Blue Monday: Finding Comfort, Solace and Joy in Winter

Today Monday 15th of January has become one of those days that have been marked out on the yearly calendar. Not an official public holiday, there isn’t one until Easter. That said it is still a day we mark. It is known as “Blue Monday”, no I don’t mean the song by New Order. “Blue Monday” has become regarded as the hardest day of the year, afterall the Christmas spirit has all gone and we are right in depths of winter. It is dark, it is cold and there is little light around, Spring seems so far away. The day light hours will increase over the coming weeks but still we must face winter. January and February can be difficult as we feel stuck in the cold on these dark winter evenings.

Winter is not an easy time, so many of us want it over as soon as possible. We want spring and the new birth and life that it brings, but that is not the way to live and we know it. To live, always looking towards the spring yet to come, is to fail to fully experience what is present now. There is such richness in the dark cold of winter and we need to feel it and allow our eyes to adjust to the darkness. There is a beautiful wonder about winter that we would do well to embrace. There is a need to embrace and fully experience the darkness, the lifelessness and the starkness of this time of year. We should not wish it all away, for everything there is a season and a time for everything under the sun.

Whenever I look at the winter world it looks barren and bleak. Like those trees I passed as I wandered round Dunham Massey with Molly and a friend the other day. The trees look so vulnerable just standing there all alone and yet I know they are alive, standing there bold and upright. They remind me of my own vulnerability and my exposure to the cold of winter and to the challenges of life, challenges I do not shrink from, even though I do from time to time feel tempted to do so.

Like everyone I want to feel safe, protected and warm, I want comfort, I seek solace, I do not want to feel cold, exposed and vulnerable. It is a refuge that we all seek; often it is a refuge that folk seek and believe they will find in religion and spirituality. This sense that we are protected and safe, but is it realistic? So often we seek protection from the troubles of life, from its winter. If life has taught me anything it has shown me that the insulation I often seek so easily becomes isolation. These attempts to protect myself from exposure only increase the suffering. If I have learnt anything in life it’s that self-protection just cuts you off and leaves you feeling all alone, once again. What is needed to live through the winter is comfort and solace, not isolation.

Comfort and solace offer something different; something so needed in winter; something that can be found in many ways. I was thinking of this as I enjoyed some traditional Transylvania soup that a friend had given me, a chicken type broth. It brought comfort to my body, but also my soul. It truly was chicken soup for the heart, the body and the soul.

One of the advantages of ministry is that it really forces you to pay attention to the passing seasons. By doing so you learn to appreciate what each has to offer. Winter has so much to offer if we would but let ourselves appreciate it. I think the trees in winter have much to teach we who would prefer to hibernate. If I have learnt anything I have learnt that the spiritual life is about living openly and vulnerably, it’s about accepting the reality of life. It’s about standing their upright, arms outstretch in the cold vulnerability of life waiting for the time of re-birth and renewal in whatever form this takes, just like the trees in winter.

That said we also need solace and comfort. Unlike those trees we have one another. We can share in each others warmth and we can seek help and comfort from both visible and invisible sources. This is how we live through winter, we find its power and beauty and instead of hibernating we learn to live fulling alive; we do not have to just survive, we can learn to thrive. Sometimes all you need is a bowl of soup, whether that be for the body, the heart and or the soul.

We all need solace, we all need comfort and consolation in times of distress. It is wonderful to be able to receive both visible and invisible help at such times.

As David Whyte so beautifully put in his essay on the word “Solace”

“Solace is not an evasion, nor a cure for our suffering, nor a made up state of mind. Solace is a direct seeing and participation; a celebration of the beautiful coming and going, appearance and disappearance of which we have always been a part. Solace is not meant to be an answer, but an invitation, through the door of pain and difficulty, the depth of suffering and simultaneous beauty in the world that the strategic mind by itself cannot grasp nor make sense of.”

Solace isn’t just about comforting as we understand it today, as a “there, there”, in its original meaning there is a sense of pleasure and joy too. This brings to mind the 5th verse of the 30th Psalm “Despair may last for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” I and friends were sharing in joy early on Tuesday morning, there was much laughter in our coming together. Yes, some had their struggles and were offered comfort, a hug and listening ear, but we also shared in solace together as we laughed and had real fun. This is true solace and it certainly warmed our cockles on that cold winters morning.

Another thing that has been bringing me solace, a great deal of joy in fact, in recent weeks has been remembering songs my dad and grandad used to sing to me as a child. I have been sharing them with friends. They were often rude and funny musical songs, with a Yorkshire twist. Sometimes a little naughty, but always good hearted. They brought me solace when I was a child and they have been bringing me solace this winter.

Such as “I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts”

I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts
Seem them all a standing in a row
Big ones, small ones, some as big as your head
A turn of the wrist a flick of the fist and up the showman said

I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts
Every ball you throw will make me rich
There stands my wife, the idol of me life
Singing roll a bowl a ball a penny a pitch

Singing Roll a bowl, a ball, a penny, a pitch
Roll a bowl, a ball, a penny, a pitch
Roll a bowl, a ball, roll a bowl, a ball
Singing roll a bowl a ball a penny a pitch

Rememebring these old songs has brought me much solace these last few weeks.

Where do we seek solace, when life is difficult? Where do we turn for comfort? Comfort is another of those interesting words that does not mean exactly what it once did.

Comfort comes from the Latin word comfortare, which means “strengthen greatly.” To give comfort is to shore up the mood or physical state of someone else. It may take quite some time to shore up someone when they are lost, in a state or despair, or deep depression. It takes more than just going for a walk, taking flowers, encouraging them to find a love and connection through nature. Yes, these help, of course they do, but you cannot just lift a deep state of depression this way. The support maybe needed for quite some time. To strengthen someone greatly takes some time and effort and above all consistency. It’s about standing or sitting with someone through what is at times a long haul. This is counter intuitive to our age. We are living through the age of the quick fix.

When you are struggling in the need for comfort and solace it can feel like it will never end, a bit like a long cold winter. It will though, at least if we find ways to stick with it, if we find comfort and solace to keep on living through the winter. As Wendell Berry so beautifully put it in “Hannah Coulter”

“You think winter will never end, and then, when you don't expect it, when you have almost forgotten it, warmth comes and a different light.”

Winter is not an easy time, so many of us want it over as soon as possible. We want spring and the new birth and life that it brings, but that is not the way to live and we know it. To live, always holding on to the spring yet to come, is to fail to fully experience what is present now. There is such richness in the dark cold of winter and we need to feel it and allow our eyes to adjust to the darkness. There is a beautiful wonder about winter that we would do well to embrace.

We do not have to do so alone though. We can seek comfort and solace from one another. We can walk through this season together, experiencing it all, wholly alive. We can offer comfort and solace. Whether that is by being with one another in our shared suffering, offering something that warms the body, the heart and soul, like that bowl of soup. Solace can also come with joy and laughter. I was with friends on Friday night at my friends album launch in Manchester. A wonderful night of shared celebration. It was just wonderful watching friends shine, following their bliss. It can come in walking together on cold days enjoying the splendour of nature. It can come in so many ways. I hope you all have your oen Molly’s. She is such a treasure, who brings comfort, solace and above all joy to so more, not least me.

