To live our lives like water

I will begin with a poem by Denise Levertov called “The Fountain”

“The Fountain” by Levertov

Don’t say, don’t say there is no water

to solace the dryness at our hearts.

I have seen

the fountain springing out of the rock wall

and you drinking there. And I too

before your eyes

found footholds and climbed

to drink the cool water.

The woman of that place, shading her eyes,

frowned as she watched — but not because

she grudged the water,

only because she was waiting

to see we drank our fill and were

refreshed.

Don’t say, don’t say there is no water.

That fountain is there among its scalloped

green and gray stones,

it is still there and always there

with its quiet song and strange power

to spring in us,

up and out through the rock.

I have witnessed and experienced the power and majesty of water several times these last few days. Last Saturday night, as I drove back from Yorkshire, it was siling it down. It was pretty frightening as I drove over the top of M62. It is the highest point of any motorway in England. On several occasions when the rains come down it can flood the motorway as it all pours down. Thankfully it wasn’t quite that bad on Saturday, at close to midnight. It was pretty scary though, as I turned on the fog lights came on we slowed to 30 mph. I also noticed another kind of precious water, that formed from love. There were a few tears as I reflected on the evening that had passed. I had been over for my mum and Greg’s 25th wedding anniversary. It was lovely to be with loved ones, this time on a happy occasion. We have been through a lot together. On the way to Hucklow on Sunday I got caught up in it again, twice in actual fact. Molly does not like rain, or being wet.

I have been thinking a lot about water these last few days. It’s awesome power, its majesty, its love too. Water, water everywhere.

Water the most basic element of life, both of the external life and our own bodies. We are made of water. We live on planet earth and yet truth be told if we look at picture of our world from space should we really call it planet earth, surely it is planet water. The surface of our planet is two thirds water. Physically we are mainly made up of water. It is said that we humans are basically cucumbers with anxiety.

We are like water. Yes, our physical form is solid and unbending but our psyche is not. It can be bent and shaped in all directions, much like water. The bending and the shaping does not really occur at the physical level, more the metaphysical one. People change, although physically they may well look the same.

Although our world is mainly water so many people live without this basic resource. I’m very aware how fortunate I am to live in a time and place where clean, hot, running water is readily available. A hundred years ago this was not necessarily the case in this country and it is not the case for so many people who live in many parts of the world today.

I remember being made aware of this during my trip to Transylvania several years ago. I noticed that there were wells in several of the yards of the homes I visited in Maros St George. Now as it happens these were no longer in use as the town now had a general water supply. That said this was not the case for the more remote village of Icland. The homes there were still supplied by well water. I wonder if this is still the case.

For many folk in many parts of the world the situation is far more desperate. How many lives perish each year because of the lack of clean or any water at all?

We cannot live without water, well not for more than one week they say. Just look at me on a Sunday morning, I’m utterly dependent on it. I am constantly having to replenish myself as worship progresses. I could quite easily consume a couple of pints in an hour as I engage with you in worship. What that is about is a mystery to me to, maybe it’s that living breathing spirit coming out of me? God knows!

With water being so central to life it is hardly surprising then that it would play such a large role in the many religious traditions of humanity. It is central to many of rituals of most faiths. It symbolises birth and re-birth and is seen not only as a sustaining substance but as a cleansing and therefore purifying one.

God or the Divine is often portrayed by water. This is hardly surprising when you think of its many qualities. It can bend into any shape and cover and over power all life. It is life giving and sustaining and can be immensely powerful. It brings to mind some words by Forrest Church on God. Forrest said “God is not God’s name. God is our name for that power that is greater than all and yet present in each.” Isn’t that what water is a power that is greater than all and yet present in each.

The spiritual, the religious life, is about living in a certain way. The question I suppose is what is the right way? Well maybe water or the qualities it possesses can teach us a way. Perhaps a way is to live like water; to live with the qualities that water has.

Taoism teaches that we ought to live like water. This does not mean that we blindly “go with the flow”. It is not about being passive. Taoism is about nonviolent action. What it actually does is invite us, as Parker J Palmer wrote: “to flow quietly but persistently around the obstacles that stand between us and the common good, wearing them down as a river erodes boulders.”

Nothing in the world is softer than water,
Yet nothing is better at overcoming the hard and strong.
This is because nothing can alter it.

That soft overcomes the hard
And gentle overcomes the aggressive
Is something that everybody knows
But none can do themselves.
Therefore the sages say:

The one who accepts the dirt of the state
Becomes its master.
The one who accepts its calamity
Becomes king of the world.

Again to quote Parker J Palmer “rightly understood, Taoism is an important corrective to the Western obsession with force, even violence, as the way to get things done — which often results in little more than an escalation of violence.”

The Martial Artist Bruce Lee offered similar advice when he said:

“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.

Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You can put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You can put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”

I believe that there is real wisdom in this. We can’t physically bend and shape much like water does, but I don’t think this is what is being meant here. I think this is talking about how we live. It’s our persona, our spirit, it is this that needs to bend and shape in order to be in harmony with all life and that eternal spirit that flows like water through all life.

It does bring to my mind a rather amusing story from my good old Nasrudin

A neighbor came running to Nasrudin's house with the news that the Hodja's mother-in-law had been washing her laundry in the river when she fell into the water and drowned. "And we cannot find her body," he continued. "We searched everywhere downstream for her, but all to no avail."

"You should have searched upstream," replied the Hodja. "My mother-in-law is so contrary that she would never go with the flow."

There is something in this formlessness and the bending and shaping that speaks to me of truth, particularly religious truth. In the introduction to “One River Many Wells” Matthew Fox states:

“Meister Eckhart says: ‘Divinity is an Underground river that no one can stop and no can dam up.” Fox himself says that “There is one underground river – but there are many wells into the river: an African well, a Taoist well, a Buddhist well, a Jewish well, a Muslim well, a goddess well, a Christian well, an aboriginal well. Many wells but one river. To go down a well is to practise a tradition, but we would make a grave mistake (an idolatrous one) if we confused the well itself with the flowing waters of the underground river. Many wells, one river. That is Deep Ecumenism.”

Again this teaches something of the qualities of water that we can learn form. We can access water as we can access truth but we can never get the full picture, the whole truth and how ever we access the truth is always limited. That said if we come together we can drink from one another’s sources and share the one universal river of life.

We are one we are interconnected as we are with all life.

Water is the basic element of life. We are mainly made from it and we depend upon it. It unites everything that lives on this earth and links us not only to one another but to all that is. It is a power that we can work with and therefore live successfully or against and therefore struggle with. If we remain rigid in all things we will struggle but if we can be moulded and bend ourselves to fit with life and that spirit that permeates all life we can be in harmony with everything.

Today I offer praise to water, that power that is greater than all and yet present in each.

Water the most basic ingredient of all life, may we absorb the lessons you offer us.

