we are seeing, asking people what they see.

Of all the virtues, “hope” is one of the most-needed in our time. When people ask me how I stay hopeful in an era of widespread darkness, I answer simply: “Hope keeps me alive and creatively engaged with the world.”

It keeps me alive and fully engaged too. It draws me on and beyond myself to live alive in this world.

To quote Vaclav Havel “Hope is an orientation of the spirit”, it is something that holds us and sustains us right here right now. It does more than that though, it draws us on, even if at times its light seems dim. It draws me out beyond myself. It helps me, plant myself at the gates of Hope.

It is “Hope” that points towards what we can do, it leads the way. Rather than just sitting there shinning light on all that is ugly and unpleasant, pointing out all that is wrong and riling up ever more anger, hate, division and blame. It saves me from slinging mud at the world. Our world does not need any more of this, not this winter.

I was reminded recently of a couple of friends who I used to name “Statler and Waldorf”. One of them is no longer in my life sadly, the other though is. To some degree I gave them the name in jest, but there is a serious point to all of this.

Now for those who don’t know “Statler and Waldorf” are two characters from Jim Henson’s “The Muppet Show”. The pair don’t really participate in the show and instead sit on the balcony heckling the rest of the characters who are trying to create the show. They are archetypes for all of us who sit back, pour scorn and criticise the efforts of others to do the best that they can. It’s so easy to do this is it not; it is so easy to just to sit back and criticise the best efforts of others while doing nothing ourselves.

Increasingly we seem intent on fault finding and discovering the imperfections in one another. Why do we do this? Do we believe it will help us feel better about ourselves if we pour scorn on the imperfections of others? Maybe, maybe not?!? It is easy to be the critic and shine light on what is wrong, anyone can do that. It is much harder to shine some light in the darkness and show a different way.

The critic is someone who stands at the side taking pot shots at the people who have the courage to stand above the parapet and give themselves to life, to plant themselves at the gates of Hope.

In “The Heart of the Enlightened” Anthony De Mello tells the following story.

“A woman complained to a visiting friend that her neighbour was a poor housekeeper. “You should see how dirty her children are – and her house. It is almost a disgrace to be living in the same neighbourhood as her. Take a look at those clothes she has hung out on the line. See the black streaks on the sheets and towels!”

The friend walked up to the window and said, “I think the clothes are quite clean, my dear. The streaks are on your window.”

This story brings to mind a passage from Matthew’s Gospel (ch 7 vv 1- 12) “Why do you see the speck in your neighbours eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye.” It easy to pass judgement and to find fault in others but is that what our task is? To tear apart everyone else and to point out where they are going wrong? Or is it to make the most of who we are not only for ourselves but for the good of all. Is our task to be the critic who picks apart what others do or is it to contribute to life in whatever ways we can? I for one no longer wish to choose the path of lazy cynicism and criticism. I’d much rather do what I can and risk getting shot down. I would much rather plant myself at the gates of Hope.

It is easy to sling mud, to be a cynic, to highlight all that is wrong. It is harder to plant ourselves at the gates of Hope. To lift others up, to encourage, to live wholly from love. To live like Floella Benjamin.

As you probably know I love dogs. My little dog Molly teaches me so much. Now what you might not know is that there is a school of ancient Greek philosophy named after dogs. Do you know which one? Well, it might surprise you to hear that it was the cynics. How and why? You may well ask? Dogs do not appear to be cynical animals at all. Well, cynicism aint what is used to be.

The best known of cynics was Diogenes. Many of his habits certainly resembled an undomesticated dog. He loved basking naked on the lawn while his fellow philosophers talked on the porch. As they debated the mysteries of the cosmos, Diogenes preferred to soak up some rays.

Diogenes could be found wandering through the streets in the mid-day sun squinting and holding a lantern to find his way, claiming he was “looking for an honest man” He lived in a hollowed out half barrel which he wheeled through the streets. This was his only possession except for a wooden bowl which he destroyed in protest at the fakeness of society after seeing a boy slave drinking water with his cupped hands.

Those ancient cynics protested against society and attempted to mitigate the dangers of hubris. They believed “virtue” was the only good and that self-control was the only means of achieving it. They rejected what they saw as the falseness of the time. They rejected the luxury of home living and personal hygiene and they believed that the best way to get their message across to the general public was to verbally abuse them and expel bodily fluids on them as they went about their daily business. I suspect that the phrase “mud slinging” may have its origins in the original cynics.

The ancient Greeks “cynics” were the critics of their time and place. They pointed out what was wrong. The original “cynics” had a way of bringing the greatest down to the truly humble level, they were an antidote to the hubris of the day. Yes, they had their plus points. That said there were negatives too, it certainly was not a pathway to friendship and community building. It seemed to me to be the ultimate in isolation and individualism. Anyone can be critical of what others are doing, but what about doing something yourself? The cynics never entered the arena, no they slung mud and criticised those who did.

It is easy to be the critic who sneers and throws mud at the person who gives life an honest go, who dares to step into the arena to do good, to do what they can. It says something of our age that one of the worst things a person can be today is a so called “Do-gooder”. Since when is doing good a negative thing? Well in this cynical age it seems.

