“The Universal ‘Hum’: Join in the Harmony of the Heart"

You may recall that early last summer I was out with Molly one warm Monday evening. I was walking with one or two troubles they were weighing heavily on my heart and soul. I had heard singing from upstairs at the town hall. We walked around for a while and I bumped into a couple of people I know and we engaged in small talk, beginning with conversations about the weather. One complained and another gave thanks. I was enjoying the evening sunshine. I walked past the town hall a little later and the singing was a beautiful sound, that went with that beautiful early summer evening. I posted about it and a little later a woman who has attended Dunham Road on the odd occasion replied saying that it was her choir and would I be interested in joining. I hadn’t been, but suddenly I was. I had been talking of singing again for quite some time. Well, I did and it has been wonderful being a part of this choir since.

I began, as is my way, quietly and almost shyly. I have in time grown into myself and have found my voice. I am loving it. It is great to sing and to sing with others.

The other day as I was walking through Altrincham when I bumped into the choir leader Rose having lunch with her husband. We began a conversation beginning with her asking questions about Molly. She is my superpower when it comes to engagement. Rose then began to ask about my work. Asking if I was a priest. I began to explain that I was not a priest. I am not set apart as a special kind of person. I am not a holy man, anymore holy than anyone else. I am a minister, which means to serve. I am a humble servant, in the truest sense of the word humble. My role is help others to engage with the holy themselves. Rose then began to talk about her role as the choir leader as being something akin to what I was describing as ministry. That her role is to help facilitate the choir, to help the voices come together and sing. I said something like, yes similar and I thought to myself it sounds like holy work, as what she is doing is bringing the spirit to life. I then felt I had been there too long. Made my apologies and left her and her husband to enjoy their lunch.

I have loved being part of the choir. It is hard work, especially to begin with as they were singing songs unfamiliar to me. Rose and the other choir leader Brooke have been wonderful and accommodating, as have all the others in this wonderful and diverse collective. There are many different social activities too. I have not become a part of them as of yet, as I am there to sing.

I have been thinking about choir singing and how it is a wonderful metaphor of the spiritual life, of free religious living. Singing is about listening, about listening in such a deep attentive way. The only people who can’t sing are the truly tone deaf, for they can’t hear. There aren’t many truly tone death people in this world. To sing with others requires you to listen to the leader, to listen to your section, to be aware of the other section without getting too caught up in what they are doing. You need to focus on your part. It is not merely a mechanical process, it requires heart and soul and breathing. You have to breath in the right way and at the right time too. You have to work together with others, being part of something incredible and wonderful and only works if you play your part. You make something more wonderful in harmony as the music comes together. You need to focus and yet relax at the same time. You cannot be timid and or tentative, you need to let your heart and soul out, while humbly playing your part to create something more wonderful than the individual voices could alone. You may have your moment to shine, but mainly it is about playing your part as piece of the whole. I believe it is a wonderful example of true humility.

I was talking with some friends the other evening. The subject of humility came up. What we mean by humility. We all spoke and listened to one another. The very activity seemed to personify humility to me. Humility to me is about accepting my human limitations. Accepting my finiteness, whilst at the same time being responsible for what is mine. To be humble is to be fully human, finite, from the earth, but with a responsibility for what is mine. A Jewish friend told me of a conversation he once had a with Rabbi about humility. He asked him about how he copes with suffering, how he keeps faith in world with so much suffering. To which the Rabbi answered that each morning he prays “to be the best person he can be.” To me this is to live humbly. It brought to my mind some favourite words from the Book of Micah Ch 6 v 8 that points to a way to live by ethical and spiritual behaviour: "He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God".

The conversation was both beautiful and humble in its nature. We listened to one another, we added from our own hearts and experience and we all gained from the sharing together. It lifted all of our spirits. We sang a beautiful song in harmony together. Not singing the same notes, but our blending together made something beautiful and moving.

The conversation reminded me of singing in a choir together. Singing together with others seems like the spiritual life personified. It is humility in action. Each plays their part and creates a greater whole. Something far greater than they could do alone. Hallelujah.

