Last Message

A while ago, I came across this question: "If you had only one last message to leave to the handful of people who are most important to you, what would it be in twenty-five words or less?"

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This is a question in two parts, which requires separate answers. First, who are the people most important to you? Answer: my immediate family, and my best friend. The second, "What would it be in twenty-five words or less?" Which takes rather more thinking about.

On reflection, it would be about love and kindness. Not about ambition, not about getting on. Not even about my hopes and dreams for them. Twenty-five words doesn't allow the space for those kinds of sentiments. Thinking about this made me go deep: to really consider what is the most important thing in the world, to me. It is linked to a supplementary question: "How would you like to be remembered?" And I have realised that I do not want to be remembered for my small achievements, for degrees, my career, not even for the books I have published (although it would be good if they lasted!) I want to be remembered as someone who cared deeply about other people, about other living beings, who wanted to leave the world a better place than she found it.

Perhaps something along the lines of: 

"I love you, just the way you are. 

Be kind to others; love them as I have loved you. 

Leave the world a better place."

Because really, love is all that matters. Love makes the world go round, as the old cliché has it. Without love, we cannot fully live; we merely exist. Being truly loved, for ourselves, just as we are, enables us to accept ourselves. And then to reach out and share that love with other people, other living beings. (Even my cat, who is insisting on sitting on my knee as I write this, and glooping all over the keyboard). There is nothing more vital for the future of our world. Without love, we and our world will spiral down into chaos.

Following the Beat of Your Own Drum

This week's quote advises us to "Dance above all out of line." In other words, don't follow the herd, find your own truth and stick with it.

Which seems to be a courageous thing to do, these days. When we are bombarded in the news and social media by words of fanatics, who only ever see their own narrow point of view, and seem to be entirely bereft of empathy or compassion for people who do not look like, or act like, them.

It takes a certain amount of guts to raise your head above the parapet and to state your own truth, clearly and with love. The recent ruling about the definition of women by the UK Supreme Court is one example. Government and media seem to agree with the judges, which has left the LGBT community in this country, and particularly our trans friends, feeling vulnerable and afraid. We need to stand up for the rights of trans women. As Unitarians, we need to stand up for our oft-quoted value that every human being is worthy of dignity and respect. 

Today's world is a scary place in which to be "different" - whether that is non-white, non-cis-gendered, non-straight. There is far too much judgement and condemnation of "the other" and far too little attempt to understand and empathise with their points of view. 

So reach out to your friends, reassure them that they are loved. Because they are human beings. And that is the only qualification needed.

Love is a Choice

Scrolling idly through Facebook this morning, I came across this beautiful image, posted by the First Congregational United Church of Christ from Sioux City, Iowa, on the Faith on the Fringe page:

Reading it lifted my spirits enormously. I thought, yes, there are still people out there fighting the good fight, in the face of all the negativity, anger and hatred spewing forth from various governments and hate groups around the world. 

And it reminded me that we - all of us - have free will, and can make a conscious choice to embrace wonderful things like inclusion, empathy, compassion, equality, dignity, diversity, community, kindness, integrity, honesty, respect, justice, peace, the planet and humanity. We can choose to fact-check before we react to the latest sound-bite. And above all, we can choose to (at least try) to live our lives in a spirit of Love.

Love is an amazing phenomenon. It is fundamental to human well-being, and enables the rest of the good attitudes listed above. I would go so far as to say we can only become fully rounded people, able to respond kindly to those around us, if we love and are loved in return. It is the most powerful emotion in the world. When we truly love someone, we will put their welfare before our own, we will grieve when they are sad or unwell, and share in their joy when things are on the up and up. Loving affects every particle of our being. And I understand God to be Love at the centre of everything.

However, it isn't easy to live in a spirit of love: little that is worthwhile in this world is easy. With so much happening out there to grieve and upset us, the natural human response may be to become angry, vengeful. The process of growing in love is a challenging one. When we choose to try to live in a spirit of love, we are choosing to make ourselves vulnerable, and vulnerability can hurt. Love can only be offered. We can never guaranteed that the other person will love us back, or love us next week, next year... or that they will remain healthy and with us. Choosing to love another person is undoubtedly a vulnerable choice. Love comes with no guarantees - it is without strings. And that applies, whomever, or whatever, the object of our love is. We have to be all in. It involves trusting that the universe is a benevolent place (the evidence around us notwithstanding) and that the best thing we can do is to love on another as God loves us. It takes faith and courage.