There is no real satisfaction in sneering at life, just slinging dirt or pointing out the dirt on someone else’s washing or missing the plank in your own eye for the speck in your neighbours. It is easy to be a critic. It is harder to plant ourselves at the gates of Hope. What the world needs right now is less critics and more constructors. That is not to say that we should not be critical. Any healthy society needs those who point ought what can be done better. We need to shine light in the dark places of light. The key is how we do this.

We need to bring hope, when hope is hard to find. To shine some light in darkness of winter. Of all the virtues, “hope” is one of the most-needed in our time. It is Hope that, to quote Parker J. Palmer “keeps me alive and creatively engaged with the world.” When we choose despair and cynicism over hope it is a reflection on the state of our own souls, more than a reflection on the state of the world. It serves no one and it destroys our own souls.

We need to plant ourselves at the gates of Hope.

I look for the examples, for those who shone some light, all those beautiful souls that have touched my soul, many who have gone now, many who are still here, many I have yet to meet. I remember how they lit the flame, how they lit up my heart and soul. How they planted themselves at the gates of Hope and I try and do the same.

So what are you going to do with this one marvelous life you have been given. Are you going to pour scorn, point out all that is wrong, sling dirt, or are you going to plant yourselves at the gates of Hope.

It is up to you, it up us to us all. Our lives depend upon it.

We need to plant ourselves at the gates of Hope.

This Advent season may we plant ourselves like seeds of Hope in the mangers of all our hearts. Let us nurture this this hope and when the moment of magic comes, as it always does on Christmas morning, may we give birth to that love here and now.

Let us shine light on the darkness, let us plant ourselves at the gates of hope.

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

From Nothing to Everything, from Despair to Hope: What Makes You Want To Sing Alleluia

Happy Easter

Easter begins in emptiness and despair. In the example from Mark, the three women go to the tomb and find it empty. They are told Jesus has been raised and to go tell the disciples. They flee in amazement and terror, they tremble in awe. They are in utter despair. The despair soon turns to hope, a new hope, a fresh hope, respair. This is the message at the heart of Easter. This is what folk sing praises to. That new hope can be born again, even in the bleakest of despair. That said it is up to us to bring that hope to life.

I woke up exhausted on Tuesday morning. I spent some time with friends I sit in meditation with regularly. We shared together and I began to feel a little revived. I was tired after the annual meetings and looked ahead at the things I have to do in the next 10 days. I wondered how am going to find the strength to come through all this. I had a few personal troubles too. The loss of one of my oldest friends and another friend who was really struggling. I began to work on the tasks of the week. Another friend called who is also grieving, part of me didn’t want to take the call, but I did. He began to off-load and share his struggles and then asked me about my stuff. For once I told him. It was interesting what came out, including my struggles to uncover what to explore this Easter. As we spoke clarity came, as did human connection. There was something beautiful in the connection. I shared about a hilarious conversation I had with some young new and student ministers I had been engaged with at the annual meetings. We moved onto conversations about the difficulties one can face in expressing ourselves. A little later I went out again on a pastoral call. Interestingly in this conversation I spoke much more about myself than I would normally. The person I visited wanted to know things about me, and asked directly. Again, it was a lovely conversation. We both shared about our lives. Those dark moments, those times of renewal and re-birth, of discovering new things, of coming out of the empty cave of unknowing, to be born into new light and life once again.

I returned home and got down to trying to write this sermon, I had made a start when there was a knock at the door. It was the man who had come to read the chapel gas meters. Molly and me let him in the cellar. As he stepped out of the darkness of the cellar he began to ask me questions about the chapel and Easter. He then began to tell me about himself and his own beliefs. He called himself a cafeteria Catholic. He told me about his heritage and what he thought about resurrection and Easter. He preached me a wonderful Universalist Easter sermon. I invited him to take the service this Sunday, but he didn’t turn up. I left and smiled and then returned to writing the sermon. I thought about all three conversations and I sang songs of Hallelujah. I sang a song of praise for that spirit that moves through us as I stood in the chapel gardens surrounded by the pink cherry blossom, that had already fallen.

I then began to think about Easter. How do I speak about Easter? What do I think of Easter? What does Easter mean to me? Well as with everything you should start at the beginning. Easter begins in grief, in emptiness. Something I was actually experiencing as I sat down to write. Something that had been on backburner these last few days, as I had been caught up in my work, and been away with many folk at our annual meetings.

There is something deeply universal about Easter. There is something in its spirit that can speak to all people in every culture at every time and in every place. It points to those moments in all our lives when something deeper within us comes to life, or perhaps it comes back to life. If we truly enter into what is at the core of Easter, its spirit, it can bring us to a deeper understanding of life right here, right now, in our world. I thought of this as I looked at the life so alive in the chapel gardens, as well as those many conversations I had had with folk, folk in grief and suffering, who are coming back to life. All examples of Love born again from that empty tomb.

I thought about what Tony (The gas man) had spoken of, about resurrection and what he believes lives on. It is possible to celebrate Easter without having to believe in the actual resurrection of the body of Jesus, which is of course the traditional Christian view. The early followers of Jesus believed a variety of things. You can believe in Easter without having to accept the uniqueness of Jesus’ resurrection. You see there is something deeply universal in the spirit of Easter that has the capacity to awaken everyone’s spirit regardless of whether or not they believe every aspect of the Gospel accounts.

