It is important for awake people to be awake

I was away last weekend in the beautiful city of Edinburgh. Edinburgh is one of those places that is a delight to simply walk around in. I spent several hours on Saturday morning doing so. It was wonderful. I went to few places of importances and paid homage to the great and good of the city, marked by the statues and the monuments. To me they help to sanctify the city, give it a sense of the sacred. Edinburgh has a timeless quality to it, with a skyline dominated by the castle built on that ancient rock.

As I wandered round there was nowhere that you could not see the castle on the rock, for whatever reason it kept on bringing the first verse of Psalm 121 to my heart and mind “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help”. I felt a gentle strengthening as I walked around the city with one or two concerns on my mind.

As I said I love the monuments of the city. My favourites though are the more quirky ones. Some tell ordinary tales, of local inhabitants that graced the city and others told great tales. I of course went to find Greyfriars Bobby, to pay homage and of course to touch his nose. I received his blessing. As I am sure you know a dog blesses with their nose. I also discovered another statue of another dog, one that became the mascot of San Diego, This dog was named “Bum”, he arrived as a kind of refugee, a stow-away. The locals fell in love with him and they cared for him. The people of San Diego donated a statue of “Bum” to Edinburgh, thus creating a bond between the two very different cities and their beloved dogs. Both dogs’ noses are worn from all the blessing. I thought of Molly and how she blesses so many folk in the communities we live in. I wonder if they might build a monument to her one day.

There are many monuments to those lost in war and conflict, you see throughout Edinburgh, in particularly in Princess Street gardens. As I wandered through gardens I paused and reflected many times. I thought of many folk we have lost in our communities and folk I have lost personally. I thought of Derek and his family as his life is coming to an end. Sadly Derek died this week, surrounded by his loving family. He is a huge loss to the community and to me personally. He has been a good friend and rock actually.

I saw a statue I hadn’t seen before of a giant toy elephant. It is named “Never Forget”. It has been placed in the gardens in memory of the “Morton Hill Baby scandal”. It marks a something terrible, not only the loss of babies lives, but also that their ashes were never given to their parents. It si said that the elephant never forgets and this statue symbolises the fact that these parents will never forget the loss of their babies.

All these statues and many others, especially in Princess Street gardens, sanctify the city of Edinburgh and the people who both live and visit there. They speak of the city and those who inhabited it through the centuries, marking the past, touching the present and pointing towards the future. I felt blessed as I walked around the city that Saturday morning, connecting with its heart and soul. I then made my way towards St Mark’s Unitarian Church and Janine’s induction service.

It was a beautiful and moving service, as folk gathered together, to mark this important day in Janine’s life and the life Edinburgh Unitarians. So many people from Janine’s life were gathered and the story of her journey into ministry shared and all those that had been involved in her journey were present. It was a true blessing and a blessing to be a part of. It was all accompanied by the most beautiful music played by Ailsa Aitkenhead. There were several moving moments of ritual that we engaged in throughout the service or was it a ceremony. I felt deeply blessed by it all. I then enjoyed a wonderful evening of folk catching up with things. The next day I returned to St Mark’s to enjoy Sunday morning worship. It was wonderful to be led in worship by Kyle Mc Donald, inspired by the journey of Robert Falcon Scott and his party to the Antarctica, an ill fated journey, but one of honour, inspired by the same spirit I felt blessed by all through the weekend in Edinburgh. A spirt that can come alive in each of us and bless us all. We don’t need to touch one another’s noses to receive the blessing, but it is there all the same. By the way Kyle has just been accepted for ministry training. It felt like a blessing to see him lead worship having this just been announced.

My weekend in Edinburgh was one of blessing, worship and ritual of so many kinds. I felt the spirt alive and present throughout it all.

The previous Sunday I had been invited to attend a dear friends Baptism at “The Audacious” Church in central Manchester. This was a very different occasion to the one I had experienced in Edinburgh. I was deeply moved witnessing my friend pass through a threshhold of her own. She has been on quite a journey herself. A journey that had some of its beginnings during a Christmas Eve service at Dunham Road. Now while the worship in the service at the “Audacious Church” did not touch me so much, it did touch many of the hundreds present. What did touch me though was witnessing my friend pass through a threshold of her own and continue on her journey to who knows where. As I looked at her face during this ceremony I saw that same spirit I experienced at St Mark’s and as I wandered around Edinburgh, as I was blessed by the beautiful city. It was a blessing to gaze upon her face and to think of the journey she has been on.

We are always at the threshold of something, the end of one moment moving into another. People say live in the moment, well I have discovered that the moment is not some static thing that you can live within, the moment is liminal in nature, it is the space between the past and the future. You cannot really live in the moment. Maybe it is more accurate to say that the moment lives in and through you. Each moment can be a blessing in itself, can be deeply sacred in and of itself. The key is how we live within each and every one. You may be sanctified by it, if you live by and through blessing.

This bring to mind a rather wonderful poem, “A Ritual to Read to Each Other” by William Stafford. I will share it with you.

“A Ritual to Read to Each Other” by William Stafford

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dike.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider—
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

It is the line “For it is important that awake people be awake, or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep” that speaks powerfully and intensely to me. It is not merely that we need to keep ourselves awake, but that we need to remind one another who and what we truly are in order that we remain awake and do not go back to sleep. We have to bring to life what has awakened within each and everyone of us and share that with each other so as to remind one another of the importance of staying awake, or we will go back to sleep. Again something I experienced in Edinburgh last weekend. I felt once again awakened by the spirit and was reminded how vital it is that we remain awake.