All of this involves choice. We can choose to curl in on ourselves, look after Number One, and the rest of the world can go hang. Or we can choose to stand up for love, for all the wonderful qualities listed by the First Congregational United Church of Christ and strive for a better world. 

What will you choose?

 

Holding on to our Dreams

There's a wonderful post doing the rounds on Facebook at present, in the wake of the US election result, written by environmentalist, Chris Packham. It reads, "Things have just got a lot more difficult. Here's what I think. I had no control over what just happened. None. But I do have control over how I will react to it. And I am not going to give up on the beautiful and the good, the grip on my dreams just got tighter."

Thank you, Chris. This is such a timely reminder, when the world seems to have gone to hell in a hand basket (incidentally, *why* in a hand basket? - I've never understood that!). Yes, we will need time to grieve, to mourn what might have been. And no emotion is wrong - if we need to scream our woes to the skies, that is fine, or weep quietly in a corner.

But we must not allow this election result to destroy our dreams of a better, fairer, more peaceful and equitable world. A world based around the values of love and compassion, justice and peace. Working towards those dreams, witnessing for those values, is under our control, is in our gift. People like Tr*mp will ultimately only win if everyone else gives up fighting.

Another quote doing the rounds comes from JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings: 

"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

"I am not going to give up on the beautiful and the good, the grip on my dreams just got tighter." "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us." 

Different words, same message. In the hard, dark days ahead, may we all be given the strength, the passion, to hold onto our dreams.

The Importance of Self-Love

When I read this week's quotation, by the 13th / 14th century German theologian and mystic, Meister Eckhart, I had a strong reaction to it. It reads, "All the love in this world is built on self-love."

No, I thought, surely the point of love is that it is self-less, concentrated on the other. Then I remembered something Brene Brown once wrote, in The Gifts of Imperfection. Part of her definition of love, gleaned from her extensive qualitative research, reads, "Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow; a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each one of them - we can only love others as much as we love ourselves." (emphasis mine)

She admits how hard this is to hear, let alone put into practice, because most of us tend to be harder on ourselves than we are on the people we love. She says, "I know I can talk to myself in ways that I would never consider talking to another person. How many of us are quick to think, God, I'm so stupid and Man, I'm such an idiot?"

She opened the question on her blog in 2009 which, perhaps not surprisingly, sparked quite a fierce debate. And in her book, she shares one wise comment by Renae Cobb: "Certainly, the people we love inspire us to heights of love and compassion that we might never have achieved otherwise, but to really scale those heights, we often have to go to the depths of who we are, light/shadow, good/evil, loving/destructive, and figure out our own stuff in order to love them better. So I'm not sure it's an either/or but a both/and. We love others fiercely, maybe more than we think we love ourselves, but that fierce love should drive us to the depths of our selves so that we can learn to be compassionate with ourselves."

So maybe Meister Eckhart and Brene Brown are both right: self-compassion is a vital component of being able to love others well. Because when we are continually down on ourselves, even if only inside our heads, it will inevitably affect how well we are able to respond to, love, others. 

Finding Enough

 The American poet, Walt Whitman, once wrote, "I have realised that being with the people you love is enough."

Perhaps this is self-evident. In which case, why do so many of us spend so much of our time and effort chasing after rainbows? More money, more food, more social media, more everything. We seem to find contentment, which is another way of saying "the consciousness of having enough", very difficult to discover.

But with Whitman, I believe that "being with the people you love" is enough. If we are lucky, there will be a place we can call "home", a place where we know we belong. But it need not be a physical space. For me, the word "home" signifies the company of loved others, in front of whom and with whom I can be myself - rather than a particular building made of bricks and mortar. It's more about feeling "at home", at peace, seen and heard for who we truly are.

Whereas "home" in the purely physical sense of "the place where you live" can be very far from a real home. There are far too many dysfunctional families for that. And the scars of childhood (wheter physical, mental, psychological or spiritual) are far too frequently felt by far too many people for me to believe that "home" means "the environment in which you were brought up" or "the environment you live in."