Easter can also be understood as the festival of the renewal of life that comes at springtime; Easter can be seen as the resurrection of the earth after the seeming death of winter. These last few weeks you surely have felt powerfully this deep sense of the renewal of life. The other evening I could both feel and smell this powerfully in the air. There is a real electricity in the air at springtime. Now of course the renewal of the seasons is recognised in the pre-Christian roots of our Easter celebrations. According to the Venerable Beed the word Easter is after all derived from “Eostre” the Anglo-Saxon Goddess of spring; the goddess of fertility and renewal.

The Easter “mythos” can also be seen as the triumph of the human spirit, over all that would crush it, even death itself. This triumph also has pre-Christian roots, such as the Jewish “Passover” which of course Jesus and his disciples were commemorating on what has become known as Maundy Thursday. In Latin speaking countries Easter is known as “Pascha” or similar words that are derived directly from “Pesach”. Easter isn’t even called Easter in many parts of the world. The root of Easter lies in the Jewish festival of Passover. Remember that Jesus was a Jewish Rabbi who wanted to bring the religion back to the people. In the eyes of those who followed him, he was the Messiah. This is why they cried Hossanah as he entered the city at the beginning of the week. Last Sunday was Passover.

Jesus’ resurrection is a powerful example of love overcoming death; a perfect example of the spirit of love living on even after physical death. I think it is impossible to argue that the spirit that was in Jesus did not live on after his bodily death. The spirit of love that incarnated in his life has survived all that we have done to it these last 2,000 years as we have remembered him, rather badly.

All love lives on, again something Tony (the gas ma) spoke passionately about. All we have to do to bring it once again to life is remember those who have touched our hearts and souls. What has been bound into one another’s hearts cannot be unbound. Love is stronger than death. This for me, above everything else, is the universal “mythos” that is at the root of Easter. A festival for everyone.

I awoke on Wednesday morning in a new spirit. I had to go into Manchester first thing, as I had to sign something legal, for a dear friend who is herself grieving the loss of her beloved dog. I saw things differently as I headed out. I enjoyed the pink snow covering the gardens. My eyes felt raised up once again, I saw new vision, new hope, not expectation or optimism, but new hope, fresh hope, “Respair”. I realised that my eyes had been a bit down recently. I knew it was grief, a grief I had not been fully aware of up to then. As I travelled home on the tram, a lovely poem “Vision” by May Thielgaard Watts, came to me.

"Vision" by May Thielgaard Watts

To-day there have been lovely things
I never saw before;
Sunlight through a jar of marmalade;
A blue gate;
A rainbow
In soapsuds on dishwater;
Candlelight on butter;
The crinkled smile of a little girl
Who had new shoes with tassels;
A chickadee on a thorn-apple;
Empurpled mud under a willow,
Where white geese slept;
White ruffled curtains sifting moonlight
On the scrubbed kitchen floor;
The under side of a white-oak leaf;
Ruts in the road at sunset;
An egg yolk in a blue bowl.

My love kissed my eyes last night.

Isn't it lovely. Now the ears of my ears are awake. Now the eyes of my eyes are open.

When we live in heart, in courage, in love, we can see these signs of hope everywhere. It comes in the little things.

All we have to do is keep our senses open, in order to see these things. It begins with our hearts and souls.

Today is Easter, let us rejoice and be glad; let us celebrate the joy that is this day whatever it may mean to us. For no matter the conditions of our lives, the state of our hearts. The lives of those dear to us and the struggles in this our shared world, the spirit of Easter can be born again and anew, in our hearts and lives. Life continues. Spring is here, the new life cannot be denied. Easter is here, let us rejoice and sing Hallelujah!!!

And what is Easter? Well it is different, perhaps unique for each and every one of us. What makes you want to rise up and sing Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah?

What is your song, the one that makes you want to feel like you belong. I was lovingly listening to the new bird song on Wednesday, it made me want to sing hallelujah.

I believe that each of us have a song in our hearts, that will bring us hope when hope is hard to find. We need to find a way to learn it, sing it and share it and thus help one another through those dark times, to times of love and joy, so we can enjoy the milk and honey. So that we can bring the spirit of Easter alive in us and through us.

For we all experience alleluia moments, isn’t this the heart of Easter; We all have alleluias in our lives, those moments of triumph and wonder, of insight and rebirth; we all have alleluia’s, those moments of transformation, when our way of being in the world is fundamentally changed; alleluia moments when we are strengthened and life is deepened; alleluia moments when we feel more connected, more whole; we all have moments when we want to sing alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

That said there cannot be Easter without Good Friday. Hope is born from Despair. Easter begins with an empty tomb and fear. It is often the same with all life, this is the universal message of Easter. Sometimes our most profound transformations emerge out of the loss we face in life. This may be the empty hole left by grief, at the loss of a beloved, something so many are facing. Or it may be one of those thousands of lesser losses we experience in life. All forms of grief are barren, empty places. They can feel utterly God-forsaken, where all hope is gone, that leave us in sorrow and suffering not singing songs of alleluia, but instead singing song of lamentation.