The key is to remember and to bring the memory alive in this moment we find ourselves in right here and now. To communicate what we have learnt and to listen to what has awoken within each other. I felt this powerfully as I shared in Janine’s induction service and as I looked upon the face of my friend during her Baptism. I thought of all that had brought them to these moments of transition and wondered where they might lead. They may not build monuments to them, but they will touch many lives and bless folk with their presence, of this I am certain.

As I witnessed Janine’s induction, as I saw her step over the threshold into her life as a minister, I felt those words by William Stafford deep in my heart. As I did I felt a recommitment to ministry deep within me and thought to myself, I will attempt to live that ritual and keep on reading it to others and listen to it as they read the ritual to me. I will remember the line.

“For it is important that awake people be awake, or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep”

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been thinking once again about worship. Its purpose and how to create sacred space. Of course, having Peter as a student has brought this to my consciousness. Also being part of the interview panel for ministry as well as “Ministry in the Making” has brought it to my head and heart too. I have also attended several different forms of worship, some has affected my soul, touched me deeply. Other has not in the least, although it did many others who were present. It has all got me thinking deeply about worship and its purpose. I have also been thinking about ritual, how it holds life together and sanctifies it, but also the dangers of becoming a slave to it. There is a place and need for structure as it allows the freedom to explore. There is also the need to cater for different types of people. There is a balance needed between structure and total lassez faire. I know myself I need a mixture of the two, although I know the balance will never be perfect. I also know that you cannot please all of the people all of the time.

This brings to mind a favourite story “The Guru’s Cat”

In India there was a great religious guru who was always surrounded in his Ashram by loyal devotees. For hours a day, the guru and his followers would meditate on God. The only problem was that the guru had a young cat, an annoying creature, who used to walk through the temple meowing and purring and bothering everyone during meditation. So the guru, in all his practical wisdom, commanded that the cat be tied to a pole outside for a few hours a day, only during meditation, so as to not disturb anyone. This became a habit – tying the cat to the pole and then meditating on God – but as years passed, the habit hardened into religious ritual. Nobody could meditate unless the cat was tied to the pole first. After the guru died, the cat continued to be tied during evening worship.

Then one day the cat died. The guru’s followers were panic-stricken. It was a major religious crisis – how could they meditate now, without a cat to tie to a pole? How would they reach God? In their minds, the cat had become the means.

Centuries later, learned treatises were written by the guru’s scholarly disciples on the liturgical significance of tying up a cat while worship is performed.

Ritual in worship helps to touch the spirit. That said there is a real danger in becoming too enslaved to ritual. Sometimes it becomes all about the ritual and the spirit dies. Surely the purpose of such activities is to feed the spirit and not just follow some pattern, just like the story of “Guru’s Cat”. We are here to touch and awaken the spirit, to keep feeding it and thus to keep the spirit awake.

Sometimes we become so tied to things that we forget the purpose of why we are doing what we are doing. So yes, I have been thinking once again about the purpose of worship, particularly in the context of a free religious tradition, one that should never be a slave to anything. I have also been thinking about the purpose of spirituality and the spiritual life. I have been thinking how we enliven and awaken the spirit in each of us, about balance, and how worship may feed the soul; thinking of ways to live the spiritual life, to live spiritually alive.

How do we define spirituality and the spiritual life? What is its purpose? I have heard many explanations over the years. The best one came from Rev Bill Darlison, he said “that the purpose of the spiritual life, is to increase our sensitivity to life.” I believe that the purpose of spirituality is to aid us to become more affected by life and thus become more effective in life. It is not to rise beyond life, to escape from life, but to enable us to engage fully with reality. I know that the more engaged I am in such practices the more engaged I am in life. That said I also need such practices to recharge my spiritual batteries and thus return back to life and increase the affect and become more effective. The spiritual life is not so much about transcendence but transformation. It is not about escaping life, but to be changed by it and thus be a force for good within it.

The realm of the spirit and the realm of the material are not separate, they both feed and are fed by each other.

There is something very powerful about coming together in love; there is something very powerful in opening ourselves up to one another and recognise what connects us what makes us wholly human. Worshipping together is one way to do so, but it can happen in all aspects of life. It can occur in deep encounters with others, when love and attention is paid. It can happen by simply walking around wherever you may find yourself if your spirit is open to it.

The communities I serve gather together seeking something, as we engage in the ritual of worship. We come for a reason, even if where not wholly sure what that reason is. In the worship we share I attempt to create through words, music, silence, imagery and more, a sacred time and space that will enable us to open our hearts and help us connect to the Greater mysteries of life, to the Web of being, to know the spirit of life and love, to experience God and for this to impact on how we live our day to day lives.

In this sacred space at the sacred time where generations have worshipped we open our hearts to the greater mysteries of life. In so doing we begin to connect to the greater realities and mysteries of existence. It is this time that can help us to open up the lives we find ourselves in and to pay attention to the life around us and to touch the people we meet in our daily living. In so doing we make all life sacred, by blessing it with our presence.

My hope is that when we leave the space that we are touched in those deeper aspects of our humanity and that when we leave the space that we begin to bless the world with our sacred humanity by recognising the sacredness of each person that we meet and that we bless life with our loving presence.

Or as William Stafford put it, “For it is important that awake people be awake, or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep”

May our souls, our spirits, our simple human being be awake.

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

Ritual: The practice of cultivating extraordinary ordinariness

I spend a lot of my spare time these days walking round Altrincham with Molly. We bump into all kinds of people. I always use to say it could take me an hour to walk to Tesco and back, due the many conversations I found myself in, that was before Molly. These days the walks can take even longer. I walk her probably four times a day, it has become a regular routine. I was chatting with a woman the other day who has watched us from her apartment window for months. She says she sees us many times passing by during the week, sometimes the two of us, sometimes with different people and on occasions with a whole gang of folk. Molly is becoming something of a pied piper, I think.