Bend us, shape us, form us in your image.

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

The Essence of the Spiritual Life: Taking Care of Your 3 Millimetres

I will begin with a letter taken "Letters to Sam A Grandfather's Lessons on Love, Loss, and the Gifts of Life" By Daniel Gottlieb

In it I find the essentials to living the spiritual life, living spiritually alive. It teaches lessons that we can learn from pain and struggle as well as well as the suggestion that the essence of freedom is responsibility, or as Daniel discovered, taking care of your three millimetres. It is simple, but not so easy.

"Your Three Millimetres"

"Dear Sam,

"An author and sociologist named Frank Abbott has said, 'Death is no enemy of life. We would have no idea what life was about if it weren't for death.'

"About ten years before you were born, I went through a terrible time in my life. And I had a dream that was a revelation.

"This was several years after my accident, shortly after your grandmother Sandy had left the marriage. Debbie and Ali had just departed for college. I was home alone. And my beloved sister, who had become my closest confidante, had just been diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor. My heart was in turmoil.

"Then I developed a bedsore on my buttocks. This is not unusual for someone who sits in a wheelchair all day, but when it happens, it can be a nightmare. The only treatment for these sores is to stay out of the wheelchair, so what little independence the wheelchair provides gets taken away.

"With grief welling up on every side, I visited the doctor. He examined me and said, 'It's broken.' I said, 'I know.' He was referring to the skin, but I was talking about my heart. 'Too much pressure,' he said, meaning my buttocks. 'I know,' I said, meaning my life.

"Then the doctor saw that the wound was moist.
"That's an unhealthy sign. 'It's weeping,' he said, using a medical term.
" 'I know,' I said, But I still wasn't talking about the wound.
"Finally he said, 'You've got to go to bed for thirty days.'

"This was my greatest nightmare. Right after the accident, I imagined that everyone would leave me and I would be home alone, confined to bed, with a nurse who was there only because she was being paid. Then, upon the recommendation of this doctor, that's exactly what happened. Displaced from my wheelchair, immobilized, I knew I would not be able to do any of the usual things that sustained me. I couldn't see patients if I couldn't sit up or go into my office. I couldn't get to the radio station for my weekly show. I couldn't drive my van or get around the house by myself. I would have to lie prone, waiting for the wound to heal.

" 'How do you know it will take thirty days?' I asked.
"The doctor explained that skin wounds, if they are in a healthy environment, heal at a rate of one millimeter a day. I wondered about wounds to the heart. How could you measure that healing?

"He gave me a brown patch called Deuoderm to cover the wound. I told him I was surprised that the wound would be covered. I thought wounds needed oxygen to heal. Shouldn't the bedsore be exposed to the air?

"Yes, he said, wounds do need oxygen to heal. But the oxygen is in the blood, not in the air. 'Everything a wound needs to heal is already in your body,' he explained. 'We just have to get access to those nutrients and let them work.'

"Those words stayed with me. If that was the way the body healed, what about the human spirit? Remembering the old prophetic story that tells how infants are born with all the wisdom they need to live, I realized that everything we needed to heal our hearts' wounds might already be in us too.

"I went home and went to bed. But the wound didn't heal in thirty days or in forty or fifty. When it finally did close, after about two months, I was elated to get back in my wheelchair. (It made me think — how many people feel overjoyed because they can sit in a wheelchair?) But then it opened up again.

"I was devastated. Here came the nightmare all over again. I felt as though my spirit was crushed for good.

"Finally, the doctor and I decided that I should have surgery.

"One night in the hospital, a friend came to visit me. I told her I didn't think I could go on anymore. What I was feeling went beyond despair. It was a loss of hope — of everything I valued, trusted, and loved. The pain had become simply unbearable.

"My friend held my hand and said, 'Dan, what you are about is more important than who you are.'

"That night, I had a dream. I dreamed that God came to me. This was not the God I believe in, the one you read about in the Bible. It was some other God, and when He spoke, he said, 'I'm going to give you a piece of the universe. Your job is to take care of it. Not make it bigger or better — just take care of it. And when I'm ready, I'll take it back, and your life will be over.'

"I looked at the piece of the universe that God was showing me, and I saw that it was just three millimeters! Was that all? I could feel my ego begin to rail against this indignity. I'm a psychologist! I am an author! I have a radio show! Aren't these things important?

"Of course, no matter how much I protested, it wouldn't make any difference. My allotment was still — and would always be — just three millimeters of the entire universe. That was it!

"But in this dream I also saw that caring for three millimeters of the universe was an awesome responsibility. A God-given responsibility. Though I had felt I couldn't go on, finally I had to acknowledge that I would have to give back my three millimeters before I was ready. And because, at the time of the dream, I had a wound that was healing in millimeters, I knew that my job was to help heal my three millimeters of the universe.

"Sam, part of the reason I'm at peace with my life is that I take care of the part of the universe I'm responsible for. I haven't made it bigger or better. I haven't changed it. But I have cared for it. Writing these letters to you is just one of many ways of tending my three millimeters.

"What I wish for you, Sam, is what I wish for everybody — to get as clear a sense of what your life is about as I got in that dream. Your three millimeters is not much in terms of area. But I hope you will feel the gratitude and joy that I feel, having been given that much to tend.

"Love,
"Pop"

I came across this wonderful piece a couple of years ago when searching for resources for “The Colours of Grief”. It hit me hard at the time, had a powerful effect on my heart and soul. I have wanted to share it with you in worship, but never found the right time. It is long and not appropriate for a reading. It came back to me on Sunday as I sat enjoying the 200 hundreth anniversary at Norcliffe Chapel Styal as stories were shared of the congregation and its mission, particularly the concept of faith and works. It got me thinking about my spiritual beliefs and how I express them, which I would say are almost perfectly encapsulated in this letter by Daniel Gottlieb.

“letters to Sam” is a touching, personal and deeply inspiring collection of letters by Daniel Gottlieb to his grandson Sam. There is clearly a deep connection between two, they share a common bond, an unconditional love, that goes beyond blood. Both would be considered “different” from the so called “norm”. Daniel is a quadriplegic who has learnt so much from his disability. His grandson Sam was diagnosed with autism at just 14 months old.

Daniel wrote the book as way of offering help and advice to Sam, to ease his attempts at navigating a life, in which he would always be dependent on others. It is a celebration of the worth and dignity of all people, that they can: "help teach people, that no matter what happens to our bodies or minds, our souls remain whole." It is not sugar coated, pain and how to live with it is a constant theme, as are the fears that come with pain. An example being Daniel’s reaction to being diagnosed with the sores. He describes his fear of being abandoned, a real fear as his wife has left, his sister who he depends on has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and his children have left him and yet humour remains.

