Get the Balance Right: See Saw Margery Daw

I recently had the pleasure of meeting a new born baby, Eileen. Yes I did sing the song. In fact I sang a few songs. I have sang several since, you know the usual nursery rhymes, like “rockabye baby”, “all the pretty little horses”, “Frerer Jaques”, “Twinkle, twinkle”, “The cradle song”. I Spent a bit of time this week recording them on voice notes, I have enjoyed it immensely. I have also bumped into Eloise Williamson, who grew up at Dunham Road, a few times these last couple of weeks, out and about with her twin daughters. She tells me they are 6 months old now. They have already developed unique personalities. She pushes them around in a double pram, one on top of the other, like a mobile bunk bed. I have noticed that the top child is always happy and smiling, while the baby below always seems to be crying. I have also noticed that as soon as I talk to her she seems happy again, especially if I sing. I have always been a bit of a baby whisperer, apparently my voice is calming, soporific some say, I hope you manage to stay away during this sermon. It is fascinating to see these two personalities developing, I wonder what their lives will be like. They seem an interesting balance of a happy jolly child and another that always seems to be crying. Why this is it is hard to know, I don’t think it is anything do with the position in the pram. I suspect that it is just that some of us need more soothing than others. I am told I cried a lot as a baby.

It all got me pondering as life always does.

On Tuesday morning I was out with Molly in the park. I was enjoying Molly’s joy, although I was interrupted many times by phone calls. As I walked passed the play area I noticed the see-saw which brought me back to those children’s songs. I found myself singing the classic “See saw”, I have been singing all week.

See Saw Margery Daw,
Johnny shall have a new master;
He shall earn but a penny a day,
Because he can't work any faster,

I thought about the joy of the see saw. It’s a game that you can’t play alone. You need someone else to play the game. It’s a game that is about moving constantly from one side to another. It’s a game in which equilibrium, perfect balance, is never reached. It’s a game of energy, weight and motion. When was the last time you played on one?

It is a strange kind of nursery rhyme, when you think about it. It is thought that the rhyme has its origins as a sawyer’s work song, as they would work in pairs and would therefore encourage the other to work faster, thus mimicking the see-saw. It is thought that “daw” was a lazy person, think of the “Daw Mouse”, always sleeping in Alice in Wonderland. So it wasn’t really a nursery rhyme at all, more a kind of work song. Instilling the classic protestant work ethic.

Of course being stuck in anything is no way to live, there is something wonderful and beautiful in rhythmical movement, in it we flow with life. Also there is something in moving with another. We awaken something in each other, like singing to a baby, there is such joy in it for the singer and the baby too, as the baby responds to the song.

Movement enables balance it seems, it brings us to life, that said there is also time for rest, for joy, to be dormant. There is something that can be corrosive to our humanity in just working. As the old saying goes, “All work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy.” This is why I love singing to folk so much, it is playful to me, but also encouraging. It is hard to get the balance right though in any aspect of life.

I wonder if there is ever perfect balance, equilibrium in life? It seems to me that everything is always moving, perfect balance is never achieved. Perhaps it is better that way. You can never “get the balance right”, to quote another 80’s pop song. They are great lyrics by the way, by good old “Depeche Mode”.

This time of celestial and seasonal balance is a perfect one to check out the balance in our own lives. Where are the extremes in our own lives that need balancing out? How do we see ourselves and each other? Is this in balance? Do we have a balanced view of life? When looking at ourselves do we have a balanced and honest view? How are our “umeres”, as the ancient physicians used to call them, are all four of these fluids in balance? How is your health, your physical, your emotional, your mental and your spiritual health? These four could well be our present day “umeres”. Physicians no longer believe we have four fluids that need to be in balance, that said our well being still needs stability and balance.

“Get the balance right.”

A balanced life is considered a good life. We are told that we need to balance the books, in the home and in the community. A balanced diet is vital to healthy living. Power needs to be balanced in the public sphere, too much power in any individual or even groups hand is dangerous. Balance is vital to performing physical activities. Most athletes are admired for their balance as much as for their strength and speed.