On Monday, on the way back from the park, I saw our local poet Oliver James Lomax leaning on a post with a pen and notebook. We stopped to talk and he told us he had gone out in search of inspiration. He needed to be in the right frame of mind to get creative, it seems that the muses hadn’t been whispering in his ear for a while. He had been touring a lot and performing, but not writing. He asked if I fancied a coffee and off we trotted to Café Nero. Whilst in the queue we discussed the coronation, the pomp, the ceremony, the ritual. Last Saturday truly was a sight to behold. We also discussed some of the deeper meaning of such things. What such events and rituals mean to the ordinary people both involved and observing them. He told me of Simon Armitage ‘s poem especially written for Coronation of Charles III. He told me that the poem follows the story of a woman invited to attend a coronation and uses lines from Samuel Pepys diary, which described his encounter with the coronation of King Charles II, pointing to the historical significance of the occasion. He said of the poem and poet, “not bad for a Yorkshire man”, at which we both laughed. The conversation got me thinking about the power of ritual and how certain activities can get us into creative states of being, something Oliver was searching for. In the queue I noticed a woman I thought I recognised. I was sure I had seen her at the recent General Assembly meetings, representing Chowbent Chapel. I didn’t say anything at the time. A little later as I was walking home, when a man in the street called out my name, nothing new in that. Then I noticed it was Francis Elliott-Wright, he is a student minister currently at Knutsford and we had recently been in contact with me. He was meeting the woman from Chowbent for lunch. Francis and myself had a great conversation. One of things he asked me was “if I was out working on my sermon, seeking inspiration”. I said that I hadn’t given it much thought, but I am sure that something would begin to form during the day. I said that no doubt this conversation would be a part of it, which of course as you can see it is. I then headed for home chuckling to myself. Meanwhile thoughts about routine, ritual, spiritual inspiration were forming in my soul. As I removed her harness I thought to myself how mine and Molly’s walks were more than just a routine, they were sacred rituals, blessings in the ordinariness of life. How often we were blessed by them and how they blessed us too. This is because there is far more going on than simply exercise and stimulation. These little journeys were also touching ours and lives of others in deeper ways, there was something sacred in the activity. We were cultivating extraordinary ordinariness.

It got me thinking about what makes a routine a ritual? Is there a difference even between them? They may not be so different, perhaps two sides of the same coin that we name habit. Routine it seems is an attempt to contain the chaos of everyday living, ritual seems to make the everyday, seemingly mundane, sacred. Ritual is a way of cultivating extraordinary ordinariness. So often my walks with Molly seem sprinkled with sacred dust. I spent some time with a friend later that evening who was dealing with something rather distressing. The conversation we shared brought healing and understanding, it was sacred in every sense, it brought to life the language of the heart. As we listened to one another with the ears of the heart. He thought I was helping him, when in reality he was blessing me. It was an ordinary activity, but in that space between us we were cultivating the extraordinary.

Any every day ordinary routine activity can be made sacred, can be turned into ritual, can cultivate the extraordinary in the ordinary. I love what the author Anne Lamott has to say on the subject:

“Here’s the true secret of life: We mostly do everything over and over. In the morning, we let the dogs out, make coffee, read the paper, help whoever is around get ready for the day. We do our work. In the afternoon, if we have left, we come home, put down our keys and satchels, let the dogs out, take off constrictive clothing, make a drink or put water on for tea, toast the leftover bit of scone. I love ritual and repetition. Without them, I would be a balloon with a slow leak.”

Rather like “The Dudes” rug in “The Big Lebowski” tied his room together. In so many ways I have noticed these walks with Molly tie so much of my life and that of others together. This simple routine has become a sacred ritual in my life and that of others too. Including people I don’t know so well. They notice if I walk though and she isn’t with me, so many comment. Our walks seem to have a way of cultivating the extraordinary in the ordinariness of life.

Routine, ritual is the very thing that holds life together, everyone engages in them. They help us connect to life to reality to the seen, but also to the unseen, that force at the core of all life, what I name God, but you may call it something other. It is this that helps me be of better use in the world. It is routine, transformed into ritual that cultivates the extraordinary in the ordinariness of life.

I had got up later than usual on Monday. Thankfully Molly’s bladder didn’t force me to get up too early. I was very tired and somewhat delicate. I had received some terrible news on Saturday night, a dear friend had sadly taken their life. I had worked a long day on Sunday, had so many duties to do that day and I did them. I was tired though, both emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually. As several of you said on Sunday, you seem to have been through a lot these last few months. I have. I could have been tempted to avoid the world on Monday, but my routines and rituals ensured that I did not. I spent time in the ritual of prayer and silence and then we stepped into the world and the simple and mundane was soon transformed into the sacred. We were blessed by it as were others that we met as we walked around our daily routine, as we set out on our journey. Remember that journey means what you do or where you travel in one day. There is nothing more ordinary and yet often it does indeed become extraordinary.

Everything we do in life can be done ritually and thus can become meaning filled. Even the most simple basic task can be made deep and meaning filled, if we live reverently. If we live with reverence for life itself. If we see life as a deeply sacred thing. If we bless it with our true presence. The most basic human routines can become sacred rituals, even standing, sitting, walking, nay breathing can be done meaningfully, ritually. There is nothing more deeply ritualistic than deep listening. Last Monday was deeply enriched by this. The real beauty of life lays in the ordinary, in observing and experiencing the meaning of life in the ordinary. By so doing the great moments are created, they are transformed into the extraordinary.

