We can inspire and we can dispirit; it matters how we be

Last Sunday Molly and myself will be travelled to Hucklow to spend a few days with new and upcoming ministers at “Ministry in the Making”. We have some great people coming through and it feels good to help them in their development, in the ways that I can. The theme this year is “The Ministry of all believers: How do we believe in our people”. I will be leading a workshop exploring how we have been inspired, who have been our inspirations, who believed in us, who didn’t, who dispirited us. It is an opportunity to look at ways in which we might inspire and help develop others as they step into their own ministry’s. It got me thinking about some of the inspirations in my life. There are many folk who inspired me throughout my life; sadly there has been who have dispirited me too. This is life of course. It is vital to discern who we listen too.

I recently shared the following story with friends: “Do you know who I am?”

Journeys today on public transport have a sort of regularity about them, but there’s always someone who thinks they can beat the system – especially when things are busy. Like on a Bank Holiday weekend.

Picture this scene at Manchester Airport – travellers, airport personnel, aircrew, people looking for the loo or a bar – thousands thronging the concourses.

At one of the check-in desks for a long-haul flight there was a snaking queue of people with lots of luggage. The attendant was doing her best to get people through the process as quickly as possible and most were good humoured about the wait. Except, apparently, for one man – towards the back of the queue.

He was getting more and more agitated and finally he barged through, headed straight for the desk and demanded to be served.

The attendant said patiently: “Sir, there are lots of people ahead of you and we’re doing our best to get everyone through – trying to jump the queue will only delay things even more for you and everyone else. Please go back to your place.”

The man went puce in the face, leaned over the counter and shouted so everyone could hear: “Do you know who I am?”

The attendant blinked, took a deep breath and picked up the public-address microphone.

“Ladies and gentlemen, there is a gentleman at check-in desk No 212 who does not know who he is. If anyone is able to identify him and assist him, please let us know.”

I got some interesting response from folk. Most were amused and several responded with a video of a character who came into public consciousness about 10 years ago. He gets into an awful dispute with someone on the road, he utters the immortal line “Do you know who I am, I’m Ronnie Pickering”. It brought back some awful childhood memories of growing up with a man like that. A totally dispiriting character. In the video there is a child sat in the car with him, looking terrified and trying to hide. A feeling I remember only too well.

The next day I met up with my writer friends. One’s husband was shown the video and he was appalled by it. We began to talk about characters and the folk that people look up to, the folk we remember. Those that lift us up with their example and more notorious characters. I talked of a friend who’s six year old son told him he wants to be a gangster when he grows up. My friend said he tried to explain to his son that this is worse thing he could aspire to. I talked about a notorious character when I was growing up who instilled fear in all he met This was Paul Sykes, the notorious hard man from Wakefield. The conversation then turned to other characters from our childhood that left us with a very different feelings.

I spoke of a character who would walk around the roads of West Yorkshire dressed as a monk just smiling and waving at people, spreading good cheer. I described the feeling he would instill in me whenever I saw him. How he filled me with a very different spirit. He was a mystery, but one that filled my good feelings, even though I never met him.

I thought I would look him up. I though there must be something on the internet about him. If he had that impact on me, he must have had it on others. Well there was all sorts of interesting stuff on line. It seems he was called Jeffrey Brindley, known as “The Jesus Man of Bradford”, or “Holy Joe”, “The Airedale Monk”. He died in 2015 having spent 50 years walking the roads around Bradford spreading love. He was a harmless eccentric and when he died money was raised to give him a funeral at Bradford Cathedral, following a huge parade through the city. There are plans to build a statue in his memory in Baildon where he lived. There were hundreds of messages from people speaking of him and memories of what he brought to ordinary folk dating back to the 1960’s. I shared on-line myself about this conversation and several of my friends shared memories of him and the cheer he brought to the people he met as he walked around sharing the good spirit with those he passed by. Yes, he was an eccentric, but harmless and one who people remember with fondness. Maybe the world needs more holy fools, certainly more than it needs characters like Paul Sykes and Ronnie Pickering. I’m glad I remember “the smiling, waving, monk” as I called him and the way I felt when I saw him passing by on the road. It filled my heart with love and joy, if inspired something good in me. Something I have been re-feeling and remembering all week.

I was talking about this on Tuesday evening at “Living the Questions”. Geoff who lived in Bradford for a time, talked of “Holy Joe” as he called him. There was also a few jokes and suggestions of what the folk of Altrincham might call me. I do spend a lot of my life walking around the town, meeting and greeting folk, although I suspect most of them remember Molly more than me. I hope I share joy, love and respect, I hope I lift folks spirits. There are many others in the town that offer similar feelings. I am sure there are many in every community. Unfortunately they do not get the attention they deserve, the notorious it seems have too string an appeal. Sadly those who do good are too often viewed with suspicions.

I have been thinking of late of the people who have inspired me, who lifted my spirit, there have been many. As there have been many who have diminished me, made me feel useless, discouraged me, told me I was no good at things, pretty useless. I am sure it is the same for every single one of us. We have know those who have inspired us and those who have dispirited too.

I wonder who and what has been significant in our lives? Who and what has touched and shaped our lives? Who are the significant people, what are the significant moments and events? We might not remember the events fully, but we do remember how they made us feel. Our lives are shaped by every moment and every person that we share our lives with.