Balance is seen as vital by virtually all spiritual and philosophical traditions, extremes in any sense lead to danger and destruction. As Robert Fulghum advises “Be aware of wonder. Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.” The philosopher John Locke wrote “An excellent man, like precious metal, is in every way invariable; A villain, like the beams of a balance, is always varying, upwards and downwards.”

This coming Wednesday 20th March is the Spring Equinox, the day when light and dark are in balance. This happens twice a year both in Autumn and Spring. Equinox means “equal night”

The March Equinox is known as the Vernal Equinox, meaning new, as it marks the beginning of spring. In the northern hemisphere as we tilt towards the sun the days grow longer and sunnier. The September Equinox is called the Autumn Equinox, marking the beginning of this season. In the southern hemisphere these seasons are at opposites ends of the year.

Now it is said that there are magical properties to the Equinox. Many stories, in a variety cultures, speak of this. One such comes from China. Does anyone know what it might be?

Well according to Chinese legend, for an hour before and after the Equinox on Li Chun (the day when Spring Begins), it becomes possible to balance things that otherwise it would not be possible to do so. On this day it said that for a short time you can even balance an egg, due to gravity balancing itself. Now apparently this mythos received a great deal of publicity in the 1940’s, even Einstein commented on it. It is said that in the city of Chongqing many such egg standings took place around this time. Now it seems that this wasn’t just a trick, an illusion. The truth is with the right egg on the right surface you can stand an egg on its end on any day of the year.

This time of year is about eggs, new life, fertility, new babies, new beginnings. I was talking about eggs on Tuesday morning. How much I love poached eggs. How do you like yours? The best I ever had was at the Ritz a few years ago, when I won a night in a suite there.

This got me thinking about yoke and balance, the image of eggs standing up and their life sustaining centres. References to Yoke (A different kind of yoke I know) in the Bible is about balance; about balance as we work through life; it is about teamwork, cooperation, discipleship. One of the meanings of the word yoke in yoga is union, derived from the Sanskrit word yuj, which means 'to yoke'. When oxen are yoked, they must work together for a common purpose. In contemporary yoga, the union is often described as “a process of integrating the body, mind and spirit. This reminds me of those “umeres “of medieval medicine and getting the balance right.

“Get the balance right”

Yoke also got me thinking about parenting qualities and new born babies and how equilibrium is so vital to this. When I think of the “Yoke of Jesus”, it is this that comes to mind. A love that is gentle and humble, it is close to the ground, the earth, the ground of being. Tender like the love of a mother for her child, a father with the babe in his arms, a grandparent or close friend. It’s a love that comes alive in relationship. A baby needs to find rest, comfort, care, protection and light-heartedness. Don’t we all though, not just babies.

A friend called me on Tuesday, while I was out with Molly, talking about the stresses of caring for his mother who is in her nineties. He said it was his turn as his mother had always been there for him. Particularly a time twenty years when she went to great lengths travelling half way down the country to keep him alive. She was the light in the dark of his life and now it was his time as she enters the twilight of hers. There is a beautiful balance here too. I wonder if he sings her songs around her hospital bed.

Life naturally balances itself out, but it requires us to play the see-saw game, to play our role in getting the balance right. Balance is hard to achieve, it is never perfect. It isn’t a constant, static, state of being. We live like a seesaw constantly moving from one end to the other, attempting to get the balance right.

Maybe this is something to think of as we enter spring and move towards Easter, to develop a new kind of equinox; perhaps this is what we need to be give birth to this Spring time. That would be the perfect Easter egg when the day of re-birth, of new beginnings comes. This time of celestial and seasonal balance is a perfect one to check out the balance in our own lives. Where are the extremes in our own lives that need balancing out? How are our “umeres”, as the ancient physicians use to call them, are all four in balance? How is your health, your physical, your emotional, your mental and your spiritual health? These four could well be our present day “umeres”. Have we got the balance right in our lives?