There are many benefits to singing. It lifts me up when sometimes I feel fallen in heart and soul. 'When you sing, you cannot be sad for long,' a chorister was quoted as saying in a study of singing. This seems to be a universal response. Singing feels great and it's good for you. It decreases feelings of anxiety, loneliness, and depression. Singing is good for the brain, it can counteract the effects of brain aging. In her book The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain, Barbara Strauch includes joining a choir as one of the things you can do to enhance neuroplasticity. Music increases gray matter and the number and strength of neural connections in the brain. It connects to others and to the moment, it brings the soul to life. This increases many fold when you sing with others in harmony and not discord.

When I first joined the choir, I mentioned to some folk that I was quiet. There is a shyness in me, which may not seem obvious to folk, when I join something new. So, I slowly and quietly made my steps into the group. They were warm and welcoming and helped me greatly. They were lovely and friendly people. I slowly stepped into my section and the men helped me find my voice. Slowly over time I found my voice and my true personality began to find its voice. My friend Rob told me that this would be the case within a few weeks I would be shinning bright. He was right. It took me a while though. It began by humbly listening, and in time my voice began to give what it had to give. That said it took time and it began by truly listening, with the ears of my heart. This week I helped to welcome a friend into our circle who was joining for the first time. There was a special moment as we began to learn a new piece. Each breaking into their sections, getting close together in a circle, listening to each other, singing our parts and beginning to create something beautiful. It began with listening to one another, adding our voice and slowly raising each other up, raising our voices heavenward.

I feel most alive when singing. I wonder sometimes if what we are made of is music. That music is the heartbeat of life. It’s not we who make music we just let music be made through us and we join in the choir of life. I am not the first to think this way. A couple of years ago I spoke about Pythagoras’ concept of “The Music of the Spheres”, that every celestial body produces in its movement a unique hum determined by its orbit.

Now of course Pythagoras would not have used the word orbit in his day. This was a phrase coined by the German astronomer Joannes Kepler almost 2,000 later. Kepler resurrected Pythagoras lesser known theory in his “Harmony of the World” published in 1619. Kepler believed that the whole universe was singing, that it was reverberating with music that the human ear could not hear. At the time he was thought to be a fool and ridiculed for his beliefs.

Well maybe not. It seems that this hum may have been detected by modern radio telescopes, that were sent out into space and have detected a low-frequency hum that pervades the whole universe. This hum is the product of black holes colliding in the early universe, from the dawn of time. That each creates a different low note and that all these notes “sing” together creating some incredible cosmic hum, it would seem that the universe is singing in harmony.

This blows me away, it blows out my heart and soul. It connects we individual humans to the whole universe. It connects us to eternity. It connects our finite bodies to the beginning of time. Matter comes alive in our bodies and these celestial bodies in creation and destruction. It humbles me and makes me feel tiny but no less important. It reminds me I am mortal. Like the birds sing because they are alive. I believe that this is why we sing too. Singing together in harmony, listening to each others voices creates something even more wonderful and beautiful. We join in the music of the universe. We sing the eternal harmony of belonging.

This is beautifully illustrated in the following poem hymn by Marie Howe, that I came across in a beautiful article published in “The Marginalian” by Maria Popova. I will end with it.

“Hymn” by Maria Howe

It began as an almost inaudible hum,
low and long for the solar winds
and far dim galaxies,

a hymn growing louder, for the moon and the sun,
a song without words for the snow falling,
for snow conceiving snow

conceiving rain, the rivers rushing without shame,
the hum turning again higher — into a riff of ridges
peaks hard as consonants,

summits and praise for the rocky faults and crust and crevices
then down down to the roots and rocks and burrows
the lakes’ skittery surfaces, wells, oceans, breaking

waves, the salt-deep: the warm bodies moving within it:
the cold deep: the deep underneath gleaming: some of us rising
as the planet turned into dawn, some lying down

as it turned into dark; as each of us rested — another woke, standing
among the cast-off cartons and automobiles;
we left the factories and stood in the parking lots,

left the subways and stood on sidewalks, in the bright offices,
in the cluttered yards, in the farmed fields,
in the mud of the shanty towns, breaking into

harmonies we’d not known possible. finding the chords as we
found our true place singing in a million
million keys the human hymn of praise for every

something else there is and ever was and will be:
the song growing louder and rising.
(Listen, I too believed it was a dream.)