The letter and the whole book offers a way to live spiritually alive. The essence of which is responsibility. Daniel discloses in the letter that all of us have our own little patch of life that we are responsible for. It is not necessary to get a bigger patch or to make it better. The point is to take care of it with love and gratitude and joy. This is the key to living spiritually alive. It is a book about faith and doing what is ours to do. It brings to my mind those words from the Book of James “Faith without works is dead”.

I love how Daniel describes how all that he needed to heal was already there within him. That the key is to take care of that, to be responsible for his three millimeters. As he wrote:

"The doctor explained…Yes, he said, wounds do need oxygen to heal. But the oxygen is in the blood, not in the air. 'Everything a wound needs to heal is already in your body,' he explained. 'We just have to get access to those nutrients and let them work.'

"Those words stayed with me. If that was the way the body healed, what about the human spirit? Remembering the old prophetic story that tells how infants are born with all the wisdom they need to live, I realized that everything we needed to heal our hearts' wounds might already be in us too.”

Isn’t this so true, everything we need is already here, we just need to learn to take care of it and make best use of it.

Sometimes of course no matter what we do, things still continue to go wrong. Sometimes things seem to get better and then all seems lost again. As he wrote:

"I went home and went to bed. But the wound didn't heal in thirty days or in forty or fifty. When it finally did close, after about two months, I was elated to get back in my wheelchair. (It made me think — how many people feel overjoyed because they can sit in a wheelchair?) But then it opened up again.

"I was devastated. Here came the nightmare all over again. I felt as though my spirit was crushed for good.
"Finally, the doctor and I decided that I should have surgery.”

There is something here is the wisdom of faithful and acceptance.

Then finally we see the real lesson. His whole philosopher for him and his grandson Sam. This is a universal lesson, the key to me to the spiritual life. Something of faith and works of the spiritual of life making the most of what is yours, of being responsible for what is yours, this is your gift. I hear so powerfully the wisdom of Forrest Church here too and his mantra “Want what you have, do what you can, be who you are.” What came to him at his moment of utter despair, when he felt he could go on no longer, his dream. As Daniel wrote:

"One night in the hospital, a friend came to visit me. I told her I didn't think I could go on anymore. What I was feeling went beyond despair. It was a loss of hope — of everything I valued, trusted, and loved. The pain had become simply unbearable.

"My friend held my hand and said, 'Dan, what you are about is more important than who you are.'

"That night, I had a dream. I dreamed that God came to me. This was not the God I believe in, the one you read about in the Bible. It was some other God, and when He spoke, he said, 'I'm going to give you a piece of the universe. Your job is to take care of it. Not make it bigger or better — just take care of it. And when I'm ready, I'll take it back, and your life will be over.'

The key was to take care of his piece of the universe, his three millimeters, his responsibility. This was Daniel’s work and it came to him faithfully when he was in utter despair. Again as he wrote:

"But in this dream I also saw that caring for three millimeters of the universe was an awesome responsibility. A God-given responsibility. Though I had felt I couldn't go on, finally I had to acknowledge that I would have to give back my three millimeters before I was ready. And because, at the time of the dream, I had a wound that was healing in millimeters, I knew that my job was to help heal my three millimeters of the universe.

"Sam, part of the reason I'm at peace with my life is that I take care of the part of the universe I'm responsible for. I haven't made it bigger or better. I haven't changed it. But I have cared for it. Writing these letters to you is just one of many ways of tending my three millimeters.”

The key for all of us to find our own three millimeters and love and care for it and when our time is up to give back whatever life has lent to us.

Now whatever our three millimeters may be, it is for each of us to discover ourselves. It doesn’t have to be anything big and glorious. By taking care of what is close at hand sounds like the embodiment of faith and works to me. As Viktor Frankl stated it was the responsibility of each individual to find their own meaning in life, that this was in many ways the ultimate freedom and that it could not be prescribed for us. That said it was more than just our ultimate freedom, it was also our responsibility. In fact he taught that the ultimate freedom was to be responsible for what is yours. Daniel Gottlieb’s letters to Sam are also in alignment with Frankl’s central concept that the key to life is to find meaning despite our very real suffering and it was this that led to us transcending despair. That this is our ultimate responsibility and thus freedom.

The beginning of this is to accept the reality that we find ourselves, if it is beyond our power to change it. Of course if we can change it our ultimate responsibility is to do so, if it causes suffering. This brings to mind a favourite story, this version uses Nasrudin as the vehicle. It is titled “Dandelions”

Mulla Nasrudin decided to start a flower garden. He prepared the soil and planted the seeds of many beautiful flowers. But when they came up, his garden was filled not just with his chosen flowers but also overrun by dandelions.

He sought out advice from gardeners all over and tried every method known to get rid of them but to no avail. Finally he walked all the way to the capital to speak to the royal gardener at the sheikh's palace.

The wise old man had counseled many gardeners before and suggested a variety of remedies to expel the dandelions but Nasrudin had tried them all. They sat together in silence for some time and finally the gardener looked at Nasrudin and said, "Well, then I suggest you learn to love them."

So often in life we try to change our circumstances in our pursuit of what we believe will make us happy. We attempt to perfect our outer or even inner world thinking that this will rid us of the potential troubles that accompany life. We attempt to wish our troubles away, when maybe what we ought to be doing is learning to love what is there in its wholeness. Maybe we all spend too much time weeding the garden and not enough time learning to love what is already there. Maybe those dandelions are our three millimeters.

Again I am reminded of Forrest Church’s mantra: “Want what you have; do what you can; be who you are.”

It begins with accepting who we are and actually loving who we are, we are then better able to do what we can. This is exemplified in the following story.

There is a wonderful ancient Jewish story about Rabbi Gamaliel. He was asked by one of his students if he thought he had done enough with his life. He pondered the question for a moment before answering...

“When I die, God will not ask me, ‘Gamaliel, why were you not an Abraham or a Moses? God will ask me, ‘Were you Gamaliel?’”

To be who we are means that we must embrace our God-given natures and talents; it means that we accept who we are and make the most of it; it means that we do not try to be something or someone we are not. We take responsibility for what we have been gifted. Our job is to nurture and develop these gifts not merely for ourselves, but for the good of all.

As Gottlieb said it is about taking care of our 3 millimetres. Being responsible for our lives. This is the spiritual life in its entirety. It is purpose and it is what will give our lives true meaning. In so doing we may just begin to create the “Kin-dom” of love right here, right now.

