Living Spiritually Alive: With Open Hands, Eyes, Hearts & Minds

I will begin with a short extract from an interview of Kurt Vonnegut discussing his book “A Man Without a Country” when it was first published in 2005.

DAVID BRANCACCIO asks Vonnegut : There's a little sweet moment, I've got to say, in a very intense book-- your latest-- in which you're heading out the door and your wife says what are you doing? I think you say-- I'm getting-- I'm going to buy an envelope…What happens then?

KURT VONNEGUT: Oh, she says well, you're not a poor man. You know, why don't you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I'm going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope.

I meet a lot of people. And, see some great looking babes. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And, and ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don't know. The moral of the story is, is we're here on Earth to fart around.

And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don't realize, or they don't care, is we're dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And, we're not supposed to dance at all anymore.

I came across this marvellous little piece the other day. In some ways this attitude is central to my view of what it means to live spiritually alive in this world. The spiritual life for me is about meeting life and each other in this way. It is about openness. It is central to my view of ministry in so many ways. I try to live by invitation, by inviting the other to be who they are. People think that openness is about telling people who you are, being open about who you. I’m not convinced. Openness to me is about inviting others to be who they are with you. Openness is about invitation.

My car has been in the garage for a few days. This meant I have had to make use of taxi’s. I experienced four very different taxi rides. All of the drivers spoke freely and openly with me, all in different ways. My invitation enabled them to do so. They talked a lot about their views of the world, about religion and spirituality. I had a particularly fascinating ride with one between Urmston and Altrincham last Sunday. He had very strong views about religion, formed from his upbringing. I listened with interest and interjected very occasionally. By the end of the ride, just twenty minutes later, we had openly shared so much with each other. His parting conversation went something like this, I have never met a clergy man like you before. I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. I felt listened to and understood, thank you.

I felt blessed by our open conversation. We were simply meeting one another, but it felt like the spirit was alive and well between us. As I got out of the cab I felt spiritually alive and led the service in the same spirit.

If I have learnt anything about spiritual living I have learnt that the key is openness; the key to spiritual living is to live with open hearts, open minds, open eyes and open hands. These four are spiritual living in practice, which I have come to believe is true essence of religion. Not creed like religion but truly living breathing practising free religion. True religion, intentional spirituality in community, should not only bring us to life as individuals but enable us to live truly alive and awake in this our shared world.

Unitarian minister James Vila Blake (1842-1925) wrote, "Love is the spirit of this church, and service its law. This is our great covenant: To dwell together in peace, To seek the truth in love, And to help one another." I think in many ways this covenant articulates the essence of what it means to come together in love as a worshipping community. It has been adopted by many Unitarian Universalist and Free Christian communities. It expresses beautifully what it means to live in an open, living breathing spiritual community, what free religion ought to be about.

When I am asked what it means to be a Unitarian, the first word that comes to mind is “openness”. It seems to me that we are an open tradition. Now as I have come to believe the essence of openness is humility. We are a humble tradition.

Openness is very much a doing word. It’s not so much that you are open, more that you live openly. To do so religiously, is to be open in four ways. It is to live with open eyes, open hearts and open minds and open hands.

Now to live with these four open eyes, open minds, open hearts and open hands is no easy task. In fact to master them is virtually impossible. The key is to begin and to continue; the key is intentional practice.

To live with open eyes is to see the world as it truly is; to see reality as it really is, warts and all and in its beauty spots too. To live with open eyes is to not turn away from the suffering present in life but also to pay attention to life’s beauty too. To live with open eyes is to see the reality of the whole of life. This is not easy, so often we are tempted to turn away. To live fully connected lives, we need to live with open eyes, to see life with all its blessings and curses.

To live with an open mind is to be able to search for truth and meaning, while maintaining an awareness of the tension between certitude and curiosity. It is the balance of being receptive to what is new and alien, while at the same time holding onto what is most dear. It is to try to know while in the presence of the unknown and the unknowable. This can make others feel uncomfortable and others may try to close an open mind or fill it with their things. To live with an open mind does not mean that we do not discern that we don’t come to conclusions. Quite the opposite actually. It is vital to come to conclusions, so that one can act in the world it’s just that after the decision the openness must be maintained, it is never too late to change our minds. So, keep your minds open but please do be careful what you put in it.

The key to living with a loving and open heart is live with all our senses, including our sixth sense, our soul, open to all the wonders and mystery of life. This too brings its dangers. Living with an open heart exposes us to pain and fear. You see to truly live with an open heart is to allow ourselves to be touched in the most tender of places. This can hurt sometimes. Remember Cupids arrow had to first of all pierce the flesh before it could penetrate the heart, love hurts. To live with an open heart is to follow the great commandment, it is Agape. It is to love others, no matter who they are what they have done, where they have come from, it is to love without condition. It is to follow the Golden Rule. It is to love our neighbour as we would wish to be loved ourselves. This requires love and compassion for ourselves of course, which can at times be the greatest challenge. It is to feel a deep connection with all that is, all that has been and all that will ever be. It is to recognise that in order to feel this connection requires that we share ourselves. To love is to practice forgiveness, over and over again. Practicing living with a loving heart is to live willing to be transformed by what we encounter in our daily lives.

By living with these three open eyes, open minds and open hearts we can then practice living with open hands. Hands that welcome, hands that humbly accept our interconnectedness. Open hands are willing to do what they can do to serve, to play their part in the world. It means committing and recommitting to use our hands, our abilities, in the service of life. With our hands, our actions, we take responsibility for our part in working for what is just, to create the kin-dom of love right here right now, to create a better world, the beloved community. With open hands, we offer what we have and do what we can.

Our open eyes allow us to recognise where we can act in the world, if our minds and our hearts are open. It is these three that tell our open hands where they are needed.

Open hands though are not just about action, they are also about connection and perhaps more importantly humility. Humility is the key to openness and to my eyes the essence of this my chosen Unitarian faith. I say chosen but I’m not sure if I chose it or it chose me. Who knows?

Now humility is a word that is often misunderstood. To be humble is to be at home in our true humanity, to be grounded in our own reality and shared humanity. The key to humility is to recognise that we are a part of something larger than our singular selves.