Ronald L. Grimes captures this near perfectly in “Marrying and Burying: Rites of Passage in a Man’s Life”

"Ritual practice is the activity of cultivating extraordinary ordinariness. It is necessary, because human activity has a kind of entropy about it; life, like love, runs down. Things get tiresome and difficult. Body and soul cry out for something different, hence the impetus to ritualize. But if the ritually extraordinary becomes a goal or is severed from ordinariness, it loses its capacity to transform, which, after all, is what rites of passage are supposed to do."

To live spiritually alive, is to recognise the sacredness of the ordinary, the seemingly mundane. To do this all we need to do is pay attention to the world and the people around and truly inhabit the space in which we live and breathe and share our being. All we have to do is to pay attention, to live in such a way as to recognise the sacred in everything.

Now of course congregating for worship is a regular form of ritual, shared with others. There is something very powerful about coming together in love; there is something very powerful in opening ourselves up to one another and recognise what connects us what makes us wholly human, by living ritually we can begin to do so. Worshipping together is one way to do so, but it can happen in all aspects of life. It can occur in deep encounters with others, when love and attention is paid. We can turn the ordinary into the extraordinary.

We gather here together each Sunday seeking something, as we engage in the ritual of worship. We come for a reason, even if we are not wholly sure what that reason is. Each week in the worship we share I attempt to create through words, music, silence, imagery and more a sacred time and space that will enable us to open our hearts and help us connect to the Greater mysteries of life, to the Web of being, to know the spirit of life and love, to experience God and for this to impact on how you live our day to day lives.

Here in this sacred space at the sacred time where generations have worshipped we open our hearts to the greater mysteries of life. In so doing we begin to connect to the greater realities and mysteries of existence. It is this time that can help us to open up the lives we find ourselves in and to pay attention to the life around us and to touch the people we meet in our daily living. In so doing we make all life sacred, by blessing it with our presence. We can transform the ordinary into the extraordinary.

My hope is that when we leave this place that we are touched in those deeper aspects of our humanity and that when we leave this place that we begin to bless the world with your sacred humanity by recognising the sacredness of each person that we meet and that we bless life with our loving presence.

So let’s begin by choosing to bless this our world. May our ritual practice be an activity that cultivates extraordinary ordinariness.

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

The Ritual of Life

I have recently been watching tutorials and attended a Q & A session on the new procedures for weddings. Come May it seems that folk like myself, who act as “Authorised Persons”, that our lives will be different, easier. Everything is finally going digital and onto a single schedule which will become a certificate to be collected from the registry office after the wedding. There will be several changes to the certificate, the main one being that they can now include up to four parents. In the past you only stated who your father was. So finally we are acknowledging the changing nature of families and family relationships. It is about time that this change came about. I am still frustrated that I can only conduct weddings in the two buildings I serve as minister, maybe one day this will change. We are making progress, but it is slow.

Within our Unitarian tradition we are free to create the marriage ceremony that fits the needs of the individuals. There are of course certain words that must be said within the service, for it to be a legal wedding, but beyond that the ritual is open. I recall there were one or two issues over the first wedding I had the pleasure to conduct for two women. They had to make their vows to wife and wife and one was a little uncomfortable with this, but there was no bending there legally. That said the rest of the ceremony allowed us to shape the service that they wanted.

I recently met a couple one of whom engages in Viking reenactments. With this in mind we are going to ensure that we include some of this tradition in the ceremony. This will include a particular ritual, namely a Viking guard of honour as the newly married couple leave the chapel, Covid restrictions permitting of course.

Obviously due to the circumstances of the last year or so our rituals around rites of passage and worship have had to adapt to a certain degree. I was thinking of this as I invited people forward to share readings, last Sunday. People are asked to sanitise their hands and remove their masks to speak. Other rituals have had to adapt too, such as how we greet one another. We do not hug and or shake hands as we would have done in the past. We have found other ways to greet and show affection. I have adopted the Eastern tradition of bowing, I like it and wonder if I will continue it once we finally get through all this.

This all got me thinking about rituals in general. We all engage in them, even if we are not aware of it. Life in so many ways is made up of rituals. Just think about your daily and weekly activities, they involve oh so many rituals. Just think about how you have had to adapt them over the last year or so.

There are of course formal rituals that take place in a time and place, such as wedding ceremony or an act of worship. Think of an act of remembrance or a funeral. There also less formal rituals that we engage in too. Are these rituals any less sacred or important? I don’t think so. The social anthropologist Edmund Leach has argued that ritual ought to be understood as existing on a spectrum, stating:

“Actions fall into place on a continuous scale. At one extreme we have actions, which are entirely profane, entirely functional, technique pure and simple; at the other we have actions, which are entirely sacred, strictly aesthetic, technically non-functional. Between these two extremes we have the great majority of social actions, which partake partly of the one sphere and partly of the other. From this point of view technique and ritual, profane and sacred, do not denote types of action but aspects of almost any kind of action.”

The suggestion is that every activity, even the seemingly mundane is a kind of ritual, if treated in that way. What makes it ritualistic, it would seem, is the pace and intention of the activity; it is about the attention and symbolism adopted; it is about the meaning we make in conducting the activity; it is about the meaning that we put into the activity and object, it is about intentionality; it is about recognising the sacredness of what we are doing.

If you think about some of the rituals we have adapted and adopted this last year or so, surely they have been done in recognition of the sacredness of life. In engaging in  them we are paying respect to each other, in love and consideration. They are deeply religious activities, they have a deep love and spirit flowing through them. The cleansing we have engaged in has become deeply ritualistic. They are not merely habit though, they are done in love and consideration of others.