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

Being Visited by Journeymen: Entertaining Angels Without Knowing It

I had made plans to go to Dunham Massey with Molly and a friend on Tuesday morning. As it happened this didn’t work out as I planned. This happens a lot. Plans are made and then things don’t quite work out the way you would want them to. I went for coffee with some friends. The conversation wandered down a few cynical avenues and I left with a few negative thoughts wondering what I would do that day. I had no idea what to explore although there were thoughts of the God of Surprises floating about my mind. As I passed the market I noticed two “eccentrically” dressed women in black hats talking with a couple of people, I wondered who they were. I then went home, with thoughts of where to take Molly for her walk. I decided to go to the schoolroom first and prepare it for the “Living the Questions” group that evening. There was a knock on the door, Molly started barking. I opened the door and discovered the two women I had passed at the market. They introduced themselves as Jade (pronounced Jada) and Eva, telling me that they were “journeymen” and were looking for somewhere to shelter, to sleep for the night. They had been sleeping outside for several days as they were travelling around the country. They explained to me what a “Journey Man” was. I will explain in a moment. They both had staffs and some baggage which they carried. They left this gear in the schoolroom. I told them that room would be free from 9pm as we had a discussion group which they were welcome to join us for if they wished.

I was blown away by this amazing encounter and pleased my best laid plans had not gone the way I had wanted them to. The God of Surprises seemed well at work.

The Journeyman tradition dates back to the middle ages. When an apprentice had finished their apprenticeship with their master they were to go out on their wander, their waltz, their journey. They were to travel around working and learning from other masters before returning home better skilled. They were called journeymen as they travelled day by day. Journey coming from the French word Journier which meant your daily task or daily travel. They went out into the world living day by day on their journey living on their daily bread. They were to travel for at least three years and one day and could not return to be freemen of their trade until they had done so. The tradition continued until the post war years. The Nazi’s were opposed to it and it almost died off during the war years. Following the reunification of Germany the tradition has revived. Journeymen today are not only men. Jada is a woman and Eva identifies and non-binary.

I bumped into them both later in the day when out walking with Molly. I sat and talked with them a while and found out more about them. They came and joined us for “Living the Questions”. We did not explore the subject we had planned, instead we let Jade and Eva tell us about themselves and their experiences as Journeymen.

It was an incredible evening as they talked about their experiences on the journey. They must travel by hitching a ride and find some place to sleep each night. They are of course meant to work and learn their trades from other masters. Jade is a carpenter and Eva a leather craftsperson. Of course this is no longer allowed in the UK as they are European Union citizens. They explained their clothing and why it is designed as it is as well as the staffs they carry. They talked about how vital it is that they learn patience and understanding and not to get down even if they had wait hours for a lift. They talked about how the journey was helping them develop as people and to understand others. What struck me was how they could not be shy, they had to be courageous. How they had to be humble in asking for help and how they were offering to others an opportunity to be generous. They were like living angels to me as they seemed to bring out the generosity in people. They brought out so much joy in me and in some of us present. I cannot tell you how much the whole experience moved me. I asked them what had brought them to knock at my door. They said that they were talking with a couple of people at the market and they has said that they should try the minister at the Unitarian chapel, as you would find a friendly welcome there. I could have cried, this touched my heart deeply.

I could tell you so much more about these two incredible people who blessed us with their presence. They were heading towards the Lake District and then Edinburgh before travelling down the Yorkshire coast and to York before heading south. They slept the night in the school room and I said I would leave them to go when they felt ready in the morning. I am sure they will bless many more people on their journey. Neither would be returning home for a couple of years, but I know that when they do they will have so much treasure to share.

Earlier we heard an extract from the Hebrews chapter 13 vv 1-6. The line from the second verse has been resonating with me since Tuesday. 2Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Who is showing hospitality to these strangers in our very midst?”

This seems to me exactly what occurred on Tuesday. Jade and Eva were both offering and receiving hospitality wherever they go and they are blessing and bringing out blessings everywhere. I felt like we had entertained angels on Tuesday.

Showing hospitality and caring for the vulnerable in society is a key aspect of the Judeo - Christian and Islamic tradition. You will find it deeply rooted in the Abrahamic traditions and virtually every other world religion too. Hospitality is an essential spiritual practice. It begins with an open heart and a generosity of spirit. It’s about recognising the good in life and in people, especially those in need. It’s about recognising ourselves in those very same people. It’s about being open and welcoming to all, wherever they have been, where ever they are going and wherever they find themselves now. Tibetan Buddhist monks great the strangers visiting their temples with “Welcome, friend, from what noble spiritual tradition do you come.” The Christian monastic tradition has a long held practise of taking in strangers and offering them sanctuary as if they were Christ, inspired by those very words from Hebrews. In so doing they are following the example of Jesus who mingled with all people, there was no one left outside the city gate, no untouchables.

This ancient hospitality seems to be to be at the very core of the Journeyman tradition and something that is sadly dying out in our modern age. Hospitality to me seems to be the whole concept of “Kin-dom of Love” right here right now.

Sadly, our age has become characterised by distrust, there is a fear of the strange and the stranger. Tuesday reminded how important hospitality to strangers is. In so doing we offer true spiritual love and liberate ourselves from the bondages of selfishness and self-centredness. It sets us free. Jade and Eva seemed so free as they offered folk they met the opportunity to be generous. They reminded me of the following by Joan Chittister “Hospitality is the way we come out of ourselves. It is the first step toward dismantling the barriers of the world. Hospitality is the way we turn a prejudiced world around one heart at a time.” In listening to Jade and Eva’s adventures they seem the absolute incarnation of this amongst us. We were entertaining angels on Tuesday and they blessed the town of Altrincham, they certainly blessed me.

I was thinking of Jade and Eva on Wednesday after they left, as they headed to find a lift towards the lake district. I was wondering how long they would have to wait patiently before getting a ride. I thought about their journey, how they were “following their bliss”, how it is a classic example of Joseph Campbell’s “Hero’s Journey”.

Campbell described life as a call to adventure. Highlighting that human history is littered with stories and adventures inspired by the search for treasure and or wisdom - Stories such as Jason and the Argonauts or many of the other Greek tales, Pilgrims Progress, Gulliver’s Travels, The Wizard of Oz, Jack and the Beanstalk, The Lord of the Rings the list goes on and on – Humanity’s canon is littered with folk tales and myths which teach us about this call to adventure, about the potential for both beauty and horror that is life.

Joseph Campbell spent years exploring these myths and stories believing that they possessed universal qualities that could help us understand how so often life calls us out to adventure, often at the least expected of moments.

Campbell identified four distinct stages of the journey. The first stage he named as “The Call to Adventure”. This he claimed is caused by discontent, which draws us out of the comfort of our lives to risk something new. The second he described as an initiation, where ordeals are faced that test someone’s mental and physical skills. The third stage is the time of revelation the discovery of truth and treasure. The final stage is the return to one’s community, with wisdom gained and with treasure to share.

These adventures began and ended with a call. They began with a powerful call to adventure, but they also ended with an equally powerful call, to return home. Just think of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz and those immortal words as she clicked her ruby slippers “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.”

Surely this is what Jade and Eva were on. Isn’t this exactly what Journeymen do. Certainly as I listened to them they described how they were called out of the comfort of their lives, to seek meaning and adventure. How they faced many ordeals with heart and courage and how they were blessed by the people they met, how they learnt so much about themselves and life itself. How they left gifts wherever they went, bringing out a great deal of good in the world. They will eventually return home with gold to share.