Where do you find comfort? Where do you find solace in the cold of winter. How do you find ways to stay alive and awake, rather than hibernate? How can you find ways to support and comfort those struggling around you? How can you offer solace? Whether by shoring someone up or bringing joy to their hearts, Perhaps something to think about this morning, rather than sinking into “Blue Monday”

I will end today with these beautiful words by Kathleen McTigue. A “Winter Blessing”

“Winter Blessing” Kathleen Mctigue

The world catches our hearts through its light:
splintering dance of sun on water,
calm moonlight poured through branches,
candles lit on early winter evenings,
a splatter of stars on a clear night,
and the bright eyes of those we love.
But the brilliance never ends,
even when the light goes out.
Mystery shimmers and shines in the world
in even the darkest corners.
It’s there where the roots push life into soil and rock,
in small lives lived under every stone;
there is the silent pulse beneath the tree bark.
It’s in the depth of slow tides as they turn,
there in the sky on moonless nights
when muffling clouds block out the stars.
It’s there in the prison, the hospital,
by hospice bed,
there at the graveside, in the empty house –
something beating in the dark shelter
of our hearts -
the small shine of hope, the gilt edge of kindness.

May we be granted the gift of deeper sight
that we might see – with or without the light.

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

To all epiphanies great and small

“Where shall I look for Enlightenment?” the disciple asked.
“Here,” the elder said.
“When will it happen?” the disciple asked.
“It is happening right now,” the elder answered.
“Then why don’t I experience it?” the disciple persisted.
“Because you do not look,” the elder said.
“But what should I look for?” the disciple continued.
“Nothing. Just look,” the elder said.
“But at what?” the disciple asked again.
“At anything your eyes alight upon,” the elder answered.
“But must I look in a special kind of way?” the disciple went on.
“No. The ordinary way will do,” the elder said.
“But don’t I always look the ordinary way?” the disciple said.
“No, you don’t,” the elder said.
“But why ever not?” the disciple asked.
“Because to look you must be here. You’re mostly somewhere else,” the elder said.

“Where shall I look for Enlightenment?” by Joan Chittister

Saturday marked the end of Christmas, it was the 12th Day of Christmas, you all know the song. Have we all managed to take down our decorations etc?. Yesterday , at least in the western church, was the feast day of “Epiphany”. The day when it is said that the wise men arrived to visit the Christ child.

“Epiphany” is an interesting word. It comes from the Greek meaning “to appear” or “to be made manifest”. In the western church Epiphany signifies the day that Jesus was shown to be the divine Christ; the day that divinity was revealed to the wise men as they had completed their journey following that wondrous star; a journey which had taken 12 days, as they had travelled afar, or so the ancient story says. They brought gifts as they paid homage.

I was given a wonderful gift during the “Watch Night Service”, just after midnight, at the turning of the year. I was given an ancient Roman coin that represents Janus (January), a beautiful ancient Roman tradition. I was given so much last Christmas season and I love the meaning of the coin as I looked back in gratitude and forward in Hope. There were many changes last year, there were some “Epiphany” moments too.

Now of course “Epiphany” has taken on a more universal meaning in more recent centuries. Today when someone proclaims that they have had an epiphany they are usually claiming that they have experienced a sudden awakening to a new truth. These sudden awakenings generally do not occur in special settings. In fact what is usually significant is that they occur in a seemingly ordinary way. Like the Christ child in a lowly stable.

During my time serving you wonderful folk I’ve had many myself. I have had several early in the morning as I walked out my front door and heard bird songs. Those little birds speak a language that I now understand. They occur as I travel around, magic moments found in ordinary ones. I have experienced several spots of time moments when a new deeper truth has suddenly come to me. It comes in the ordinary things, in the unexpected things and when it comes it is beautiful. I know that many of you had similar experiences too. I know this because you have shared them with me. What a wonderful gift. Thank you! We can all experience Epiphanies; we can all experience moments when we glimpse the essential nature of things in ways that change the course of life dramatically and powerfully for the better; we can all experience moments of sudden discovery and or revelation when things seem to seamlessly fall in place and a new clarity is gained.

“Epiphanies” come in the ordinary moments of life, in its flow. It beings to mind the following from Shakespear’s Julius Caesar Act 4 scene 3. Here Brutus speaks:

There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

Words suggesting we must flow with life, that this is where the power is. If we do so we can make each moment precious, we can bring them to life. That each moment can become momentous and perhaps life changing. The key is to awaken to the ordinary moments and perhaps see them as potentially transformative. Not to live passively in them, but to bring them alive.

It also requires us to look back, before facing forward, like Janus, from which January comes. I did that once again this Christmas time as I spent time with loved ones. There was one magic moment that occurred at my aunties at the old farm. My auntie talked of her son and how an old relative had heard him talking while working and how much he sounded like his uncle Billy her brother and my dad. It brought back a moment years ago when she had shown me an old video when we were children and I heard my dad’s voice, it was my voice. At the time I couldn’t watch it, it was too upsetting. This time I watched it again and it transported me back to so many memories, so many of life’s magic moments. It was an epiphany moment as it awakened something in me, that has once again brought new life. I had similar experiences the next day at my mums as she hosted a little family gathering and we talked and shared together, magic moments we enjoyed sharing. These felt like epiphany moments, or they were as I drove back in the terrible weather on the M62 with Molly by my side and tears rolling down my face. An epiphany is a moment when you suddenly feel that you understand, or suddenly become conscious of, something that is important to you. It can be in the nature of a sudden and profound religious or spiritual experience, or it can be less dramatic. They often come to me in the car, but also when out walking. I enjoyed two wonderful walks with Molly and a couple of dear friends on both Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. As we walked and talked, I could feel I was aware of something new, something I was becoming conscious of in my being. Thank you.

As I look back at my life, I can bear witness to many moments of illumination or as I prefer see them as moments of awakening. You see every moment of our lives can become such moments if we would learn to seek them and learn to bring them alive in our lives and in the lives of others. We just need to be alive and awake to these possibilities.

William Wordsworth in his poem “Prelude” described such moments as “spots of time”. Wordsworth wrote:

“There are in our existence spots of time,
That with distinct pre-eminence retain
A renovating virtue, whence–depressed
By false opinion and contentious thought,
Or aught of heavier or more deadly weight,
In trivial occupations, and the round
Of ordinary intercourse–our minds
Are nourished and invisibly repaired;
A virtue, by which pleasure is enhanced,
That penetrates, enables us to mount,
When high, more high, and lifts us up when fallen.”

William Wordsworth, The Prelude (Book XI, ls 258-278)

“Spots of time” are, epiphanies, those moments when life not only feeds but truly nourishes us on a deep, deep level, deeper than the marrow of our bones; moments when the common becomes uncommon,; moments when the veils we create ourselves seem to slip away; moments when we seemingly see beyond the ordinary; moments when we experience reality on a deeper level.