Humility is not about being meek and mild and bowing and scraping, it is not about being self-deprecating or denigrating. Too often humility is seen in this way, particularly from a religious perspective, as an excuse for suffering and or meekness. To me this is not true humility; true humility is about living with open hands and doing what we can in the world, we can only do this if we live with open hearts, open minds and open eyes and by recognising our common humanity.

I feel that so many of our troubles are caused by our inability to be truly open to one another and to new ideas; our troubles are caused by our arrogance and belief that we know best. Therefore, by not living openly we fail to understand and therefore empathise with each other and we remain trapped by what we think we know. We are too closed down and we need to open up, to one another, to life and to God. We need to be opened up like the Buddhist Monk, arms out with his begging bowl. An image which as Thomas Merton explained “represents not just a right to beg, but openness to the gifts of all human beings as an expression of this interdependence of all beings...Thus when a monk begs from the layman it is not as a selfish person getting something from someone else. He is simply opening himself to his interdependence.” The key is to live openly and of course the key to openness is humility. No one lives apart from anyone else we are all interdependent. Also none of us knows everything, we all see through the glass dimly.

I remember the first time I heard Forrest Church’s assertion that humility and openness are the two keys to religious living, how much this struck me deep inside. I saw the truth in it. There is limitlessness in openness. Who knows how much we can truly change and learn to love if we just stay open, in our hearts and minds and eyes. Who knows what we can do with our loving hands if we live with truly open eyes, open hearts and open minds.

The key to true spiritual living is openness, to live with open eyes, open hearts open minds and open hands. To key is to live with true humility, to see that we are grounded in our shared humanity. The key is to see that we are a part of something far greater than ourselves and that through recognising this we will know the love present in life and begin to bring that love alive, right here right now.

Every day is a day when we can bear witness to a Power Greater than ourselves. We do this when we love one another with open hands, when we see the world with truly open eyes, when we live with minds that are truly open and hearts open to the love waiting to enter and to be poured out onto our world that really needs it.

I was reminded of this last Sunday morning on that taxi journey between Urmston and Altrincham. What a beautiful gift that was. Who knows it may have opened the eyes, the heart, the mind and the hands of the taxi driver who had never met a clergy man quite like me before. We shared a journey, where we lived spiritually alive.

I believe it is our task to live truly open lives. This is real spiritual living, this is true religion. I believe it is our task to bring love alive, through our openness. It is our task to allow God to incarnate through our lives. To do so we need to live with open eyes, open minds, open hearts and open hands.

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

The Spiritual life is Like a Flower

 

A friend Rob came on Monday to plant Sunflowers and other assorted flowers in the gardens at the chapel. He came for the first-time last year. This year he came a little later, due to one or two planting errors. The flowers are a legacy of love from his dad. His dad had died from Covid, right at the beginning of the pandemic. I had helped him create the service he conducted himself at the side of his father’s grave. It was filmed and broadcast around the world, his father had come to Britain from Zambia over 50 years ago. His dad loved gardening and since he died Rob has carried on this legacy. If you ever go to Southern Cemetery, on the edge of Chorlton, and notice an incredibly well kept grave, it is very likely to Rob’s dad’s. He devotes much of spare time taking care of it. He tells me even in his death his dad is taking care of him, keeping him on the straight and narrow. It is truly a labour of love, as was his planting here on Monday.

Last year Rob came on the second anniversary of his dad’s death. As he was planting he talked and I listened. The planting of the flowers was his gift to me and me witnessing him remembering his dad as my gift back to him. We both gave and we both received and the whole community benefitted from the beauty of the gardens, which blended beautifully with the loving beauty already here.

The planting of those flowers seemed to me to be the spiritual life in all its beauty and glory; it seems to me that the spiritual life is like a flower.

Now you may well ask, how is the spiritual life like a flower? It is a reasonable question to ask. I will attempt to explain.

The first thing that comes to my heart and mind is that the spiritual life is about opening up, as a flower opens up. That to live spiritually is to open up and to continue opening up day after day, season after season and year after year. Just as the flower opens and up to the light, so do we. How many times do we open up and reach for the morning light? Well infinite times it would seem.

That said we not only open many times we close down and shrivel up many times too. We seemingly close in, shrivel up and fade away many times in our lives only to rise and open once again in a new spring time. The spiritual life is about opening up and closing back in before opening once again, over and over again.

We are all of us like flowers in the garden of life. Each unique and yet similar. Each with something to offer if we grow and flower and be all that were born to be. Yes a flower looks beautiful when it stands alone. It has its own beauty and own unique qualities but it only truly becomes all that it is when it grows together with other flowers in the garden. It only truly becomes all that it is when it shares all that it is with all the other flowers in the garden of life.

It is the same with us and our lives. Yes, we are all uniquely beautiful and we all have our own qualities but we only truly express them and experience them when we come together in love and share them with others, encouraging them to do likewise. The spiritual life is never truly experienced or expressed alone. These things only really come alive in company and communion with others. Each of us have something uniquely beautiful to offer one another, things that only truly flower when we share them with each other.

The spiritual life is not only like a flower, but like a flower garden…The spiritual life comes alive in the garden of life…The garden of delights…

The spiritual life is not experienced alone, it does not exist alone. It only comes alive when we share it with others. No one life is an island. We cannot thrive or survive alone. We are interconnected, much like life in a garden is interconnected.

Margaret Silf captured this thought near perfectly in “The Way of Wisdom”. She wrote:

"We belong, not merely to the created order of things, but in a great web of relationship, and interconnectedness, in which every particle is intimately interwoven with every other, and in which, in some mysterious way, each particle holds and reflects something of the totality. This makes a huge difference to the way we live. Every choice we make, every response we offer, every reaction we reveal has an effect on that web of being. We are made for relationship. The Wisdom of creation insists on it. No single creature can disengage from the dance of creation without jeopardizing the eternal beauty of that dance. We are indeed created to be 'we'. To opt for merely being 'I' is to opt out of the creative process itself. It is only in interrelationship that we have our being and our meaning."

In my eyes this beauty of this interconnectedness is portrayed near perfectly in the observation of flowers growing together with all that makes up the nature of a garden. Our lives and all life is like those flowers in the garden.