On Monday I stepped into the chapels gardens and noticed 6 magpies. I have never seen six before. I told a friend about this and they said well you had better keep your eyes open for gold, because six magpies symbolise gold. Well, the very next day I discovered it in these two remarkable journeymen Jade and Eva. They blessed me and this town with their visit that day. They brought out the best in me and I trust that we left them with a good impression and stories to share on their adventure. I believe I encountered two angels that day.

What a journey.

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

Do not follow blindly, 'cos you'll soon find yourself lost

I was sat with friends enjoying coffee, outside Café Nero, in the early morning sun the other day. I was facing away from the street, a position I don’t usually enjoy; I much prefer to face out, watching the world go by. We were in a positive mood, the beautiful hot weather no doubt playing a major part in this. This was suddenly brought to an abrupt halt. There was some kind of distressed sound from right behind me. We all stood up and turned round. Right there in front of us was the street cleaner with his cart, he had halted and looked shocked. There was also a woman with a baby in a papoose in front of her, she had a black Labrador. The dog was a guide dog as the woman was blind. We were all in shock, not knowing what had happened or what to do. There was the fear the baby was hurt, thankfully the child was not. The woman broke down in tears and was led to sit down. The street cleaner was ok too. Things settled down and all was ok. Folk continued about their business. I returned home a little later. The woman, her baby and guide dog were just behind me and two friends as we walked towards the chapel. I was stood talking with two friends having crossed the road. Molly has learnt not to cross until the green man appears and it begins to beep. I stood talking with the friends on the chapel side of the road. As we were talking we saw the woman, her baby and guide dog safely cross the road. We spoke with her, all was well, and interestingly she was coming to the large schoolroom at the chapel to go to her regular mother and child exercise class. The guide dog knew the way very well.

The whole incident has been on my mind ever since. It certainly awakened my “homiletic consciousness”, which I once heard described as “going through life thinking, “Can I use this in a sermon?” . Any person who uses their own experiences of life to create something for others does the same, such as an artist or poet, a writer, teacher, song writer or storyteller. As you can see this is happening now. It got me thinking about how much the woman has to trust in her guide dog to live freely in the world. How much that incident must have shaken her up. How frightening it must have been not only for her own safety, but also her baby. How whilst we were all shocked, everyone responded in loving and caring ways and just wanted to make sure everyone was ok. How after breaking down the woman picked herself up, dusted herself down and started all over again. She got on with her day, she trusted her dog absolutely and all was well. She knew the path that she must follow, as did the dog and she continued on it.

I was talking about the incident with the friends who were present a few mornings later, trying to make sense of what happened. We hadn’t seen it as it happened. It was the noise and change in atmosphere that caught our attention. We surmised that both parties must have been moving slowly. How did the dog not see what was in front of him? How did the street cleaner not see them? They just slowly walked into each other, like two ships in a fog. We surmised the road cleaner was probably daydreaming and the guide dog got distracted. One friend suggested that perhaps the dog had been distracted by the scent of Molly who is in season. This seems possible, but who knows. It got me thinking and as you can see it awakened my homiletic consciousness.

I’ve never had a great sense of direction and or spatial awareness. My mind does not operate in images. Maybe this is why I rarely if ever remember my dreams or even recall having them. I’m more of a communicator really and mainly through sound and conversation. I can describe to you exactly how things felt that morning, the emotions of the individuals, but the imagery is all a bit vague. I have other friends who will be able to describe who was say where, what people were wearing and what the individuals looked like. We are all different, it is very important to understand this. We truly do not all think alike, although I do like to believe that we can all love alike.

Now while my way of operating has its advantages, there are some disadvantages too. I get lost very easily. This is why since I learnt to drive I have relied on Sat Nav. Moving onto the Waze system in more recent years. It has usually proved reliable. The great thing about it is if you take a wrong turn, it will quickly adjust and direct you back on track. Generally, this has worked out well, but once or twice it has not. Sat Nav is very good but it cannot be relied upon 100%, sometimes it can send you down the wrong path, especially if you follow unquestioningly. Sat nav is a good guide, but you must never stop trusting your eyes, and or common sense. No guide is 100% reliable all the time, even the best trained of guide dogs it seems. We will take knocks, we will get lost on our journeys through life.

Life itself and the spiritual life in particular are often described as a journey. That said it’s not a journey in which we really travel a great distance. As Wendell Berry so beautifully wrote, echoing that great mystic Meister Eckhart, “And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground at our feet, and learn to be at home.”

On this journey we often come to forks in the road when we must take decisions on which way we ought to turn. Many times we make wrong decisions, I think we have to get it wrong many times, before we get it right. Many times we get lost too. Many times we take advice from others and follow it blindly. Many times this is helpful but other times it really is not. It can lead us down the wrong path, but that’s ok because we can always get back on track again.

Often this journey is described as a path, I have just done so, and I have heard many say that it gets narrower. I am not convinced of this. If I have learnt anything I have learnt that the spiritual journey is not like a path at all and certainly not a narrow one. In my experience it is broad and rooming all inclusive and welcoming, never exclusive or forbidding and open to all. What in 12 step culture they call “The Broad Highway” and one that allows a great deal of room for error.

I think one of the biggest mistakes we make when we speak of spiritual matters is when we describe them in narrow language. It puts people off, because it sounds too much and beyond us. It should not be like that, there is room for us all and it isn’t so hard to get started, it just requires a slight change in direction.

Let us also remember that the spiritual journey is one of depth and not really distance. Sometimes the biggest mistake we make is that we continue journeying on, head down, not looking all around us, too focused on a perceived goal. This is due, I am sure, to the fear that if we don’t keep on moving we might get lost or that our troubles might catch up with us. I do not believe that this is healthy. In many ways by just marching on ever forward we can become completely lost, in the sense that we lose who we are at the core of ourselves, that sense of belonging here in life, as we are, wanted, needed and loved. Or we walk into something without knowing it is front of us. Anyone can live their life as if they were blind.

These thoughts bring to mind the beautiful poem “Lost” by David Wagoner,

“Lost”

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

by David Wagoner

Sometimes when you feel lost you aren’t as lost as you think. What you are is actually in a place you would rather not be. This is beautifully illustrated in the following bit of wisdom form my old favourite Mulla Nasruddin

Nasruddin was sat on a river bank when someone shouted to him from the opposite side:

“Hey! how do I get to the other side?”
To which Nasruddin replied “You are on the other side!”

We are always on the other side of the river.

Throughout our journeys’ we pass through many stages of our lives and looking back no doubt we can see these staging posts, moments in our lives that have made us who we are, that have deepened our experiences of life and given us wisdom to pass on to others, if they would care to have it.