These moments can happen anywhere. For Wordsworth these “spots of time” occurred primarily in nature. We all experience them in different ways, in different states and in different settings. Those moments when time seemingly stands still; those moments that touch us at the core of our being; those moments that transform our lives; those magic moments. Time seemingly becomes compressed or concentrated in these moments when the senses become heightened, when life seemingly has a deeper meaning. Moments when life becomes denser and deeper. These are not necessarily supernatural moments by the way; no, they are firmly grounded in reality. In these moments time appears to be slowing down, although obviously it does not. Time does not so much stop as become compressed, the moment becomes concentrated. There just seems to be more of life in that moment, but it lasts just as long. Maybe the moment is deeper, not longer. Time is time after all. It is what they call “Cairos Time”, not “Chronos Time”.

When I look back at my life I can think of those moments when deep powerful meaning has emerged seemingly out of nothingness and all of life has felt connected. I felt it once again walking with Molly and friends on both New Year’s day and Christmas Day.

These moments though are not just to be kept for me, they are to change us for the good of all. That has been my experience at least, as they have always come after difficult times. They have always shown me ways to better love the world.

I am sure if we look back we will find that we have all of us experienced such moments in our lives, moments that we carry with us, throughout our lives. Moments when time has seemingly stood still, moments that have changed us or as I prefer to see it woken us up or woken something up within us. I feel certain in saying that we have all know epiphanies great and small.

The question is though, what can we do with them? And can we “bring them alive in others”? I believe so. I also believe it is our task to do so. This is where the meaning comes in life, it certainly has in mine..

So, this is what I’d like you to do. This is your homework as we step into a New Year. I as you to look back through your lives and recall such moments, magic moments, spots of time. Those epiphanies great and small. Moments that have stayed with you. Perhaps you could look for a pattern in moments that either woke you up and or put you to sleep and perhaps think of ways in which you can bring these moments alive in others.

So lets pay homage to all Epiphanies great and small as we step forward into another year of life.

Amen

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

Groundhog Day: A Perfect Allegory of the Spiritual Journey

So here we stand at the beginning of another year. We have passed through the cycle of life, one more time. Much is as it was and some things have changed. Mostly though is very much as it was, as it always is. This the journey that is life. The truth is we don’t actually go anywhere, we just move around the circle of life. That said we get the greatest gift of all. We get life. We get to journey on, experiencing life in all its beauty and sometimes horror. We get to live the spiritual journey too, which of course is not a journey of distance, but of experience, dare I say depth.

As good old Wendell Berry so beautifully put it

“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 own feet, and learn to be at home.”

This is the mythos that the great stories all seem to tell. Just think of Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz” after her great adventure she learned to be at home in Kansas. She needed the adventure in order to truly understand the treasure she already possessed. She had to go on the journey of change and then return home with treasure to share.

No doubt we have been repeating some similar rituals and practices these last few days as we have once again celebrated Christmas. Much will have been the same, but some things will have been different. Maybe they have been experienced differently. Eistein famously said that insanity is repeating the same behaviour and expecting a different result. There is truth in this wisdom, but not the whole truth. For actual in some ways this is what the spiritual life, the life of faith is actually about. It is in the repetition of the same activity that change happens, sometimes unexpectedly. So yes Eistein is right, it is the definition of insanity, but also of hope.

I spend a lot of my life wandering around Altrincham, bumping into people and passing others in the street. Often seeing the same people in the same places and often have similar conversations. This is the beautiful gift of the ordinary, sometimes it reveals pots of gold. Now some might think this dull, but it is not. Yes it is “Groundhog Day”, but this is a beautiful thing, it is not in the least bit negative.

I watched the film “Groundhog Day” the other day. It is a favourite of mine. It is set in the deepest dark of winter. I am speaking of it a little early, for “Groundhog Day” is not until the 2nd of February, not that it is something that we mark in Britain. Here, depending on our spiritual tradition we may well mark Candlemass, Imbolc or St Brigid’s Day.

Groundhog Day began as a pagan festival. It falls in the dead of winter, flanked equally on either side by the winter solstice and the spring equinox. According to folklore if the groundhog sees his shadow on this day there will be six more weeks of snow. So, the hope is that he does not see his shadow and that winter will soon be over.

It is not the legend of Groundhog Day that really interests me, more the film that bares the same name. It is one of my favourites and may well be one of the most spiritual ever made. That sounds like quite a bold statement for what is, on the surface at least, a Hollywood romantic comedy.

“Groundhog Day” is a tale of hope, of the possibility of transformation. That by somehow repeating the same day over and over again, somehow in this process change occurs, different results do in fact come. It tells the story of a self centred weatherman named Phil. At the beginning of the film he is sent on his annual excursion to Punxsutawney Pennsylvania, to record the thrilling moment when Phil the Groundhog makes his annual winter trek into sunlight in search of the shadowy predictor for the coming weeks. Phil ( the weatherman) hates the fact that he has to be there and treats everyone he meets in “the hick town”, with disdain. The film crew cannot get out of the town as the weather takes a turn for the worst. So, they have to spend another night in the town

Phil awakens the next morning to the same song he heard the morning before “I Got you Babe” by Sonny and Cher, he is to awaken to this every morning as “Groundhog Day” is repeated over and over again for days, weeks, months, years. Every day is the second of February; every day is the same day; every day he is offered the opportunity to experience that same Groundhog Day over and over again, running into the same people, having the same encounters. And yet within those very same limitations he is offered infinite choices. Where he can eat, how he can respond to each encounter, who he can hurt and who he can help. He is offered the opportunity to grow and to change every single day; he is offered the opportunity to become the man he wants to be, every single day. He can be the bad guy or the good guy, the funny guy, the happy guy, the free guy or the trapped guy, the suicidal guy. He is offered the chance to change which he begins to do, as he learns from his mistakes. He learns that he cannot control all that is going on around him and that happiness can only be found by truly living in what is there, the sacred moment. His inspiration is his producer Rita (played by Andie Mcdowell) she is the opposite of Phil, good hearted and at peace with herself. Phil falls in love with who Rita is, he awakens to the longing to be a person worthy of her love and he begins to allow himself to be that person. Each day is repeated and in the end he gets very subtly different results.

Now isn’t this one of those universal messages found within the mythos’ of the great faiths. That love can transform even the most self centred of hearts that we can all aspire to be the best that we can be. That hope can be found in total despair and that you do not need to seek some special place, it is found in the ordinary everyday things of life.

So could it be that this Hollywood Romantic comedy is the most “spiritual” ever made. Well Harold Ramis the films co-writer and director said that religious leaders and writers continually contacted him over the years claiming that “Groundhog Day” is an allegory of their traditions key messages. Buddhist have claimed that it illustrates their notion of Samsara, the continuing cycle of re-birth. Phil (The weatherman) is seen as the Bohisattva who keeps on being sent back into the world in order to save it, he never seems to reach enlightenment and has to keep on going through the daily trials in order to help others.