Maybe this is the secret chord, that David played and it pleased the Lord, that Leonard Cohen sung of. Is this the voice that is less than a whisper, but more than silence. Maybe it’s the sound in the silence. I don’t know. Maybe if we are still and silent enough, if we listen with the ears of hearts and open our hearts and join in the harmony of life, maybe just maybe we can truly join is singing the great harmony of the heart.

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

What Condition is Your Spiritual Condition In?: Four Questions to Ponder

I recently enjoyed a week off duty. It was lovely and oh so needed. A time to truly let my soul catch up with my body. A time to see what condition my spiritual condition was in. It is oh so easy to get caught up in the doing of life that you forget to experience the being. It is vital to take time away and recharge in order to return to fully engage with life. I came back refreshed and straight into leading worship.

I slept well on Sunday night and awoke raring to go. The only problem was that my head was so empty that I had no idea where to go on this week’s little adventure. So off I went to the gym and thought if I get into my body surely something will come. Well thoughts came and went, but nothing stuck. I came home and showered and ate, but still nothing stuck. So, I thought I’d have a look at Facebook and see what my friends, all over the world, were talking about. Still nothing came. I then thought I will have a look at Facebook memories and see if there was anything from the past that might offer inspiration. There is was a wonderful reflection "The Four Questions" from Rev Bill Darlison, the retired minister from the Dublin congregation, who now lives in retirement with the lovely Morag back home in Pontefract. It just seemed perfect for where I was at. So for the rest of this "blogspot" I will explore the four questions that Bill proposes we ask ourselves from William J Bausch book “The Yellow Brick Road”. The Four questions being “When did I stop singing?”, “When did I stop dancing?”, “When did I stop being enchanted by stories?”, “When did I become uncomfortable with silence?”

Bill introduces the four questions with the following reflection:

"We all have periods of spiritual malaise, world-weariness, soul-sickness, times when we feel oppressed by life, or disengaged from things, and we can't quite fathom the reason why. At such times writes William J Bausch (in his book The Yellow Brick Road), we should ask ourselves four questions."

So the first question: “When did I stop singing?” Bill reflects:

“He doesn't mean by this: when did you stop picking up the hairbrush and pretending to be Mariah Carey? Or: when did you stop singing a selection of Elvis's greatest hits in the bath? The question goes much deeper and really means: When did you stop singing your own song? When did you surrender your own uniqueness and decide to live an imitative or conformist life? When the voice is stifled the spirit suffers.”

As soon as I read this I was reminded of a question, humorously asked by a friend, on Facebook, the other day. She wrote “Does singing ‘Spirit of Life’ in the shower in the morning constitute a spiritual practice? I’m asking for a friend.” There were some lovely responses to this. I remember thinking well it’s as good a prayer as any song ever sung and I am sure that it said something of the persons spirit.

It also brought immediately to mind the following piece of wisdom “Listening for Our Song” by David S Blanchard...it has always touched a place deep in the soul of me...

"On sabbatical in East Africa, I heard a story of a people who believe that we are each created with our own song. Their tradition as a community is to honor that song by singing it as welcome when a child is born, as comfort when the child is ill, in celebration when the child marries, and in affirmation and love when death comes. Most of us were not welcomed into the world in that way. Few of us seem to know our song.

It takes a while for many of us to figure out which is our song, and which is the song that others would like us to sing. Some of us are slow learners. I heard my song not necessarily from doing extraordinary things in exotic places, but also from doing some pretty ordinary things in some routine places. For every phrase I heard climbing Kilimanjaro, I learned another in a chair in a therapist’s office. For every measure I heard in the silence of a retreat, I heard another laughing with my girls. For every note I heard in the wind on the beach at Lamu, I gleaned more from spending time with a dying friend as her children sang her song back to her. What came to astound me was not that the song appeared, but that it was always there.