You see nothing in life is separate, everything is interconnected. If we damage one aspect of life we damage all life, just as if we begin to heal one aspect of life we begin to heal all life. Or to paraphrase Jesus “What you do to the least of them, you do to me.” Everything is interconnected, nothing lives separately from all life and I believe that is all connected by a Great Universal thread from which all life exists. I call this thread God.

True reverential spiritual living, an awareness of the sacred in everything helps us to recognise the importance of everything. It helps us see that everything matters. Every thought, every feeling, every word and every deed. It helps us recognise the intrinsic value of our own lives too. It reveals how we see life and how we live in life impacts on everything, including our own souls, our own beings. I am recognising this more and more as I live and breathe and enjoy my own being and that in which I live and breathe and share my being.

In recent months as I have simply enjoyed walking round where I live with Molly I have felt more connected to the people and the nature that I pass and interact with. As my reverence and love for life has grown, so has my love for my own being too. This has helped to continue the healing of my being in so many ways. It allows me to thrive and live and dance in the garden of life and thus be of better use in this life.

By observing flowers in a garden we can see clearly the interdependence of all life…The life in which we live and breathe and share our being…

The spiritual life is like a flower. I experienced this once more this week. May we all grow together in the garden of life, the garden of delights.

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

 

Reconciling and Rebuilding, One Heart and Stone at a Time

A very old friend recently got back in touch with me. We haven’t spoken for a few months. I had had to distance myself from them due to some hurt that had been caused. They contacted me by way of apology. It wasn’t just that they wanted to say sorry, they were acknowledging where they had been wrong, they were admitting where they had caused harm. They were attempting to heal something that had been broken, our friendship. We have been through a lot together over the years and I do understand that they have been struggling, it was obvious at the time. I will of course meet up with them.

As I read my friend’s message what filled my heart with love, with joy, wasn’t so much the apology, anyone can say sorry, they key was in the fact that they could see where they had been wrong and wanted to rebuild something that is so precious. How can I stand in judgement, I am no saint myself. Any friendship, or human relationship, requires many moments of forgiveness; friendship, to quote David Whyte, is a “testament to forgiveness”.

Sometimes of course things cannot be forgiven, some things go beyond the pale. Some broken relationships cannot be healed, as the damage done is too much. Sometimes though it is just our pride that gets in the way. I know from experience of people in my life that folk can fall out, go into deep dispute, and they can’t even remember what they fell out about in the first place. Pride can stop us turning back to put things right.

I don’t believe that saying sorry takes much courage, Elton John is wrong when he says, “Sorry seems to be the hardest thing”. Anyone can say sorry, but it takes real faith and courage to admit where you were wrong and to want to bring healing. It also takes real courage and faith to meet the other halfway. So how could I refuse my friend. Quite the opposite in fact, I rejoiced when I read their message on Monday morning.

In our age we often see public figures apologising, often for the hurt caused. That said this is just saying sorry, it is not the same as honestly admitting fault and doing all you to make things right, to bring healing, to correct what was once wrong, to rebuild a relationship, perhaps even rebuild the world. I remember many years ago saying sorry to my grandma, for causing harm, I will never forget the words she uttered “Why do you always say you are sorry, when you don’t really mean it.” The words went right through me, deep into my soul. She loved me dearly, but could see I just felt bad about being caught out, I wasn’t admitting fault or attempting to put right what was wrong. I was just trying to control the consequences. I have never forgotten it. A lesson that politicians and public figures could do well to learn. It seems that truly admitting fault and doing all you can to correct them is not the way for many. In some circles it is considered a sign of weakness. Nonesense. It is a sign of strength, of courage, of faith.

Over the last couple of weeks, the “Parable of the Prodigal Son” (Luke Ch 15 vv 11-31), has tapping me on my shoulder. It is a universal tale that speaks on so many levels about the blessings and troubles with forgiveness and reconciliation. There are three characters in the parable a father and his two sons. The youngest son squanders his inheritance on a hedonistic lifestyle, he loses everything. In desperation he sells himself into slavery and due to a great famine finds himself close to starvation. It is at this point of utter despair and hopelessness that he remembers where he has come from, he remembers his father and reasons that even his father’s slaves have a better life than him. So, he returns home to throw himself on his father's mercy, not as his son but as a slave. On hearing he is returning his father rushes to meet him. Now even before his son atones his father does more than forgive him. He kisses him, a beautiful touch of intimacy and then as the son throws himself at his father’s feet he orders that the fatted calf be slaughtered and a huge party of much rejoicing be held, to celebrate the return of his son who was once lost but now is found.

The parable of "The Prodigal Son" is a beautiful tale of redemption and forgiveness, but is it a realistic one? If only it was that easy. Well, there is so much more to this story. There is another character who does not find forgiveness so easy to come by. There is the other brother who refuses to rejoice and celebrate the returning of his long-lost sibling. Quite the opposite in fact, he is angry, he is indignant, he will not reconcile with his brother and is now at odds with his father. In fact, he does not even refer to the "prodigal" as his own brother. Instead, he names him as “this son of yours”, and by doing so disowns him emotionally. He tells his father all he has done for him and yet has received nothing in return for his good and virtuous life. His father pleads with him and then utters the immortal words, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.” He tells his older son that all that is his belongs to him and also reminds him that this brother of his has returned from the dead. He reminds him that he is his brother and therefore a part of him. They were all three of them once bound together and now need to be once again reconciled, they need to be re-bound. Now this to me is the essence of religious living. For I have come to believe that reconciliation is a deeply religious act.

Religion from “religiere”, meaning re-bound. One of the problems with some aspects of contemporary spirituality is that is individualistic, it is not about relationships, with life and with one another. To me life, especially the truly spiritual and perhaps religious one, is about relationships. Relationships with one another, with life, with our true selves and whatever it is we believe is at the core of life.