One of my favourite books by Celtic poet and theologian John O'Donohue is Eternal Echoes: Exploring our hunger to belong. In it, he writes about what I believe is the true sense of "home" - a place where we belong. He has much to say about longing and belonging and about "home" as a place of sanctuary and belonging, where we feel safe and can grow into our best selves. He wrote, "The word home has a wonderful resonance. Home is where you belong. It is your shelter and place of rest, the place where you can be yourself."

I believe that everyone needs solid roots (a safe and happy home, a loving family and/or friends, and a solid moral and ethical grounding) if they are to grow into wise, virtuous human beings. If one or more of those elements is missing, it will be that much harder for the person to grow up grounded and able to nurture others in their turn. Of course, it is far from impossible. Many people overcome all kinds of deprivation and cruelty and thrive in spite of them, but I do believe that those fortunate enough to grow up with solid roots will, perhaps paradoxically, find it easier to step out on their own as grounded adults.

       

  

Does Love Require Freedom?

 Regular readers of this blog will know that I use a weekly quotation as inspiration for it. And it is rare for me to disagree with the writers, poets, artists, philosophers and theologians chosen by the compilers of the Harenberg Calendars. But this week I do. The quote is by German writer and poet, Heinrich Heine, "Love requires freedom in order to exist and flourish."

No, it doesn't. Love is the greatest power in the world. It is stronger than fear, stronger than hate, stronger than anything. I believe that Love is God's presence at the centre of everything. And I believe that in the end, it will ultimately prevail.

Some may think that this is ridiculously naive, stupidly optimistic. And if we look around at our world, they may have a point. Yet in the darkest places, the most hopeless times, something gives people the strength to resist evil, the power to carry on when bad things happen. I believe that thing is Love.

I believe that Love is a real power in the world. Which has been proclaimed down the centuries. We only have to read St Paul's Letter to the Corinthians, in which he speaks of the power of Love:

"If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind, love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It doesn not insist on its its own way, it is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease: as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love."

So no, Heine, love does not require freedom in order to exist and flourish: it is the most poweful force in the world.

Patience, Strength and Perseverance

Patience, strength and perseverance are not the first three qualities I think about when someone mentions the word "love." But according to Kristina, the 17th century Queen of Sweden, "These are the three blessed virtues that are found in true love: patience, strength, perseverance."

Although I suppose they may be three qualities which are required to have unconditional love for someone. Because all of us have faults, all of us have shortcomings, all of us will disappoint those who love us at some point in our lives. 

So we will need patience in our true love for our beloved, patience when they don't do what we think they should, patience when what they do or say disappoints us, patience when they are in a bad place and unable to respond to us. And also patience with ourselves, so that we are prepared to sit alongside them without expectation.

We will need strength in our true love for our beloved, because a weak love is not true love. We need to be strong and convicted in our love for the beloved. And also strong to hold them up, or to pick them up when they fall.

We will need perseverance in our true love for our beloved, because *every* relationship (whether it is between spouses, siblings or parents & children) goes through bad patches (one time I'm not afraid to generalise!). We need to hang on to our love for our beloved to see us through these bad patches. And we need to persevere in our love, and not give up when things aren't good. (Which is not to say that we should stay in an abusive relationship - far from it. Just that when we feel a little bit meh, we should hang on to our love for the beloved.)

And I find it consoling to remember that God's love for us is patient, strong and persevering.

What three qualities do you think are the "three blessed virtues that are found in true love"?

The Divine is Everywhere

This week's quotation is by Annie Besant, the 20th century socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist and human rights activist. It reads, "Underlying everything is an eternal, infinite, unknowable, real Being."

Most of it makes sense to me, because I have felt it. For me, God, the Divine, Spirit of Life and Love, is eternal, infinite and real. But not unknowable. At least, not entirely. I believe we can only get glimpses of the Divine, but we can be aware of Her / Him / It in everything around us, in ourselves and in each other. 

Which makes me a panentheist, which is defined in Cross's The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church as "the belief that the Being of God includes and penetrates the whole universe, so that every part of it exists in Him [sic], but that His [sic] Being is more than, and is not exhausted by, the universe."