I figure that the only way I could have known it for my own was if I had heard it before, before memory went to work making sense and order of the mystery of our beginning. Our songs sing back to us something of our essence, something of our truth, something of our uniqueness. When our songs are sung back to us, it is not about approval, but about recognizing our being and our belonging in the human family.

It is good to know our songs by heart for those lonely times when the world is not singing them back to us. That’s usually a good time to start humming to yourself, that song that is most your own.

They can be heard as songs of love or of longing, songs of encouragement or of comfort, songs of struggle or of security. But most of all, they are the songs of life, giving testimony to what has been, giving praise for all we’re given, giving hope for all we strive for, giving voice to the great mystery that carries each of us in and out of this world."

...What is your song? When was the last time you sang it? You have been given a voice, the world so desperately needs to hear your unique voice, it is a gift that life needs to hear.

Question 2: “When did I stop dancing?” Bill reflects

“This refers to the relationship you have with your body. James Joyce tells us that a certain Mr Duffy "lived a short distance from his body", and a young man interviewed on television recently announced, "I thought my body was a useful vehicle for carrying my head around." We are taught to feel disgust at our body's odours and secretions, shame at our sexuality, dissatisfaction with our appearance. We are taught to suppress our laughter and to hide our tears. Is it any wonder that we are confused and that we retreat from the body, ignore it, punish it, abuse it, and stop dancing with delight? And yet, according to Walt Whitman, "The scent of these arm-pits (is) aroma finer than prayer." How far away from your body do you live?”

Again this immediately remined me of four lines by Eduardo Galeano from “Walking Words". He wrote:

“The Church says: The body is a sin.
Science says: The body is a machine.
Advertising says: The body is a business
The body says: I am a fiesta”

The body and our relationship with it are many and varied. So many people live with deep shame about their physical being, their bodies. We don’t really like to talk about our bodies. People are often comfortable talking about the mind, their thoughts, and their opinions about things. We are even able to talk about emotions, our feelings, these days. That said so many of us are still uncomfortable talking about the body, the home of our thoughts and feelings. Without the body we have nothing, we have no life.

This brings to mind an interesting phrase “embodied spirituality”. Which Jorge N. Ferrer, professor of religious psychology has written of:

“Embodied spirituality regards the body as subject, as the home of the complete human being, as a source of spiritual insight, as a microcosm of the universe and the Mystery, and as pivotal for enduring spiritual transformation.

The body is not an “It” to be objectified and used for the goals or even spiritual ecstasies of the conscious mind, but a “Thou,” an intimate partner with whom the other human dimensions can collaborate in the pursuit of ever-increasing forms of liberating wisdom.”

Embodied spirituality is about fully inhabiting our lives, our thoughts, our feelings our relationships with ourselves, our lives, each other and the mystery that connects all life. It’s about being fully present in our bodies and lives and therefore fully experiencing our potential and being fully alive. Through the body we experience what it is to be fully alive. They say “listen to your body”, sage wisdom indeed. “Sacred the body” is a hymn I love to sing and sacred the body is indeed.

...So how far do you live from your body? Do you live a disembodied life? We need live within our being and the world needs us to truly dance the rhythm of life....The key is to live your life as if it were a dance...

"All of My Life is a Dance" by Nancy Wood

All of my life is a dance.
When I was young and feeling the earth
My steps were quick and easy.
The beat of the earth was so loud
That my drum was silent beside it.
All of my life rolled out from my feet
Like my land which had no end as far as I could see.
The rhythm of my life was pure and free.
As I grew older my feet kept dancing so hard
That I wore a spot in the earth
At the same time I made a hole in the sky.
I danced to the sun and the rain
And the moon lifted me up
So that I could dance to the stars.
My head touched the clouds sometimes
And my feet danced deep in the earth
So that I became the music I danced to everywhere.
It was the music of life.
Now my steps are slow and hard
And my body fails my spirit.
Yet my dance is still within me and
My song is the air I breathe.
My song insists that I keep dancing forever.
My song insists that I keep rhythm
With all of the earth and the sky.
My song insists that I will never die.