This though is not the end. Feeling forsaken is not the same as being forsaken. The message of Easter is that love triumphs over death. That new life is born again, like those spring buds of hope, or the poppy born out of the battlefields of the First World War. Hope is born once again from the despair, just as life continues on into this awakening Spring. The Cherry blossom has been and almost gone, but it will return once again.

The Universal message of Easter is the power of love coming back to life, transforming in new and wonderful ways. It can happen at any time in our lives. Easter implores us to live, to allow the renewal and resurrection of our souls, to risk living life alive, fully alive, to love abundantly. To risk our hearts in love. To take the seeds that are planted in us, water and nurture them until they blossom and can be handed to another. To take the gift of blossoms and warm them with the sunshine of our souls and the rain of our energy, until they bring forth fruit.

Easter begins with an empty tomb, but that ending is just another beginning. Life continues on, in fact new life is born again in the emptiness and the loneliness and the despair.

So let us roll our own stones away and let love once again incarnate in our lives...In all that we feel, all that we think, all that we say and all that we do...

Happy Easter, Alleluia, Alleluia.

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

The Hill’s are Alive with the Sound of Music: Universalism Inspired Oscar Hammerstein

A friend of mine sent me a message the other day stating “I’ve never been called a nerd before, I quite like it”. She had been gently teased earlier in the day as she had been showing a group of us an app on her phone showing the number of inclines in the Peak District she had recently climbed and all the ones she has yet to climb. She seemed so thrilled with this. She has in recent times taken to going off on her own on long country walks, buying maps and all sorts of things. She is having a ball and it is wonderful to see such enthusiasm for life. I replied to her message “Climb every mountain”. I meant both metaphorically and literally. I am sure she will give it a go. Later in the week she told me “15 since mid February, so another 80 to go!!!! I’m so nerdy (nerdy these days instead of needy). She later informed me that these little hill's are named "Ethel's". Named after "Ethel Mary Bassett Haythornthwaite (née Ward) MBE (18 January 1894 – 11 April 1986), who was an English environmental campaigner, activist and poet.[1][2] She was a pioneer of countryside protection as well as town and country planning both locally and nationally."

“Climb every mountain” has been on my mind these last few days. I was smiling and singing it as I drove between Urmston and Altrincham last Sunday. The seed had been planted by John Poskitt and Graham Harrison who had heard reference to Oscar Hammerstein II’s childhood and upbringing at what was described as a Unitarian Sunday school in New York and how this was a great influence on his life and work. So, this week I’ve been climbing every mountain myself and explored Hammerstein and the influence of Universalism, a faith based on hope, exemplified in songs such as “Climb every mountain” “You’ll never walk alone”, “Cockeyed optimist”.

Here is an example of religious influences in the following quote by Hammerstein

“In art the goodness of the human spirit must be fighting for its life. People must leave the theatre the church, or the lecture hall, with a deeper faith and higher interest in human kind, than they brought in with them”.

His optimism grew from his sense in the joy of living. He engaged with what was beautiful in the world and encouraged those who engaged with him to see it too. He was not denying the troubles of life, just pointing to life’s beauty. He sang the joy of living in all its mystery. In so doing he was preaching the Gospel of Hope, the Universalism of his childhood.

Again as he wrote:

“I know the world is filled with troubles and many injustices. But reality is as beautiful as it is ugly. I think it is just as important to sing about beautiful mornings as it is to talk about slums. I just couldn't write anything without hope in it.”

Or in this song from “Oaklahoma

Oh, what a beautiful mornin',
Oh, what a beautiful day.
I got a beautiful feelin'
Ev'erything's goin' my way.

Hammerstein’s father was from a Jewish family and was prominent in New York theatre. His mother was from a British liberal protestant family, I suspect Unitarian. As a child he attended “The Church of the Divine Paternity” in New York. This is now the Fourth Universalist Society in the City of New York and part of the Unitarian Universalist denomination. The Unitarians and Universalist became one denomination in the 1960’s not long after Hammerstein’s death due to stomach cancer.

He carried his spirit of Universalism with him throughout his life and work. It was how he engaged with life. Foundational to him was the following “The Fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man and salvation by character”. Now of course this is old fashioned language today, man in those days meant every human being, not just males. The God of love that he believed in, loved all equally. You will find Universalist themes throughout Hammerstein’s lyrics; themes such as hope, compassion and the potential for human goodness, were threaded throughout the lyrics of Oklahoma, Carousel, South Pacific and the King and I. It is incredible to think that this joy filled musical theatre was some of the most powerful social commentary of its time.

Just think of the following from “South Pacific” reflecting on the internalised racism of Lt Cable and Nellie

You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear,
You’ve got to be taught from year to year,
It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear—
You’ve got to be carefully taught!

You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a different shade—
You’ve got to be carefully taught.