I’ve been thinking of the people who have inspired me. Who filled my spirit and kept me going in my darkest days. I was sat with several of my early ministry inspirations after David Copley’s funeral the other week. Folk who lit the light in me. They and many others remind me of that famous quote by 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.”

There are many people who have inspired me, who have lit the flame within me, who have inspired me to make the best use of what I have and to give back to others. To serve in little and sometimes bigger ways in this our shared world.

There is inspiration everywhere, there are many folk who have no doubt inspired us all. What though do we mean when we say “inspire”.

“Inspire” is an interesting word, it is one of those, like so many in common usage, that has been reduced in meaning as time has gone by. We have reduced its power as our lives have become secularised. It originally meant “immediate influence of God”, especially with reference to the writing of a Holy book. Coming from the French “inspiracion meaning “inhaling, breathing in inspiration”, coming from the Latin “inspirare” meaning to breath in, to inflame. To inspire means to breath upon, to blow into, to excite, to inflame, to affect, to arouse, but to do so through spirit or soul, it is a Divine activity. Therefore, it seems reasonable to conclude that when we inspire others we are engaging in Divine activity. To inspire others is to engage in one of the highest forms of love, as it is Divine love in human action.

So if you are walking round the place you live, sharing love, lifting spirits, you are in fact involved in Divine activity, well you are in my eyes. Likewise if you are going around dispiriting or instilling fear in others, you are engaged in the opposite. It seems to me that Divine activity takes place in the most ordinary, not the grand and loud and showy. It comes to life in the most humble of activity.

Now not everyone agrees with me, in fact throughout history it has always been the great figures that have been seen as the real inspirations. It is they that they usually build statues to. Thomas Carlyle saw the great figures of history as the ultimate inspirations, to him they were geniuses. Nowadays many people are labelled as geniuses, some say that is overused. I think that actually it is an under used word. I think that it ought to apply to anyone who inspires another to be all that they can be. For surely the real genius of anyone is to inspire another to truly come alive, for in so doing you are breathing new life into another. Maybe we ought to build monuments to each and every one of them, like the folk of Bradford would like to do for Jeffrey Brindley. Now wouldn’t our towns and cities look interesting if we did.

Everyone we meet, and everything that we absorb through our senses can be an inspiration. There are inspirational people all around us, as there has been throughout human history. Some have been the greats, those that have shaped history, they even had statues built in their memory, but most were probably never recognised., except in our own hearts and memories. Nevertheless they inspired us, they awakened something within us and helped to become the people that we are today.

We can all be inspirations. We all have the genius seed within us. We are all born, we are all graced, with certain gifts. The real genius of course is the one who can give birth to theirs and inspire others to do the same with theirs.

Now throughout human history this genius within us has been understood in different ways. Many, beginning with Plato, talked of each of us being born with a companion, what some might describe as a spirit that remembers our true nature and therefore "calling" and which can guide us back to our greatest animation. It is this that truly brings us alive, that animates our very being that enthuses us. This inner spirit animates our soul, this is the genius within each and every one of us. It has been called by many names such as muse, inner voice, still small voice, higher self, guardian angel or what the ancient Greeks referred to as Daemon. It breathes its life into us and inspires us and through acting from it we too inspire others.

The gifts life has bestowed upon us, our genii are not meant to be kept or selfishly horded. They are meant to be given away, they are meant to be shared with others. Our task is to make the most of these gifts, to enjoy them and to share them with others, thus inspiring them to make the most of what life has given them. This I believe is the point that the epistle Paul was making in is first letter to the Corinthians chapter twelve.

aul wrote the letter because each member of the congregation, in their struggle to be the perfect congregational leader, was getting in the way of the others. Each one of them wanted to possess all the good qualities that make up a good leader, to become the perfect leader and to leave the others in their shadow.

Paul taught that the spirit does not allow even the possibility that one person can possess all the talents. That said if people come together in love, live interdependently and inspire one another with their gifts they will create a community for the good of all.

We all have gifts, talents that have been bestowed upon us and I believe we have a responsibility to learn to use these gifts well and to recognise that the same spirit that gave us these gifts requires us to use them cooperatively with those who have different gifts to us. They are not to be used lightly and selfishly, neither are they to be despised. In so doing we will inspire others to do the same, to make the most of what they have been freely given.

Let us be grateful for the gifts that have been bestowed upon us. Let us make the most of these aspects of our humanity that have been given us. Let us learn to share them with one another. Let us be inspired by one another’s gifts and create a true kin-ship of love right here, right now.

Let’s breathe our inspiration into one another.

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

Remember, remember, all those who have inspired us, who have lit the flame within

A friend asked me the other day why I refer to Molly as “Bugger Lugs”. He looked quite disturbed by the phrase. I explained it was a term of endearment when I was growing up. My grandad often you to say to me and my brother come on “bugger lugs”. It seems I speak to Molly in a similar way to how my grandad spoke to me. It is certainly affectionate, although if you actually think about it, it probably doesn’t to someone not brought up hearing it. It seems that anybody below the age of forty and not from Yorkshire and or Lancashire have never heard the term or at least a version of it. Hence the strange looks and responses from folk.

As is my way I posted about this on social media. It was an attempt to offer something light for folk to connect with. The responses were both amusing and fascinating. My mum obviously read it and replied with the following tale:

“I have probably told you this before.