From "Many Winters", by Nancy Wood

The third question ask "When did I stop being enchanted by stories?" Bill reflects:

“When did fiction and fantasy lose their appeal? When did you become obsessed by facts and start restricting your reading to biography, history, and natural science? All of these are vitally important, but they don't nurture the soul like stories do. Ask yourself why is it that all the great religious teachers used stories, and why JK Rowling is set to become the first billionaire author in history. What chord has she struck in children (and adults, too) in her re-working of the old myths? We need history and biography and science, but we need magic and enchantment, too, or the soul withers and dies.”

Stories and story-telling have been distilling wisdom throughout the generations and I have no doubt that this will continue on into eternity. They have revealed universal truths, they have spoken deep into the soul of those who have cared to listen, introducing them to magic, mystery and the possibility of otherness. These stories have expanded the imagination and have been windows onto something beyond the confines of pure reason. Life is far more than the sum of it's parts.

The great sages such as Jesus and the Buddha excelled in storytelling. They knew that through a story they could reach every aspect of the person receiving their truth; they knew that the listener could relate to a story and it could open them up to new and deeper truths. A story really does put flesh on the word. Shaman and elders of every tradition also shared their wisdom through telling the tale around camp fires and other gatherings. They drew their listeners to deeper visions of life with imagery and symbolism.

When we listen to the great stories and when we listen one another’s stories we connect not only to each other but to all people at all times, past, present and future and of course to that greater reality present in all life. These stories bring a zest to life; these stories help us to see ourselves reflected in a different light. Through identifying we also see our own absurdities and we can laugh at our own holy foolishness. This helps us see a new, a different, perspective. A great story builds a bridge from our particular life to the timeless, the universal, they connect us to the whole. They are windows that give us a glimpse of something way beyond ourselves.

So when did you lose that sense of enchantment and imagination and get lost in the realm of prosaic fact? We need imagination in order to extend ourselves and one another beyond the limits of what we believe life is. Others need us to express our imagination so that they too can glimpse beyond the confines of their perceived limits too.

The fourth and final question asks: “When did I become uncomfortable with silence?” Again, Bill reflects

“When did it become necessary for you to turn on the radio first thing in the morning, play your personal stereo or car radio on the way to work, and sit in front of the television all night? When, as a culture, did we begin to accept piped music in lifts, loud music in pubs? When did we become comfortable with mobile phone noise, road traffic noise, aeroplanes and, police sirens? "I think the intelligence of a person is in inverse proportion to the amount of noise they can bear," writes Schopenhaur. The body craves noise and distraction, but the soul needs silence.”

Silence is vital and we need not fear it, instead we should befriend it, we need not fill the space between our bodies or our words. In the silence inspiration and clarity comes, it helps us to make sane decisions about our lives. It is often in the silence that I find a deeper connection to God, to the ground of all being, to that which runs through and connects all life, the still small voice of conscience deep within. What the Quakers describe as “That of God in everyone”

“Silence is Golden” it is so vital to the active life. We all need time alone, in silence, in solitude; a time to commune with that greater reality, a time alone with God; a time alone with our deeper selves. Prayer and meditation is as vital to me today as air, food and water. My body and mind cannot function without these elements; my body and mind cannot maintain good health without my soul being fed by prayer and meditation, by humbly entering into silence.

The spiritual and religious life has to be both active and open. To give ourselves fully to the lives we live, we need to ensure that we ourselves are in fit spiritual condition. Therefore like the great sages sometimes we all need to wander off into the wilderness, commune with our God and feed our souls as we enter into silence.

So what do you think of these four questions: “When did I stop singing?”, “When did I stop dancing?”, “When did I stop being enchanted by stories?”, “When did I become uncomfortable with silence?”