So the Divine is not only beyond and eternal and infinite, but also immanent, within all things. As the Quakers would say, there is "that of God in everyone". To which I would add, "in everything".

I was first shown this as a little girl, when my father took me out into the garden and asked me to look - really look - at one flower and to appreciate the wonderfully intricate design of it. He told me (and I'm paraphrasing now) that the amazing way that everything fits together is evidence for the existence of God, because nothing so wonderful and intricate could have come into being at random.

And, unlike many of the nuggets of wisdom that parents share with their children, that one has stayed with me. I am still filled with awe and wonder at the the beauty and intricate coherence of the natural world and often stop, on my walks in the forest, to give thanks.

The understanding that this Divine presence also extends to humankind has taken longer to penetrate. But now I do honestly believe that there *is* that of God in everyone. I have also come to believe that God is Love at the centre of everything. And that the best way of worshipping Him / Her / It is to recognise that and to try to live in the world in response to it. 

Which ain't easy. It is far easier (and perhaps more instinctive) to make snap judgements about everyone we meet, rather than waiting to get to know them and then to perceive the divine Spark at work within them. None of us is perfect, but if we try to bear the everywhereness of God / the Divine in mind, we might learn to relate to the world in better, more productive ways.

Two Souls in One Body

This week's quotation is by Aristotle: "Freundschaft ist eine Seele in zwei Körpern". Which being translated, means: "Friendship is two souls in one body." And I have been truly blessed in my friends.

What are the qualities of a good friend? I believe that they include compassion, love, kindness and loyalty.

So what might compassion look like in the context of friendship? It means trying to put yourself into your friend's shoes, to really understand how they are feeling, so that you can respond appropriately to their joys and concerns. It doesn't mean feeling sorry for them, or trying to "make it all better". It means truly being there for them when they need you, whether it is to celebrate or commiserate.

Love in friendship is the same as it is in any other relationship. Love is an amazing thing. I very much like science fiction author Raymond Feist’s definition: “Love is a recognition, an opportunity to say ‘There is something about you I cherish.’ It doesn’t entail marriage, or even physical love. There’s love of parents (to which I would add love of family), love of city or nation, love of life, and love of people. All different, all love.”

And love is fundamental to human well-being. I am sure we can all remember those sad, sad photos of those little children in Romanian orphanages, left in their cots 24/7, with no attention paid to them, who had withdrawn into themselves, totally unable to relate to anyone else, because they had been starved of love and attention. And it is well known that in bringing up children, even “bad attention” is better than being ignored.

I would go so far as to say that we can only become fully rounded people if we love and are loved in return. Jesus recognised this when he described “Love your neighbour as yourself” as one of the two greatest commandments.

Building loving relationships with all the people we come into contact with may sound an unrealistic proposition, but stick with it; the rewards are beyond compare. Starting from where you are is the important thing, and building up slowly. Resolving to live your life in a spirit of love means recognising that there is “that of God in everyone”, to use a Quakerly phrase. 

Kindness in friendships is closely related to compassion. It means responding to the best in another person, and forgiving the worst. It means making a positive difference to their lives, by small acts of kindness - remembering to send a birthday card, giving them a ring "just because", listening with the ear of your heart, and knowing them well enough to tiptoe round their tender spots and rejoice with them when they are happy.

And kindness need not be limited to friends. Let me tell you a true story, about the effect of a random act of kindness: It is amazing how little it takes to make a difference to the feel and shape of someone's day. A while ago I went to visit a friend in hospital, and, as is customary (or so I thought) I took her a bunch of flowers. Only to learn that flowers on wards are now strictly forbidden because of "water contamination". So I had to take them away again. But at least my friend realised that I had been thinking of her.

My original thought had been to stick them back on the back seat of my car, and take them back home with me. But then, at the main entrance to the hospital, I walked past two women (I guess mother and grown-up daughter) who were obviously waiting for a taxi or something. On impulse, I presented the older lady with the flowers. And her whole face lit up: "It's my birthday on Monday!" she said. So I wished her a happy birthday and went on my way.

I love the words of Frederick Buechner about how we act towards strangers can have a real knock-on effect. he writes: "As we move around this world and as we act with kindness, perhaps, or with indifference or with hostility towards the people we meet, we are setting the great spider web atremble. The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops, or in what far place my touch will be felt."