One thing I have noticed about myself, and other people is that sometimes our struggles with forgiveness and reconciliation is not necessarily towards the wrongs done by others, but our own shortcomings. That we struggle to reconcile ourselves with our whole humanity. To begin to do so we need to recognise that in each and every person exists the three characters portrayed in “The Parable of the Prodigal Son”. The one who is returning seeking forgiveness, the one offering forgiveness and the one who can feel rejected and neglected by this expression of love. Reconciliation is a process and one that takes time; it is a long journey but one that is certainly worth embarking upon. It is far from easy, but it is without a shadow of a doubt worth undertaking. If we begin this process of reconciliation in our lives, we can begin to rebuild our world. Now of course this no easy task. If I have learnt anything it is that this rebuilding begins with forgiveness. An easy word to speak perhaps but a difficult state to achieve and the reconciliation that it brings with it even harder. That said I suspect it is the purest act of love we can engage in.

My signature phrase as a minister is, “Come as you are, exactly as you, but do not expect to leave in exactly the same condition”. When I say it I truly mean it. We need to bring our whole selves exactly as we are, but to always remain open to the possibility that change can occur, that we reconcile ourselves to ourselves, to one another, to the whole of life and to whatever we believe is at the core of life. We can live spiritually alive, we can live freely and truly religiously.

Reconciliation is not easy, let’s not pretend it is. Now the reason that reconciliation it is so hard, especially with old hurts, is that when we engage in it these painful feelings rise up to the surface. Forgiveness is an act of remembrance. In order to forgive we have to truly re-feel all that has happened. We don’t really forgive and forget. What we actually do, if we are to truly forgive, is re-member. We re-bind the past to the present and can then begin to reconcile. This is why I say that reconciliation is a deeply religious act, because we are re-binding together what has been separated. That said by so doing we do truly begin to heal our world, one relationship, “one stone at a time”, one heart at a time, one soul at a time. It is so easy to look at the world in despair and say I am powerless, there is nothing I can do. The truth is that if we look at the world in this way that is true. That said if we look in our own hearts, in our families and our communities there is much that can be done. Perhaps if we begin here and reconcile ourselves with those closest to us there is much that can be done. I wonder sometimes if by focusing on the bigger picture, the whole world, we lose sight of those closest to us, including ourselves. We need to begin close at hand.

This brings to mind the following rather wonderful story: “The Map and the Man” taken from "The shortest Distance: 101 Stories from the World's Spiritual Traditions" by Bill Darlison

It was a particularly rainy Saturday afternoon. Two children, John and Rebecca, were becoming increasingly bored, and their father, who was under strict orders to keep them entertained while their mother went shopping, was running out of ideas. He wanted to watch the sport on television and to read his newspaper, but the children had demanded his attention. He’d tried them with paper and coloured pencils, but this barely entertained them for five minutes. He’d tried the television, but didn’t even want to play on their tablets. And there were still a couple of hours before mother returned!

Suddenly, he had an idea. Picking up a magazine from the table, he quickly flicked through the pages until he came to a map of the world. “Look at this, kids,” he said. “I’m going to cut this map into pieces - a bit like a jigsaw puzzle – and if you can put it together again, I’ll take you both to McDonald’s for tea! Is it a deal?

The children agreed to give it a try. Their father cut up the map, gave them a pot of glue, and set them to work on the kitchen table. He meanwhile, put on the kettle, made himself a cup of coffee, and sat down with his newspaper in the living room. He was feeling very pleased with himself. “It’ll take them at least an hour,” he thought with a smile.

But barely ten minutes later he heard, “finished dad!” He couldn’t believe it. He went through into the kitchen table and there, sure enough, sitting on the table, was the completed map. “How on earth did you finish it so quickly?” he asked.

“It was easy,” said John. “The map of the world was complicated, but on the other side was a picture of man. We just put the man together.”

“Yes”, said Rebecca. “If you get the man right, the world takes care of itself.”

There is some real wisdom here. If we get the man right, the world takes care of itself. I hear the wisdom of "First things first here; I here the wisdom I was taught many years "If you are spiritually well, the rest will take care of itself.

“If you get the man right, the world takes care of itself.” And if we do so we begin to build "the kin-dom of Love" right here right now.

It begins here in our own individual lives. It begins in our own hearts as we reconcile ourselves with our whole lives. It begins with those who we have shared our lives with. It begins by focusing on the little picture. If we get that right the bigger picture will begin to take care of itself. Remember as the little girl in the story said “If you get the man right, the world takes care of itself.”

It begins with you and it begins with me. It begins by returning to Love.

Please find below a video devotion

based on the material in this "blogspot"

I'm a Universalist, Universalist; I Believe in Universal Universalism

Just as I had completed writing the sermon, from which this "blogspot" is based and was about to print it off I thought I’d take a look at Facebook to see what folk were talking about. The first thing I saw was the following Meme published by the Unitarian Publicity Officer Rory Castle-Jones. So I thought I’d add it as way of introduction.

We love Jesus.
We love Buddha too.
And Muhammad and Krishna and Moses and Guru Nanak and Julian of Norwich. And lots of other folks.
We find that when you look for it,
you find spiritual wisdom in lots of places.
And why should wisdom only come from one place?
Why should God only care about one religion?
What if God's love is bigger than any one religion?
What if God speaks in a thousand different voices?
Shouldn't we listen?
We believe that truth is bigger than any one religion.
We believe that love is bigger than any one belief.

We are Unitarians.

...Seemed like a perfect introduction to this piece, so thank you for that Universal Spirit of Life...

I was talking with someone the other day. It’s the kind of conversation I often find myself in when people discover who I am and more importantly what I do. Assumptions are made, some of those by me by the way. The person was struggling with life in many ways and they told me that nothing I could do or say would help. I believed them, I could see I could not help them. So I did the best thing I could do, I listened. They described how nothing is real and that life is merely an illusion and that we need to truly embrace and experience this nothingness. That there is no self. I listened and tried to identify. I even shared about transcendent moments of my own, ones I have heard others attempt to describe, moments when I have experienced what it is to melt into the ground of all being, to know the oneness of everything to feel held in the loving embrace of what I would call God.  The person looked at me as if I was mad and I sensed powerfully that they felt utterly disconnected from everything in that moment. Oh how I wished I could have helped, maybe I did in some small way. As I left then I remembered moments in my life when I had felt utterly disconnected from everything and everyone, much like the prodigal son. The only difference being that the person I was listening to felt that there was no one and nothing to return to, that life is merely an illusion. Thankfully I see clearly that this is not the case. I have found a place to return to. I have found a home in life, in reality. Life is many things, but an illusion it is not.

