This year has been full, very full indeed. I have certainly been living in “thick time”. I pretty much limped through May, it was a struggle at times to keep going, but I did. I oh so needed the week off I have just enjoyed.
This year has been full indeed, a near perfect example of the blessings and curses that come with “Choosing Life”, to paraphrase good old Moses. There has been professional fulfilment when I was given the honour of delivering the address at the “Anniversary Service” at our denominational annual meetings. There is no greater honour, especially for a minister as junior as myself. Mixed with this though have been the hardships in both congregations, as we have lost so many beloved members, the pastoral demands have been somewhat overwhelming.
Personally it has been a mixed year too. I have fallen beautifully in love, my relationship with Sue is just the most incredible joy and blessing. That said it has not been without challenges within both our families. My own family has been torn apart by the suicide of my step brother Daniel. To witness the pain and suffering in those I love has been almost unbearable at times.
This year has been oh so full. Too much, oh too much at times. My mind has felt filled to overflowing and this has left my heart almost empty. It’s a strange feeling to be filled up to brim with life and yet at the same time to feel almost empty in my being at the same time. A very strange paradox indeed.
My life and my mind have been too full and as a result I have felt emptied of my inner resources, my heart and my soul. This has led to a disconnect at times.
All this brings to mind the story of a university professor who visited a Japanese master to inquire about Zen. The professor began to ask questions while the master just sat quietly, listening. After a while the master began to pour tea into the professor’s cup. The cup soon filled up, but the master did not stop pouring. The tea soon began to spill over on to the table. Initially the professor just sat there in stunned silence, he did not know what to do. Eventually he could take no more and shouted out “It’s overfull. No more will go in!” The master stopped pouring and simply said “Like this cup you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”
It would appear that a full cup, an overflowing cup, is not such a great thing.
Is this so? Is a cup filled to overflowing always a bad thing?
There is another image of an overflowing cup that comes to mind. This is from the 23rd Psalm. Here it is said that King David sings of God as a shepherd who will see him safely through the Valley of Death. “Thou prepares a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.” In the psalm the overflowing cup is an excess of goodness, a symbol of abundance, a source of joy. I I believe that the same is true of love. Can you ever be too full of love?
So we have two images of cups overflowing: One depicting a mind that is too full and therefore unable to focus or learn something new; the other depicting a cup overflowing with love that will enable us to live full lives despite the presence of fear.
Is there a contradiction here, is this a dilemma? Well only if you get lost in the metaphor, the curse of the literalist. The two images are of course depicting different aspects of our humanity.
The Zen story is describing the mind, whereas the Psalm is depicting the heart. It is talking of God’s infinite love. So yes we can be full abundantly with love and yet still have a mind that is clear. Experience has revealed to me that it is the full heart that enables me to clear my mind and not a clear head that leads me to a full heart.
As I look back at my life I can see clearly that it is when my heart is filled with love that my mind begins to clear. There have been times when my head has been so full that there just was no more room for anything else; times when my life was just too full and I couldn’t create space, when prayer and meditation was not enough. My head doesn’t spin these days, thank God, but I can still begin to not feel life again, as my body becomes detached from my soul.
This has happened again in recent months. I so needed last week. I needed to stop, my soul needed to catch up with my body. I needed to let my heart be filled; I needed to once again be touched by the joy of living, as I was in danger of becoming detached from life.
You don’t always get what you want though. The week began with pain and suffering as a dear friend of Sue and mine died. It began in sadness as we felt our pain and that of our friends and our friend's loved ones, not least her children. We set off to Yorkshire, with heavy hearts, as we headed over the hills to be with my family. We spent two days with them. It was a time filled with a great deal of joy and love, but also deep sadness. There is a high level of anxiety and suffering about. This is pretty clear as we are coming to terms with Daniel’s death. It was a beautiful but also a painful time.