It is lovely to think that perhaps my gift of flowers to that woman might have that sort of impact on her day, and hence on those around her. It also made my day - her happiness made me feel good! It is amazing how little it takes to make a difference - to my life, and to that of others.

Loyalty in friendships is such an important thing. The sticking point of any friendship will come when your friend does or says something you cannot be happy about. If your friendship is true, you may be disappointed in them, but will still try to understand where they are coming from, and stand by them. A friend who deserts their friend at a time when things go wrong is a weak and feeble friend at best. The loyalty of one true friend can make an enormous difference to how one copes in a crisis. If just one person stands by you through thick and thin, it can make life bearable. To take an example from the Harry Potter books, Harry is gutted when his best friend Ron turns against him in The Goblet of Fire, because he (Ron) believes that Harry put his name into the goblet and didn't share how to do this. It is only because his other best friend, Hermione, stands by him, that he gets through the next difficult weeks.

Compassion, love, kindness and loyalty... that is what friendship means to me.

Love's Gift

This week's quotation, by Rabindranath Tagore, puzzled me somewhat. "Love's gift cannot be given. It waits to be accepted."

Unless we see 'Love' as God.... who cannot storm our hearts by force, but knocks politely, waiting patiently for us to let Him/Her in.

As Paul famously wrote in his first Letter to the Corinthians, "Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way/ it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."

I believe that the best kind of human love shares these attributes. If we truly love someone, we accept them just the way they are. If the person we love behaves badly, we hold on to our love with everything we've got, and hope that our love will eventually be accepted.

And unless we can open our hearts to God, we will never truly experience His/Her Love.

I am not a mystic, but once, I had a vision of the truth, which I can only believe came from God. A few years ago, I bought myself a Celtic-style silver cross. For many years, I had repudiated the symbol of the Christian cross, associating it with death and failure. But my attendance on the Encounter course at the London Centre for Spiritual Direction was opening my heart in ways I had not foreseen.

And one morning, I was applying some moisturiser to my face, using a magnifying mirror for the purpose, when the mirror slipped, canting to a different angle. And I noticed the cross around my neck and realised that instead of a circle at the centre, it had a heart.

This hit me with the force of a revelation. I saw that God was Love at the centre of everything. A belief which has changed my life. For the first time, I was able to accept God's love for me, and to realise that my job in the world was to love others in that same wholehearted way.

Both / And, not Either / Or

There is a very neat meme doing the rounds on Facebook at the moment, which sums up the two Spirits of Christmas for me. It is a Christmas Bucket List, with six items, partly crossed out, and substituted with other words, so I'll have to paraphrase for it to make sense:

1. Instead of buying presents, be present.
2. Instead of wrap gifts, wrap someone in a hug.
3. Instead of send gifts, send love.
4. Instead of shop for food, donate food.
5. Instead of make cookies, make memories.
6. Instead of see the light, be the Light.

And yes, I get it, but in my opinion, it should be both/and, rather than either/or. I have bought presents for the people I love, but welcome the reminder to be present in the moment, day by day, instead of getting lost in the busyness. I will be wrapping the gifts I have bought this weekend, but will also be wrapping a lot of people in hugs, during the next few weeks (and being wrapped in hugs also, I hope!)

I will be sending gifts, but also sending love to all those people who make my life so blessed. Including you. I will be shopping for food, and have already paid a visit to the Northampton Food Bank with a donation. This Christmas, sadly, I won't be making or eating cookies, or mince pies or many other sweet Christmas treats, because most of them contain gluten, but I will surely be making memories, particularly on Boxing Day, when the whole extended Ellis family gets together at my parents, for what my mother insists on calling Christmas Day Two. And a very kind friend, who is also gluten-intolerant, has made me a beautiful little GF Christmas cake - so very lovely of her. Finally, as well as seeing (and enjoying) all the beautiful, colourful Christmas lights, I will be striving to be the Light for those I love.

It was a good reminder about the things which really matter at Christmas - not the tangible things that one can buy, and consume, but the gifts of love and awareness, which cannot be bought and always renew themselves. The things we can look back on with fondness, when the food has been eaten, the presents have been opened, the paper recycled, and the decorations taken down.