Aristotle proposed that the key to authentic happiness and not mere momentary satisfaction or pleasure arose from living a life of “Virtue” and that this could be achieved by the “Doctrine of the Golden Mean”, by living a life centred on a sort of dampened equilibrium. That virtue lays in avoiding excess. He saw courage as lying somewhere between cowardice and recklessness.

One of the great Greek myths illustrates this perfectly. Icarus was advised by Daedalus to fly somewhere between the sun and the sea, but he flew too close to the sun. Centuries later didn’t Goldilocks rejected the porridge that was too hot and too cold for the one that was just right, she chose the middle way, thus following the virtuous life.

The key to living in balance and harmony is about relationship with life, with each other, with ourselves and with God, another four modern day “Umeres” if you like.

Isn’t this what life is built upon, our relationships. I suspect above everything that this is the key. To ensure that our lives are in balance in these four aspects of our lives. That are relationship “Umeres” are inbalance. So how are your relationship “Umeres”? Are they imbalanced? Have you got the balance right?

Perhaps that is something to check, in this season of balance. How are you in relation to your inner self, the people you share your life with, life itself and your God, however you understand God? Have you got the balance right?

Relationships and trust are so vital to babies and the most vulnerable amongst us. We need to trust those who love and care for us. They need to feel that they can rest easy in our yoke. We need to trust in those who care for us too. Love and care needs to be in balance too. This is never static it is constantly moving back and forth. It needs to rock back and forth. A bit like another nursey rhyme I’ve been thinking of this week. I recorded it for Eileen the other day.

Rock a bye baby on the tree top,
When the wind blows the cradle will rock,
When the bough breaks the cradle will fall,
And down will come baby, cradle and all.

Lets step forward into Spring, gently and lovingly, caring and being cared for. With our love gentle and balanced, moving forward sustained by an ever loving yoke. Let us rest together in the yoke of life, that life sustaining love.

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

The Golden Thread: We Come Together in Love

 O come together in truth;

O come together in peace;
O come together in joy and sharing,
Come together in knowing and caring;
Come together,
O come together,
O come together in love.

Beautiful words by Dorothy Grover, from a much loved hymn. 

They describe why I became a part of spiritual community. They are not the reason why I went from a secular singular person to one who sought out spiritual community, but they are why I stayed. I came to try and understand, to make sense of the sudden and profound changes that had occurred in my life many years ago now, changes that have continued on and on and on. I have not found the answers I was seeking by the way, in fact if anything there are many more questions today than there was then. What community has given me, amongst so many others is a space to explore those and many other questions with like hearted people. In such an environment I have learnt to not only ask and listen to the questions, but to truly live them. I came seeking answers, but it is not why I stayed. I stayed because I found something far more than I was consciously looking for. I stayed because I found community, I found true belonging. I found love. I found my heart's desire.

We come together, oh come together, we come together in love…

Now sadly of course we can’t come together as we would like, we can’t all be together to share in worship, well not physically at least. We are of course together in heart and mind, spirit and soul, some physically at Dunham and hopefully soon at Queens Road, some on Zoom from all sorts of places, and those who are reading the service at home too. We are being creative in ways of coming together, always in love. We are of course coming a little closer, step by step, with love always as our guide.

This not being able to be physically together can be particularly difficult at those times in life when we come together for rites of passage. Like the family funeral I conducted this Friday, or the Gott wedding this afternoon. Despite not being able to be together, physically, as we would like the love that runs through life can and does bind us together if we would but let it. It is the same with birthdays and other celebrations too or at times when those we care for are ill or suffering, as so many are in these challenging days, we find ways though. I saw a lovely example last Saturday as I saw Thelma and her daughter Lisa enjoying fish and chips and each others company sat in the sun in the gardens at the chapel, from a safe social distance of course.

We can still “come together in loving and caring

Oh come together, oh come together, oh come together in love.”

It brought to mind this wonderful bit of wisdom from “When all you’ve ever wanted isn’t enough” by Harold Kushner

“A life without people, without the same people day after day, people who belong to us, people who will be there for us, people who need us and whom we need in return, may be very rich in other things, but in human terms is no life at all.