Jewish observers have noted that Phil keeps on being sent back into the world to perform Mitzvah’s (good deeds). The story is not really about his individual salvation and more about perfecting the whole world.

Still others have claimed Christian and Pagan interpretations. It has been suggested that the groundhog symbolises re-birth and the hope of renewal at Easter or spring. It is worth remembering that the 2nd of February is Imbolc and Candlemass, key festivals in both traditions. The story is also a classic redemption tale, very much like a Christmas Carol. Phil the weatherman is just another Mr Scrooge. Infact Bill Murray himself once played a modern day version in the film “Scrooged”.

Groundhog Day is a favourite film of mine, if you haven’t seen it I heartily recommend it to you it will warm you through on a cold winters night. It is a film about hope; it is a film about the possibility of change and transformation. That by repeating the same ordinary activities, we can grow and change. Now I know some call this insanity, but I prefer to call it hope; hope in the possibility of change.

I am going to leave the last words to Bill Murray’s character Phil. Words he eventually said while signing off at the end of his final broadcast. Words of hope, of what might be. Words uttered not knowing that the next morning everything would change, for finally Groundhog Day had ended, it was February the 3rd.

Phil said: “When Chechov saw the long winter, it was a winter bleak and dark and bereft of hope; and yet we know winter’s only one more step in the cycle. And standing among the people of Punxsutawney basking in the warmth of their hearths and hearts, I couldn’t imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous winter.

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

There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it

“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”
So said Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Edith Wharton

I was chatting with a man at the gym on Tuesday morning. I always see him there and his wife. I also see them walking round town together. We always say hi, but rarely talk. He is a quiet man, who seems at peace with the world. I assume that they are both retired. He told me he was waiting for his wife to finish her class. He said he often found himself patiently waiting. Telling me that this is not something he had as a younger man. That waiting patiently was a gift of growing older. A blessing of the lessening of testosterone. He also talked about how life is very like coming to the gym, just sticking at things day by day and over time improvement comes. This though takes patience and discipline. It is not a passive activity, but one that does require patient waiting for results. Patience seems a rare commodity in this our time and space. We want results and we want them now.

I walked away thinking to myself that he had just written this sermon for me. He had awakened my homilectic consciousness. Well, this lovely calm patient man and the wisdom of Edith Wharton.
“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”

He was a candle that morning and hopefully this devotion becomes a mirror that reflects his light.

Advent is a time of waiting, a time of preparation. A time set aside to wait for the “coming” of Love in human form symbolised in the birth of the Christ child. A promise of what love can become if we let it grow and nurture in our hearts and lives. For every new life is the gift of promise and possibility. A gift of possibility that can be reborn in each of our lives if we allow it to be. The Christ Child is known as “The Light of the World. Although interestingly Jesus himself said, in his opening sermon, in Matthews Gospel, the “Sermon on the Mount” Matthew Ch 5 vv 14-16

14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that[b] they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

The light of the world is in each and everyone of us. This waiting season is about nurturing this light within each and everyone of us and bringing it to light when the moment of magic comes. Our world needs it. We all need it.

“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”

The season of Advent invites us to embrace the spiritual discipline of waiting. We cannot rush through this season, we must experience it all, before the moment of magic. We must first sing the carols, light the candles and open the doors of the calendars. We must select our gifts for our loved ones and we must prepare ourselves for the year to come. We must experience the whole of this season if we are to give birth to the love that is at the core of it all; if we are to grow this love in the mangers of our own hearts and to give birth to and both experience and share it in our world. A world that needs love and hope as much as at any time in our history.

Advent is a season of preparation and it cannot be rushed. It requires patience. We cannot wish the days away, we cannot wish the winter away. We have to wait patiently, but not passively. We must be careful not to confuse waiting and patience with passivity. The man in the gym certainly was not doing so.

What is it that we are waiting for though? Well, it is a new Hope, a fresh Hope, it’s that old forgotten word “respair” born in the despair of our lives, in the mangers of our own hearts.

The world needs the light that is in everything, in each of us.
“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”
One of my favourite human beings and the first Unitarian I ever met wrote the following piece. It speaks powerfully to me about God, spirit, humanity and the purpose of living spiritually alive. It is titled “Incarnation” The author is Peter Sampson. He is certainly a candle and hope that this piece will be a mirror that reflects his light. He wrote, beginning with a quotation from the great nineteenth century theologian James Martineau:

Incarnation

The incarnation is true not of Christ exclusively but of Man universally and God everlastingly. He bends into the human to dwell there and humanity is the susceptible organ of the divine.

James Martineau (1805-1900)

Peter continues:

“James Martineau’s distinctly Unitarian ‘take’ on the transformation of God into our human – all too human – flesh and blood has been a constant inspiration to me.

Our responsibility for our own lives and necessarily, for the lives of our brothers and sisters throughout the world lays upon us all a duty which cannot be dodged; our humanity is defined by how we serve and care for the needs of the human family. You can’t have faith without works and working for the good of all inspires our faith in God-given life.

It is a small comfort to me to be told that God died for our sins. I see every one of us missing the mark in our lives and whenever a fellow-creature is harmed we must pray for forgiveness for ourselves. We are all culpable but if we are to serve human progress we have to say ‘sorry’ from the bottom of our heart and move on.

When we look around us we tend to focus on what’s going wrong: suffering – often caused by human ignorance – waste, devastation, degradation, contempt, the whole sorry spectacle of “Man’s in humanity to Man”. I see this as a betrayal of our God-given humanity, a trivialisation of our God-endowed divinity.

Resorting to armaments and inflexible war-talk of politicians, shouting at those we don’t agree with and throwing our weight about if we don’t get our own way – I want to say “Come off it! Who do you think you are? There is that of God in every person, in every creature on the planet.”

Amen Peter, Amen.

I am so glad I met Peter. A man who has lived his faith all of his life. A message we all need to hear at this and all times. Why can we not see that we are all formed from the same flesh and have the same spirit at the heart of each and every one of us? Why do we see some as some how different, as lesser human? How often in recent weeks have we seen human beings described as vermin? It is a sorry spectacle indeed.

It would be easy to despair, but what good would that do. We must refuse to fall into dehumanising hatred and shed some light. Give birth to what is in us and spread it.
“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”

We must become that light, or at least reflect it. This is true religion, this is living spiritually alive. It is our task, I believe, to rekindle that loving flame within each and every one of us. It is our task to become the Immanuel's, the ones that the world has been waiting for. Not to wait for some figure to come and rescue humanity, but to become those people ourselves, to let love incarnate within us and through us. To bear witness to the fact that God is already with us, in our hearts and souls and to bring that love to life. We must become the Immanuel’s, the ones we have all been waiting for.