I also want to acknowledge what I think should be the true spirit of Christmas, "the spirit of good will and peace ... [the] spirit that bids us renew our hopes amid the gathering darkness, that kindles our generosity and our concerns, that attunes our ears to the ever-renewed angelic chorus" as Max Gaeble puts it. Because that is here too, in our minds, and in our hearts.

Wishing you a peaceful, blessed, and mindful Christmas.

Discovering the Source

In the last couple of days, two memes by very different writers have been posted on Facebook. The first was by Richard Rohr, one of my favourite religious authors, who is a Franciscan monk, and Director of the Center for Action and Contemplation:

"Love is the source and goal; faith is the slow process of getting there; hope is the willingness to move forward without resolution."

(image: Center for Action & Contemplation, shared by Contemplative Monk)

The other was by Geneen Roth, whose books about women's relationships with their bodies have had a huge impact on me, particularly Women, Food and God, which taught me to love my body, rather than hating her. She wrote: 

"You already have everything you need to be content. Your real work is to do whatever it takes to realize that."

(image: Geneen Roth)

It strikes me that they are both talking about the same thing. For me, the recognition that God is Love, and that my whole life should be about growing into a more loving relationship with Him/Her - both source and goal, is a life-changing revelation. 

Having faith is the realization that God *already* loves me, just the way I am - I already have "everything you need to be content". My "real work" will be to be aware of this every day, so that I can grow closer to God, and grow into the sort of person who walks lovingly through life, cherishing that of God in everyone, and in the the natural world..

It will take a lifetime, but now I know where I'm going.

Holding It All Together

The last few weeks have been emotional for me, for both happy and sad reasons. There has been the joy of attending Summer School, which never fails to refresh my spirits and feed my soul, and  a peaceful week away in my beloved Peak District with my husband.

I have also been happy to know that my children-no-longer-children are embarking on new phases of their lives - my daughter is moving into a flat with her boyfriend as she starts her final year at University in Sheffield, and my son is spending an Erasmus year studying at the Charles University in Prague. I could not be prouder of them or happier for them. They have grown up into unique, strong, independent young people, and that is good.

But I am also suffering from empty nest syndrome - most of the time, I'm fine, but just occasionally, I miss one or the other or both of them like fury, and this boils over into tears. Daft, I know, but I cannot help it. And I am mourning the loss of my cousin, who died in June, and of a dear friend, who died at the beginning of the month. Both were in their fifties, both taken too young. Both much missed.

On Saturday, I spent the morning at a training day about leading a good funeral service - part of the Rites of Passage course I'm currently running in the District. It was wonderfully led by my friend and colleague, Ant Howe, and included a short memorial service, during which we could remember our own lost loved ones, while he held the space for us.

I went straight from there down the M40 to attend the joyous handfasting of a dear friend and her lovely OH. The main ceremony was conducted outside, according to the Wiccan tradition, and was followed by morris dancing and a delicious shared meal. It was a truly blessed occasion.

What I am in awe of is the capacity of human beings to hold all these emotions together at one time, and not actually burst! Over the last few weeks, my mood has swung between joy and sorrow, contentment and grief, often in the course of one day. It is so lovely (even if it is sometimes hard) to feel what I am feeling, and not to have numbed it with alcohol. I celebrated my second soberversary at the beginning of the month, which is a source of lasting contentment.

And so I am grateful, even for the hard bits, because I know I would not feel the pain of loss so keenly, if I did not love greatly.

Such A Perfect Day

This morning, a friend of mine posted about the elements of her personal perfect day: "Being around like minded people where we just get each other; being inspired; walking in nature; yummy food (normally not my own); seeing my son happy; feeling that I may be making a small difference in the world."

Naturally, this made me reflect about what my perfect day might include ... I found myself very much in agreement with her. All the elements that would make up my perfect day seems to be linked together, which is why the symbol of the Celtic triquetra speaks to me so powerfully.

I too love to be around like-minded people, and feeling in tune with them, but also enjoy being in open and deep conversation with folk who have different views to mine. Which includes Unitarians (of course), and other people of all faiths and none.

I find many things inspiring - words, images, people. I count myself very blessed to be living in the early 21st century, when social media such as Facebook can bring such words and images into my home. Not to mention books, my beloved books ... it would not be a perfect day if I did not spend at least some of it curled up with a good book.