I was sitting on the beach one summer day, watching two children, a boy and a girl, playing in the sand. They were hard at work building an elaborate sandcastle by the waters edge, with gates and towers and moats and internal passages. Just when they had nearly finished their project, a big wave came along and knocked it down, reducing it to a heap of wet sand. I expected the children to burst into tears, devastated by what had happened to all of their hard work. But they surprised me. Instead they ran up the shore away from the water, laughing and holding hands, and they sat down to build another castle. I realized that they had taught me a valuable lesson. All of the things in our lives, all of the complicated structures we spend so much time and energy creating, are built on sand. Only our relationships with other people endure. Sooner or later, the wave will come along and knock down what we have worked so hard to build up. When that happens, only the person who has somebody's hand to hold will be able to laugh."

It also brought to mind the following verse from Matthew’s Gospel Ch 18 v 20 “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them” When we come together in love, that spirit comes to life.

“O come together, o come together, o come together in love.

This is why people come together in spiritual community, why the commune. As the writer Annie Dillard put it “We are here to abet creation and to witness it. To notice each other’s beautiful face and complex nature so that creation need not play to an empty house.”

In coming together in love we create community, it is the love that we create together that binds such community together. This love is the thread that binds us together. We are all responsible for weaving this thread and repairing it when it gets damaged. It is this that binds us to one another and it this that hold us together in love.

Now as Parker J Palmer put it while reflecting on the wonderful poem “A Thread to Guide Us” by William Stafford.

“Holding on doesn’t make life any easier, but it can keep us from getting lost in the dark woods that swallow us up every now and then. Knowing we can find our way home with that thread in hand, we’re more likely to explore the darkness and learn what it has to teach us.”

Here's the poem:

“The Way It Is” by William Stafford

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

Now an old rarely heard word for this thread of love that binds us together in love is “yoke”. Now a yoke is a wooden bar that is fastened around the necks of two animals, connecting them together and to the vehicle or load they are pulling. In the context of community though yoke is a nurturing word. It is a humble and tender word, particularly for the most vulnerable in family, community and society, it is that loving thread that binds us together in love. In such connections we find rest, comfort, care, protection and light-heartedness. Yes light-heartedness for there is a sense of fun in this idea of yoke. Gosh how much do we miss this ability to come together in joy and laughter too. In Middle Eastern languages yoke has connotations of laying arms on the shoulders of another and dancing in cirlces and long lines. It is a familiar and comfortable feeling and fills one with delight as you get lost in the music and sing and dance and just let go without fear. To be yoked means to come together in love.

We come together in search
Of new beginnings for all,
Where understanding and trust surround us – 
Gone the hate and fear that bound us;
Come together,
O come together,
O come together in love.

The Sanskrit word for yoke is yuj. Like Yoke in the west it is a physical device used to join cattle. From this interestingly the word yoga came. Now Yoga means union, just think about this idea of something binding us together in love. Yoga though is not really a noun, a thing, it is more a verb, something that you do, like people coming together in love, to create loving community. Sue and myself have been practising yoga these last few months, since lockdown began. It is one of the many loving threads that has held us through these difficult days. It has been comical too as we have had to negotiate two dogs, particularly the disobedient little dog, not a lot of space and bodies that will not do the things that the woman on the video can do. There has been much laughter as we have yoked and joked our way through, being held in love these last weeks and months.

These principles of coming together in love will help us as we try to rebuild and rebind our communities, to create space for people to come together not only in love, but also search in the days ahead.

We come together in search
Of new beginnings for all,
Where understanding and trust surround us – 
Gone the hate and fear that bound us;
Come together,
O come together,
O come together in love.

Loving community is something that I believe everyone needs, in order to truly thrive and grow and become all that they can be.

Starhawk catches this need near perfectly when she writes:

“Community. Somewhere, there are people to whom we can speak with passion without having the words catch in our throats. Somewhere a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power. Community means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold us when we falter. A circle of healing. A circle of friends. Someplace where we can be free.”