I had a great uncle Eddie. He was certainly a character. I used to love going to see him. He had two Yorkshire terriers called Bugger Lugs and Mucky Clogs. He also had a Myna Bird who would shout out the two dogs names and say Shut Up

Needless to say he was granddads uncle.”

A little later she added:

“Uncle Eddie was Nana's brother. The family lived at 3 Loxley Street. It was a one down, two up. They had 6 children and an uncle who lived there also. No bathroom or inside toilet. To the right of the chimney breast was a sink with a cupboard above. Uncle Eddie replaced the cupboard fronts with wire netting and kept 2 hens in there.

You couldn't make it up

Love Mum xxx”

You truly could not make it up. I have heard this story before, but it was lost somewhere in my subconscious. It has resurfaced and reformed as the days have gone by this week. It makes perfect sense to me why I would call Molly “Bugger Lugs”. Some days she definitely suits “Mucky Clogs”. I have had some bewildered looks from people as I have shared these tales. That said I am kind of used to that.

The conversation has brought some wonderful memories to my heart and mind, of those tales my grandad used to tell me, most I couldn’t repeat here. As well as other tales that my dad and or aunties and uncles used to tell. Most of them make me smile broadly these days, although not always.

Autumn and especially late October and early November is the season of remembering and remembrance. This seems to have been the case throughout human history.

Do you remember the old English Rhyme “Remember, remember the 5th of November, the Gunpowder treason and plot; I know of no reason why the Gunpowder treason should ever be forgot!

I won’t recite the full verse as it gets pretty dark and grim. Those old rhymes often did. Poetry and song are pretty tame these days, in comparison to days gone by. Modern life is pretty tame, when compared to the past. As my other grandad used to say, “There is no such thing as the good old days.”

This last week has marked the beginning of the season of remembrance. Remembrance is far more than simply remembering, its about bringing memory to life. We marked All Hallows Eve or Halloween on 31st October, All Saints Day on 1st November and on 2nd November All Souls Day, a time in the Christian Calendar to remember all souls who have departed this life.

Like other Christian festivals, including Christmas, Easter and Whitsuntide, these three autumn days are a fascinating mixture of pre-Christian, Christian and even post-Christian tradition and mythos. I am fairly certain that the children who were going door at Halloween were probably not aware that they were creating a modern day variant on the pre-Christian festival of Samhain; a festival that not only celebrated harvest, but was also a time to commune with spirits of ancestors. There are similar traditions throughout most culture's, autumnal and winter festivals. Autumn is a time of reflection, a time to take stock before the harsh realities of winter come.

Halloween in the north of England is something that is marked, at least in a secular way, far more these days than I remember in my earlier childhood. When I was a child it was Guy Fawkes or Bonfire Night that took on greater significance. I don’t really remember going “Trick or Treating”, until a significant film came out in 1982 and then everything seemed to change. The film was E.T. the Extra Terrestrial. One of the most commercially successful films of all time and one that changed something significantly, certainly in my life and perhaps the culture of the North of England. I recall, as many others did, that after this going door to door, trick or treating replaced the tradition of going “Door to Door” asking for “a penny for the guy” and of course “Mischievous Night”. It seems that these traditions all got swallowed up with “Trick or Treating”. “Mischievous Night”, at least in Yorkshire, came on the 4th November and was linked to the “Gunpowder Plot” and “Fireworks Night” that is marked today, the 5th of November. Things could get pretty wild on “Mischievous Night” and some, I’m sure, are glad to see that it has pretty much been lost to history. You do hear of little pockets of it in Liverpool and Leeds, but mainly it has gone the way of the Dodo and been replaced by “Trick or Treating”. There’s a part of me that wishes this wasn’t true. I remember the thrill of getting up to no good with friends and of hearing similar tales of other friends who were far more daring than I. I remember a particular exciting time with my cousin Charlton who sadly died earlier this year. The thrill and the excitement of those childhood days have been in my heart this year. I also remember my granddad telling me of things he and his mate Percy used to get up to. I remember the delight in this night of freedom that the children used to be granted. A freedom that I fear children of today do not enjoy. Maybe that is not a bad thing. We see enough to be frightened, to fear on the daily news each and every day.

I was recalling such adventures with a young friend this week. She was telling me of the joy of going pumpkin picking with her family. A tradition that continues into her adulthood. It sounds like a lovely experience. She was utterly bewildered as I and another friend recounted tales of our youth. As I had been listening to tales of my grandads.

These memories mean so much to me. I know there are gems there and they help me to truly appreciate the life I have now. A life made richer by those that have blessed it. Yes, there is much pain there, but there is also deep love. So many gifts and blessings.

Remember, remember…

Memories are snapshots of life. Moments that stay with us. It always fascinates me how these memories take shape and form and often reshape as time goes by; it amazes me how these memories seemingly re-incarnate as time goes by. We should not fear our memories, they are precious in so many ways, and it is these very memories that make the present moment truly come alive. I have discovered that sometimes you can lose some of the true richness of the moment by becoming purely engrossed in it. That might sound like a counter intuitive thing, but I think not.

By the way please do not get me wrong I am not rejecting the power of the present moment, quite the opposite actually. What I am suggesting is there is a greater power in bringing the present moment alive by enriching it with our whole selves. It’s a kind of active experience of the present moment. It’s about opening our whole selves up to the present moment and not just passively experiencing what is there. It’s about wholly living in the moment and then carrying that snapshot of the moment into the future. It’s about truly living on the threshold of life. The truth is of course that this is how we are always living, on the threshold of something, as one moment ends another begins.