On our journeys there are not only staging posts, but guide posts and actual guides too, that have helped we pilgrims along the way. Some we have paid heed of, others we have not. Some ancient, some contemporary. Hopefully we have not followed them blindly, but sometimes no doubt we have as we have trusted too implicitly perhaps, a bit like those Sat Nav horror stories we sometime here about of people driving almost blindly into a lake or river. We have to learn to trust our senses as well as the sixth sense too, the inner voice, the inner light that speaks to us when we have ears that can hear.

The ancient stories give many great examples of the different types of journeys, pilgrimages and Odyssey’s that we may undertake. In his meditation “The Spiritual Journey” David O Rankin names a few who have walked courageously through theirs. Stating:

“It is Moses leading the Jews through the desert of Sinai, and Jesus enduring the temptation in the wilderness of Israel, and Buddha seeking enlightenment along the dusty roads of India.

It is the glorious voyage of Odysseus in Homer’s Odyssey, the narrow paths through the circles of hell in Dante’s Inferno, and the confessions of the travellers in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.

It is the pilgrims sailing on the Mayflower, the settlers moving westward, being On the Road with Jack Kerouac, and spinning through a black hole in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey”

We are all of us pilgrims on the sacred journey that is life and like so many of the more famous ones we think we have to go someplace else to discover our own Nirvana or to build the New Jerusalem. Just as the pilgrims on the Mayflower did in the seventeenth century, with those words from Hebrews we heard earlier singing in their hearts. They believed that they had to travel a great distance to a new land to create their heaven on earth. Well, I have discovered that this is not necessary. You do not have to travel great distances to experience the beautiful journey and you do not need to travel great distances to build the New Jerusalem, it must be here, in our own hearts or nowhere. The “Kin-dom” of Love has to be built here or nowhere.

I suspect it’s the same about finding ourselves once again when we feel lost. Who or what do we listen to? Well I am learning to listen to that inner voice, that light that shines bright within all of us. That spark of the Divine that is within everything. That which awakens the sense of my senses, that which guides me home no matter how lost I am and that which allows me to be at home wherever my feet are planted. That Kin-dom of Love, within me, within each of you and within everything.

Let love be our navigator it will always lead us home, to the place where we belong.

The problem isn’t getting lost, we all get lost at times. The problem is in losing faith that you cannot find your way again. The key is how we live when we find ourselves lost. Do we close down and get lost deeper in our fear, or do we pause and reach out and ask for help from those loving forces that are all around whether visible or invisible.

I saw a beautiful example of faith and trust the other day sat outside Café Nero. A woman who had experienced a terrifying knock, it must have been an awful shock to her confidence in herself and her guide. She took stock, she accepted help and comfort and then she got up once again, with her baby safe and secure in her papoose, hanging infront of her heart. She trusted her guide dog and she continued on her way with her daily activities. I saw she had absolute trust and no fear as she waited to be guided across the road. What a beautiful example of faith and trust and most of all love.

Thank you

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

May we be people who embody hope for one another

Paul J. Wadell wrote:

“Hope has to be seen to be believed. It has to be made visible. It has to be something we can feel and touch. We are called to be persons who embody hope for one another. We have to be each other’s partners in hope.”

I have seen examples of this all around me, in the congregations I serve and the communities I am a part of and who love and care for the little oasis of love that are the gardens and buildings of Dunham Road Unitarian Chapel, at Sylvan Grove Altrincham.

Unitarianism and Unitarian Universalism at its core, I believe, is in so many ways about embodying hope for one another. To me this is what it means to live this free tradition. This is not a creed or a statement of belief. We are and have always been a tradition where no one is compelled to believe in anything that their conscience does not allow them to. That said I do see Hope and “Embodied Hope” at the core of our historical tradition. I see it in our present and I know that it is vital for our future. A Hope not merely talked about though but shown through our very being. That there is a goodness at the heart of everything. A kind of “Radical Ok-ness”. This is not a denial of what is wrong in life. More the belief that there is a potential goodness at the heart of everything and that it is true religious living to bring this goodness to life, through our imperfect human being. To me this is what it means to embody hope.

I have in recent weeks received some beautiful emails from families who I have conducted rites of passage services for. They have all expressed the same thing. They have talked about our principles, the sense of welcome. That they feel they are valued.

This place is sacred to many it is holy ground, as it was in the past. I have seen a couple of beautiful examples of this in recent weeks. There was the recent response, of so many, to what happened to the “Wind Telephone”. I have seen it again this week. On Tuesday night I wasn’t feeling too well. I was resting when there was a knock on my door, it was a guy called Chris who likes to sit and eat in the Chapel gardens. He came to tell me he had chased off some flower thieves from the chapel gardens. I had conducted a scattering of ashes in the "Garden of Remembrance", that Sunday. The family had left flowers in Remembrance of their recently deceased dad. Some had been spread and others left in baskets. I witnessed both sides of humanity that evening. At first it saddened me, I know that the thieves must be desperate to steal the flowers, but still it saddened me. My heart though was lifted by Chris, we talked for some time, and I got to know him. Despite his own troubles he was clearly someone embodying hope. He has come to love this place. He doesn’t worship in the chapel building, but he does, in his own way come and find his own peace here. I have been touched by how much this place and community is loved by so many. It embodies both love and hope and it brings that out in them. I know that we who call this our spiritual home have a deep love as folk have for generations. We say come as you are, exactly as you are, but do not expect to leave in exactly the same condition. There are no tests to belong here. You are not asked to believe certain things or live in certain ways. We not only tolerate but truly celebrate difference, diversity. There is a faith in the goodness of life. I feel our purpose is to embody this.

It is not just the land and the buildings though, that are this community. We continued on in our own ways, embodying hope, through the pandemic. We met on line and kept together in other ways, we embodied hope. Others joined us from time to time. Some still do through Zoom. I remember a beautiful moment early in the pandemic when Rev Peter Godfrey joined us. Peter was minister at Altrincham and Urmston in early 1960’s. Send a child to Hucklow began at Dunham Road at this time. He began his ministry at Urmston before then. After the service Alison Jackson told him that she had been the very first child he ever Christened. A beautiful moment connecting past, present and future. In difficult times it certainly brought hope to me and others too.

I cannot tell you how many times over the years, particularly the last few years, so many folk have embodied hope for me. They have brought respair, a fresh hope, a new hope. The church I dream of is to be that kind of spiritual community. A place where fresh hope, new hope is embodied. A place where respair is blessed into being.

May we be people who embody hope for one another.

There has been a Unitarian community in the town of Altrincham for over 200 years. It did not begin here at Dunham Road. It all began in Shaws Lane as members from Hale Chapel instigated the beginning of this new congregation in the neighbouring town of Altrincham. No doubt the passing of the 1813 Trinity Act, which finally legalised the holding of Unitarian views, played a role in the forming of this and other Unitarian congregations at this time and over the following decades.