There was though joy and laughter too as we came together in love and concern. I also spent time showing Sue around the places I grew up. There were several amusing moments. One was walking around Morley town centre. Did you know you can get a haircut there for £4.99. I also showed her the worst statue in England. It is of Ernie Wise, which is nothing compared to wonderful one of Eric Morecambe. The statue looks like it was made on Scarborough Beach and could be of anyone. A drunken man passed us as we stood there aghast, I said “It looks nothing like him.” To which the drunken man replied “ey’ looks less him by the day.” We wandered off in laughter. I then shared stories of my childhood, some sad, some beautiful and other hilarious as we headed up over hills and down valleys. We visited Batley Park. As we got out of the car I looked up at a house opposite and saw something I did not expect to see. I said to Sue “Look there’s Mrs Doubtfire”. She looked at me dubiously thinking I was being rude about someone. I kept on repeating “Look there’s Mrs Doubtfire” until she eventually looked up and stood there wide eyed. There in the upstairs window of the house was a life sized cardboard cut-out of Mrs Doubtfire peering through the curtains. We just burst into laughter, took a picture and have been sharing it with folk ever since. We laughed a lot that week, finding joy, love and humour as our minds began to clear and our hearts filled.
The second half of the week was spent “glamping” (which is merely glamorous camping). We stayed alone in the middle of knowhere sleeping in a Romany caravan and living in beautiful cabin in the middle of an orchard. It was a beautiful time as we slowed, slept, enjoyed each others company and our souls truly began to catch up with our bodies. My heart as never been fuller and my mind could not have been emptier.
We all need to let our souls catch up with our bodies. We are not fully alive when our hearts, minds, bodies and souls are not at one. This brings to mind another favourite tale about a workaholic businessman who decided to take a Safari. He plotted a course and determined a time-table. He hired workers from a local village to carry the various containers and cases. On the first morning, the entire party roused early, travelled very, very fast and went very, very far. On the second morning, they roused early, travelled very, very fast and went very, very far. On the third day, the same. On the fourth morning, the local tribesmen refused to move. The man gestured irately and fumed at the translator to get them going. “They will not move,” the translator relayed.
“Why not?” the man bellowed, thinking of all the time wasted and dollars spent. “Because,” the translator said, “they are waiting for their souls to catch up with their bodies.”
We need to allow our souls to catch up with us. We need to fully experience our lives, otherwise we become human doings as opposed to human beings. We need to pause and to make space in our lives, to truly appreciate what is actually there. To fully feel life, to fill our hearts to overflowing this allows us to find stillness in our being and fully live our finite lives.
What I have learnt, again, is that in order to fully live our lives we need space, we need a kind of emptiness, we need a cup that is not overly full in order to focus on what life is offering us. That said in order to do this we need to be still at times, still enough to allow our souls to catch up with our bodies and for the love that is always there to fill our open and vulnerable hearts. We all need to allow this abundant love to fill us up and to flow from us and to let it pour out into our lives. For after all we were all born to love.
So I say to you this day and every day sing and rejoice abandon yourself to love and anoint one another regardless of the troubles that may come your way.
The Lord is my Pace-setter, I shall not rush;
He makes me stop and rest for quiet intervals.
He provides me with images of stillness,
which restore my serenity.
He leads me in ways of efficiency
through calmness of mind,
and His guidance is peace.
Even though I have a great many things
to accomplish each day,
I will not fret, for His presence is here;
His timelessness, His all importance,
will keep me in balance.
He prepares refreshment and renewal
in midst of my activity,
By anointing my mind with His oils of tranquility.
My cup of joyous energy overflows,
surely harmony and effectiveness
shall be the fruits of my hours,
for I shall walk, in the pace of my Lord
and dwell in His house forever.
Translated by Toki Miyashina
I seem to have had an exceptionally busy few weeks. This has occasionally been a little overwhelming and I have certainly felt exhausted at times. That said it has not been a negative kind a tiredness, the kind that comes from a weariness with life. Quite the opposite actually it has been a tiredness that comes from living a full life. A kind of satisfied tiredness. Maybe it’s the kind of tiredness a man is meant to experience.
The other evening I laid out on my settee, feeling tried but at the same time satisfied. You may remember the evening it was the first night of those powerful storms we have been experiencing. What a powerfully electric experience it was. I closed my eyes for a few moments and a lovely feeling came over me. I experienced a beautiful sensation around my brow and also in the pit of my stomach, the place where the intense fear used to inhabit. After a while two beautiful images came over me as I lay there listening to the thunder. There was a wonderful sense of connection and satisfaction in my heart. The images that came to me are two of my favourites. One was of an empty cup and the other of a cup that is overflowing.