Hammerstein’s work revealed his Universalism so beautifully; these musicals are a wonderful exploration of his theological depth. In his work you see the Universalists belief in the possibility for change, for hope, for human progress. You see God at the heart of this, a loving God who accepts all, a Divine Unity; you see the possibility for redemption and the restoration of the soul, as well as his belief in the social Gospel and in the assertion of human unity. Perhaps we ought to re-examine some of these musicals in these divisive times. They are filled with joy too, something we all need.

Hammerstein was hope filled, he believed in the God of love and that this love is what ought to be at the heart of what we do. He wrote constantly about love, in its many and varied forms. He also sang about never losing sight of what is wholesome and beautiful in this world. Something I’ve focused on much in recent weeks. As my friend has as she’s been climbing every mountain. The hills are alive with the sound of music. May it fill all our hearts.

Hammerstein faith was about how we engage with this world. It was a conversation fuelled by hope and possibility and beauty, despite the very real troubles we all face. It is important how we face and greet life. The conversations we have with life and the conversations life has with us.

Another friend sent me a message this week. She had been reading a book I gave to her as a present several years ago. It was a funny exploration around the origins of words. The book is “The Etymologicon” by Mark Forsyth

The word was “Ciao”, a greeting that has become universal through the world over the last hundred years. It came from an old Venetia dialect word “S’Ciao” which was translated as “I am your slave”. Clearly it has rather unpleasant origins. That said in time this meaning evolved to mean “I’m at your service” or “I am here for you if you need me”. So, “Ciao” became a way to express deep respect, loyalty and trust. It became a universal phrase that encompassed everyone in spite of social standing. It was a greeting that expressed deep devotion and love. Maybe Oscar Hammerstein ought to have turned it into a song. I would love to sing it, “Ciao baby!”

I received another message from another friend this week. She is back home visiting family in Transylvania. It brought to my mind those beautiful and soulful people and their lovely phrase, which like “ciao” is both a greeting and a way of saying goodbye. The phrase being “Isten aldjon”, meaning “God bless”. I love that both “ciao” and “Isten aldjon” are ways of saying hello and waving goodbye. There is something loving, respectful and beautiful about them. They are lovely ways of beginning and ending a conversation. It matters how we greet the world and how the world greets us.

As I have lived through this week I have been noticing how I engage with people and life. What my conversation with everything is and its conversation with me. Like the spring weather it has been ever changing. Sometimes four seasons in one day.

The poet philosopher and former marine zoologist David Whyte sees our lives as focused on what he calls "the great conversation" we have with ourselves and the great mysteries of life which surround us. He calls this “the conversational nature of reality.” Like Whyte I have come to believe that the essence of any real conversation is attention. It is about paying attention to that space where we meet life and life meets us, I suspect that it is in this space that God truly comes to life, or at least this is what my experiences teach me. This is a song I love to sing, the joy of living in all its mystery.

I love the way that David describes the conversational nature of reality, that we are constantly in conversation, whether we are speaking or not, so long as we are alive, awake and fully engaged.

This is beautifully illustrated in his poem “Everything Is Waiting for You?”

After Derek Mahon

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

I love the way that Whyte, through is words, encourages us to “feel the grand array; the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding out your solo voice.” He insists that the frontier of this profound reality of the world can be and is found in “the intimacy of your surroundings,” in “the way the soap dish enables you, or the window latch grants you freedom.” The key is in this line. That, “Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.” That it is about being alive to everything and allowing everything to be alive to you. This is more than just being mindful, it is about being in conversation with everything and everything with you; with everything in you and you in everything.

Everything is waiting for you. Everything is waiting for all of us. The conversation is reality. The beauty and profound nature of reality is everywhere, in everything, even the kettle boiling as you make that cup of tea for a guest. All we have to do is bring our attentiveness to the frontier between self and the rest of creation, and then enter into conversation with it. We must come out of abstraction and back into the world.

The spiritual life is about living more spiritually alive, in this life. It is about increasing our sensitivity to life itself. It is about being increasingly affected and then becoming more effective in life.

I have come to understand that at its core the spiritual life is about relationships; relationships with life, with each other, with ourselves and with God, whatever we understand God to be. And how do relationships develop? Well through conversation, through sharing ourselves with each other, not by losing ourselves, but becoming ourselves through our conversations with the other, lower and upper case. We relate through conversation and thus we grow spiritually, through relationship.

We have to believe we belong here of course, that we do not reject our humanity. Everything is waiting for us. More than that everything needs us to engage in the conversation of life. Life needs all of us. Everything is waiting for us.

Everything is waiting for us.

So I invite you to join with me in the conversational nature of reality.

When you walk through a storm
Keep your chin up high
And don’t be afraid of the dark.

At the end of the storm
Is a golden sky
And the sweet, silver song of a lark.

Walk on through the wind,
Walk on through the rain,
Though your dreams be tossed and blown.

Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart,
And you’ll never walk alone!

You’ll never walk alone.

Life is alive all around us and within us. We are part of it, and we play a crucial role within it. May the love that is God come alive with in us. Let’s climb every mountain, who knows what we will find at the summit.

For the hill’s are alive with the sound of music.

My heart wants to beat
Like the wings of the birds that rise
From the lake to the trees.
My heart wants to sigh
Like a chime that flies
From a church on a breeze,

To laugh like a brook
When it trips and falls
Over stones in its way,
To sing through the night
Like a lark who is learning to pray!