Memory is a funny thing. It is amazing what we remember and what we cannot remember, how memory can be so very selective. Memory also changes over time. My memory or do I mean my perspective on past events in my life, have changed over time.

Remember, remember…

Remember’ literally means to ‘re-member’; to put back together that which has been torn apart. In some way remembering has a similarity to ‘religion’, which means ‘to rebind together’. Both are about seeking after a wholeness, and isn’t that what we are about most of the time?”

For so long I used to say I could not remember much about my childhood and the things that I could remember caused me either pain or embarrassment. I thank God this is no longer the case. It would seem that I was always on the run and you really cannot live like that. I also had a lot of trouble remembering much of my adult life too. It was fear that stopped me doing so. I was frightened of reconnecting with these memories. I was frightened of re-feeling these memories. I was ruled by a fear of resentment.

These days memory and remembering has become so very important to me. Every year I gain a different perspective on my past which helps me live better in the present moment and opens up the future in fascinating ways.

Memory is a funny thing.

Remember…remember…

I was reminded this week of someone else who came into my life for a short period of time some 20 years. They inspired me, they lit something in me and changed me forever. Something I ought not ever forget. It brought to mind those wonderful words of Albert Schweitzer, they have been singing in my heart all week.

“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.”

There are many people who have inspired me, who have lit the flame, when all was dark, there are many who have taught me life enhancing, nay life changing things. Something I thought deeply of at this weeks “All Souls” service. A time to remember those who have touched our hearts but who are no longer physically with us. There are so many souls who have inspired me and who continue to do even though they have long gone. I have to say I was quite emotional after the service this week. I was glad I was able to spend time alone afterwards. Grief and the love at the heart of it run so deep. S many souls have lit the flame, have inspired me.

Now “Inspire” is one of those words, like so many in common usage, that has been reduced in meaning as time has gone by. We have reduced its power as our lives have become secularised. It originally meant “immediate influence of God”, especially with reference to the writing of a Holy book. Coming from the French “inspiracion meaning “inhaling, breathing in inspiration”, coming from the Latin “inspirare” meaning to breath in, to inflame. To inspire means to breath upon, to blow into, to excite, to inflame, to affect, to arouse, but to do so through spirit or soul, it is a Divine activity. Therefore, it seems reasonable to conclude that when we inspire others we are engaging in Divine activity. To inspire others is to engage in one of the highest forms of love, as it is Divine love in human action.

Everyone we meet, and everything that we absorb through our senses can be an inspiration. Those that have inspired us, awakened something within us, helped us to become the people that we are today. As we enter the season of Remembrance perhaps, we ought to remember all these people and dedicate our lives to create acts of Remembrance from the love they inspired in us. In so doing we will inspire future generations and those struggling around us to become all that they can be. In so doing our lives will become worth dying for by the legacies of love that we leave behind.

Remember, remember…

May it be so.

Amen

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

Our History of Inspiration

Sue and myself recently spent a weekend in Edinburgh. It is beautiful city full of history and culture. It has a mystery and magic about it too. You see clearly how it inspired JK Rowling in writing the Harry Potter books. It has its darker side too, not just in its history but also its present. It has its fair share of homelessness and addiction issues. We spent some time on the Friday evening helping the Sisters of Mercy as they fed many suffering people. By the way this is an order of nuns who work every day serving such people and not the Leeds based Goth band from the 1980’s. It was deeply humbling work and made me appreciate all that is my life. How different it could have been if circumstances had worked another way.

It was a gorgeous journey north as we drove to Edinburgh. Driving through beautiful countryside and watching the colours change as autumn set in. We passed many landmarks depicting historical sites and places. At one point I was taken back to university and my first degree, which was in “Politics and Modern History”. We had not long entered Scotland when I saw a sign stating that this was the birthplace of Thomas Carlyle. Carlyle was a leading philosopher and historian of the Victorian age. He is perhaps best known for the “Great Man Theory”. The central claim of the theory is that history is shaped by highly influential and unique individuals who, due to their natural attributes, such as superior intellect, heroic courage, or divine inspiration, had a decisive historical effect. A classic example for Carlyle being Napoleon Bonaparte who shaped the Napoleonic era named after him. As Carlyle stated "The history of the world is but the biography of great men", reflecting his belief that heroes shape history through both their personal attributes and divine inspiration. For Carlyle history was shaped by the decisions, works, ideas, and characters of "heroes". He depicted six types of hero, these being the hero as divinity (such as Odin), prophet (such as Jesus), poet (such as Shakespeare), priest (such as Martin Luther), man of letters (such as Rousseau), and king (such as Napoleon). He believed that if an individual studied such figures that they would be inspired to uncover their own genius within. Carlyle was not saying that no other factors were involved in shaping history, just that these great figures were the decisive the ones.

Now obviously there are many other theories of history that disagree with Carlyle’s view. His theory may well be true of the history that I was taught in school, but I’m not convinced it is entirely true when we look at our own experiences, our personal histories, that have shaped our lives. I bet the most important people of our lives won’t have statues built in their memory. Having said that do I wonder what Carlyle would make of our age in what has become a culture shaped by the Uber celebrity. I also wonder who shapes our lives? What will our history say about us?