“Oh come, oh Immanuel”

It is so easy to sink into despair and say, there is no hope for humanity, but is this true? I don’t think so, but it is up to us. There is no point just waiting passively for something to happen, it is we who must become the savours of our world and it begins in our own hearts and minds, in our lives, in our own families and in our own communities and then it may begin to spread throughout the whole world. It is our task to bring the spirit of love alive in our lives and in our times and places. It is our task to become the Immanuel’s, that the world has been waiting for.

…We must become the light of the world…

“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”

This is what we are here waiting for. To be a light to others who may be struggling in their own dark times. We can light the way.

So let’s prepare ourselves for the moment of magic yet to come, even if it comes later this season. Let’s nurture the love within us and prepare to give birth to it in our hearts and lives. Let’s not wish these dark cold days away. There is a beautiful gift in them if we allow ourselves to fully experience them. We need to experience each and every sensation of this season. We need to not fear the dark, we need to know it and fully embrace it. And when the time comes to once again give birth to the new light.

Next spring may well be the most beautiful we have ever known.

“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”

“Oh come, oh Immanuel”

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

Remember, remember, all those who have inspired us, who have lit the flame within

A friend asked me the other day why I refer to Molly as “Bugger Lugs”. He looked quite disturbed by the phrase. I explained it was a term of endearment when I was growing up. My grandad often you to say to me and my brother come on “bugger lugs”. It seems I speak to Molly in a similar way to how my grandad spoke to me. It is certainly affectionate, although if you actually think about it, it probably doesn’t to someone not brought up hearing it. It seems that anybody below the age of forty and not from Yorkshire and or Lancashire have never heard the term or at least a version of it. Hence the strange looks and responses from folk.

As is my way I posted about this on social media. It was an attempt to offer something light for folk to connect with. The responses were both amusing and fascinating. My mum obviously read it and replied with the following tale:

“I have probably told you this before.

I had a great uncle Eddie. He was certainly a character. I used to love going to see him. He had two Yorkshire terriers called Bugger Lugs and Mucky Clogs. He also had a Myna Bird who would shout out the two dogs names and say Shut Up

Needless to say he was granddads uncle.”

A little later she added:

“Uncle Eddie was Nana's brother. The family lived at 3 Loxley Street. It was a one down, two up. They had 6 children and an uncle who lived there also. No bathroom or inside toilet. To the right of the chimney breast was a sink with a cupboard above. Uncle Eddie replaced the cupboard fronts with wire netting and kept 2 hens in there.

You couldn't make it up

Love Mum xxx”

You truly could not make it up. I have heard this story before, but it was lost somewhere in my subconscious. It has resurfaced and reformed as the days have gone by this week. It makes perfect sense to me why I would call Molly “Bugger Lugs”. Some days she definitely suits “Mucky Clogs”. I have had some bewildered looks from people as I have shared these tales. That said I am kind of used to that.

The conversation has brought some wonderful memories to my heart and mind, of those tales my grandad used to tell me, most I couldn’t repeat here. As well as other tales that my dad and or aunties and uncles used to tell. Most of them make me smile broadly these days, although not always.

Autumn and especially late October and early November is the season of remembering and remembrance. This seems to have been the case throughout human history.

Do you remember the old English Rhyme “Remember, remember the 5th of November, the Gunpowder treason and plot; I know of no reason why the Gunpowder treason should ever be forgot!

I won’t recite the full verse as it gets pretty dark and grim. Those old rhymes often did. Poetry and song are pretty tame these days, in comparison to days gone by. Modern life is pretty tame, when compared to the past. As my other grandad used to say, “There is no such thing as the good old days.”

This last week has marked the beginning of the season of remembrance. Remembrance is far more than simply remembering, its about bringing memory to life. We marked All Hallows Eve or Halloween on 31st October, All Saints Day on 1st November and on 2nd November All Souls Day, a time in the Christian Calendar to remember all souls who have departed this life.

Like other Christian festivals, including Christmas, Easter and Whitsuntide, these three autumn days are a fascinating mixture of pre-Christian, Christian and even post-Christian tradition and mythos. I am fairly certain that the children who were going door at Halloween were probably not aware that they were creating a modern day variant on the pre-Christian festival of Samhain; a festival that not only celebrated harvest, but was also a time to commune with spirits of ancestors. There are similar traditions throughout most culture's, autumnal and winter festivals. Autumn is a time of reflection, a time to take stock before the harsh realities of winter come.

Halloween in the north of England is something that is marked, at least in a secular way, far more these days than I remember in my earlier childhood. When I was a child it was Guy Fawkes or Bonfire Night that took on greater significance. I don’t really remember going “Trick or Treating”, until a significant film came out in 1982 and then everything seemed to change. The film was E.T. the Extra Terrestrial. One of the most commercially successful films of all time and one that changed something significantly, certainly in my life and perhaps the culture of the North of England. I recall, as many others did, that after this going door to door, trick or treating replaced the tradition of going “Door to Door” asking for “a penny for the guy” and of course “Mischievous Night”. It seems that these traditions all got swallowed up with “Trick or Treating”. “Mischievous Night”, at least in Yorkshire, came on the 4th November and was linked to the “Gunpowder Plot” and “Fireworks Night” that is marked today, the 5th of November. Things could get pretty wild on “Mischievous Night” and some, I’m sure, are glad to see that it has pretty much been lost to history. You do hear of little pockets of it in Liverpool and Leeds, but mainly it has gone the way of the Dodo and been replaced by “Trick or Treating”. There’s a part of me that wishes this wasn’t true. I remember the thrill of getting up to no good with friends and of hearing similar tales of other friends who were far more daring than I. I remember a particular exciting time with my cousin Charlton who sadly died earlier this year. The thrill and the excitement of those childhood days have been in my heart this year. I also remember my granddad telling me of things he and his mate Percy used to get up to. I remember the delight in this night of freedom that the children used to be granted. A freedom that I fear children of today do not enjoy. Maybe that is not a bad thing. We see enough to be frightened, to fear on the daily news each and every day.

I was recalling such adventures with a young friend this week. She was telling me of the joy of going pumpkin picking with her family. A tradition that continues into her adulthood. It sounds like a lovely experience. She was utterly bewildered as I and another friend recounted tales of our youth. As I had been listening to tales of my grandads.

These memories mean so much to me. I know there are gems there and they help me to truly appreciate the life I have now. A life made richer by those that have blessed it. Yes, there is much pain there, but there is also deep love. So many gifts and blessings.

Remember, remember…

Memories are snapshots of life. Moments that stay with us. It always fascinates me how these memories take shape and form and often reshape as time goes by; it amazes me how these memories seemingly re-incarnate as time goes by. We should not fear our memories, they are precious in so many ways, and it is these very memories that make the present moment truly come alive. I have discovered that sometimes you can lose some of the true richness of the moment by becoming purely engrossed in it. That might sound like a counter intuitive thing, but I think not.

By the way please do not get me wrong I am not rejecting the power of the present moment, quite the opposite actually. What I am suggesting is there is a greater power in bringing the present moment alive by enriching it with our whole selves. It’s a kind of active experience of the present moment. It’s about opening our whole selves up to the present moment and not just passively experiencing what is there. It’s about wholly living in the moment and then carrying that snapshot of the moment into the future. It’s about truly living on the threshold of life. The truth is of course that this is how we are always living, on the threshold of something, as one moment ends another begins.