The congregation grew and thrived over the years and eventually moved to Dunham Road in December 1872. This beautiful chapel, designed by the great Manchester architect Thomas Worthington. They came and formed this fellowship of love that we have been sailing in for many generations. They did so in hope and with genuine enthusiasm. They brought a fresh hope, they embodied it through their lives as folks have continued to do over the generations. As those who congregate do today. Yes, things have changed, including in recent times. Hybrid Zoom worship would have been something from science fiction just a generation ago. Maybe eventually AI will replace me the minister, I doubt it though. It may offer theological correctness, but not humanity.

I am very aware that today we stand on the shoulders of giants as we look ahead as a free religious faith offering hope to a community and world that does at times seem so divisive. May we embody this hope, offer respair. I believe that this free religious tradition that I am a part of has much to offer our world, as those who came before us did. I live with hope in my heart that we can continue to build on those firm roots that those who came before us planted. A solid trunk grew from those roots and many branches have stretched from it, leading to buds and leaves and fruits that have flowered and nourished so many. This house of love is a place where hope is born again and again, despite the cynical times we all live in.

We are connected to both the past and the future, we are links in a chain of history. It is our task to do the best we can with this our link in this time and place. We cannot shape the whole world, but we can do something in this our time and place, in full knowledge that this will influence the whole of history. We can become embodiments of hope. Everything matters you know, every breath, every feeling, every thought, every deed impacts in some way on the chain of life. Everything matters.

This fellowship of love that we sail in today is a place of nurture where the spirit can grow, but not alone. We do not sail this ship alone we do so in community with one another and with that eternal spirit that is present in all life and yet greater than it all. The Unitarian tradition is as much about community as it about individual freedom, something that seems lost in modern spirituality, something that is so needed in our time. We come together in love and to grow and flower in that same spirit.

May we be people who embody hope for one another.

The Chapel, the buildings and the gardens are holy ground. Here the spirit has spoken and been heard, just as the burning bush spoke to Moses. Here the Divine can speak to each, as it has for generations and encourage us to keep on moving forward to new freedoms. This though is not holy ground because it is especially sacred. No, it is holy ground because we who come consecrate it with our presence and the spirit that grows in and through us, that we bring to this place. Our task here is to increase the holiness and then take it out into our world where the worst aspects of humanity keep on desecrating.

May we be people who embody hope for one another.

As Wendell Barry so beautifully put it. “There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places.” It is the task of this our free religious faith to nurture the sacredness from which we are formed and to carry that out into our world, through our lives. Everything matters you know, every breath, every feeling, every thought, every deed impacts in some way on the chain of life. Everything matters. I have felt this, in my body, in my being, in the marrow of myself these last few months. A deepening closeness to this community. It is not just an idea. It has become embodied. Molly has helped, I am certain of this.

May we be people who embody hope for one another.

Like absence of love a life lived without hope quickly becomes empty and meaningless. Please do not get me wrong I’m not talking about optimism here, they are not the same. Optimism is about an expectation of something to come, whereas hope is more about allowing something to grow from within. It is something that must be embodied. It is a form of love incarnating in life, something that begins in our own hearts. Hope is knowing that something beautiful will grow, even from what feels like the worst kind of suffering. Hope always overcomes despair as meaning emerges from the suffering. To paraphrase Vaclav Havel “Hope is an orientation of the spirit...It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out.”

Or as Erich Fromm observed “To hope means to be ready at every moment for that which is not yet born, and yet not become desperate if there is no birth in our lifetime, Those whose hope is weak settle for comfort or for violence; those whose hope is strong see and cherish signs of new life and are ready every moment to help the birth of that which is ready to be born.”

May we be people who embody hope for one another.

So, what can we do in our time and place, how do we plant seeds of hope in our time and place? How do we take care of our link in the chain of life, in the chain of history? How can we ready ourselves “to help bring to birth that which is ready to be born”? How do we become people who embody hope for one another?

Well, I believe that it begins with two things. The first is to truly see our world and our shared life as a blessing, as a beautiful gift that we are a part of. This begins by first of all understanding that we too are blessings. We need to let this form and grow in souls, our hearts and our minds and then bring it to life, to embody such hope. We need to be filled with this spirit, to be enthused by it. To be enthusiastic. By the way that’s what enthusiasm means, from entheos to be filled with the spirit, with God. We need to be filled with this spirit and to set it free and begin to consecrate our world once more. We need to embody it. We need to let hope become an orientation of our spirit and to bless our world with this enthusiasm.

May we be people who embody hope for one another.

Now this maybe over stating it somewhat, but I have a friend who calls Dunham Road Chapel her Vatican. She doesn’t come here often, as she is a traditional Christian. She has been to a few services though and certainly sees this as a special place. She came the other day to sit quietly on the anniversary of her young brother’s death. For her it is a place of hope. It was certainly born here again for her one Christmas Eve.

May we be people who embody hope for one another. Let’s share this hope. Let us bless those we meet with our loving presence. Let’s make all ground holy ground. Let us show the world that everything matters. every breath, every feeling, every thought, every deed, everything matters.

May we be people who embody hope for one another.

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

The Spiritual life is Like a Flower

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Choose Life: Whatever Path You Follow

I woke up on Monday to two beautiful emails from the daughters of Alan Hardman whose ashes had been scattered in the Garden of Remembrance the day before. Just simple emails of thanks. They didn’t have to do so, but it was rather touching that they decided to. I stepped into the day, began my journey, with thoughts for the day and week ahead. I could have chosen to focus on work that day, but instead I chose friendship, some of which could have been named pastoral work. After taking Molly for a long walk. I went to see Helen Redhead at her mums. She was there with her powerlifting trainer Jason, a larger than life character in every sense. Helen had recently taken the courageous decision to start a new life in Kent, in order to primarily pursue her sport of “Power Lifting”. She had been in Manchester competing in the “British Powerlifting Union Championship” and had won her age group setting two British records. Helen had followed her bliss, took the courageous step to try something new in life. Yes, it had in some ways been birthed in tragedy, following the death of Andrea, but she had chosen to go down a new road and it was wonderful to see her choosing life. I was glad I was able to celebrate with her. She will be back on 18th of July to compete in Manchester, I plan to go along and cheer her on. I didn’t stay too long as I had to get home, to take Molly for a walk and do some work before heading to Stockport cemetery to attend the funeral of another friend John, who had died tragically. It was a moving but deeply sad service. I saw many friends who I have known over the years and remembered times we had shared together. One thing I have noticed about myself is that I am very quiet at funerals I am not involved in. I think some people take this the wrong way, but I think it is just a mark of respect. As I was driving home I remembered something I used to say to John when he was going through a bad time following the end of a relationship. I said to him to not see it as the end, but as a new possibility, “that all bets are open”. It helped him at the time and he would often say it back to me “All bets are open.” Yes, all things are possible, there is always time to change. Sadly, this is no longer the case for John.