So let us continue to build this community of love, where people can come together in love. As we slowly open and begin to be together again we will need a loving community even more, a place where love hold us and sustain us together. It is something that we will all be responsible for creating, but not just here, but also in our families, our communities, our world. Let us begin to repair and weave that thread of love. Let us come together, lets us go out together in love.

O come together in truth;
O come together in peace;
O come together in joy and sharing,
Come together in knowing and caring;
Come together,
O come together,
O come together in love

Amen

Life on the Mobius Strip: It's all about Relationship

Please watch the clip above before reading on...

It seems I'm not mad after all. I cannot draw a perfect circle.

Now I know that this test may not hold up in court, but I think it’s revealing. Not that I think it is one’s ability to draw perfect circle that is actually the true test of madness, the true test is to actually try. I think the true test of madness is to actually keep on trying to draw the perfect circle, or to even think that such a thing is possible.

The circle is never perfect, in fact I’m pretty sure that the circle will remain forever incomplete. I think it’s better that way…

One of the great plagues of humanity is perfectionism, seeking perfection both within ourselves and others. How many times, I wonder, have I rejected either myself, others, or life itself, because it did not offer perfection? How many times have I noticed others doing the same? It is a lot easier to see in others by the way than in myself.

Nothing in life is perfect, it is always imperfect. I am pretty much convinced that this is how it ought to be.

Now imperfection is one of those interesting words that doesn’t mean exactly what it always meant. When today we say that something is imperfect we are usually making a judgement about this something suggesting that there is something wrong with it. In so doing we are making an error. Imperfection comes from the Latin “imperfectus” which actually meant incomplete.

So when we say that we are imperfect, that others are imperfect, that life itself is imperfect we are correct, in the sense that nothing is ever complete.

The mistake we have made is that in saying that someone or something is imperfect we have suggested that they or it is somehow wrong, when in fact we couldn’t be more wrong. Imperfection itself is what makes life what it is, it is the fuel and energy of life as it is through imperfection that the energy to create relationship is fuelled.

Imperfection, incompleteness is the energy of life.

This brings to mind this rather lovely poem by Harold Kushner “Jigsaw”:

There must have been a time when you entered a room and met someone and after a while you understood that unknown to either of you there was a reason you had met. You had changed the other and he had changed you. By some word or deed or just by your presence the errand had been completed. Then perhaps you were a little bewildered or humbled and grateful. And it was over.

Each lifetime is the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
For some there are more pieces.
For others the puzzle is more difficult to assemble.

Some seem to be born with a nearly completed puzzle.
And so it goes.
Souls going this way and that.
Trying to assemble the myriad parts.

But know this. No one has within themselves
All the pieces to their puzzle.
Like before the days when they used to seal
jigsaw puzzles in cellophane. Insuring that
All the pieces were there.

Everyone carries with them at least one and probably
Many pieces to someone else's puzzle.
Sometimes they know it.
Sometimes they don't.

And when you present your piece
Which is worthless to you,
To another, whether you know it or not,
Whether they know it or not,
You are a messenger from the Most High

I love the way Kushner explains why we are incomplete. That it is through our incompleteness that we draw closer together. This is so true, we are relational beings. We do not live in separation and we do not live separate lives. We are constantly seeking unity, to be yoked beyond ourselves. The word “Yoga” actually means to join, to unite. It seems to me that all the great spiritual traditions, eastern and western, are in their own way pointing to this. That the spiritual life cannot exist in isolation. That in actual fact to live spiritually is to live in relation. That there is a yearning within us all to find that missing piece. In so attempting to do so, by the way, we enable others to do the same. In so doing we find ourselves and bring to life our true selves in the world in which we live and breathe and share our being.

When we come together in love, we create the love we have all be searching for.