Memory is a funny thing. It is amazing what we remember and what we cannot remember, how memory can be so very selective. Memory also changes over time. My memory or do I mean my perspective on past events in my life, have changed over time.

Remember, remember…

Remember’ literally means to ‘re-member’; to put back together that which has been torn apart. In some way remembering has a similarity to ‘religion’, which means ‘to rebind together’. Both are about seeking after a wholeness, and isn’t that what we are about most of the time?”

For so long I used to say I could not remember much about my childhood and the things that I could remember caused me either pain or embarrassment. I thank God this is no longer the case. It would seem that I was always on the run and you really cannot live like that. I also had a lot of trouble remembering much of my adult life too. It was fear that stopped me doing so. I was frightened of reconnecting with these memories. I was frightened of re-feeling these memories. I was ruled by a fear of resentment.

These days memory and remembering has become so very important to me. Every year I gain a different perspective on my past which helps me live better in the present moment and opens up the future in fascinating ways.

Memory is a funny thing.

Remember…remember…

I was reminded this week of someone else who came into my life for a short period of time some 20 years. They inspired me, they lit something in me and changed me forever. Something I ought not ever forget. It brought to mind those wonderful words of Albert Schweitzer, they have been singing in my heart all week.

“At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.”

There are many people who have inspired me, who have lit the flame, when all was dark, there are many who have taught me life enhancing, nay life changing things. Something I thought deeply of at this weeks “All Souls” service. A time to remember those who have touched our hearts but who are no longer physically with us. There are so many souls who have inspired me and who continue to do even though they have long gone. I have to say I was quite emotional after the service this week. I was glad I was able to spend time alone afterwards. Grief and the love at the heart of it run so deep. S many souls have lit the flame, have inspired me.

Now “Inspire” is one of those words, like so many in common usage, that has been reduced in meaning as time has gone by. We have reduced its power as our lives have become secularised. It originally meant “immediate influence of God”, especially with reference to the writing of a Holy book. Coming from the French “inspiracion meaning “inhaling, breathing in inspiration”, coming from the Latin “inspirare” meaning to breath in, to inflame. To inspire means to breath upon, to blow into, to excite, to inflame, to affect, to arouse, but to do so through spirit or soul, it is a Divine activity. Therefore, it seems reasonable to conclude that when we inspire others we are engaging in Divine activity. To inspire others is to engage in one of the highest forms of love, as it is Divine love in human action.

Everyone we meet, and everything that we absorb through our senses can be an inspiration. Those that have inspired us, awakened something within us, helped us to become the people that we are today. As we enter the season of Remembrance perhaps, we ought to remember all these people and dedicate our lives to create acts of Remembrance from the love they inspired in us. In so doing we will inspire future generations and those struggling around us to become all that they can be. In so doing our lives will become worth dying for by the legacies of love that we leave behind.

Remember, remember…

May it be so.

Amen

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

Curiosity May Have Killed the Cat, But it Didn’t Kill the Dog, it Gave it Life

A few months ago I read the curious story of Bobi, the oldest recorded living dog. He was a purebred Rafiro do Alentejo, a breed of Portuguese farm dog. Sadly Bobi died this week aged 31 years and 165 days. They say that there are 7 dog years for every human year. So, if Bobi were human that would have made him about 220 years old.

According to BBC News“Bobi lived his whole life with the Costa family in the village of Conqueiros, near Portugal's west coast, after being born with three siblings in an outbuilding. Leonel Costa, who was eight years old at the time, said his parents had too many animals and had to put the puppies down, but Bobi escaped. Mr Costa and his brothers kept the dog's existence a secret from their parents until he was eventually discovered and became part of the family, who fed him the same food they eat…Mr Costa said..that Bobi had enjoyed a relatively trouble-free life and thought the secret to his longevity was the "calm, peaceful environment" he lived in…Bobi was not the only dog owned by the Mr Costa to live a long life. Bobi's mother lived to the age of 18 while another of the family's dogs died at the age of 22.”

Now as you know I have become a bit of a dog enthusiast. I am curious about every dog I ever meet. One of my favourite games is to attempt to work out the mix of some of the dogs I meet on the street and or in the park. It seems to be my favourite topic of conversation at the moment and I am usually right. I have got very good at it.

Oh curiouser and curiouser…One thing else I am curious about is what empassions others, what fires them up.

I have found myself in some quite animated conversations recently. Not least last Sunday following the service. I have never known coffee time to be more animated and the conversation has continued since. This has animated me even more. I have loved hearing the perspective of others. This is another curiosity of mine, to hear and understand where others are coming from. How they interact with life and their own personal spiritual beliefs and explorations.

I was talking about this with Janine on Monday morning. As I stated last weeks I am enjoying these conversations as it is helping me reflect on my own ministerial journey, another curiosity in itself. I am also very interested in Janine, where she is coming from and wondering where she will end up. I am very curious about this.

Now one of my other curiosities is what makes others tick, what they are curious about themselves. I was recently talking with a friend who told me when he was growing up he use to feel frustrated that people were not as curious about things as he was. I listened to him and what I realised was that this was not entirely true. My friend is very scientifically minded and he was and is very curious about how things work etc. I think what he didn’t realise is that it wasn’t that people aren’t curious it is just that their curiosities are in other areas of life. Now I can sometimes feel as baffled as my friend as to the things that hold the interest of others. It is wrong to suggest that they lack curiosity though, it’s just that they are fascinated by different things. Human diversity operates on a multitude of levels. This is another fascinating curiosity by the way.

Watching Molly is a curiosity and it is fascinating to see what she is curious about. I kind of think that curiosity in many ways is the whole energy of life. How we are curious, what sparks our curiosity. Maybe curiosity is the very essence of the Divine spark within us. Curiosity is perhaps the holiest of acts. We should practice Holy Curiosity. Barbara Bartocci, in “Grace on the Go” said: “What a wonderful combination of words! Holy curiosity. Our ability to wonder, to inquire, to welcome what is new, and to keep our minds open to truth when and where we find it — surely this is one of the most miraculous qualities that human beings possess. Maintain an open mind today. Ask questions. Acknowledge truth when you find it. Pray to be led by holy curiosity.”

To me curiosity is a characteristic of the Divine spark within us, it is an antidote to cynicism. Curiosity is a risk, as it makes us vulnerable and open. Yes, to disappointment at times, but also to wonder and spontaneous delight. Curiosity gives us the courage to discover almost unimaginable aspects of ourselves and others. It is a doorway to beginning to live those questions of life. Curiosity is our most natural state. It is something innate within us, we should never dampen it down in others. It matters not what it is either, we are all different, thus our curiosity is bound to be so. Sadly, too often this happens. Sometimes we do this to ourselves as we feel we have gained all that we need to know, we lose the natural curiosity of a child and or puppy. They say that curiosity killed the cat. This maybe true, but I reckon that it probably saved the dog, it certainly brought it to life. Maybe it is the secret to a long life, to maintain and keep on developing curiosity.