Now when I think of these images my understanding is that the empty cup is symbolic of a clear mind, a completely empty and open mind and one that is able to be used to its best purpose. While the overflowing cup symbolises a heart that is filled to overflowing; a heart that is filled with abundant love; love that is being poured out on the world. Now for me these images symbolise the spiritual life. True spiritual living is about having a clear, empty and open mind and a heart that is so full that it is overflowing.
Now you often hear the question “Is the glass half empty or half full” it is symbolic of a person who is either an optimistic or a pessimistic person. I have been both at different times in my life. These days though I am neither, I am no longer a glass half empty or glass half full kind of man. These days I am completely empty glass kind of man, while at the same time I am also a cup that is so full it is overflowing kind of man. Now some folk tell me that you can’t be both, you have to be an either or and my answer to them is, says who? I am both and so can you be too, stop being so literal, open your mind, use your imagination and fill up your heart to overflowing.
This brings to mind a story I have heard in many different forms over the years…
There is a story of a university professor who visited a Japanese master to inquire about Zen. The professor began to ask questions while the master just sat quietly, listening. After a while the master began to pour tea into the professor’s cup. The cup soon filled up, but the master did not stop pouring. The tea soon began to spill over on to the table. Initially the professor just sat there in stunned silence, he did not know what to do. Eventually he could take no more and shouted out “It’s overfull. No more will go in!” The master stopped pouring and simply said “Like this cup you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”
This story teachers that a full cup, one that is overflowing is not a good thing to have. It teaches we need an empty cup, which symbolises and empty mind. What the Buddhists call a “Beginners Mind”. A mind that is open to new ideas. It is a humble mind that results in an open mind. Think of the image of the Buddhist monk with his begging bowl held out, an act of humility and interdependence.
The image of an overflowing cup also brings something else to my mind. A line from the 23rd Psalm. In the Psalm King David sings of God as a shepherd who will see him safely through the Valley of Death. At the beginning of this "blogspot" is a wonderful Japanese translation of these familiar words. The translation I believe helps us to make sense of these ancient words in our contemporary time. There aren’t really many shepherds about these days and it can be hard for 21st century boys and girls to relate to this metaphor.
The more traditional translation states that “Thou prepares a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.” In the psalm the overflowing cup is depicting an excess of goodness, a symbol of abundance, a source of joy. A heart full of Love. Can you ever be too full of love?
Here we have two images of cups overflowing: One depicting a mind that is too full and therefore unable to focus or to learn something new; the other depicting a cup overflowing with love that will enable us to live full lives despite the presence of fear.
So you see it is not a problem to have both an empty cup and one that is overflowing at the same time. This only becomes a problem if you get lost in the metaphor, the curse of the literalist. The two images are of course depicting different aspects of our humanity.
The Zen story is describing the mind, whereas the Psalm is depicting the heart. It is talking of God’s infinite love. So yes we can be full abundantly with love and yet still have an empty mind. I suspect that it is the full heart that enables us to clear our minds, or perhaps it’s the clear mind that enables us to have our hearts filled.
Maybe, maybe not!
It’s a bit like the old riddle “What came first, the chicken or the egg” Do you need to fill your heart in order to clear your mind, or ought you be focusing on clearing your mind in order to allow your heart to be filled to overflowing? Why not try both at the same time.
Now in my case it would seem that it was only when love began to take over my heart that my mind began to clear. My head used to be full of so much that there was no space for anything else. My thoughts would just swirl round and round and round and go pretty much nowhere. These days my head is pretty much empty most of the time. My head is clear, even when I’m really busy and my diary gets too full. This is good thing as my mind can be used for what its true purpose is. I thank God that it is no longer held back by the regret of the past or the fear of the future. As a result I have peace of mind these days, even in the most difficult of times. The cup (my mind) is no longer overflowing and yet at the same time I experience the cup that runneth over, I know that everlasting and eternal love of God. As a result I can experience this abundant love present in life.
That is not enough though. I have also learnt that it is my task to pour this love out onto the world. To bring this love alive. In many ways I suspect it is our task not so much to seek and find God, but to let God out and pour this love on our world, whilst allowing and inviting that love to be poured out on us. Again like the Buddhist bowl this is symbolic of our interconnectedness and our interdependence. We each fill one another’s bowl.
From you I receive, to you I give, together we share and from this we live.