I suspect that some of the cleansing rituals that are part of many religious traditions began for similar practical reasons. Yes, they are about respect for the Divine, but also one another. When I bow to others I am recognising their sacred uniqueness, I am doing the same when I cleanse my hands when using the equipment in the gym or wearing a mask when going food shopping at the supermarket.

I observed some fascinating rituals when sat in the barbers chair a couple of weeks ago. I visit this barber regularly and I almost know exactly what he will do next and how he will do so as he cuts my hair and shaves certain elements, including ears and even a trimming of the eyebrows. Some elements are more difficult at the moment due to the wearing of masks, especially around the ears. As he comes close to finishing I observe him putting a new blade on the razor as he shaves around the loose hairs and around my ears and hair line. It is a marvel to watch the attention to detail, a craftsman at his work, all completed in silence. I like him because he doesn’t speak as he works. There is care and attention, there is deep intention, it feels like a sacred ritual is taking place. Ok he is paid for the work, but there is more going on in this ritual. It is a deeply religious activity in my eyes. To this man the work really matters.

How we are in the world matters and the way we act toward others really matters. We can do so recognising the sacredness of each other and all life or we can do so without any care or attention at all. I suspect our little moment by moment rituals of living help us to do so with love and attention and with deep intention, a bit like the barber I go and visit every few weeks.

Ritual is about repetition, but it also about the care attention that we put into the repeated action. When such repetition is done through the spirit of love, those seemingly mundane activities become sacred action and in so doing we begin to sanctify life.

Sport is one area where you witness all kinds of ritual. Whether it is a golfer perfecting their swing, or a batsman his forward defensive stroke or in more modern times the reverse sweep. Or the different warm up rituals that teams go through before a game and again at half time. There also the other rituals that take place before the game begins as the team meet and honour one another. One that has stood out over the last year has been the taking of the knee, in acknowledgement of racial intolerance, again an act of love recognising the sacredness of life. It is response to the fact that some life is not treated equally due purely to the colour of someone’s skin. Something else that we humans ought to have evolved out of by now, sadly we have not yet done so.

Everything we do in life can be done ritually and thus can become meaning filled. Even the most simple basic task  can be done reverentially and thus can become meaning filled. We sanctify life, if we live reverently. If we see life as a deeply sacred thing. If we bless it with our true presence. The real beauty of life lays in the ordinary, in observing and experiencing the meaning of life in the seemingly mundane. By so doing the great moments are created.

Ronald L. Grimes captures this near perfectly in “Marrying and Burying: Rites of Passage in a Man’s Life”

"Ritual practice is the activity of cultivating extraordinary ordinariness. It is necessary, because human activity has a kind of entropy about it; life, like love, runs down. Things get tiresome and difficult. Body and soul cry out for something different, hence the impetus to ritualize. But if the ritually extraordinary becomes a goal or is severed from ordinariness, it loses its capacity to transform, which, after all, is what rites of passage are supposed to do."

To live spiritually alive, is to recognise the sacredness of the ordinary, the seemingly mundane. To do this all we need to do is pay attention to the world and the people around and truly inhabit the space in which we live and breathe and share our being. All we have to do is to pay attention, to live in such a way as to recognise the sacred in everything.

There is something very powerful about coming together in love; there is something very powerful in opening ourselves up to one another and recognising what connects us what makes us wholly human, by living ritually we can begin to do so. Worshipping together is one way to do so, but it can happen in all aspects of life. It can occur in deep encounters with others, when love and attention is paid.

The congregations I serve gather together seeking something, as we engage in the ritual of worship and other activities spiritual and secular, something that has been challenged over the last year or so. People come for a variety of reasons, some are not sure why they come, but if they don't they feelt hat soemthing is misssing. When we congregate for worship we attempt to create through words, music, silence, imagery and more a sacred time and space that will enable us to open our hearts and connect to the Greater mysteries of life, to the web of being, to know the spirit of life and love, to experience the Divine and for this to impact on how we live our day to day lives.

In this sacred space at the sacred time where generations have worshipped we opened their hearts to the greater mysteries of life. In so doing we begin to connect to the greater realities and mysteries of existence. It is this time that can help us to open up the lives we find ourselves in and to pay attention to the life around us and to touch the people we meet in our daily living. In so doing we make all life sacred, by blessing it with our presence.

The hope is that when folk leave this time and space that they are touched in those deeper aspects of their humanity and that they bless the world with their sacred humanity by recognising the sacredness of each person they we meet and bless life with their loving presence.

Here is a video devotion based on this "blogspot"

Births, Deaths & Marriages: Living the Dash

A week last Tuesday Sue and I had an appointment at Sale Registrars. We had gone to register our upcoming wedding. As we waited to be interviewed, first of all together and then individually, we noticed a young couple with a small child and new born baby. It was a blissful joy to be close to this family with this beautiful life, full of potential. in their hands. As we waited another couple came in with their own new born. I wondered what these two young lives would become. It was a beautiful feeling. I was first to be interviewed. I did not do a great job if I am honest, for some reason I couldn’t remember Sue’s house number, but I was passed. As I came out. and Sue went in for her interview, I noticed two older women sitting where one of the young couples had sat previously. The atmosphere had changed, they were there for a very different reason. They were there to register the death of one of the women’s husbands. The other woman was there to support her friend.

At one point the woman, who had lost her husband turned to me to ask if I was there to register our wedding, I made a slightly jokey comment about it and she smiled, although as she did I could see the tears in her eyes. The image has stayed with me ever since. Sue came out a little later with news of when we would be able to collect the Blue forms giving us permission to marry at Dunham Road. Sue said that it would be one year, exactly to the day, when I proposed to her by the Sea of Galilee.