Maybe something to reflect on in the coming weeks. If you find yourself lacking in any area perhaps ask yourselves what you can do to resolve them?

Christmas Eve

"Christmas Eve" by Tracy Pullman

Christmas eve is a time for candlelight.
It is a time when one desires nothing more than family and soft music.
Who can say what passes through our hearts on Christmas eve?
Strange thoughts, indefinable emotions and sudden tears.
All this and more, unbidden, come without reason.

And we burn our candles for this is Christmas eve.
Christmas eve is not a time to be merry but quietly glad.
It is the proper time to wish upon a star.
It is a time to watch children with excited happy eyes troop off to bed to
await the miracle of dawn.
It is a time of wonder, of thankfulness that life is still being created anew
out of darkness.
It is a time of quiet awakening to beauty that still lives on through the
strife of a war torn world.

And we burn our candles for this is Christmas eve.
Christmas eve is a time of heartbreak,
When those who are not at their own fireside are most missed.
Christmas eve is a time of blessing when all the heartbroken world gives
thanks for the quiet beauty of rest,
When one is closest to ones companions and is not then enemy of any
person.

And we burn our candles for this is Christmas eve.
Christmas eve is a time of memory,
When one remembers past happiness and love
And often sighs for the good that might have been.
Peace on earth and now comes the memory of the story of the first
Christmas, so old and yet so new.
We lose ourselves in legend and dream of storybook people; Tiny Tim
and the other Wise Man live again in the memory of human hearts.

And we burn our candles for this is Christmas eve.

Christmas is the season of the heart. It is a time to focus on the ties of the heart, the loves of the heart, the dreams of the heart; it is a time to focus on the hearts yearnings and longings; it is a time when we are called to concentrate on the heart, on what it wants, what it needs and what it compels us to be. The heart of Christmas is the heart itself, burst to overflowing, lit up bringing light and warmth into this season of darkness and cold. It brings hope in what can be very cynical times, as it always has. Christmas is the dream of the heart, wishing to come alive. This is why Christmas is both the religious and emotional centre of the year for most folk. Christmas is the time of the heart, which calls us to our truest nature, to be all that we can be.

This is why it is the holiest of holy days and nights. This is why I believe it is for everyone regardless of background and or faith, or lack of it. Christmas connects to something universal, something eternal in all of us which allows us to connect to our true selves, to one another, to all life and to that loving and eternal spirit that runs through all life.

“Oh I wish it could be Christmas every day”. Well it can be if we make it Christmas every day. It begins by lighting that lamp, that fire in our hearts and in our hearths.


I have included in this blog material that has inspired me and the worship I have created this Advent and Christmas season. I trust it will speak to your spirit and fill your heart with the soul of the season.

Merry Christmas one and all...


“Christmas is for Love” (Author unknown)

Christmas is for love. It is for joy, for giving and sharing, for laughter, for reuniting with family and friends, for tinsel and brightly covered packages. But, mostly Christmas is for love. I had not believed this until a small elfin like pupil with wide innocent eyes and soft rosy cheeks gave me a wondrous gift one Christmas.

Matthew was a 10 year old orphan who lived with his aunt, a bitter, middle aged woman greatly annoyed with the burden of caring for her dead sister's son. She never failed to remind young Matthew, if it hadn't been for her generosity, he would be a vagrant, homeless waif. Still, with all the scolding and chilliness at home, he was a sweet and gentle child.

I had not noticed Matthew particularly until he began staying after class each day [at the risk of arousing his aunt's anger so I learned later] to help me straighten up the room. We did this quietly and comfortably, not speaking much, but enjoying the solitude of that hour of the day. When we did talk, Matthew spoke mostly of his mother. Though he was quite young when she died, he remembered a kind, gentle, loving woman who always spent time with him.

As Christmas drew near however, Matthew failed to stay after school each day. I looked forward to his coming, and when the days passed and he continued to scamper hurriedly from the room after class, I stopped him one afternoon and asked him why he no longer helped me in the room. I told him how I had missed him, and his large brown eyes lit up eagerly as he replied, 'Did you really miss me?'