These two images also bring something else to my mind about the spiritual life. This is of course the phrase “faith without works is dead”. For me these two cups also symbolise both faith and works. The empty cup is the faith and the overflowing cup is the works, or maybe it’s the other way around. By working these two together, we become spiritually alive. In order to do the works we need the faith. We need to be still and to connect spiritually, we need to clear our minds and fill our hearts and then to truly bring this to life we need to do the works and pour out this love on the world. By the way if we do this the love will grow and the peace we feel will become realised. That said we must also remain appropriately humble and let others serve us too. We need to accept the love and help of others. We must never think that we can live by ourselves alone. To be fully alive is to understand, accept and embrace our interdependence.
The spiritual life is simple, but it is far from easy. It needs two simple things. One is emptiness and the other fullness. Now this requires an empty mind and a heart that is full to over flowing. How is this achieved you may well ask? Well quite simply actually, through faith and good works. All we need to do is spend time in stillness allowing our minds to become empty and clear and also spend time giving of ourselves to one another and life itself, pouring out our love. That said we must also spend time in silence allowing our hearts to be filled, acknowledging our interdependence and allowing others to serve us too.
It really is that simple.
So let us become like tea cups, empty and ready to filled. And when we are filled to overflowing lets pour out that love on our world.
Let’s follow the advice of “the lads” in those Tetley Tea Bag adverts lets “Let flavour flood out”
I'm going to end this little chip of a blogspot with the following extract from "The Book of Words" by Lawrence Kushner
From “The Book of Words” by Lawrence Kushner
Energy in the form of light is trapped in gross matter. Sparks of holiness are imprisoned in the stuff of creation. They yearn to be set free, reunited with their Source through human action. When we return something to its proper place, where it belongs, where it was meant to be; when we use something in a sacred way or for a holy purpose; when we treat another human being as a human being, the captive sparks are released and the cosmos is healed. The liberation of light is called the Repair of creation.
The process occurs also within each individual. According to one legend, once there was a primordial person as big as the whole universe whose soul contained all souls…
This person is identical with the universe and, for this reason, each human being is at the same time both riddles with divine sparks and in desperate need of repair. Each person is the whole world. And every human action therefore plays a role in the final restitution. Whatever we do is related to this ultimate task: To return all things to their original place in God. Everything a person does affects the process.
In recent blogspots I have explored suffering and despair and how to find meaning in difficult times; ways to the engage with the kind of deep sustenance that can sustain us when life seems difficult. In this final piece for Novemeber I am continuing with this theme by discussing a substance that occurs naturally within everyone. It will explore that most sacred of waters; it will be exploring tears. I suspect that the tear may just about be the ultimate of human sacraments. Tears mark many of the most sacred moments of our lives; tears connect us to these moments in ways that are way beyond mere words.
Tears rolled down my cheeks on several occasions last weekend. Most of them were not tears of sadness; no they were tears of gratitude, joy and connection. I have shed tears of sadness in recent weeks, but not last weekend.
Last Sunday I was deeply touched by the anniversary service I attended at Oldham Unitarian Chapel and One World Centre. They were celebrating 200 years of Unitarian witness in the town. The first Unitarians began gathering there, officially at least, for the first time in an upstairs room just a few months after the Trinity Act was passed in 1813. This act allowed Unitarians to worship free from persecution for the first time. The history of Oldham Unitarians has been one of struggle. There have been times when they have thrived, but in the main they have struggled. This has been particularly true in recent years. This is why it was such a joy to be there last Sunday and to see them harvesting some of the fruits of their labour. Over the weekend their new One World Cafe was opened and they also unveiled the most beautiful new stained glass window. The dedication of the new window was led by Marion Nuttall ,one of the stalwarts of the congregation. As she spoke tears began to roll down my face. As they did I looked around the chapel and noticed the same thing occurring in the eyes of others that were present there tpp. These were tears of love and understanding, tears of recognition for Marion and her steadfast dedication to the chapel, the people of Oldham and free religion. It was a real privilege to be a witness to this.