I have been thinking about my friend and his apparent frustration at what he saw as the lack of curiosity in others. What he failed to see was that people are curious about different things. He wanted to know how things work. People like me are interested in how things work, but not inanimate things. My fascination is people. I have always been curious about such things. I know others who are similar who are always inquiring after others. They are the people who when they ask how you are, really want to know. They want to accompany people. In many ways this is one aspect of ministry, pastoral ministry at least. It brings to mind Jesus and the two men on “The Road to Emmaus from (Luke chapter 24v 17) and his question: 'What are you discussing together as you walk along?'

I have always been fascinated by people’s conversations. The way they interact with others and the questions they ask about life, all life, all aspects of life. The ordinary the everyday. I am no different to dogs, to Molly, I am always sniffing things out, just in a different kind of way. This is my curiosity, my Holy curiosity. Is there anything more holy than being attentive to life, to this life, to real life. As Henri Nouwen observed, 'The spiritual life is not a life before, after, or beyond our everyday existence. No, the spiritual life can only be real when it is lived in the midst of the pains and joys of the here and now.' The spiritual life must be a curious life. It is Holy curiosity.

Now it may surprise you to hear that it was Albert Einstein who coined the phrase “Holy Curiosity”. We have a poster stating the following quote from him in the small schoolroom:

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.”

Now it seems to me that “Holy Curiosity ought to be central to the spiritual life. Sadly this has not always been the case; sadly the impulse to shut down curiosity has been at the core of religious belief. That said it is not only to be found in religion, it is there in philosophy, story and myth. An example is those old fairy stories we were taught as a child, or old sayings like “curiosity killed the cat”. Just think of what happened to the curious in fairy tales, things didn’t turn out well at all. Snow White opens the door to an old woman who’s really a murderous queen in disguise, and pays for this mistake with her life, she eats the poisoned apple. Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks, and Sleeping Beauty all narrowly escape this same fate. Strangely we are taught from an early age of the dangers of curiosity. It is there in the second book of Genesis. Adam and Eve are told not to eat of the tree of knowledge, but curiosity gets the better of them and they are cast out of paradise. Isn’t this the story of Snow White.

Each Sunday in worship though we enter into curiosity into search, seeking something more, a deeper understanding and experience. This means exploring the darker aspects at times, as we did last Sunday, in response so many seemed so engaged, how this delighted me. This to me is the essence of the Unitarian tradition. We are a religion for the curious. It is there right at the beginning of our history in the midst of the reformation,a response in so many ways to a restrictive form of Calvinistic Protestantism that quashed curiosity. John Calvin himself said that the most direct path to finding God is not to “attempt with presumptuous curiosity to pry into his essence, which is rather to be adored than minutely discussed.” I shudder to think what he would have thought about last Sunday’s worship and the conversations that followed. Ours is a religion for the curious, for those who want to explore. The God I know comes to life through curiosity. This si living spiritually alive.

So, while curiosity may have killed the cat, it gave life to the dog. So, I say lets all we like that old Portuguese farm dog Bobi and live long and wonderful lives. Let’s keep our senses open and live by “Holy Curiosity”. For surely this is the answer to the question of life, how then shall I live.

Let’s live by “Holy Curiosity”

I’m going to end with that question, in the form of a wonderful poem by the wonderfully curious Mary Oliver, who loved dogs and their wonderful curiosity.

“When Death Comes”

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

Mary Oliver

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

Love is the Only Response: Deliver Us To and Not From the Suffering in the World

Working alongside Janine (a student minister working with the congregations I serve), discussing her time studying at Luther King House, has got me reflecting on my time as a student minister there. Particularly the challenges of being a Unitarian studying alongside fellow students from traditional Christian denominations. I know myself it took time to adjust and to find myself and my own understanding of my faith within this context. This is not easy, and it is not the only environment that you have find yourself during this challenging time; it is not easy, but it is vital to ministry formation dare I say. I think one the most challenging aspect of time in college is the assumed starting points in theological discussion and understanding.

I have been thinking a lot about ministry these last few weeks.

I recently attended Rev Penny Johnson’s funeral. It was a beautiful service, prepared by Penny herself. Her husband Ken and minister Rev Jeff Gould of course adapted and added to it, especially in some elements of the personal tribute to Penny’s life and ministry. Penny exemplified ministry, Unitarian ministry through her love and service. I have some wonderful personal memories of Penny. She was especially helpful to me in my formative years in the job.

I found myself chatting with Geoff Levermore, before the service. He always asks very probing questions, too probing at times I would say. One question he asked was where I would place myself on the Unitarian spectrum. I asked him what he meant by that? He explained asking if I found myself tending towards Liberal Christianity, something more human centred or a more earth centred, more naturalist spirituality. I said I don’t really think about ministry that way. I could see he didn’t feel satisfied with my answer and so I said that I identify as a Universalist really. He said a Deist and I said no I identify more as a Panentheist, or at least if I have to put a label on my beliefs. It seems he had not heard of Panentheism. The truth is though that I am not too precious about such things, as I know my primary role is to serve. Rev Penny Johnson being a wonderful example of this. She saw her role and certainly the worship she created as being related to the world in which she lived and helping others to live in this world. She never wore a clerical collar and did not see herself as separate from those she served. She saw her role as being with people in their struggle, a perspective I share with her.

That said if I have to put a label on it I say I am a Universalist. As a Universalist I believe there is truth in so many traditions. I am yet to find the whole truth in any.My place is not in the spectrum, it kind of is the spectrum. I also believe in a God of love that is present in all life and yet is greater than all life. This is panentheistic, or at least how I see it. This brings with it a great responsibility, for my faith to be real it has to be lived out in this world. This can be challenging at times. As a friend once said in response to my Universalism, “The thing I worry about is how much input a God of love is having, in that so many are hurt, killed.” This point seems particularly pertinent at this time, especially as we witness the horrors taking place in Israel and Palestine. So many innocent lives brutally killed. It is heartbreaking to witness such horror and barbarity and how this is spreading to other parts of world. The sorry spectacle of our inhumanity to one another. Not that this is a new story it has been going on throughout human history. Now some say this is evidence of the evils of religion. Some of us may have sympathy with this view. That said if I look at most of the evils of the second half of the 20th century and many today they were and are inflicted by secular states too. Think of China and North Korea today, or Cambodia and the Soviet Union in the past. To me most of such violence and dare I say evil is due to failing to recognise the sacredness of one another. Of failing to see the other as neighbour, the secular and the religious as just as culpable of this. When will we see the other in ourselves and ourselves in the other?

So, it is a pertinent question to ask about a God of love. If we look at the world, at the suffering within the world, it is reasonable to ask in what sense a God of love could be involved in all of this? Of course the response of many is that none at all, for there is no God. Or others will say that God is not all loving. Others may say well it’s all a mystery and we cannot understand how God’s love operates. Then still others will suggest that we look at the helpers and that this love manifests in their actions. Do any of this answers seem adequate to you? It is certainly something to ponder.