I explained how he had been my best helper, 'I was making you a surprise,' he whispered confidentially. 'It's for Christmas.' With that, he became embarrassed and dashed from the room. He didn't stay after school any more after that.

Finally came the last school day before Christmas. Matthew crept slowly into the room late that afternoon with his hands concealing something behind his back. 'I have your present,' he said timidly when I looked up. 'I hope you like it.' He held out his hands, and there lying in his small palms was a tiny wooden box.

'It's beautiful, Matthew. Is there something in it?' I asked opening the top to look inside. 'Oh you can't see what's in it,' he replied, 'and you can't touch it, or taste it or feel it, but mother always said it makes you feel good all the time, warm on cold nights and safe when you're all alone.'

I gazed into the empty box. 'What is it, Matthew' I asked gently, 'that will make me feel so good?'

'It's love,' he whispered softly, 'and mother always said it's best when you give it away.' He turned and quietly left the room.

So now I keep a small box crudely made of scraps of wood on the piano in my living room and only smile when inquiring friends raise quizzical eyebrows when I explain to them there is love in it.

Yes, Christmas is for gaiety, mirth, song, and for good and wondrous gifts. But mostly, Christmas is for love.

“All I want for Christmas” by David S. Blanchard taken from “A Temporary State of Grace”

This is a time of year when we ask – and are asked – what do you want? Shall it be another tie, a new pair of gloves, a book? We ask and we answer. We shop, we wrap, we ship. And the season usually comes and goes without us ever really answering the question: What do you want?

Some of the things we want we might be afraid to ask for because we can’t be sure what we would do if we got them. Many things we want we don’t know enough to ask for. Most things we can’t ask for because we know no one can give them to us.

Most people ask the question without any interest in really knowing, yet it can be a question for each of us to hold on to for a time in mind and heart. What do we want? Not what would we like, but what do we want to give us a deeper connection with life and to help us give expression to our love? Not a long list of things, but a sense of clarity that illuminates what it is we are doing and why. Not outward signs of generosity, but an internal sense of caring that guides us to give in any season. Not just the reflex of always giving, but also the courage to truly answer some of those who ask us, “What do you want?”

Dare to answer. Think of the things you want, and the things others close to you would want. Imagine the ways they might be given and received.

What do you want?


"This is the season" by Jacob Trapp

This is the season when the child in the heart of all of us awakens and the
embers of long forgotten dreams are blown into flame.
The ramp of the Legions is stilled; the Caesars lie in dust, but the light
from that humble stable shines warm and bright.
Something old and almost lost amid the clutter of the years is calling from
the skies and across the fields of snow.
The night winds are stilled and in the darkened heavens the stars foretell
of lengthening days and the birth of spring after the winter’s cold.
This is the sign that the light of hope, which shines in the dimness of our
broken dreams, will never fade or die.
O stretch your hands and with the simple trust of the child, grasp another’s
hand and walk the way together.
Though the darkness press in upon us and the promise of Christmas
comes like the echo of music upon the wind, let our hearts remember
that loveliness, that light.



“Sing” by George K Beach

This is a good season for singing. I may not sing very well but everybody knows the Christmas carols and I can just sing and get away with it. Nobody notices unless I refuse altogether. So singing comes easy, now.

This is also a good season for telling stories. The stories I like are both life-like and a little fantastic – believable, unbelievable, and somehow both at once. They let me imagine something other than hard facts that just say what is.

The idea of angels singing and animals talking for a holy babe born in a barn and laid in a manger allows me to love a little while in a world where everything is different. And get away with it.

A most amazing recognition that is: that I can get away with it. Life allows me; it lets me go again and again: for we are set at liberty.

This is a good season for believing that “something happened” and everything is different now. I don’t have to be bigger, better, or beautifuler than anybody. I can love somebody and get away with it.