This brings to mind a book I read just weeks before I began my ministry. It has been one of the most important books in shaping my approach to ministry, which of course literally means to serve. The title of the book is "Radical Hospitality: Benedict's Way of Love": By Father Daniel Homan and Lonni Collins Pratt. This is from the Chapter "Hospitality begins inside." (pg 33-34)

They wrote

" We are caught up in what is probably the most immature attempt at spirituality humanity has ever seen. It is tragically and poignantly adolescent, with the deep emotion and angst that goes with adolescence. It is a spirituality that seeks improvement for life - a better me, a better relationship - but it does not seek God and it does not move us towards others. It just keeps us running on the treadmill of our little egocentric worlds.

We are accustomed to easy answers. Hospitality is not an easy answer. It requires that we take a chance and we change. It requires us to grow. The moment we engage with another person everything gets messy. Our time becomes not quite our own; we can count on others interrupting us. We become subject to a whole hoard of emotional dangers.

Because hospitality always involves giving something of ourselves to others, it is a spiritual practice. Spirituality is about relationship. When you and I become confused about the meaning of spirituality, remembering that spirituality is about relationship will bring us back to the basics. Relationships."

...Spirituality is about relationships...

One of my great frustrations with a lot of modern “so called spirituality” is that it does not seem to be about relationships at all. It seems to be all about the self, almost about protecting the self, from the so called “messiness” of living. It seems to have become almost narcissistic in its nature. Maybe that’s why it can seem so appealing. The truth is of course that all we ever achieve in blocking ourselves off from the messiness, from circling our spiritual wagons, is increase the loneliness and the emptiness.

The spiritual life is about relationship. We need to be in what I have often heard called right relationship, with ourselves, with others and with whatever it is we connects all of life, what is often called the Divine, to live spiritually alive.

I can usually get a good measure as to where I am at spiritually by simply checking where I am at relationally with myself, with others and with God, they are all interconnected and inter related.

Now all this brings to mind the YouTube clip that began this "blogspot". by Parker J Palmer on “The Mobius Strip”.

Here is a little written reflection by Palmer followed by my own attempt to explain what he describes so well.

“Life on the Mobius Strip” by Parker J Palmer

Here’s a brief meditation on life on the Mobius strip, a curious concept to be sure, but no more curious than life itself!

The curious object pictured is a Möbius strip.

If you take your index finger and trace what seems to be the outside surface, you suddenly find yourself on what seems to be the inside surface. Continue along what seems to be the inside surface, and you suddenly find yourself on what seems to be the outside surface.

I need to keep saying “what seems to be” because the Möbius strip has only one side! What look like its inner and outer surfaces flow into each other seamlessly, co-creating the whole. The first time I saw a Möbius strip, I thought, “Amazing! That’s exactly how life works!”

Whatever is inside of us continually flows outward, helping to form or deform the world — depending on what we send out. Whatever is outside us continually flows inward, helping to form or deform us — depending on how we take it in. Bit by bit, we and our world are endlessly re-made in this eternal inner-outer exchange.

Much depends on what we choose to put into the world from within ourselves — and much depends on how we handle what the world sends back to us. As Thomas Merton said:

 “We don’t have to adjust to the world. We can adjust the world.”

Here’s the question I’ve been asking myself ever since I understood that we live our lives on the Möbius strip:

 “How can I make more life-giving choices about what to put into the world and how to deal with what the world sends back — choices that might bring new life to me, to others, and to the world we share?

I came across the wonderful Youtube clip on "The Mobius Strip" the other day, my journey to it was another beautiful example of synchronicity. The type that often leaves me smiling for days. Palmer suggests that “The Mobius Strip” is a useful metaphor for our inner and outer lives. How these are interrelated and how we are affected and how we affect the world in which we live. He claims that the onstage life is how we appear in the world, how we impact on the world, what he describes as the ego questions. While the backstage life is more about intuition and instinct and value and faith. These are those deeper aspects of ourselves, what is called soul, that greater reality that makes who we truly are. He claims that we are born in wholeness. That there is no separation between our inner and outer lives but as time goes by and we become increasingly influenced by the external world we lose touch with our souls and disappear into our roles. He suggest that as we grow up into the world we realise that it is not safe to be our backstage selves in the onstage world, that we somehow have to hide who we truly are and we begin to build a wall of separation. This he says becomes painful due to the disconnect between the inner and the outer life. Due to this, for so many, often the spiritual seekers, there is the desire to bring our lives into the classic shape of the circle. Which he says means I want what is important to me internally to be the values by which my external life which surrounds revolves. Thus bringing a sense of unity to my life. Thus my external life becomes authentic as I become centred.