I believe in everything and that little bit more than everything that is at the core of it all, connecting it all. I believe utterly in this Universal Love.

A little later that day I found myself in another conversation with someone who has recently awoken spiritually. They are fascinated by spiritual matters. Again I found myself mainly listening to them and remembering similar experiences. And then it happened, they came out with the ultimate cliché, one I have said myself over the years. Again they knew what I do for a living and began telling me all that is wrong with religion. They said “Religion is for people who are afraid to go to Hell where as spirituality is for people who have already been there.” We talked for some time and I spoke of my own Unitarian tradition and tried to explain that what they say of religion is not true of all forms of religion. I spoke a little of the need for community and how this enhances ones personal spirituality and that this can be achieved without dogma. I spoke specifically about Universalism and how they were even known as “The No Hellers”. They were not in the least bit interested. So we left and went about our business.

It got me thinking about the free religious tradition I am a part of and also my feelings of faith etc, how I identify my own beliefs. For I know that those who I congregate with do not all believe and disbelieve the same. Now within our free religious tradition each congregation is linked through a wider denomination named “The General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches”. There is no ruling body and no one has authority over anyone else. Each congregation is self governing and each member of the congregation is free to believe as their conscience dictates. We are closely connected to other similar denominations throughout the world. In America the denomination is called Unitarian Universalists. Which is essentially two denominations that came together as one in the early 1960’s. They each have their own history. I have over the years read much by many Unitarians and Universalist and have found that I actually seem to connect, spiritually at least, more with Universalist than the Unitarians. So much so that a few years ago I declared myself as a Universalist. A Unitarian friend asked me “What kind of Universalist I was?” I paused and thought for a moment and then I answered “I am a Universalist, Universalist”. They were another who looked at me as if I was mad and so I explained that I was a Universalist in the old sense. I do not believe in hell and damnation. That the God of my limited understanding would never condemn anyone to an eternity in Hell; I do not believe that some are saved and others are unsaved. I believe that God has an intimate love for all, that if there is a hell it is a state of being that can be experienced within life. I talked about the "Prodigal Son" parable and I also spoke of my belief that this love is always there waiting for us. I also said that I was a universalist in a more modern understanding too in that I see truth in so many other traditions. That none can reveal the whole truth, that they are windows that let some of the light through. I also talked of a belief in the interconnectedness of all life and that all that happens and does not happen matters. That divinity is present within everything, a kind of Universal Love I suppose.

I remember a few years ago hearing a joke about the difference between the nineteenth century Unitarians and the Universalist. It is said that the Unitarians believed that humanity was too good to be rejected by God where as the Universalists believed that God was too good to ever reject humanity.

I am definitely a Universalist. In fact I am a "Universalist, Universalist, Universalist!"

I believe in and experience a God of Love who accepts all and rejects none; is present in all life and yet is greater than the entirety of it all. I also believe that there are many ways to understand and experience this Universal Love; it makes no sense to me to think that there can be only one way. Universalism has given me a code of hopefulness that I can live by. It sustains me through the vicissitudes of life and it connects me to the whole of reality. I have come to believe in what I have come to call Universalist Universalism.

Universalism speaks to my head, my heart and above all my soul. It has enabled me to observe and  fully participate in life, to bare witness to what we do to each other and ourselves. It helps me come to terms with my past and my present and look forward to the future. It helps me connect to the people I have and currently share my life with. It enables to live fully alive.

Universalism is a hope filled faith, but that does not make it an easy path. It is not about sitting back and waiting to be rescued by the God of love it promotes. Instead it declares that salvation, in this life, can only be achieved by facing up to the suffering present in all our lives and dealing directly with the despair that accompanies it. It's also about bringing hope to those in despair and to truly singing the joy of living.

As one of the founding fathers of Universalism, John Murray, so beautifully put it in the eighteenth century

“You may possess only a small light, but uncover it, let it shine, use it in order to bring more light and understanding to the hearts and minds of men and women. Give them not Hell, but hope and courage. Do not push them deeper into their theological despair, but preach the kindness and everlasting love of God.”

John Murray

Whenever I feel despair both with myself or with the rest of humanity, which I do from time to time, I try to remember these words by the Universalist preacher John Murray. I feel a deep connection and purpose in life and through life. In so doing I experience the truth that everything matters, every thought, every feeling, every word and every deed. For love is both eternal and universal.

As we live our lives in this our shared world it is important to remember to widen our views and deepen our experiences, increasing our awareness that all life touches way beyond our horizons, not just directly those that we come into contact with, but with so many others also, often indirectly. In so doing we can welcome the wanderer to find their way back home and we will begin to repair the fragmentations of life and develop deeper intimacy. In so doing may we find our place among the family of things. May we all find ourselves safe and in love and here at home.

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...

Daily Bread for the Daily Journey

Every morning we step out into the world uncertain of what the day will bring. Yes we make our plans and designs and have our own ideas about what will be. Sometimes things work out exactly as we expect, but often they do not. Sometimes they work out far better than we could have dreamed of, but at other times they do not. We cannot predict life and I do not believe that it is already pre-ordained. I believe that the book of life always remains open. I do not believe that God has pre-ordained anything. I do believe in the Lure of Divine Love, but that this is not controlled by some primal centre, but hey I could well be wrong. I do believe that this Love speaks to us in and through life, as well as in and through us. This is why I believe that everything matters. Life feeds us and we feed life. We are all a part of the Great Co-Creation. This is why it matters how we journey on in life. This is why it is so important that we keep on stepping out into the world, on this continuous journey, experience all that life offers to us in all its blessings and curses. Always remembering that we do not journey alone.

Many people describe life as a journey that moves from one stage to another, sometimes full of joy and sometimes full of fear. Like the seasons life is forever changing. My life has taken me to different stages and I have journeyed with a rich variety of people. Some have been there from the very beginning, some have joined and stayed and others I have travelled with for only a short time. They have all touched and blessed my life in deep, rich and meaningful ways and I hope I have blessed theirs likewise.