Being creative also makes me happy - whether it is writing, or colouring, or stitching. So creating something new and original would also have a part in my perfect day.

Walking in nature is always an important element of any day, and my perfect day would not be complete without it. I am so very lucky to live in a small village on the edge of Salcey Forest, so walking in nature is a simple matter of walking out of my own front door, and turning right. Last week we were in Wales on holiday and had the added joys of the sea and the mountains. Bliss.

Yummy food, especially when shared with those I love, is a special good in my life. As I write, it is the morning of Father's Day, and my daughter and my husband are sitting in the kitchen, preparing and talking about food. And like my friend, I am much happier (and more appreciative) when somebody else has prepared and cooked it!

Seeing the people I love happy is a key component of my own happiness. I cannot be truly happy if somebody I care about is miserable, for any reason. I just can't. I am finding that as I get older, my circle of compassion is widening, which makes me increasingly restless about other people's unhappiness.

Which is why feeling that I may be making a small difference in the world also has a role to play in my mythical perfect day. There is so much to do, and each one of us is so small and insignificant, but "Still I Am One".

Finally, at the end of the day, giving thanks for all these things, and for life in all its marvellous, messy, chaotic, imperfection, just being grateful for my life, joys and sorrows together, would make a perfect close.

What would your perfect day look like?

 

Attending To What We Love

This morning I came across a passage in the book I am reading, How, then, shall we live? by Wayne Muller, which has really made me pause and think about how I spend my days. It reads:

Mobile Lovers by Banksy (image from jonnybaker.blogs.com)

"Attention is a tangible measure of love. Whatever receives our time and attention becomes the center of gravity, the focus of our life. This is what we do with what we love: we allow it to become our center. ... We become what we love. Whatever you are giving your time and attention to, day after day, this is the kind of person you will eventually become. Is this what you want?"

And I have realised that although by and large I am content with the way in which I spend my days (I am doing a job which I am passionate about, and I think I've got my work/life balance about right), there are two areas which I am not happy with, which are actually (natch!) related: the amount of quality time I spend with my husband, and the amount of time I spend on my iPad, interacting with Facebook friends.

It has been a bit of a wake-up call. Facebook is a subtle addiction, but an addiction nonetheless. I don't want to end up like one of Banksy's mobile lovers, ostensibly embracing my beloved while actually texting somebody else. So it stops. Here. Now. In the evenings at least, when I am in my husband's (or any other) company, Facebook is irrelevant.

Don't Forget To Love Yourself

Recently, I have been re-reading books that have meant something to me, on my spiritual / religious journey. And one of these is Mister God, This Is Anna, which I first read over 30 years ago. It is another slim book - only 190 pages - beautifully illustrated by Papas, which adds to its enchantment. Set in the East End of London in the 1930s, it tells the story of a remarkable child called Anna, who sees the world differently, and who has an intimate and wonderful relationship with Mister God. It is told from the viewpoint of Fynn, who finds the five-year-old Anna homeless on the streets, and brings her home to join the family. For the three and a half years before her premature death, she revolutionises his thinking about God and human beings in relation to God, and about the world we live in.

One of my favourite passages records a conversation with the local vicar, who must have found her hard to cope with:

"'Do you believe in God?' 'Yes.'
'Do you know what God is?' 'Yes.'
'What is God then?' 'He's God!'
'Do you go to church?' 'No.'
'Why not?' 'Because I know it all!'
'What do you know?' 'I know to love Mister God and to love people and cats and dogs and spiders and flowers and trees' and the catalogue went on, 'with all of me.'

There's nothing much you can do in the face of that kind of accusation, for that's what it amounted to. Anna had bypassed all the non-essentials and distilled centuries of learning into one sentence - 'And God said love me, love them, and love it, and don't forget to love yourself.'"

This week the shops are full of red and pink - Valentine's cards, Valentine's chocolates, Valentine's drink, Valentine's perfume, Valentine's cuddly toys. It is the one time of the year when love, particularly romantic love, is almost deified, and the many people who are not in a romantic relationship, or who have just lost somebody near and dear to them, are made to feel lacking, and sad, and out of it. Like Christmas, there is only one media message, and if your particular circumstances don't fit, it can be a very painful time.