I go to the hills
When my heart is lonely;
I know I will hear
What I’ve heard before—
My heart will be blessed
With the sound of music,
And I’ll sing once more.

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

Advent: Hope keeps me alive and creatively engaged with the world

Something has happened to me that I don’t like. I am now considered a senior minister. This is not something I warm too, which is pure vanity by the way. Senior sounds old and my ego wants to protest against this. The truth is though that I am. I have in the last year become more engaged in helping to develop our future ministers. I spent a few days away recently with the “Ministry in the Making” team. It was a very productive time as we began to shape next years program. There were many wonderful conversation including a rather beautiful one when the Helen Mason, the director of Unitarian College, shared something from a sermon of her paternal grandfather the great Rev Leonard Mason. I am told he once conducted one of the weddings of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Helen is from a long lineage of Unitarian luminaries including John Relly Beard one of the co-founders of Unitarian College Manchester and who is buried in Brooklands cemetery in Sale. Relly Beard is distant relative of her later mother Joy Winder who helped shape my own journey into ministry.

Sorry I digress. The sermon described God as being like a white tailed deer. Now I didn’t know this, but have since learnt that the white tailed deer raises its tail when it detects danger and it as it does the white underside of the tail becomes visible. It is this that is a metaphor for God and the suggestion being that you get a glimpse of this from time to time and it is this that draws us on. It spoke powerfully to me and my understanding of God, as not that which controls everything, but more that which is present, always luring me on, drawing me out of myself. The light of hope which at times may go quite dim and yet burns bright in the darkest of times the night. It reminded me of the humble words of the classic “Waterboys” song “The Whole of the Moon”. “I saw the crescent, you saw the whole of the moon”. I was thinking of this as I a friend discussed the beautiful crescent moon on cold and wet Tuesday morning. It is this sometimes dim light that brings me hope when hope is hard to find, my rose in the winter time. It also brought to mind the following “A Theology Adequate for the Night” by Nancy Shaffer

“A Theology Adequate for the Night” by Nancy Shaffer

Not God as unmoved mover:

One who set the earth in motion and withdrew. Not the One to thank when those cherished do not die – for providence includes equally power to harm. Not a God of exacting, as if love could be earned or subtracted.

But-this may work in the night:

Something that breathes with us, as others sleep; something that breathes also on those sleeping, so no one is alone. Something that is the beginning of love, and also each part of how love is completed. Something so large, wherever we are, we are not separate; which teaches again the way to start over.

Night is the test: when grief lies uncovered, and longing shows clear; when nothing we do can hasten earth’s turning or delay it.

This may be adequate for the night:

This holding: something that steadfastly breathes us, which we also learn to breathe.

God for me is always present, as close as my breath and yet this is not always clear. Yet is does seem to draw me, even though I only sometimes get a glimpse, see the crescent, whilst others see the whole of the moon.

At the end of sessions at “Ministry in the Making” we shared some devotional worship. Ant Howe played a wonderful version of the Hymn “Nearer Thy God to Me” by a Mormon male voice choir, it was incredibly powerful and moving. It is beautiful hymn, an absolute classic, written by the Unitarian writer Sarah Flower Adams in 1841. No doubt she will have known John Relly Beard. It depicts the story of Jacob’s dream, sometimes called Jacob’s ladder and was reputedly played by the band on the Titanic as it sank.

All this got my homiletic consciousness going and got me thinking of Advent and the light of hope that draws us as we head towards that moment of magic that is Christmas, when the light of hope is born once more. A light that always draws me on despite life’s very real struggles and the temptation of despair that comes in the night of life. I may only get a glimpse of the crescent, but it is enough. It seems I do not need to see the whole of the moon.

Today marks the beginning of Advent. A time for waiting, a time of preparation. A time set aside to wait for the “coming” of Love in human form symbolised in the birth of the Christ child. A promise of what love can become if we let it grow and nurture in our hearts and lives. For every new life is the gift of promise and possibility. A gift of possibility that can be reborn in each of our lives if we allow it to be.

The season of Advent invites us to embrace the spiritual discipline of waiting. We cannot rush through this season, we must experience it all, before the moment of magic. We must first sing the carols, light the candles and open the doors of the calendars. We must select our gifts for our loved ones and we must prepare ourselves for the year to come. We must experience the whole of this season if we are to give birth to the love that is at the core of it all; if we are to grow this love in the mangers of our own hearts and to give birth to and both experience and share it in our world. A world that needs love and hope as much as at any time in our history.

Advent is a season of preparation and it cannot be rushed. It requires patience. We cannot wish the days away, we cannot wish the winter away. We have to wait patiently, but not passively.

There are times when the light seems dim, like a white tailed deer, but it draws us on in hope and surely this the message of this season, the light of hope is always shinning drawing us on. We must though live in faith and hope, awaiting the birth of pure love, in the mangers of all our hearts.

It is hope that draws us on, it is hope that keeps us going especially in the cold and darkening days. As Seamus Heaney wrote:

“The days are getting shorter and colder, but I ask you to remember: even as the Winter comes in, there is Hope and there is Light." - Seamus Heaney

Advent is about believing in hope, in the possibility of hope, even of at times its light shines dim. Hope is an intimation of the heart to quote Vaclav Havel. If we choose hopelessness over hope it says more about the state of our own hearts and souls, than the state of the world in which we all live.