I also experienced some wonderful tears of gratitude as I tried to settle down to sleep last Saturday night. I was quite high on life at the time. I’d been to a wonderful New Model Army gig that night and had been moved deeply by the whole experience. I had shared the night with some new friends and yet I felt that I had experienced the whole event with friends I had known from being a teenager. I even bumped into an old mate I’d not seen since the later 1990’s. As soon as we saw one another we just hugged, what more was there to do. As I lay in bed that night I tried to come down from the high of the evening and just could not. I tried to clear my head and connect to my breathing, but it just did not work. So I decided to just lie and re-feel the memories not just of that night but of many nights over many years. I remembered old friends and passions and as I did tears began to form in my eyes. They were not tears of sadness; they were tears of gratitude, connection and most of all love. After a while a broad smile spread across my face and I drifted into a deep dreamless sleep.
There is something deeply sacred in tears. I’m not really talking about crying here by the way. I think that crying is something else, something that demands attention from others and something we often feel we need to do something about. Crying, sobbing especially in children is something which makes most people feel deeply uncomfortable.
In recent times I have heard several people say that they cannot cry alone; that they need other people to be there so that they can feel safe enough to cry. I suspect that this has something to do with the fear of being out of control and being unable to get back to what they perceive as normality. I may well be wrong, but I don’t think so. If you cry in public you will of course be heard and there will usually be someone or even several people who will respond and help you to put things back together again.
I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit recently. I’m not sure I cry in public, or not very often anyway. I do shed tears though. I do so a lot actually, sometimes while leading worship. I don’t fear it. I know these tears are sacred and it is my soul responding to something greater than myself.
Tears though don’t only come in response to gratitude and happy moments of connection. They are also a response to deeply felt suffering. It will not surprise you to hear that Forrest Church had something rather beautiful to say on this subject, He wrote that...
"...the ancient Hebrews honoured suffering, viewing it as a sign of a deeply felt experience, a symbol of their passion. I encountered an intimate expression of this on a recent visit to Israel.
The Israel Museum in Jerusalem contains a collection of tiny ceramic cups. These were sacramental vessels. People cried into them.
Your mother has just died. Someone you love has cancer. Your spouse has left you. You are struggling at work. More likely, you have simply broken down. You burst into tears. So you pick up your tear cup, put it under your eye, and weep into it. When you are finished weeping, you cap it and put it away again. It is a way to save your tears.
Why save them? Because they are precious. It doesn’t matter why we cried, your tears are precious, for they show that you care. A full cup of tears is proof that you have felt deeply, suffered, and survived. Their value is ratified by this simple parable from Jewish lore. When his student complained that he was suffering and so deeply confused that he could no longer pray and study, Rebbe Mendl of Kotzk asked him, “What if God prefers your tears to your studying?”.
Washington Irving the author of the Gothic novel “Sleepy Hollow” claimed that “There is a sacredness in tears. They are not a mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition and of unspeakable love.”
Tears are sacred; they are perhaps the holiest of holy waters. I have not always seen them this way. I used to see them as a sign of weakness; that they symbolised emotion that needed to be controlled and not expressed. I remember the day that my father died, walking into the room where he lay. I went in alone, I looked at him and kissed him and then turned and walked out of the door and into my grandma’s kitchen. As I did so my auntie and grandma asked if I was ok as they did I felt the emotion come and I swallowed hard, no tears came. I did not cry at the funeral either. It took me 10 years before I was able to grieve my father’s life and death.
Thankfully I am no longer like that. One reason I spend so long preparing the funeral services I lead is because of the way they affect me. I have to go over them again and again to work through the emotion, so has to maintain professionalism on the day. Yet no matter what I do the emotion is there, there is always one or two tears. As there should be, these are sacred moments that I am attempting to hold people through.
For so much of my life I have been afraid of my emotional nature and this is one of the reasons why when I was first asked by my granddad if I would conduct his funeral, when the time came, I refused. I did so because I was afraid I would be unable to cope on the day. Since then thankfully my faith has grown. Only a couple of weeks ago it came to me that this is something I must do. Yes tears will be shed, but it is something I must do. It is the right thing to do. Today I try not to shy away from the sacredness of life.
I have for many years been fascinated by two very different images of overflowing cups. One is the Zen Buddhist tale about an overflowing tea cup and the other the verse from the 23rd Psalm “my cup runneth over”. The Zen tale depicts the importance of an empty mind. The story teaches that we need what Buddhist describe as “Beginners Mind” in order to truly learn what is required to find peace. It teaches that our problem is that our minds are overflowing with so much stuff that we have no room for anything new. There is a real deep truth here. A clear mind is a priceless commodity. The question this raises for me though is how do we create the clear mind?