As we left we talked about what we had just been a part of. We had seen the examples of three of the most significant experiences of human life, birth, marriage and death. Something we are both involved in creating services for. These are the three major occasions when loved ones gather together. There, in a seemingly ordinary building, in a small town in England, we witnessed most of life within us and around us. It certainly made me pause, in deep reverence for life itself. What a crazy ride this life is. The beauty, the joy, the anticipation, the mystery and the deep broken hearted grief all come together in a local government building. Yes plain old ordinary things and yet so deep and meaningful.

I’ve been thinking about the new babies I saw that day and the smiling woman with tears in her eyes. I have been thinking about the potential in the babies and the life the woman’s husband must have led. It got me thinking about the child blessing services I conduct. I call them blessings because in my understanding I am blessings these new lives in the hope that they themselves will become a blessing to life itself. All this brought to mind a wonderful poem that can be found by clicking on the following link The Dash by Linda Ellis

"The Dash" is a bit of a folksy poem, but its message is deep, powerful and meaning filled. The dash is the line between our date of birth and of death. The dash appears short and even thin and yet it can be deep and meaning filled. What matters the most is how we live "The Dash"

Sue and myself are going away for a couple of nights. One reason is a mini break from the hustle and bustle of our lives. The other though is to spend time together to create our wedding service. We are taking time together to reflect on the ritual we would like to create to share with the people we love. It means so much to both of us. In many ways the service is more important than anything else. It will speak of our lives before we reached this point, what our relationship means to both of us and what we are committing to as we move forward together. We are both in the second half of our lives. Even if we are blessed with good health we have past the half way point of our dashes. So we want the ritual to be deep and meaning filled and a threshold that leads to our new lives together.

As I have looked back at the day at the register office and forward to what is to come my mind has been dominated by thoughts about rituals, particularly rites of passage. The three major ones are marked legally at the Sale town hall, but the actual rituals take place elsewhere. These three primary rituals and rites are things that Sue and myself spend a lot of our adult lives involved in. They make up a large part of our professional lives, but they are not the only rituals that we engage in. All life is made up of ritual. Our dashes are held together by all kinds of rituals, although I am not sure we always notice this.

Everything we do in life can be done ritually and thus can become meaning filled. Even the most simple basic task can be enriched if we live reverently. If we live with reverence for life itself. If we see life as a deeply sacred thing. If we bless it with our true presence. It is not just marrying, burying or birthing that are enriched by ritual, even standing, sitting, walking, nay breathing can be done meaningfully, ritually. There is nothing more deeply ritualistic than deep listening. The real beauty of life lays in the ordinary, in observing and experiencing the meaning of life in the ordinary. By so doing the great moments are created.

Ronald L. Grimes captures this near perfectly in “Marrying and Burying: Rites of Passage in a Man’s Life”

"Ritual practice is the activity of cultivating extraordinary ordinariness. It is necessary, because human activity has a kind of entropy about it; life, like love, runs down. Things get tiresome and difficult. Body and soul cry out for something different, hence the impetus to ritualize. But if the ritually extraordinary becomes a goal or is severed from ordinariness, it loses its capacity to transform, which, after all, is what rites of passage are supposed to do."

The wedding is going to be a deeply special day, for a multitude of reasons; it is made special by the moments in our dashes and so many other people’s dashes; it is the "specialness" of the lives we have created that will make the day so exceptional. That ritual will be made meaningful by the rituals that we live by in the ordinariness of our days and the days that will follow, however long we are blessed with.

All this reminded me of beautiful piece of wisdom from Forrest Church’s masterpiece “Love and Death: My Journey Through the Valley of the Shadow”, written while he was dying of oesophageal cancer. He asked "knowing that we will die, what should we do?" To which he answered "we should live, we should laugh, and we should love." He then recalled a lesson he learnt from his children, about living. One day, when they were young, he was walking them to school, on a busy New York street. Suddenly a car swerved round a corner and almost killed them all. Forrest was incensed by this, but he remembers, "my kids just laughed, romping blithely down the sidewalk, jumping from tree to tree as they always did, trying to touch the leaves." The kids were celebrating, nay singing the joy of living, and they "had the right idea. Why didn't I think to jump and touch the leaves?"

Forrest believed that it was living, loving and laughing that took real courage, they required heart, while dying didn’t really take much courage at all, in his eyes that just came naturally. Something he was experiencing as he wrote these words.

Now to really live Forrest suggested a simple little mantra:" Want what you have. Do what you can. Be who you are." He didn’t suggest that this would be easy but it is the only way to live and in so doing we will live in such a way that our lives will prove worth dying for by the love we leave behind.

Perhaps somewhere in that little mantra is an answer as to how we bring deep meaning to the ordinariness of our lives. Perhaps this is what we need to ritualise. To want the things that make up our lives and not wish for something else and in so doing we might just begin to be who we truly are, instead of wishing we were someone else. In so doing we can do the things that we are able to do and thus bring deep meaning to the little bit of the dash that we are living right now.

This is the gift of life, the beautiful gift of being alive in this ordinary moment, a moment that can become deep and meaningful, not only for ourselves but for those we get to share our lives with. For we never know how long we’ve got left how close we are to the end of the line, the last part of dash. Nor do we know how close those we love are to the end of theirs.

I'm going to end with a wonderful poem by one of the greats of the last few decades, Mary Oliver. Her dash came to an end a year ago last week.

“The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down --
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

Our Rituals of Christmas Time

We are well and truly into Advent now, well into the festival of light at this the darkest time of the year. How are you doing? Are you in the spirit of the season or are you struggling a little. It can be a difficult time for some folk in so many ways. It’s just so easy to get lost in a variety of things. So much so that we fail to fully experience what this time of year is all about. We all have a bit of Scrooge within us do we not, we all have a little bit of “Bah Humbug”.