Now suffering and a God of Love is a question that has troubled theologians, philosophers and plain ordinary people for centuries. The question has been asked and continues to be asked as to what causes suffering and can it be overcome? Now in some quarters it has been suggested that the root cause of suffering is “evil”. Which has led to the question that if evil exists then how can God be all powerful, ever present and all loving? In theological circles this has become known as “The Theodicy Dilemma”

“The Theodicy Dilemma” may be summed up by the following question about God asked by the eighteenth century philosopher David Hume:

“Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil.”

This question encapsulates the whole Theodicy debate.

In the twentieth century Czeslaw Milosz wrote the following poem “Theodicy”

“Theodicy” by Czeslaw Milosz

No, it won’t do, my sweet theologians.
Desire will not save the morality of God.
If he created beings able to choose between good and evil,
And they chose, and the world lies in iniquity,
Nevertheless, there is pain, and the undeserved torture of creatures,
Which would find its explanation only by assuming
The existence of an archetypal Paradise
And a pre-human downfall so grave
That the world of matter received its shape from diabolic power.

Even more hard hitting, I would suggest, than Hume’s questions. This from Milosz a Nobel Prize winning Poet who was a Polish Catholic, who spent much of his life wrestling with his own faith.

I remember exploring “Theodicy”, in depth, while training for the ministry. Something I have been thinking of again as I have been sharing with Janine. I probably spent more time on the piece I wrote on the subject than any other, which showed in my final marks. I struggled and I wrestled, as so many have no doubt done. Looking back I can see how important it was for me to do so. By the way I have been struggling with it again these last few weeks. The struggle has been so important as I have learnt, in my time as a minister, that a large part of the work is to be with others in their suffering, often senseless suffering by the way. It is of course suffering that brought me into ministry in the first place.

Whilst training I remember wrestling for hours, in the library and walking in the park, with the theodicy question, I continue to do so by the way. I found my own unsettled faith in it and as a result a greater purpose has emerged. If I have learned anything from suffering, it is that I cannot take away the suffering of anyone else, but I can be with them in it. I have learned that in so doing the God of my limited understanding comes into being once more.

My understanding did not fit neatly within any of the traditional orthodox Christian views I explored during my training. I did not see it as a consequence or our fallen nature, an absence of good which causes us to choose evil, following Augustine or Calvin, or that suffering was a part of some kind of Divine plan. I had some sympathy with the views of Aquinas that somehow we lose our way. I find the idea that suffering has to take place in order for life to discover what is good very troubling. I cannot see how someone finding good at the expense of the suffering of others a good thing. I am with Dorothy Soelle and her view that “No Heaven can Rectify an Auschwitz”. The ends can never justify the means, if the means bring such suffering to so many. If God is present, then God is there in the suffering and our response to the suffering, something Eli Weisel explored in his seminal work “The Night”. The God of my understanding comes alive in my response to suffering.

So yes, I believe in a God of love, but not one who controls life. God in life but not controlling life. The God I believe has to come alive through our being. It may not be an adequate answer, but it is one I experience through my fragile human being. I respond to the idea of a God of Love, as my experiences and observations of life suggest this. I also experience this love coming to life as I am with those who suffer and do all I can to be with them in their pain, but I cannot prove that beyond doubt.

My growing sense of Universalism and Panentheism helps me to live faithfully, in love, in a world in which there is so much beauty but also heartbreaking suffering, some natural but an awful lot caused by our inhumanity. I accept that no matter how lovingly I and others live, that horrific, dare I say evil, things will happen both personally and universally. So where is the God of love? Well it comes alive in the response to this suffering. It is the God of love, that allows one to come through even the most horrific situations, with a response grown from a sacred reverence for life itself. This is the God of Love that I worship, that is beyond my understanding.

I have come to believe that it is our holy duty to respond to the suffering of others, to stand in solidarity with them and act in holy compassion and never to declare the other as somehow less than human.

In my prayers I ask this Universal Love to help me feel a deep connection to all life and to bring some healing to the world in which I live and the world beyond my being.

It is, I believe, our holy duty to begin to bring healing to our world, to wipe the tears that flow from our humanity and to repair the tears in the fabric of the world, to bring compassion and love to those in fear, to bind up the broken and bring wholeness to those who feel separated from the love in life. This is the call of love from the God of my limited understanding.

It is a call that asks my senses to be opened to the world and instead of being delivered from evil, it is call from an ever-loving God to be delivered to the suffering in this world.

I’m sorry if it does not answer why a God of love would allow suffering. I am sorry if that is not good enough. I am sorry. I cannot sincerely offer any more. I cannot give an opiate that relieves us of pain. I can only offer a loving response to that pain.

All I can offer is a loving purpose that comes to life in this beautiful and at times suffering world.

Before offering a closing blessing I am going to share with a wonderful poem the recently deceased great poets Louise Gluck “Celestial Music”, it seems pertinent to me at this time. I first came across in Mark Bellitini’s wonderful book on grief “Nothing Gold Can Stay: The Colours of Grief”

"Celestial Music" Louise Gluck

I have a friend who still believes in heaven.
Not a stupid person, yet with all she knows, she literally talks to god,
she thinks someone listens in heaven.
On earth, she's unusually competent.
Brave, too, able to face unpleasantness.

 
We found a caterpillar dying in the dirt, greedy ants crawling over it.
I'm always moved by weakness, by disaster, always eager to oppose vitality.
But timid, also, quick to shut my eyes.
Whereas my friend was able to watch, to let events play out
according to nature. For my sake, she intervened,
brushing a few ants off the torn thing, and set it down across the road.

 
My friend says I shut my eyes to god, that nothing else explains
my aversion to reality. She says I'm like the child who buries her head in the pillow
so as not to see, the child who tells herself
that light causes sadness–
My friend is like the mother. Patient, urging me
to wake up an adult like herself, a courageous person–

 
In my dreams, my friend reproaches me. We're walking
on the same road, except it's winter now;
she's telling me that when you love the world you hear celestial music:
look up, she says. When I look up, nothing.
Only clouds, snow, a white business in the trees
like brides leaping to a great height–
Then I'm afraid for her; I see her
caught in a net deliberately cast over the earth–

 
In reality, we sit by the side of the road, watching the sun set;
from time to time, the silence pierced by a birdcall.
It's this moment we're both trying to explain, the fact
that we're at ease with death, with solitude.
My friend draws a circle in the dirt; inside, the caterpillar doesn't move.
She's always trying to make something whole, something beautiful, an image
capable of life apart from her.
We're very quiet. It's peaceful sitting here, not speaking, the composition
fixed, the road turning suddenly dark, the air
going cool, here and there the rocks shining and glittering–
it's this stillness that we both love.
The love of form is a love of endings.

Louise Gluck, Poems 1962-2012, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013.

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