For a long time I believed that the way to achieve this was to learn to control my thoughts and not allow them to attach to things. Well this never really worked for me and today I can clearly see why. You see back then I wasn’t really trying to control my mind at all, more my emotions. No doubt this is why it never worked for me. I have in recent days learnt a better way. I have found that by filling the cup of love to the point that it ‘runneth over’ my mind has become clear. The cup that is of course being filled is my heart, nay my soul. I have discovered by connecting fully to all that is, all that has been and all that is yet to be my spirit has become healthy and as a result my mind has pretty much emptied. Hard to believe really because for many years my mind never stopped swirling, this is why I suffered insomnia for so long. When I stopped and lay my head on my pillow my head would not slow down it would in fact speed up and there was nothing I could do about it. I thank God this is no longer the case; I thank God that I have discovered by filling my heart, my soul, that my head becomes empty.
This of course leads to another question. How do we fill the cup to overflowing? Well maybe there's a lesson to be learnt from those ancient Hebrews and their tiny ceramic cups. Maybe the answer is to find a way to store those tears to let them build up so that they overflow out of ourselves and into our lives. Now I’m not suggesting you buy cups yourselves, please don’t take me literally here. What I mean is that we can do so by increasing our sensitivity to life and we do this by simply connecting to the world in which we live, moment by moment, breath by breath. I’m not just talking about saving the tears of about sorrow here either, I’m talking as much about joy as anything else. Tears are a sign of a truly felt experience and I believe that to truly live meaningful lives we have to experience everything and to carry that experience out into our world.
November is the month of change and reflection and this year this has been quite an intense experience for me. Now it is time to move forward into the winter, into December, into Advent. It is time to move forward into the new light that can come if we fill our hearts and souls to over flowing and attempt to bring into our world glad tidings of comfort and joy. Our world needs it and we need it too.
So I say fill those cups to overflowing and spread this abundant love into our world. Drink from one another’s cups and from the cup of the eternal for that is one cup that is forever overflowing.
Watching the Olympics these last couple of
weeks I have been deeply moved by the power of the love expressed; I’ve been
deeply moved by how this power has lifted up so many of the competitors to a
higher level. The power of thousands of people and millions throughout the
country backing them to hilt has lifted the level of performance of so many
British competitors, especially those from Yorkshire it seems.
This is not a unique or modern phenomena,
home advantage is common place in sport. What has been different over the
last couple of weeks has been that this has been expressed in a purely loving
sense. It’s not that the atmosphere has been intimidating for the non-home
based competitors, there has been no semblance of jingoism despite Morrisey's accusations. No it’s more that the British competitors seem to have been
lifted to a greater level by the power of love expressed by their own
supporters. This abundance of love has not merely filled their spirit but it
has been overflowing. Just beautiful!
I have also noticed how many of the
competitors go through their own personal routines to prepare themselves before
they compete. Many pray or offer praise and many centre down. This seems
central to their ability to focus on what is in front of them. As a result many
have been able to connect to this abundant love that somehow seems to be able
to lift them to a greater level of performance. The reductionists tell us that
we are nothing more than flesh, nothing more than chemicals, but is this really
so? I have observed an immense power at work these last two weeks; a power open
to us all; a power that can lift us up beyond the confines of what we may think
we can be. I have witnessed love overflowing; I have witnessed abundant love.
There is a story of a university professor
who visited a Japanese master to inquire about Zen. The professor began to ask
questions while the master just sat quietly, listening. After a while the
master began to pour tea into the professor’s cup. The cup soon filled up, but
the master did not stop pouring. The tea soon began to spill over on to the
table. Initially the professor just sat there in stunned silence, he did not
know what to do. Eventually he could take no more and shouted out “It’s
overfull. No more will go in!” The master stopped pouring and simply said “Like
this cup you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you
Zen unless you first empty your cup?”
As I have watched the competitors preparing
themselves for their events this image of the empty cup has come into my mind.
They have emptied their minds of all distractions as they have prepared
themselves. It would appear that a full cup an overflowing
cup is not such a great thing.
But is this so? Well maybe, maybe not.
The image of an overflowing brings something
else to my mind; it brings the 23rd Psalm, "The Lord is my Shepherd" to my conciousness. In the 23rd
Psalm David sings of God as a shepherd who will see him safely through the
Valley of Death. “Thou prepares a table before me in the presence of mine
enemies; thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.” In the psalm
the overflowing cup is an excess of goodness, a symbol of abundance, a source
of joy. Can we ever be too full of love?