I wonder who and what has been significant in our lives? Who and what has touched and shaped our lives? Who are the significant people, what are the significant moments and events? It’s the moments that we remember, of course it is, that shape our lives, but I am also convinced that our lives are shaped by the many unremembered moments that effect us without us even being fully aware of them at the time. Our lives are surely shaped by every moment and every person that we share our lives with. I bet that those homeless people in Edinburgh will remember those Sisters of Mercy and other volunteers who give of themselves to ensure that they at least get a warm meal.

I’ve been thinking of the people who have inspired me. Who gave to me and kept me going in my darkest days. I was thinking of this as I enjoyed the sites and history of Edinburgh. One the great figures of the twentieth century came to mind. I remembered a favourite quote of Albert Schweitzer, it began to sing in my heart

“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.”

There are many people who have inspired me, who have lit the flame, when all was dark, there are many who have taught me life enhancing, nay life changing things. I was thinking of many of them yesterday during the All Souls service as we remembered those who have touched our hearts but who are no longer physically with us. There are so many souls who have inspired me and who continue to do even though they have long gone.

Now “Inspire” is one of those words, like so many in common usage, that has been reduced in meaning as time has gone by. We have reduced its power as our lives have become secularised. It originally meant “immediate influence of God”, especially with reference to the writing of a Holy book. Coming from the French “inspiracion meaning “inhaling, breathing in inspiration”, coming from the Latin “inspirare” meaning to breath in, to inflame. To inspire means to breath upon, to blow into, to excite, to inflame, to affect, to arouse, but to do so through spirit or soul, it is a Divine activity. Therefore it seems reasonable to conclude that when we inspire others we are engaging in Divine activity. To inspire others is to engage in one of the highest forms of love, as it is Divine love in human action.

Thomas Carlyle saw the great figures of history as the ultimate inspirations, to him they were geniuses. Nowadays many people are labelled as geniuses, some say that is overused. I think that actually it is an under used word. I think that it ought to apply to anyone who inspires another to be all that they can be. For surely the real genius of anyone is to inspire another to truly come alive, for in so doing you are breathing new life into another. Maybe we ought to build monuments to each and every one of them. Now wouldn’t our towns and cities look interesting if we did.

Edinburgh, like any major city, has many monuments to the great and good. Each telling something of its history good and bad. Many are quite controversial. I remember as I walked round  and about Edinburgh Castle and explored the exhibits of Scots who had fought in countless wars I was moved by many of their personal stories. As I walked out of one museum I saw in front of me a mustachioed figure mounted on a horse. I stepped closer and realised that it was Lord Haig. Instantly I thought of all the stories I had been thinking of and remembered the line said of the sacrifice of the First World War “Lions led by donkeys”. He is certainly one of those controversial figures. That said there were many other statues that remembered the many war dead etc, something that I will perhaps talk more of next week.

Now of all the statues that I saw the most memorable was not of a human at all. No it wasn’t Gey Friars Bobby, although I did love it. Instead it was a huge statue of a Bear in Princess Street Gardens. The statue is of “Wojtek” the “Soldier Bear” who was adopted by Polish troops during the second world war and helped carry ammunition during the Battle of Monte Cassino. After the war he lived in Scotland at Hutton in Berwickshire, before ending his days in Edinburgh Zoo. The statue is actually not only of Wojtek, but also a Polish Army Soldier "walking in peace and unity". It makes a statement about fighting for freedom and showing support and comfort to those who are suffering. It celebrates the ties that have been established in Edinburgh and Poland between the communities that have settled there over the last seventy years and strives to further strengthen this bond over time.

Of all the statues of the great and good and not so good I witnessed in Edinburgh I somehow found this one the most inspiring. It was not so much the statue but what it represented that inspired me, that awakened something within me.

Everyone we meet, and everything that we absorb through our senses can be an inspiration. There are inspirational people all around us, as there has been throughout human history. Some have been the greats, those that have shaped history, they even had statues built in their memory, but most were probably never recognised., except in our own hearts and memories.

Nevertheless they inspired us, they awakened something within us and helped to become the people that we are today. As we enter the season of Remembrance perhaps, we ought to remember all these people and dedicate our lives to create acts of Remembrance from the love they inspired in us. In so doing we will inspire future generations and those struggling around us to become all that they can be. In so doing our lives will become worth dying for by the legacies of love that we leave behind.

May it be so.

Amen

Inspiration: Breath it in breath it out

In a recent “Living the Questions” we explored the subject of “Legacy: What will we leave behind”. As is always the case it was a deeply rich and moving conversation. One area that we looked at was the people who have touched our lives, have inspired us and left their legacy upon us as individuals. Not so much famous and celebrated people but ordinary and seemingly nameless ones who have touched are lives and continue to touch our lives long after they have gone. People who were living breathing sources of inspiration who were incarnations of love, the word made flesh through the way that they lived. The people who have inspired us. The people who awakened something within us. Who planted seeds in our hearts and souls or who nurtured those seeds and helped them grow.

Who are the people who have inspired you? Who planted the seeds of love or who nurtured those seeds and enabled them to grow and flower. Who have been the inspirations in your lives?