My friends Martin and Jade weren’t working on Monday and had taken Molly for a few hours. I had just changed and was about to go and collect her when my phone rang. It actually rang three times, but it was the first phonecall that I would like to share about. It was a young man, at a similar age and crossroads as John was when I first met him. The young man was suffering with fear and uncertainty, unsure about life and which direction to go in. I listened for a while and then I told him about John. I told him that “All bets are open”. That he was free to choose whatever direction he wished. I also told him whatever choice he made mistakes would happen, things would go wrong, may even be a disaster. That this was ok and that he would be ok provided he could learn from the mistakes. He was about to go on holiday for two weeks and then would be returning to begin his next journey. I told him to enjoy himself and then I quoted good old Moses, I said choose life. I even gave him the full Deutronomy 30 v 19 quote:

19I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.”

I had moved outside in the gardens at the chapel by this time. I was stood by the wind telephone. I was going to sit there for a bit and be quiet before going to pick Molly up. I was thinking about a few souls that have been lost in recent times. I was stood in front of it by now and was looking directly at it while talking to the young man, when I noticed something that broke my heart, the phone wasn’t there. Someone had ripped it from its bracket. This has happened once before. This time though they had not only damaged it, they had taken the old style phone away. I finished my phone call and then just sat down and wept for a while. I then took a picture and shared about it on social media, before going to collect Molly. I stayed for a while at Marti’s had tea and chocolate hobnobs and then we went for a walk. When I returned, I checked out my phone. My goodness me I was overwhelmed by the loving response form so many people. So much loving support and some anger. By the end of the evening different friends had gone to extra lengths and three new versions of the phone had been ordered. Tow have already been delivered to two different friends and another soon will be. So a replacement will be fitted in the next few days, with two spares if this happens again.

The phone means a lot to so many people in the community, as do the gardens at the chapel and myself. So many people have sat in that space and connected with those they have lost. It seems that soon the lines will be open again.

I went to bed that night touched by so many people I know, by their loving care and friendship; touched by how people will go out of their way at times; touched by how in general people choose to making loving decisions, decisions that are primarily about life. I also smiled as I found I had done the same I had chosen life, in all its joy and suffering, in all it’s blessings and curses. I also thought of John and those words “All bets are open”.

It seems a bit of no brainer to choose life, who wouldn’t? Well sometimes we do choose to stay in fear and avoid life. Whenever we turn from our God given gifts or fail to live authentically I suspect we are refusing life. Not that we should give ourselves too hard a time for this, as we can always turn back to life again; we can turn back down the path of life again. No one lives perfectly without ever being held back from fear.

To choose life is to accept life in all its joys and troubles. At John’s funeral there were many people who have courageously come through difficult challenges, two who have recently come through severe and life threatening forms of cancer. They carry their scars, both physical and emotional, but they were there and they were choosing life in every sense. One asked me if I was going to the wake afterwards, I said not. I often prefer not to. They were going, but primarily to ensure that John’s ex-partner was ok. Another decision based on love and care, despite their own suffering.

Choosing or refusing Life is a decision that we all make. It is not always obvious which one to take; fear in its many forms can often paralyse us in our decisions. So much so that we make no decision and thus do not choose life at all. Like the young man I was talking to on Monday, there is a fear that we could get it wrong, that “all bets are not open”, “That all bets are in actual fact closed.”

This brought to my mind the often misunderstood, misquoted and even mistitled classic poem “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost.

I will share it with you:

"The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

The poem is a gentle satire on indecisiveness. It is not primarily a celebration of rugged individualism and courageously striding on without fear, that many believe it was written for. This is why it is truly an every person poem, as I am sure we can all relate to this fear we feel when faced with such decisions. Frost himself said of the poem “ I wasn’t thinking about myself there, but about a friend who had gone off to war, a person who, whichever road he went, would be sorry he didn’t go the other. He was hard on himself that way.” The friend was Edward Thomas who Frost had sent the poem to privately in a small envelope, under the title “Two Roads”. Frost had been inspired to write the poem by Thomas’s habit of regretting whatever path the pair took during their long walks in the countryside, Thomas would torturing himself over the decisions to turn one way or another, or not. Frost equated this indecisiveness with the romantic predisposi­tion for “crying over what might have been.” Frost understood that we all feel this fear, that we don’t always choose life and not to be too hard on ourselves for doing so. He believed that his friend would take the poem as a gen­tle joke and would respond and protest against Frost’s teasing. It seems that he didn’t see the joke initially at least and Frost had to direct him back to his point.

Whatever path we choose it will not be smooth, it will be full of challenges, full of life and if we find it is not the right move, we can always change direction. It is ok to give up sometimes and start all over again. This surely is choosing life.

There will always be some indecisions in life, fear we will get it wrong. The truth is that we will get things wrong. Every day I say or do something, or fail to do or say something I should have. This though does not cause paralysis. Every day we have to make decisions about little things and sometimes monumental things. In so doing we choose life.

To choose life requires discernment. Discernment formed from the Latin word “discernere”, which means to separate, to distinguish, to sort out. Just think of prospectors panning for gold or sifting through the rocks and dirt in search of gem stones. They are separating, they are sorting through the muck for the jewels, they are distinguishing, they are discerning. Discernment is about choosing life.

Discernment is the key to making those wise choices. We need to discover what is of value and what needs to be discarded in our minds. We need to discard the dirt and muck to uncover the gold, the gems, to have clarity of thought, so that we can “choose life”. This is not easy, especially when we think of all that information that swims around in our lives and our consciousness; information like an enormous shoal of fish swimming round and round aimlessly in a small tank and not really going anywhere. Our lives, our heads are just so full of stuff. How do we discern what is healthy, what is right? Well we need silence, we need time away from all this information and all these things that pull us in so many directions. We need time to be still, time to be silent, time to connect to our bodies and our breathing; time to hear that still small voice of calm. A voice less than a whisper, but somehow more than silence. The voice of love, the voice of life, the voice that overcomes fear. The voice of God within.

We need to awaken to our true consciousness in order to make those sane and sensible decisions about life. We need to learn to separate those things that are of value and those that are not. We need to do this in order to hear that voice, that is less than whisper but that is somehow more than silence; that voice that has spoken down the centuries, to those who had ears that could hear it; the voice that spoke to the people of Israel and said “I have set before you life and death, a blessing and a curse. Therefore choose life”

The choices we make matter. It matters what we are and what we do. I do not think that God chooses this for us. Yes, God offers guidance, “The Lure of Divine Love” but it is up to us to choose the path that we follow. Remembering always that we can always change direction if we find that the road we are on is not one of life.

Let‘s choose life, by choosing the road in front of us. The road of love and the road that will bless all our lives. It won’t be pain free there will be joy and suffering, but above all there will be life.

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