And what is “it”? It is only that which I want in my heart of hearts – like loving, like being changed, like singing and having a story to tell. And once I have let myself go, there is something I can do no longer: pretend I am not allowed to be myself, in the community of giving and receiving. Such a life of freedom and love is itself the first and greatest gift.




“Little Kight” by Charles A Gains


As I look at this lighted candle, I think of all the people I have read about
who lit up the world with their love. I think of Jesus and Buddha, St Francis
and Schweitzer, Clara Barton and Martin Luther King. And I know in
my heart that I can light up the world with my love too.
As I look at this glowing candle, I think of all the people I have known in
my life who lit up my world with their love; parents who gave me birth,
teachers who taught me in schools; people who walked with me for a
while. And I know in my heart that that I can light up the world with my
love too.

As I look at this bright candle, I think of all the people I know now who
light up my world with their love; my partner and my children; my colleagues
and my friends; people who are with me now, others who are
absent, but with us just the same. And I know in my heart that I can light
up the world with my love too.

Loved ones, friends, strangers I pass this light to you. Take it and let it
brighten up the darkness. Let its glow sparkle around your eyes and
lighten your face And know that by sharing our love, even in little ways,
we touch others with our light and our world becomes brighter
It all began many years ago when one light lit up the midnight sky. It has
been passed on to us by saints and prophets, parents, teachers and poets,
and all the friends and lovers of humankind.
Take it, pass it on - tonight, tomorrow and whenever you see a shadow or
a dark place your love can lighten. No one is ever too old. No one is ever
too young. Each of us can touch someone by our love and inspire them
with our light.

A Closing Prayer

Christmas Eve, December 24, 2007

On this night of nights,
We have more for which to be grateful than we will ever know:
More cause to bless and cherish
And bend our knee in wonder,
More call to lift our hearts on wings of praise.

For we, too, on this very night,
Illuminated by a story and a star,
Can witness a miracle:
A birth — heralding our birth,
Pregnant with promise and oh so surpassingly strange;
A life — no less magical than ours;
A death — to charge our days with purpose,
Helping us to live in such a way
That our lives, too, will prove worth dying for.

To enter the realm of enchantment,
We must first shed our self-protective cover,
Not, as we too often and so sadly do,
Take this precious life for granted,
But unwrap the present and receive the gift,
Mysterious and charged with saving grace.

So let us, on this night of nights, set aside our shopping list of grievances,
Resist the nattering of our grubby little egos,
And crack our parched lives open like a seed.

Let us pray.

Let us awaken from the soul-crushing allures
Of sophisticated resignation and cynical chic,
To savor instead the world of abundance and possibility
That awaits just beyond the self-imposed limits of our imagination.

Let us awaken to the saving gift of forgiveness,
Where we can, in a single breath, free ourselves and free another.

Let us awaken to the possibility of love,
Body, mind, and spirit,
All-saving and all-redeeming love.

Let us awaken to the blessing of acceptance,
Expressed in a simple, saving mantra:
Want what we have; do what we can; be who we are.

Rather than let wishful thinking or regret
Displace the gratitude for all that is ours, here and now,
To savor and to save.

Let us want what we have —
Praying for health, if we are blessed with health,
For friendship, if we are blessed with friends,
For family, if we are blessed with family,
For work, if we are blessed with tasks that await our doing,
And if our lives are dark, may we remember to want nothing more than the loving
Affection of those whose hearts are broken by
our pain.

Let us do what we can —
Not dream impossible dreams or climb every mountain,
But dream one possible dream and climb one splendid mountain,
That our life may be blessed with attainable meaning.

And let us be who we are —
Embrace our God-given nature and talents.
Answer the call that is ours, not another's,
Thereby enhancing our little world and the greater world we share.

That is my Christmas prayer,
Call it thoughtful wishing.
All we have to do is put our heart in it.
And there's one more bonus.
Unlike wishful thinking, thoughtful wishes always come true.

Amen. I love you. And may God bless us all.

An Excerpt from "Love & Death: My Journey through the Valley of the Shadow" by Forrest Church