Here we have two images of cups overflowing:
One depicting a mind that is too full and therefore unable to focus or learn
something new; the other depicting a cup overflowing with love that will enable
us to live full lives despite the presence of fear.
But is this a dilemma? Well only if you get
lost in the metaphor, the curse of the literalist. The two images are of course
depicting different aspects of our humanity.
The Zen story is describing the mind; where
as the Psalm is depicting the heart, it is talking of God’s infinite love. So
yes we can be full abundantly with love and yet still have a mind that is clear.
I suspect that it is the full heart that enables us to clear our minds, or
perhaps it’s the clear mind that enables us to have our hearts filled.
Maybe, maybe not!
Looking at my own life it was only when love
began to take over my heart that my mind began to clear. My head use to be full
of so much that there was no space for anything else. My thoughts would just
swirl round and round and round and go pretty much nowhere. These days my head
is pretty much empty most of the time. My head is clear. This is good thing as my
mind can be used for its true purpose. It is no longer held back by the
regret of the past or the fear of the future. As a result I have peace of mind
these days, even in the most difficult of times. The cup (my mind) is no longer
overflowing and yet at the same time I experience the cup that runneth over, I
know that everlasting and eternal love of God. As a result I can experience
this abundant love present in life.
The last two weeks as I have been absorbed by
the Olympics I have watched love in abundance. I have seen this power truly
manifest in the lives of those competing. As many British athletes have said
their performances have been raised up by the love bestowed upon them by those
supporting them. These last two weeks we have witnessed competitors lifted to
their greatest potential by the love that has been poured all over them.
I believe that we can all live fully aware of
the abundance that is open to us in life. We can live as though our cups were
overflowing with abundant love. We can give our love freely. We can truly throw
caution to the wind and live with true gracious abandon.
Now some folk may accuse me of being a dreamer, a Pollyanna. Well they can think what they like. I do not believe that I am the only dreamer I
am sure we have all felt this at times. We have all felt full up with the
abundance of life, if only for brief moments.
We can trigger this abundance in others
too. It can begin with a smile at a stranger in the street. I have written many times about my belief in the chaos theory of compassion, the source of which is
this abundant love. We can pour it out of ourselves and on to others and they can do likewise. I have seen proof of the power of this abundant love these last two weeks as so many British competitors have been lifted up
beyond what they thought was their potential.
The wonderful thing about this abundance is
that unlike any other resource it is not finite it truly is infinite. The more
we express it, the more we give it away, the more our cups are filled. The key is
to share it extravagantly to pour it out onto one another.
The image of abundant love brings to my mind
a passage from Matthew’s Gospel (Ch 26 vv 6-13). It is a much debated passage
primarily because it has been used by some as a justification for tolerating
poverty. I believe that to focus on this is to fail to recognise the central
message of Matthews Gospel, the abundant blessing of love.
The passage reads: “Now while Jesus was at
Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster
jar of very costly ointment, and she poured it on his head as he sat at the
table. But when the disciples saw it, they were angry and said, “Why this
waste? For this ointment could have been sold for a large sum, and the money
given to the poor. But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you trouble
the woman? She has performed a good service for me. For you always have the
poor with you, but you will not always have me. By pouring this ointment on my
body she has prepared me for burial. Truly I tell you, wherever this good news
is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance
of her.”
This is a story of abundant love. The woman
loves and cares for Jesus. She anoints him with oil because she loves him
dearly. It truly is an act of loving, nay gracious abandonment. This is in complete
contrast to the grumpy disciples who want to preserve and conserve love as if
it were a finite commodity.
So what am I trying to say, you may well ask? I am
saying that yes we all need a clear mind, a cup that is not overly full in
order to focus on what life is offering us. That said in order to do this we need an open heart, we need this to allow this abundant love to fill us up
and to flow from us.
Let the love pour on, in and through us. Let's pour it out into our lives. We were all born to
love.
Let's sing, rejoice and abandon ourselves to love and
anoint one another regardless of the troubles that may come our way. It's been a wonderful and wonder filled couple of weeks I hope and pray that we can carry this loving spirit into our lives as the Olympic dust settles and normality returns