Advent is about being lured toward that light of hope, it is about turning toward love and life and not turning away. It is about not being seduced by lazy cynicism. This is put beautifully by the wonderful Victoria Safford in an interview with Krista Tippet for “On Being” I have one of her wonderful book of meditations “With or Without Candlelight”. Rev Victoria Safford serves the White Bear Unitarian Universalist Church in Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA. She said:

“Our mission is to plant ourselves at the gates of hope — not the prudent gates of Optimism, which are somewhat narrower; nor the stalwart, boring gates of Common Sense; nor the strident gates of self-righteousness, which creak on shrill and angry hinges; nor the cheerful, flimsy garden gate of “Everything is gonna be all right,” but a very different, sometimes very lonely place, the place of truth-telling, about your own soul first of all and its condition, the place of resistance and defiance, the piece of ground from which you see the world both as it is and as it could be, as it might be, as it will be; the place from which you glimpse not only struggle, but joy in the struggle — and we stand there, beckoning and calling, telling people what we are seeing, asking people what they see.

Of all the virtues, “hope” is one of the most-needed in our time. When people ask me how I stay hopeful in an era of widespread darkness, I answer simply: “Hope keeps me alive and creatively engaged with the world.”

It keeps me alive and fully engaged too. It draws me on and beyond myself to live alive in this world.

Hope is an orientation of the spirit, it is something that holds us and sustains us right here right now. It does more than that though, it draws us on, even if at times its light seems dim, a bit like those white tailed deer.

Advent is a time for waiting, for preparation, in the Christian tradition it is for the coming of the Christ child, the birth of hope. For me I see this in the birth of all life and by this I don’t just me physical life. Any hope that is born in manger of all our hearts. That love can incarnate in all our hearts, if we live in and by hope.

Advent invites us to cradle our hopes like a new born child, to truly wonder what love might look like if we were truly give birth to it and what it might truly mean to live life faithfully despite our very real troubles.

Advent is about waiting, but not doing so passively. The spiritual life is not a passive one, but it does require patience. It is about preparing for hope that may not yet be born, but it must be prepared for. Advent encourages us to be present and fully alive to this time of waiting. The time is now and the moment of magic is coming. So, we wait by being fully present to all that is alive around us, drawn on in and through hope, an orientation of the heart and the spirit.

For soon comes the moment of magic, the birth of hope, in the mangers of all our hearts.

Earlier I made reference to Vaclav Havel and his view that “Hope is an orientation of the spirit.” Havel was a writer and stateman and the first president of the Czech Republic following the end of Communism. He knew a lot about living by and through hope.

Here’s the wonderful poem of his on “Hope”. It seems appropriate to end with as we head toward that moment of magic, drawn on by hope.

“Hope” by Vaclav Havel

Hope is a state of mind, not a state of the world
Either we have hope within us or we don’t.
Hope is not a prognostication—it’s an orientation of the spirit.
You can’t delegate that to anyone else.

Hope in this deep and powerful sense is not the same as joy
when things are going well,
or the willingness to invest in enterprises
that are obviously headed for early success,
but rather an ability to work for something to succeed.

Hope is definitely NOT the same as optimism.
It’s not the conviction that something will turn out well,
but the certainty that something makes sense,
regardless of how it turns out.

It is hope, above all, that gives us strength to live
and to continually try new things,
even in conditions that seem as hopeless as ours do, here and now.
In the face of this absurdity, life is too precious a thing
to permit its devaluation by living pointlessly, emptily,
without meaning, without love, and, finally, without hope.

Below is a video devotion based on the material in this "blogspot"

 

Groundhog Day: A Perfect Allegory of the Spiritual Journey

So here we stand at the beginning of another year. We have passed through the cycle of life, one more time. Much is as it was and some things have changed. Mostly though is very much as it was, as it always is. This the journey that is life. The truth is we don’t actually go anywhere, we just move around the circle of life. That said we get the greatest gift of all. We get life. We get to journey on, experiencing life in all its beauty and sometimes horror. We get to live the spiritual journey too, which of course is not a journey of distance, but of experience, dare I say depth.

As good old Wendell Berry so beautifully put it

“And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground at our own feet, and learn to be at home.”

This is the mythos that the great stories all seem to tell. Just think of Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz” after her great adventure she learned to be at home in Kansas. She needed the adventure in order to truly understand the treasure she already possessed. She had to go on the journey of change and then return home with treasure to share.

No doubt we have been repeating some similar rituals and practices these last few days as we have once again celebrated Christmas. Much will have been the same, but some things will have been different. Maybe they have been experienced differently. Eistein famously said that insanity is repeating the same behaviour and expecting a different result. There is truth in this wisdom, but not the whole truth. For actual in some ways this is what the spiritual life, the life of faith is actually about. It is in the repetition of the same activity that change happens, sometimes unexpectedly. So yes Eistein is right, it is the definition of insanity, but also of hope.