Christmas means different things to each and every one of us. Do you know what, it always has. People often cry that it’s not what it used to be. Well do you know what it used to be many years ago is not what it used to be many years before then. That said despite all the ever changing rituals and celebrations there does appear to be a universal spirit that has always existed. Do you know what the spirit has existed longer than the Christmas story and stories. Christmas is the ultimate Universal mythos of the heart.

For many people Christmas is a time of love and compassion of bringing to the surface our better selves. For others it is about family (however we understand family) coming together. For some it is about God’s Love incarnating perfectly in life, in the Christ child. For others it is the celebration of the end of winter and the coming of life and renewal in the spring time. I think it is all of this and a whole lot more. It seems to me that Christmas is the ultimate universal festival of the heart. It is a mixture of so many traditions and it has altered so much over time, embracing and incorporating so much of this simple spirit of light and love. Christmas is the ultimate festival of the heart, perfectly placed in the deep mid-winter when we need it the most.

As the years go by the meaning of Christmas has changed for me, as the meaning of life has. I suspect it means more to me today than it has ever done. Every year this meaning grows. Christmas is not just another day to me, in fact it has truly become a season, the season of the heart come to life. Religiously it means more to me too. As time as gone by I have connected more to the many and varied rituals of Christmas and there are many. Ok some may see these rituals as secular, but I am not convinced. I see the spirit at the heart of Christmas incarnating in all of them. I love Christmas, I truly do. I love it because it fills my heart with nostalgia, generosity and goodwill, it connects me to life, to God and to the people around me, it connects me to the past, to my ancestors and to those who touched my life, many who are no longer here. I shed many tears around this time of year. All this allows me to feel more alive. It opens up the present, the ultimate gift of life. The spiritual life is not about passively living in the moment, but truly bringing the moment to life.

Christmas is the heart of the year. Christmas is about Kairos time, not Chronos time. Time slows and our experiences thicken, if we allow them to. If we open our hearts truly to the spirit at work in the experiences. If we open our hearts to one another our relationships will deepen. What is more religious than this? For me to be religious is to increase our connections through they way we live our lives and to be spiritual is to increase our sensitivity, our experience of life.

An example of this are the many rituals that we all engage in each and every year. One example is going to buy a new tree, or fetching the artificial one from where ever we store it in the house. Getting out the decorations and placing them around the home. For so many people this connects us to our past and those who have touched our lives. There are so many memories tied up in these rituals. The memories will be mixed, as life is mixed, to misquote good old Moses “The blessings and curses of choosing life”. How many of us laugh and cry as we engage with these rituals and of course pass on the memories, rebind them, bring them to life, remember, reincarnate them. Isn’t this love incarnated. To me this is the very essence of religion.

Then of course there is the music, whether that be carols and carol singing or the many and numerous pop songs and classic songs from the old movies. For every service during December the congregations I serve insist on only singing carols and I’m with them all the way. The "pop" songs are no less religious, no less spiritual to me. They connect me to my past and those I’ve heard and sung these songs with and they help bring the moment more fully alive. They increase my experience of life too, they open my heart, they incarnate love. A taste of heaven.

Then of course there are the films, those great Christmas stories. For so many of us this is the heart of Christmas. What is your favourite? What film is at the heart of Christmas for you? I will be going to see a couple on the big screen in the next couple of weeks. It’s wonderful to go and see a classic film on the big screen and to do so in company, sharing that experience with folk that you love.

All these rituals to me are deeply religious and spiritual also. They connect us to one another, to life, that spirit at the heart of life, they connect us to our past and those who have touched our lives and they bring the gift of Christmas to life, the ultimate gift of Christmas, the present, the Christmas present. It truly increases our sensitivity to life itself.

Another universal quality is the journeying of Christmas. There is of course the "chronos" journey through the Advent season as we open our Advent Calendars and count down the days. There are the journeys to buy the gifts for loved ones. There is the journey to events and parties. There is the journey home also. Journeying is of course at the heart of the Christmas mythos. Whether that is the journey of the Holy Family of Joseph and Mary, carrying the Christ child in her womb on the road to Bethlehem, of the refusal and the rejection, of the magical birth and adorations and then of course having to flee for their lives, a journey we can all relate to in so many ways. Journey’s people have been travelling on for generations. Then of course there is the journey of the Magi, the wise men, who were called out to cross many lands in order to follow their bliss and bring gifts of love to the beloved.

These are journey’s of distance. But also journeys of depth. They are both "Chronos" and "Kairos" journeys. I will be doing some journeying over the next few weeks. As I am sure you will all be doing so too. They will be journey’s of hope and of sorrow, of joy and laughter and some pain. They will be religious journey’s and spiritual journey’s, journeys of the heart. Journey’s that will increase our sensitivity to life and deepen our connections to one another, to life, to our past, our present and the future. It will open our hearts and in so doing incarnate love here in our lives.

So let’s journey on through this Christmas season and truly open our hearts and engage in its spirit. May our hearts open wider, at this the heart of the year. May our experiences deepen as we remember to slow down as we rush through the business of our days May we know the true gifts of the season; gifts of love, compassion and acceptance. May we bring the spirit of the season alive and in so doing learn to make it Christmas in the days yet to come.

If we want to make it Christmas everyday, then we need to live by it spirit every single day...It is up to us...