Maybe your inspiration hasn’t come from living breathing flesh or perhaps not exclusively so. Maybe your inspiration has come from the arts, or from literature or perhaps even nature. Perhaps it has been through seeing life in certain ways you have been inspired to do something you previously could not. The photographer William Guion describes such an inspirational experience in the extract that follows from “Leaning Oak and Reflection New Orleans”

"On a hazy, chilly December morning, I walked, camera and tripod balanced on my shoulder, through a stand of oaks toward he edge of a pond. The water was silver-gray and still like a mirror hung in an empty, unlit hall. A thin mist fell, or more accurately, hung in the air. Rain had soaked the landscape during the night, and mud at the water’s edge sucked at my shoes. In the yawning light, I saw an oak leaning at a precarious angle over the water. The soil had eroded over time, dissolving much of the tree’s foundation, yet the oak’s roots were locked tenaciously into the receding land. Against the threat of drowning, this tree survived through an elegant dance of balance, perseverance, and heroism. Almost in praise, the pond mirrored the oak’s profile creating a beautiful mandala-like wheel with spokes of water, leaves, earth and light.

As I set up and focused the tree on my camera’s ground glass, I thought how often in my own life I have lived just on the edge of heroic acts. How I’ve operated within safe, comfortable boundaries that defined the limits of what I could accomplish. At this time in my life, I was considering leaving a comfortable, secure job to follow my heart’s urging to photograph and write. I stood on the edge of an uncertain future, mud sucking at my shoes, and stared out through the mists across silver-gray water at this leaning oak. Through its example, I saw clearly through the mists of doubt separating me from a decision. I stood for a long moment and imagined the worst that could happen if I stretched too far over the edge of my fears. Then, in that second when I snapped the shutter recording this moment on film, I stepped across an imaginary line in my mind. In the pond’s dark mirrored water I saw a face. It smiled back at me."

Public figures are of course inspirations to many. A couple of been in the news recently. One being Jessica Ennis the recently retired Heptathlete and Olympian and another Bob Dylan who was this year awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, who has inspired many through his music, particularly his lyrics. The likes of Sir  David Attenborough or Professor Brian Cox are other examples in the way that they bring a sense of awe and wonder about the natural world and universe. People like Nelson Mandella or Mala Yousafsi, the Afgani girl who was shot by the Taliban for wanting an education are other inspirational figures to many too. 

For still others inspiration comes from the great stories and parables, that reveal truths that are often hidden away deep in our hearts. Jesus and the Buddha are great examples of this. In Luke ch 13 vv 18-19 Jesus was asked:

What is the Kingdom of God like?
And to what shall I compare it?
It is like a mustard seed that someone
took and sowed in the garden;
it grew and became a tree,
and the birds of the air made nests
in its branches.

Parables like these reveal Jesus’ ability to dispel wisdom through his teaching. This parable in particular, I believe, is about connecting to that divine aspect within all of us and bringing it to life, thus creating the "Kingdom" within our own lives and within our own communities, for others to share in and enjoy. In so doing we become an inspiration to others to do the same.

Thomas Keating in "Meditations on the Parables of Jesus"expands on this.

"When rightly understood, the parables help us to see how extraordinary a wisdom teacher Jesus really was, and how revolutionary, in the best sense of the word, was the content of what he taught and to which he bore witness by his life and death.

"These insights cohere particularly well with the actual experience of people on the spiritual journey. When contemplative prayer is seriously embraced, we come upon [a] lived reality … the reversal of expectations, the gradual and often painful liberation from emotional programs for happiness, and the increasing discovery of the kingdom of God in the ordinary and everyday."

But how do we bring this seed of inspiration to life in our lives and how can it be nurtured so as to flower and be shared with others? Well I think one way is to recognise it first and foremost, not only in the lives of others but in our own lives too.

Chade-Meng Tan writes on the subject of “Deeds” in “Joy on Demand”

“Whenever you make a donation of time or labor, or do something out of altruistic intention, take a moment to think, "I am doing this out of altruistic intention. Having this intention makes me so happy."

Whenever you meet or bring to mind an admirable, inspiring person, take a moment to think, "There exists this wonderful person in this world. I'm so happy."

Whenever you see somebody performing an altruistic or heroic act, take a moment to think, "More good is being done in this world. I'm so happy."

It is so vital to recognise these moments of inspiration in others and within ourselves if we are to create the Kingdom of God, the Kin-dom of love in our lives. It matters because I believe everything matters, every thought, every word, every deed and every feeling. Everything matters because everything impacts and effects everything else. We impact on the lives of everyone and everything all the time. We are inspirations to one another, even if we are not aware of it. We need to recognise this, we need to be aware of how important we are and how we impact on life.

We are all inspirations to one another.

But what does it mean to be an inspiration? You may well ask. Well the word inspiration is an interesting one, as so many are. We have reduced its meaning in power. It’s another one of those words that we have attempted to tame. Today it means someone or something that gives you an idea for doing something, but originally it meant “immediate influence of God or a gods”. It comes from the old French word “inspiriacion” meaning “inhaling in or breathing in from the Latin “inspirare” meaning to blow into or breath upon so as to excite or inflame. This is the meaning in the following verse from Genesis Chapter 2 “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” It really meant to infuse or animate to affect to rouse to guide to put life into the human soul. As you can see it meant something much more profoundly powerful in the past that it does today.

That said I believe that we can and indeed do inspire in this way and in so doing we can bring the kin-dom to life in our own hearts and lives. We can ignite that divine spark, we do.

I believe that this is what Albert Schweitzer meant when he said:

“Sometimes our light goes out but is blown again into flame by an encounter with another human being. Each of us owes the deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this inner light.”

Those who rekindle the light are the inspirers here amongst us.