I spend a lot of my life wandering around Altrincham, bumping into people and passing others in the street. Often seeing the same people in the same places and often have similar conversations. This is the beautiful gift of the ordinary, sometimes it reveals pots of gold. Now some might think this dull, but it is not. Yes it is “Groundhog Day”, but this is a beautiful thing, it is not in the least bit negative.

I watched the film “Groundhog Day” the other day. It is a favourite of mine. It is set in the deepest dark of winter. I am speaking of it a little early, for “Groundhog Day” is not until the 2nd of February, not that it is something that we mark in Britain. Here, depending on our spiritual tradition we may well mark Candlemass, Imbolc or St Brigid’s Day.

Groundhog Day began as a pagan festival. It falls in the dead of winter, flanked equally on either side by the winter solstice and the spring equinox. According to folklore if the groundhog sees his shadow on this day there will be six more weeks of snow. So, the hope is that he does not see his shadow and that winter will soon be over.

It is not the legend of Groundhog Day that really interests me, more the film that bares the same name. It is one of my favourites and may well be one of the most spiritual ever made. That sounds like quite a bold statement for what is, on the surface at least, a Hollywood romantic comedy.

“Groundhog Day” is a tale of hope, of the possibility of transformation. That by somehow repeating the same day over and over again, somehow in this process change occurs, different results do in fact come. It tells the story of a self centred weatherman named Phil. At the beginning of the film he is sent on his annual excursion to Punxsutawney Pennsylvania, to record the thrilling moment when Phil the Groundhog makes his annual winter trek into sunlight in search of the shadowy predictor for the coming weeks. Phil ( the weatherman) hates the fact that he has to be there and treats everyone he meets in “the hick town”, with disdain. The film crew cannot get out of the town as the weather takes a turn for the worst. So, they have to spend another night in the town

Phil awakens the next morning to the same song he heard the morning before “I Got you Babe” by Sonny and Cher, he is to awaken to this every morning as “Groundhog Day” is repeated over and over again for days, weeks, months, years. Every day is the second of February; every day is the same day; every day he is offered the opportunity to experience that same Groundhog Day over and over again, running into the same people, having the same encounters. And yet within those very same limitations he is offered infinite choices. Where he can eat, how he can respond to each encounter, who he can hurt and who he can help. He is offered the opportunity to grow and to change every single day; he is offered the opportunity to become the man he wants to be, every single day. He can be the bad guy or the good guy, the funny guy, the happy guy, the free guy or the trapped guy, the suicidal guy. He is offered the chance to change which he begins to do, as he learns from his mistakes. He learns that he cannot control all that is going on around him and that happiness can only be found by truly living in what is there, the sacred moment. His inspiration is his producer Rita (played by Andie Mcdowell) she is the opposite of Phil, good hearted and at peace with herself. Phil falls in love with who Rita is, he awakens to the longing to be a person worthy of her love and he begins to allow himself to be that person. Each day is repeated and in the end he gets very subtly different results.

Now isn’t this one of those universal messages found within the mythos’ of the great faiths. That love can transform even the most self centred of hearts that we can all aspire to be the best that we can be. That hope can be found in total despair and that you do not need to seek some special place, it is found in the ordinary everyday things of life.

So could it be that this Hollywood Romantic comedy is the most “spiritual” ever made. Well Harold Ramis the films co-writer and director said that religious leaders and writers continually contacted him over the years claiming that “Groundhog Day” is an allegory of their traditions key messages. Buddhist have claimed that it illustrates their notion of Samsara, the continuing cycle of re-birth. Phil (The weatherman) is seen as the Bohisattva who keeps on being sent back into the world in order to save it, he never seems to reach enlightenment and has to keep on going through the daily trials in order to help others.

Jewish observers have noted that Phil keeps on being sent back into the world to perform Mitzvah’s (good deeds). The story is not really about his individual salvation and more about perfecting the whole world.

Still others have claimed Christian and Pagan interpretations. It has been suggested that the groundhog symbolises re-birth and the hope of renewal at Easter or spring. It is worth remembering that the 2nd of February is Imbolc and Candlemass, key festivals in both traditions. The story is also a classic redemption tale, very much like a Christmas Carol. Phil the weatherman is just another Mr Scrooge. Infact Bill Murray himself once played a modern day version in the film “Scrooged”.

Groundhog Day is a favourite film of mine, if you haven’t seen it I heartily recommend it to you it will warm you through on a cold winters night. It is a film about hope; it is a film about the possibility of change and transformation. That by repeating the same ordinary activities, we can grow and change. Now I know some call this insanity, but I prefer to call it hope; hope in the possibility of change.

I am going to leave the last words to Bill Murray’s character Phil. Words he eventually said while signing off at the end of his final broadcast. Words of hope, of what might be. Words uttered not knowing that the next morning everything would change, for finally Groundhog Day had ended, it was February the 3rd.

Phil said: “When Chechov saw the long winter, it was a winter bleak and dark and bereft of hope; and yet we know winter’s only one more step in the cycle. And standing among the people of Punxsutawney basking in the warmth of their hearths and hearts, I couldn’t imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous winter.

Below is a video devotion based on the material in this "Blogspot"