Palmer acknowledges that this "centering" is a step forward and I personally see that this is where so much modern spirituality takes us, the kind that frustrates me. The problem with it is in the circle itself, it’s a kind of circling of the wagons, a wall of separation a kind of spiritual “gated community”, a walled garden of myself, that nothing and no one can touch. Yes we create our own sanctuary that no one can enter, unless of course they agree with us. Those who do not share our core beliefs and principles are excluded, thus avoiding the messiness and trouble of such relationships. This circle he suggests is just another kind of wall of separation and protection and does not in the end solve the real problem that we all suffer from, it feeds the sense of separation and does not truly allow for a deep spiritual intimacy that we all crave, it does not bring about true wholeness true relationship with ourselves, with others and with God.

Palmer suggests that there is another way, an alternative, which allows us to be both authentic and open. It is achieved by reshaping into the “Mobius Strip” which has the feature of being continuous and unbroken. By simply tracing your finger around what appears to be the outside of the surface you soon find yourself on what appears to be the inside of the surface.As you continue round you soon find yourself on what appears to be the outer part of the strip. He says that it only appears this way because one of the key features of the “Mobius strip” is that there is no inner and outer the two seem to co-create each other. That this is how life is. That whatever is inside us mergers with what is outside and vice versa and both influence each other and in that exchange, interaction, coming together we co-create what we call reality.

This Palmer says leads to one question that ultimately we have to ask “As I travel this Mobius strip between my onstage life and my backstage life, constantly co-creating, how can I become so aware of that exchange that co-creative transaction, moment by moment, that I can increasingly make choices about it that are life giving rather than death dealing?”

For Palmer this is the question that links the inner life with the outer life. It is this that brings that sense of connection of oneness and brings us closer together. It is this that brings the pieces of the jigsaw together and begins to bring about completeness maybe one day, that yokes all life together, that is Yoga. In so doing we return to the wholeness, the natural state, in which we were born. Or perhaps to put it more religiously we return to paradise, we return to the natural state, the original goodness and blessing into which we were born. We find completeness. We create the Kingdom of God, the Kin-dom of Love, right here right now.

So to answer Palmer’s question “How do we make choices that are life giving rather than death dealing?”

Well it really does depend on what we put into the world and what we take in too, to paraphrase Thomas Merton. It is about how we relate to one another, to life and to our inner selves. It’s about relationships. It’s about not trying to draw that perfect circle because that can soon become a wall, a barrier, that cuts us off from everything, unless we agree 100% with it or them 100% of the time, in which case we will find ourselves completely alone.

It’s about becoming the imperfectionist. It’s about learning to dance on the Mobius strip.

I’m going to end this little chip of a "blogspot" with a little meditation written by my imperfect inspiration Forrest Church. This is “The imperfectionsit”

"The reason I’ve been able to produce so much is that I’m not a perfectionist – I’m an imperfectionist. I’m confident that everything I say can be improved upon by others, and that’s my great strength, because I know that it won’t be improved upon by others unless I take the first step. When we only do things which please us, or don’t frighten us, after a while fewer and fewer things please us. Over time, our circle of options diminishes until we are prisoners in gardens of our own making. The more decisions you make in your life, the more times you act, the more certain it is that you will be wrong. To be fulfilled we need to recognize, all of us, that the world doesn’t owe us a living – rather we owe the world a living. And in the brief time that is given us, we must somehow learn to give ourselves away."

So take the first step. Become the imperfectionist. Learn to dance on “The Mobius Strip”