How do we do this though? How do we bring this spirit alive within ourselves and how do we recognise it in others?

It is ok saying we need to recognise it, but it isn’t always easy to awaken to this. This is where spiritual discipline plays such a vital role. I remember that ordinary man from Oldham, who was one of my inspirations, who helped rekindle the flame in me. One thing he always taught me was “first things first” that if I was spiritually well the rest will follow and the key to that is spiritual discipline. My life is testimony to this. The problem of course though is that seeing evidence of its importance isn’t always obvious. 

Prayer and meditation do not bring obvious results and yet experience has taught me that they are as vital as breathing air and eating food and drinking water. This brings to mind a tale from Margaret Silf’s “One hundred more wisdom stories” from the famous author “unknown”

A disciple once asked his master, “What can I do to attain God?”

The master answered by asking the disciple another question: “What can you do to make the sun rise?”

The disciple retorted indignantly, “Nothing at all. So why are you giving us all these methods of prayer?”

And the master replied, “To make sure you’re awake when the sun rises.”

The key, I have come to believe, is to be awake to the inspiration within me and all around me. To let that spirit come alive. To let it breath onto all life and to breath in all the inspiration present in all animated life.

The key is to breath in the inspiration and to be the inspiration to bring that seed to life and then breath it out on the world all around me. To shine as you are meant to shine and to not be afraid to be all that you are meant to be.

And how do we do this? Well by simply living the life we love, By simply doing so we inspire those we meet to do the same and all life benefits and in so doing we might just bring the kin-dom alive, right here right now. Actually there is no might about it we do bring the kin-dom of love alive within us and in so doing we shine a little bit of light on all those we share our lives with.

I’m going to end this chip of a "blogspot" with a little bit of wisdom from one of my inspirations John O’Donohue. Taken from “Anam Cara”

“Live the life you love”

"If you allow yourself to be the person that you are, then everything will come into rhythm. If you live the life you love, you will receive shelter and blessings. Sometimes the great famine of blessing in and around us derives from the fact that we are not living the life we love, rather we are living the life that is expected of us. We have fallen out of rhythm with the secret signature and light of our own nature."

The Gift of Inspiration

“Inspiration” by Bernie S. Siegel from “365 Prescriptions for the Soul”

When I speak to respiratory therapists the words inspiration and inspire relate to the act of breathing, mechanical movements of the chest and diaphragm which pull air into our lungs. Yet these words carry a much more significant meaning as well.

In many languages the word for breath or inspiration relates to our spirit and spark of life. I do not think it is an accident that this meaning is shared. After all, God breathed life into Adam through his nostrils. That first inspiration brought life into a piece of clay. Dust became alive.

We are all dust and clay until we find inspiration in our lives. When we are inspired, we change the world, not by changing others, but by changing ourselves. If everyone on this planet felt inspired and breathed life into each other, we would have a world of companionship and love."

...Inspiring words me thinks...

The other Saturday was a rare gift for me. I got to spend the day with my brother. I had rung him the weekend before to wish him a Happy Birthday and during the chat he asked me what I was doing the Saturday afterwards. I checked my diary and said I am free from about 11am onwards. He then asked if I lived near Cheadle Hulme, which of course I do. He then proceeded to tell me that his daughter Scarlet and he would travelling up to Cheadle Hulme School as she was competing in the national under 11 girl’s chess championship. When I heard this news I instantly said “I will be there,” cheering her on. (I realised a little later that cheering someone on while playing chess might not be entirely appropriate...Tee, hee, hee...)

I rarely get the chance to spend time with my brother, one of the few people who have known me and who I have known all my life, so it was a real treat. It was a proud moment for him too. His daughter was captaining her county team Hertfordshire, on the top table and at eight years old in an under 11 tournament. My only concern was whether she would be competing against someone from Yorkshire, in which case my loyalties would be split. Thankfully this did not happen as Yorkshire do not compete in this competition. Apparently they like to do things their own way…something’s never change in the “Great County”.

My brother had a love and talent for chess as a child too, so I know how excited he was for his daughter and how her love for chess and her talent had reawakened a passion in him. He recounted how he had taught me as a child, but I had no real interest. I also remembering him telling me how he himself had been taught by our older step brother, “Our Allen”, who had sadly died a couple of years ago. The gift and inspiration Al passed on to him is living on.

It was a lovely day spending time with family, sharing in something that they loved. It was also a real blessing, a beautiful gift to witness these young people applying and enjoying themselves through the gift of a game that I have no understanding of. Chess is not a game for me. I know how to play, how the pieces work etc but I have no understanding of the game at all, my mind is just not wired up and tuned in that way. My mind, my heart and my soul work in very different ways. That said it was a beautiful gift, to witness them making use of what they have been given. I left inspired by these young people.

We all have our gifts, our different abilities. No two people are exactly alike. We are all born with certain aptitudes and innate ability. We all have something to offer the world, to share with life, but they are not all the same. Thank God. I myself have always been a communicator, but never an athlete. My mum often tells me I could talk long before I could walk. That you could hold a conversation with me as toddler long before I took my first steps. There were two reasons for this. My mind is wired for communication and also because I was born with underdeveloped nerve endings in the base of my spine. This made physical activities difficult as a child. There was even a time when I was not allowed to engage in sport during childhood, something I hated as I watched the other children run and play. I have been re-feeling these memories in recent weeks as I have been attempting to get fit and work with a personal trainer. The old problems are still there, only I’m much older now. That said the shame is no longer there and I am determined to make the most of my body, despite its limitations. While never being athletic and never being wired up for chess I have always been a determined person. I do try to make the most of what I have been given, no matter how limited and not only for myself, but for the good of all. Whatever we have been given, what life has been gifted to us is not for ourselves alone, but to share and for the good of all.