Much has changed these last twelve months and these changes seem to be increasing in pace as the days go by. Yes there are the obvious physical changes, but those are just the ones on the surface. There are many other changes, unseen, that have been occurring deep within me. One thing I know for certain is that I am not done with my changes and life certainly isn’t done with changing me. I have never felt more fed by life, nor do I feel I have fed life more positively at any other stage of my life. I have never felt more alive and I want to share this aliveness with everyone.

How do I know this? You may well ask. Well because I feel that I know myself now better than I ever have before. Even these last few weeks’ deeper and newer truths have been revealed. The journey into who I truly am has gone deeper.

Now the inner journey is very much a spiritual journey. It is not really about physical travel, one of distance, it is more one of depth. This is captured beautifully in the following poem by Wendell Berry

"A Spiritual Journey"

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

by Wendell Berry

Now no doubt the Wendell Berry poem is inspired by the Christian mystic Meister Ekhart. It was he who claimed that the spiritual journey is not one of distance, that we do not so much travel on a physical pilgrimage from A to B to C to D etc, that the spiritual journey is some kind of linear progression in which we reach some goal, some new state of being way over there in some distant realm. No instead we discover new truths, understandings and experiences as we journey through life in a cyclical sense and that as we do so we move deeper into the core of our own being and find ourselves at home within ourselves.

John O’Donohue captured this beautifully when he wrote:

“Meister Eckhart radically revises the whole notion of spiritual programs. He says that there is no such thing as a spiritual journey. If a little shocking, this is refreshing. If there were a spiritual journey, it would be only a quarter inch long, though many miles deep. It would be a swerve into rhythm with your deeper nature and presence. The wisdom here is so consoling. You do not have to go away outside yourself to come into real conversation with your soul and with the mysteries of the spiritual world. The eternal is at home — within you.”

(John O’Donohue, Anam Cara: a Book of Celtic Wisdom)

Now strange as this may sound a life time’s journey can only be taken in one day. Did you know that the word journey is derived from the Latin word "diarnum" meaning daily portion from which the old French word "jornee" which meant a day’s work or a day's travel, is derived. I love this truth, it makes me smile broadly. Of course any spiritual journey can only be taken one day at a time and can only be achieved through taking our daily bread, feeding our spirit, and feeding life itself with our spirit. The key is of course to keep on going deeper and deeper feeding and being fed by and on the journey, while constantly being humbled and opened by the experience and thus feeding life.

Now while each of our journey’s are individual, they are not private. They are not taken alone nor in isolation. We are all a part of something far greater than ourselves. We are influenced by all that is around us, just as we influence all that we interact with. This of course begins with the people we share our lives with, those we journey with. We feed them and they feed us. We care for others and they care for us. Howard Thurman captured this rather beautifully in what follows. The Reverend Howard Thurman, was a theologian, minister, a Baptist with heavy Quaker leanings, Dean of Theology and Chaplain at both Howard and Boston Colleges, and the co founder, with Dr. Albert Fisk, in 1944, of “The Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples”. America’s first fully multicultural church. Thurman wrote:

“Every person wants to be cared for, to be sustained by the assurance that we share in the watchful and thoughtful attention of others—not merely or necessarily others in general but others in particular. We want to know that—however vast and impersonal all life about us may seem, however hard may be the stretch of road on which we are journeying—we are not alone, but are the object of another's concern and caring; we want to know this in an awareness sufficient to hold us against ultimate fear and panic. It is precisely at this point of awareness that life becomes personal and a person is free to ask and find answers to this question: What makes me come alive, and how can I share that aliveness with the world?”

Here Thurman captures how vital communal spirituality is to personal spiritual development and journeying. Spirituality cannot be truly expressed in isolation otherwise it just becomes self-centred and self-serving, thus stagnating personal growth. True spirituality needs community. It needs to feed and be fed by community. It kind of has to become religion, in its truest sense, to mature into all that it can be. I’m not talking about religious dogma here. I mean free religion, I mean coming together in love. I mean the idea that be bind together in fellowship. A living, breathing, fellowship of love. A community of loving support and understanding who journey together hand in hand.

It’s about more than just fulfilling our own personal needs. It’s about building something more. Not just for ourselves but for the good of all, for we all depend upon it. That though is not to say that the individual journey does not matter. Of course it does. It is about the individual becoming all that they can be within community with others. It’s about, as Thurman says the individual coming alive and sharing this aliveness with life. In so doing we inspire others to be all that they can be. In so doing they then inspire us to become even more than we could even dream of becoming.

This to me is what it means to build the kin-dom of love right here, right now. Yes this kin-dom is already here, right here right now if we would just let it come to life. It is there within each and every one of us. Our task is to let it come to life and to share it with our brothers and sisters and thus inspire them to do likewise. In so doing they will too inspire us to become even more than we could even begin to dream of.

Life is a journey, a journey we are engaged in even if we are not fully aware of it at the time. Yes ok, it’s not really a journey that goes anywhere. Even when it ends all that we are really doing is returning to the beginning. Yes changed by the experience in some way, but still the essence remains. What matters is how we travel, we can always go first class; what matters the most is the journey that we travel today. What our days’ work is today, remember that is what journey really means, today's work. Our day’s work today, is how we feed life and to do our day’s work, our journey, to our best ability depends on how we feed ourselves and how we feed life. It matters you know, it really does.

So how are you going to journey today? What is your day’s work today? How will you allow life and those around you to feed you today? And just as importantly how will you feed life today, in all that you feel, all that you think, all that you say and all that you do?

It matters you know, it really does…

Catching falling leaves

(This blog was first published during autumn 2012)

I am someone who attempts to practise what they preach. Yes of course I do not do this perfectly but I do at least try.

In recent blogs I have spoken several times that spiritual development requires an increased sensitivity to life and that one way of achieving this is to listen, to really listen to people as they speak. This takes discipline. Well actually it takes more than that, it takes obedience. To increase my sensitivity to life, requires me to be obedient to life itself. This is no easy task.