Either everything matters or nothing matters

A little phrase has been on my mind for quite some time now “Either everything matters, or nothing matters.” I’ve been talking about it and writing about it for quite some time now. “Either everything is sacred, or nothing is sacred.” Or another variance “Either everything has meaning, or everything is meaningless.” I have lived on both sides of these divides during my 43 years of physical existence. These days I believe in everything and that little bit more than everything. I have noticed that since I turned this way that life has become sanctified and every single breath has become meaning filled.

Everything matters to me and yet the world outside of my window increasingly tells me that there is no meaning to anything and that religion and all forms of spirituality are merely delusions to give us consolation in an indifferent universe. They tell me that the rituals that we engage in are just futile attempts to give our lives meaning.

Is this so? What do you believe?

21st century Britain is on the surface a secular country and yet you see ritual and spiritual activity going on everywhere. A classic example has occurred on the other side of the road to Dunham Road Chapel where I live just a last few weeks ago. A young mother Natalie who worked in the dress shop just round the corner from the chapel was tragically killed on her way to pick up her child. The response to this tragedy has been incredible as all kinds of floral and other tributes have been left at the spot where it occurred. Many have come and marked this passing. This is a deeply meaningful activity where people are connecting beyond themselves and joining together to support one another. There is a real power at work, a power that is greater than all and yet present in each and every one of us. Some may call this Love and others call it God. It is far more than mere symbolism though and it is deep and rich in meaning.

You will see examples of this everywhere. In every town it would seem. Such road side activity is not just about death and tragedy either. Ever since I first saw the “Tree of Lost Sole’s” on the road to Warrington I have noticed other road side symbolism all over the place. It seems to me that they are no different to those Holy Shrines of ancient times, perhaps they too may one day become “Thin Places”, where the barriers between this world and the other world are narrowed. I have noticed that these things are deep and rich in meaning. They have certainly brought meaning and transformation to my life as they have brought me into closer contact with a reality greater than myself.

I believe in everything and that little bit more than everything, that all life is sacred and I also believe that it is our task to sanctify all life; I believe it is our task to realise the sacredness of everything. Everything matters. Every thought, every feeling, every breath and every action.

The Buddha reputedly said “ Whereever you live is your temple if you treat it like one.” All ground is holy ground if we sanctify it. As Wendell Barry so beautifully put it. “There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places.” I believe it is our task to nurture the sacredness from which we are formed and to carry that out into our world, through our lives…Everything matters you know, every breath, every feeling, every thought, every deed impacts in some way on the chain of life…Everything matters.

Pierre Teilhard De Chardin claimed “This world this palpable world, which we are wont to treat with the boredom and disrespect with which we habitually regard places with no sacred association for us, is in truth a holy place and we did not know it. Venite adoremus."

All ground is holy ground. We all stand on holy ground. We can consecrate it with our presence or we can desecrate it with our presence in how we live on the ground on which we live and breath and have our being.

This is why ritual, worship and acts of remembrance are so important because they remind us of the sacredness of all life, including our own and those of our neighbours. If nothing matters, then nothing matters. If nothing is sacred then any act of barbarism can begin to be justified. When we begin to deny the sacredness of life, we fail to recognise the sacredness of one another and we can begin to deny that we are all part of one human family, we begin to separate ourselves from one another and from life itself.

John O'Donohue described this void beautifully in his book "Bendictus: A Book of Blessing" in piece titled "The Loss of Ritual Leaves us Naked in our Rites of Passage" he wrote:

“A threshold is a significant frontier where experience banks up; there is intense concrescence. It is a place of great transformation. Some of the most powerful thresholds divide worlds from each other: life in the womb from birth, childhood from adolescence, adulthood from middle age, old age from death. And on each side there is a different geography of feeling, thinking and being. The crossing of a threshold is in effect a rite of passage.

Our culture has little to offer us for our crossings. Never was there such talk of communication or such technology to facilitate it. Yet at the heart of our newfound wealth and progress there is a gaping emptiness, and we are haunted by loneliness. While we seem to have progressed to become experts in so many things – multiplying and acquiring stuff we neither need nor truly want – we have unlearned the grace of presence and belonging. With the demise of religion, many people are left stranded in a chasm of emptiness and doubt; without rituals to recognize, celebrate, or negotiate the vital thresholds of people’s lives, the key crossings pass by, undistinguished from the mundane, everyday rituals of life. This is where we need to retrieve and reawaken our capacity for blessing. If we approach our decisive thresholds with reverence and attention, the crossing will bring us more than we could ever have hoped for. This is where blessing invokes and awakens every gift the crossing has to offer. In our present ritual poverty, the Celtic tradition has much to offer us.”

...Ritual helps us to sanctify life and therefore recognise and experience the sacredness of existence...

Either everything matters, or nothing matters. Either everything is sacred, or nothing is sacred. Either everything has meaning, or everything is meaningless. We are all part of the one human family, the family of life. When we no longer recognise we begin to fail to acknowledge one another’s sacred mystery. We begin to separate one another, we begin to dehumanise. We are not all exactly the same we have different qualities, different characteristics, different gifts to offer as well as different needs. That said we are all made of the same substance, the very same substance that the whole universe is made of, or at least the matter we have knowledge of and I believe that the same spirit runs through all life. I do not personally believe it controls all of it, but it is certainly present, always there offering the lure of its love. It is our task to choose this love, because if we do not then we will begin to separate and alienate and I believe that it is this that causes the distrust and fear that leads to hatred and dehumanising violence.

The solution is simple, I believe, as solutions usually are. The solution is a reawakening to this sense of sacredness of all life, all existence.

You see either everything matters, or nothing matters; either everything is sacred, or nothing is sacred; either everything has meaning, or everything is meaningless.” What do you believe? Do you believe that everything ought to be sanctified or that life is devoid of any meaning at all? What is your choice to be?