2016 has been a strange year so. One phenomenon I have noticed has been the high rate of “celebrity” deaths. Many icons of my age and my parents age have died this year, an unprecedented number in fact. From David Bowie, Alan Rickman and Terry Wogan in January to Victoria Wood and Prince in the last week and many many more. The Daily Telegraph, who maintain a gallery of famous people’s deaths, have recorded more famous deaths already in 2016 (75) than 2014 (38) and 2015 (30) combined.

Now this could just be put down as a one off, an unfortunate year, but it seems that actually this is a trend that is likely to continue. According to Nick Serpell the BBC’s obituary editor this is because “People who started becoming famous in the 1960s are now entering their 70s and are starting to die.” He also suggested that it will continue to rise because of the increasing phenomenon of celebrity. Stating that: “There are also more famous people than there used to be…In my father or grandfather’s generation, the only famous people really were from cinema – there was no television.”

Many of these celebrities, who have died this year, are from the baby boom generation, meaning that they were the first generation to experience fame in the era of TV. This is when the cult of celebrity began to take off, when people first began to be swept up by it and it has continued to grow ever since, even more so in this mass social media age. The trend will continue, we will lose more and more. This is because as Nick Serpell has explained: “Over the next 10 years, these people will get into their 80s and it is going to continue at this level…And that doesn’t count the surprise deaths, when people die that shouldn’t.”

It seems it’s something that we are all going to have to get used to.

Now of course this not something we should get too sad about. People like Bowie, Prince, Terry Wogan, Victoria Wood, Alan Rickman shone and inspired us in their own unique ways, making the most of their gifts and sharing them with us, bringing us joy and excitement along the way. Just as the people closer to us, ordinary people, have done so by sharing their lives and their loves with us. Just as we do when we do the same. There are many people who we have known in our lives who have no doubt inspired us to be all that we can be, as we have inspired others to be all that they can be.

Just think of the lives that you have touched and the lives that have touched yours…so many moments…Far too many to mention…

By making best use of the gifts we have been given we can inspire others to do the very same.

Inspire is one of those words, like so many in common usage, that has been reduced in meaning as time as gone by. We have reduced its power as our lives have become secularised. It originally meant “immediate influence of God”, especially with reference to the writing of a Holy book. Coming from the French “inspiracion meaning “inhaling, breathing in inspiration”, coming from the Latin “inspirare” meaning to breath in, to inflame. To inspire means to breath upon, to blow into, to excite, to inflame, to affect, to arouse, but do so through spirit or soul, it is a Divine activity. Therefore it seems reasonable to conclude that when we inspire others we are engaging in Divine activity. To inspire others is to engage in one of the highest form of love, as it is Divine love in human action.

Now such figures such as David Bowie and Prince have been called geniuses. It is often an overused word but I think it is fair to apply it to those greats who have inspired us. For it has been through their ability to inspire that their genius came alive; their genius breathed its life into the lives of others.

They are not the only ones though. We all have the genius seed within us. We are all born, we are all graced, with certain gifts. The real genius of course is the one who can give birth to theirs and inspire others to do the same with theirs.

Now throughout human history this genius within us has been understood in different ways. Many, beginning with Plato, talked of each of us being born with a companion, what some might describe as a spirit that remembers our true nature and therefore "calling" and which can guide us back to our greatest animation. It is this that truly brings us alive, that animates our very being that enthuses us. This inner spirit animates our soul, this is the genius within each and every one of us. It has been called by many names such as muse, inner voice, still small voice, higher self, guardian angel or what the ancient Greeks referred to as Daemon. It breathes its life into us and inspires us and through acting from it we too inspire others.

The gifts life has bestowed upon us, our genii are not meant to be kept or selfishly horded. They are meant to be given away, they are meant to be shared with others. Our task is to make the most of these gifts, to enjoy them and to share them with others, thus inspiring them to make the most of what life has given them. This I believe is the point the epistle Paul was making in is first letter to the Corinthians chapter twelve.

Paul wrote the letter because each member of the congregation, in their struggle to be the perfect congregational leader, was getting in the way of the others. Each one of them wanted to possess all the good qualities that make up a good leader, to become the perfect leader and to leave the others in their shadow. Each one was an actor trying to play the director and run the whole show. How often in life does this occur?

Paul taught that the spirit does not allow even the possibility that one person can possess all the talents. That said if people come together in love, live interdependently and inspire one another with their gifts they will create a community for the good of all.

We all have gifts, talents that have been bestowed upon us and I believe we have a responsibility to learn to use these gifts well and to recognise that the same spirit that gave us these gifts requires us to use them cooperatively with those who have different gifts to us. They are not to be used lightly and selfishly, neither are they to be despised or loathed. In so doing we will inspire others to do the same, to make the most of what they have been freely given.

Let us be grateful for the gifts that have been bestowed upon us. Let us make the most of these aspects of our humanity that have been given us. Let us learn to share them with one another. Let us be inspired by one another’s gifts and create a true kin-ship of love right here, right now.

Let’s breathe our inspiration into one another.

Amen