Now you may not like the sound of this. Obedience is a word that probably sounds too passive to the 21st century ear. This is certainly true in the modern understanding of the word. Today when we hear the word obedience or obedient we think of yielding to the authority of another, which does indeed sound unhealthy and potentially exploitative. 

The problem stems from our current understanding of the word. Obedience is one of those words that has changed in meaning over time. If you look at the etymology of the word it comes from the Latin audere, which means to listen. Actually it is more than that; it means to listen and to understand. Words like audio and audit are also formed from the same root.

Obedient originally meant to listen and to hear what is being said. As I have said many times before you give no greater service to a person than to listen to them and to hear what is being said. It is the same with life by the way. To truly understand life you have listen to it with all your heart, with the sense of your senses. If you do you truly live; you are truly alive.

I recently spent a week catching up with family and friends. During this time I made a real effort to listen and to hear what was being said by the people I spent time with. I made a conscious effort to be obedient to what they were saying. Now of course this was painful at times as I bore witness to the joy and suffering of those I love. Thankfully these days I am able to remain obedient to this. I do not turn away.

I heard many tales, one of which could only be told at this time of the year. This was story of a friend walking in the park with his grandchildren. They were enjoying the autumn leaves together, the colours, the rustling under their feet, when suddenly the children shouted out, “let’s play the catching leaf game”. 

My friend had never even heard of it before, let alone played it. The game goes something like this; you look at the trees and watch for when the leaves begin to fall. As you see one falling you attempt to catch the leaf before it hits the ground. This is apparently no easy task, although it doesn’t sound too challenging. After all it’s just a leaf, it has no mind of its own and gravity should surely bring it down safely into your hands. Well apparently not. It seems that there are other forces at work, namely the wind. My friend said it was virtually impossible to catch the leaves as they fell because they would constantly be blown off course by sudden and unpredictable gusts of wind.

Isn’t life like this, beautiful but unpredictable. The leaves rarely fall directly into our hands. How often are they blown off course just as we are about to catch them.

The wind is a powerful, an ungovernable, beast. It pays no attention to our wants and needs and desires. Once again we have seen this power in the last few days. We have witnessed the devastating effects of the wind as Hurricane Sandy swept across the Caribbean and the east coast of America, with devastating effect. Many homes and livelihoods have been destroyed and many lives have been lost.  It even brought the presidential election to temporary hold. We are very fortunate in Britain that we do not suffer from the extreme weather that many people in other parts of the world have to contend with. although it has to be said we do complain about it a lot!

The wind truly is an ungovernable beast that cannot be tamed. The same can be said for all of life, which will always remain unpredictable. All of us can at times be swept away by the vicissitudes of life, with little or no warning. A bit like the dandelions I wrote of in a previous blog we have to learn to not only except this but learn to love these vicissitudes as part of the joy of living. The key is to learn not take these troubles personally. If the weather is one thing, it is democratic. When it rains in Manchester, it rains on everyone.

How though can we not only learn to accept and love life, but to also not take it personally? Well, it begins by becoming obedient to life itself, to accept life as it truly is. What is required is the ability to listen and to really hear life and to learn to dance in those winds as they gust in and through us. The key is to be in harmony with life itself and to truly understand that we are all in this together. Oh and to learn to play or at least remember how we use to play when we were children. It might be an idea, while there are still leaves on the trees, to go out and try and catch them as they are falling.

Jeffrey Lockwood in his beautiful meditation “Go Fly a Kite” wrote:

“To be sane, embrace the wind. But to be joyous, fly a kite. Dance between caprice and control. The wind pulls the fragile sail upward and the flyer plays out the string. Left to the turbulence, the kite will be dashed to the ground or swept over the horizon. Left on the ground, the kite is moribund, stagnant. But between sky and earth is enchantment.

We are kites, buffeted by the vicissitudes of the spirit, the squalls of fortune, the breezes of intuition, and the glorious gusts of chance encounters. And we are stabilized by a tail - the solidity of the mind, the bedrock of reason, the granite of science. If our tail is too heavy, we never leave the ground. If it is too light, we spin crazily.

The people in our lives - family, lovers, friends, community - are the braided strands, a kite string that sustains the dynamic tension between heaven and earth. They are a lifeline that allows us to be uplifted, to see farther, to live more fully. And the higher we fly, the stronger our string must be. For when our connection becomes worn and frayed it can snap, and we will come tumbling back to earth, landing far from where we left, with nobody to repair our breaks or mend our tears.

And so rejoice in the wind - but attend to your string.”

Rejoice in the wind – but attend to your string. How on earth do we do that?

The key it would seem is the string itself. It is this that sustains us that enables us not only to live, even with all the vicissitudes of life, but to fully enjoy the experience. Our families, our loved ones and our communities are part of that string, but they are not all of it. We each of us have things that hold and sustain us when the winds of life blow, or when they don’t blow. It is strange but I often find that I am at my best in the middle of a crisis, or a storm. Sometimes the hardest days for me are when all is calm and quiet and still. Sometimes that is when the real trouble visits. I know that I am not unique in this.

It is spiritual practise and primarily prayer that holds me and sustains me, it is this that keeps my string in good health. I often pause to pray and connect to life many times throughout the day. I am obedient to this practise. It enables me to listen to and to truly hear life, with the ears of my heart. When I live this way I am more able to speak the language of the heart and to attempt to practise what I preach.

Every Tuesday morning I attend a meditation group. This little group has been vital to maintaining the string that allows me to fully live.  This Tuesday as I went to collect the milk I looked up the sky just as it was becoming light. At the same time the week before it was still dark, I recognised this as a blessing from the clocks going back. The sky that morning had some beautiful pink tinges to it. I also noticed a flock of Canada geese flying past, migrating for the winter. I thought to myself what a beautiful blessing. I also noted some sadness too as I wondered to myself, maybe the beauty of the sky at that moment was in some way related to the horrors brought by hurricane Sandy on  the other side of the Atlantic. These thoughts may of course be nonsense and I am sure that any scientists reading this blog can correct me on this.

Not that it matters too much to me whether it is true or not. What is important is that at the moment I was able to connect to all of life. Not just within me and around me, but in other parts of the world too. The moment increased my sensitivity to life itself; the moment made me obedient to life itself. It allowed me to dance in the joy of the moment and fully appreciate the gift that is life itself, while also acknowledging the suffering in other parts of the world. Life is truly awry.

"By breath, by blood, by body, by spirit...we are all one..."

Give thanks for life: Receiving each day as an invitation

“To Receive Each Day as an Invitation” by John O’Donohue

"One night recently I visited our family farm. A calf had just been born. It had slumped to earth in a wet, steaming mass. At midnight, I went out to look at the cow again; by this time she had licked her new calf dry and he had sucked his first milk. Everything was mild and gentle, illuminated by the moon’s mint light. What a beautiful night it was to arrive on earth. Even if this newborn were a genius, it could never possibly imagine the surprise of the world that was waiting when the dawn would break in a miracle of colour illuminating the personality of mountains, river and sky

The liturgy of dawn signals the wonder of the arriving day. Magic of darkness breaking through into colour and light is such a promise of invitation and possibility. No wonder we always associate the hope and urgency of new beginning with the dawn. Each day is the field of brightness where the invitation of our life unfolds. A new day is an intricate and subtle matrix; written into its mystery are the happenings sent to awaken and challenge us.

No day is ever the same, and no day stands still; each one moves through a different territory, awakening new beginnings. A day moves forward in moments, and once a moment has flickered into life, it vanishes and is replaced by the next. It is fascinating that this is where we live, within an emerging lacework that continually unravels. Often a fleeting moment can hold a whole sequence of the future in distilled form: that unprepared second when you looked in a parent’s eye and saw death already beginning to loom. Or the second you noticed a softening in someone’s voice and you knew that a friendship was beginning. Or catching your partner’s gaze upon you and knowing the love that surrounded you. Each day is seeded with recognitions.

The writing life is a wonderful metaphor for this. The writer goes to his desk to meet the empty white page. As he settles himself, he is preparing himself, for visitation and voyage. Each memory, longing, and craft set the frame for what might emerge. He has no idea what will come. Yet despite its limitations, his creative work will find its own direction to form. Each of us is an artist of our days; the greater our integrity and awareness, the more original and creative our time will become."

“Give thanks for life, the measure of our days,

Mortal we pass through beauty that decays,

Yet sing to God our hope, our love and praise:

Alleluia, Alleleluia!”

This is one of my favourite hymns from “Sing Your Faith”, more commonly known, by many Unitarians, as the Purple Hymn Book or new Hymn book. Words by Shirley Erena Murray set to “Sine Nomine” by Ralph Vaughan Williams. The words offer a simple and yet beautiful sentiment, to give thanks for life itself. After all it is the ultimate of graces. It is a truly free gift. It is given to us and involves no effort, at least at the beginning, on our part. Now what happens throughout our lives, well that’s a different story entirely.

I wonder how often we give thanks and praise for the fact that we draw breath at all; I wonder how often we give thanks and praise for all the things in our lives that are given to us through no real effort on our part. I believe if we saw each second as a precious grace, a free gift, we may just begin to see life as an invitation; an invitation to who knows what?

It is so easy to take life for granted and to just simply consume what is there, without really paying attention to how it got there in the first place. It is often less easy to be grateful, to offer genuine thanks for all that we are surrounded by.

To give thanks, to be grateful for what is here in our lives takes real discipline. To pay attention is a labour in itself, but it is one that truly bears fruit. It begins by paying attention carefully to just one thing, perhaps your next meal or conversation or the people in the street that you pass by. If we are able to pay attention to one thing, our attention will eventually begin to pay attention to everything that is connected to that one thing and that is everything. Everything in life truly is connected and interconnected. This has never been more true than today.

In “12 Steps to a Compassionate Life” Karen Armstrong suggests a mindfulness practise that can help us engage with this interconnectedness. She suggests that we begin by paying attention to our homes and bring to mind all the people who were involved in building them. Not just the team that put them together but those who created the brick, the cement, the timber. Those who installed the plumbing and the electricity, those who created the many fabrics that adorn the interiors of our lives and those who laboured to supply these things. She also suggests that we pay attention and consider where the tea and coffee we consume in the morning comes from, as well as the food on our table. To think of every slice of bread we place in the toaster and consider all the efforts that went into getting it there. She further suggests that as we leave our homes we pay attention to the transport systems we travel by. To think of all the workers who built and maintain our roads, our cars, buses, trains and planes and to continue this exercise as we move through our day, paying attention to everything and offering a moment of thanks for all the labour that has gone into making all that we enjoy possible.

This mindfulness practise brings to mind a talk I recently heard at the R.E. Summer School I participated in at Great Hucklow. It was a talk delivered by Bill Darlison. Here Bill was encouraging us to engage with a variety of spiritual practises. He began by defining what he means by spiritual and spirituality. For Bill spirituality is about increasing our sensitivity to life. One of the many things that he spoke of was the Irish tradition of the Angelus prayer. This has been practiced in Ireland for many years and is a moment when the people are meant to pause for a moment and send a message of good will to everyone on earth; at 6am at 12 noon and at 6pm. He said he was particularly struck by the 6pm one as it preceded the 6 o’clock news and the world’s horrors that followed. Bill suggests that in our daily lives we create our own Angelus moments; moments when we pause, give thanks and offer good will to all. Bill said that whenever he hears a siren in the street he will pause for a few seconds and offer a silent prayer to whoever is obviously in distress.

Life is the greatest gift of all and one that ought to be revered. If we offer simple moments of gratitude for this ultimate of graces, we will notice the many blessings we are surrounded by. I am grateful for the many gifts I have been given. This work I do with you wonderful folk, the home I have in Altrincham, my little black car, my health, physical, mental and spiritual and the love I know in life. Above all I am grateful for the people I know and have known. That said I could do more to appreciate these many gifts. I could pay more attention and could offer more prayers of thanks for all that life offers me. This is why I am committing to the suggestions of Bill and Karen and why I commend them to everyone. I will practise paying attention and I will practise offering little prayers of thanks giving and of concern for those in distress.

Afterall we are all connected; we are a part of the one undivided whole.

Let us all give thanks for life; it is the greatest gift of all.

Amen