So this week, I'm going to try to take on board the last bit of Anna's advice "Don't forget to love yourself." We are all human, we are all children of God, we are all worthy of love. And we all need to learn to love and accept our whole selves, not just the bits we allow other people to see.

"I know what love is"

Yesterday, I watched Forrest Gump for the very first time with my kids, and was blown away by it. I was utterly captivated from first to last. Tom Hanks is superb, and never steps out of character for an instant. The reviewer in The Radio Times calls him "the semi-literate Everyman who drifts through recent American history", which sort of describes him, but it misses his beautiful simplicity.

What sticks with me is his oft-quoted: "Mamma said: 'Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.'"

And he never does know. He is the ultimate example of somebody who goes with the flow, so long as it doesn't interfere with his loyalties and principles, which are fierce and fundamental. He never quite realises the incidental impact his actions have on others.

Among other things, and purely by accident, he teaches the young Elvis Presley to dance, participates in civil rights history at the University of Alabama, gives John Lennon the lyrics to Imagine, and helps to trigger the scandal that was Watergate.

His impact on those he loves is much greater, but again, how much of it is deliberate, and how much is just a by-product of his character, is open to question. He only ever wants to be happy with the people he loves and respects, and who have been kind to him. And the results are extraordinary.

In a way, I quite envy him. As he says, "I'm not a smart man - but I know what love is." There are worse ways of going through life.

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Love Made Visible

One of my favourite quotes from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran concerns work. He wrote:

"And what is it to work with love?
It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.
It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit. ...
Work is love made visible."

In our complex 21st century society, we tend to buy most of our possessions from shops, which have in turn been supplied by factories, which mass-produce thousands of x and millions of y. So it is always a treat to buy something that has been made by a pair of human hands, with care and affection. This week I bought a simple wooden bowl, which had been hand-turned by a local artist. And it is beautiful. And more precious, because it was made with that care and affection.

I have also just finished crocheting an afghan blanket for my daughter, and was reminded of the quote from The Lord Of The Rings, when the Lothlorien Elves say to Pippin (about the elven cloaks): "We put the thought of all that we love into all that we make." I have certainly crocheted it with love, thinking about my daughter a lot as I made it.

But the same attitude can be brought to any task undertaken by humankind. It can be done carelessly, hastily, in a slipshod fashion, with no care for the outcome. Or it can be done with love and attention, for the sake of the work itself, and for the pride of creation and the joy of creativity. And that is good.

In the Spirit of Love

Brian Cavanaugh's Ten Commandments for Human Relations really sum up what it means to live your life in the spirit of love; whether the people concerned are your family, your friends, your church / chapel community, your work colleagues, or just people you meet in the street or the shop:

1. Speak to people. There is nothing as nice as a cheerful word of greeting.
2. Smile at people. It takes 72 muscles to frown, only four to smile.
3. Call people by name. The sweetest music to anyone's ear is the sound of their own name.
4. Be friendly and helpful. If you would have friends, be friendly.
5. Be genuinely interested in people. You can like almost everybody if you try. 
6. Be generous with praise, cautious with criticism.
7. Be considerate with feelings of others. There are usually three sides to a controversy: yours, the other person's, and the right one.
8. Be alert to give service. What counts most in life is what we do for others.
9. Learn to trust people, for trust builds lasting relationships.
10. Add to this a good sense of humour, a big dose of patience, and a dash of humility, and you will be rewarded many fold.

My favourite is number 5: “Be genuinely interested in people – you can like almost everybody if you try.” And yet it is probably one of the hardest things to do. We are all individuals, with different personalities and quirks, and will naturally be drawn to those people with whom we have something in common, or with whom we can empathise. Liking almost everybody is quite a tall order. I suppose it’s another way of saying that we should recognise that of God in everyone.

The other hard thing about living your life in a spirit of love, is that it has to be unconditional. You can never say “I’ll love you if …”  Instead, you have to say “I love you in spite of …” Joyce Grenfell coined the phrase “loving in spite of human imperfection”, and I think that that is the best kind. But it’s not easy. 

The parable of the prodigal son is a salutary one here. We all know the story; the youngest son demands his half of his inheritance, goes off and squanders it on wine, women and song, and is reduced to herding pigs, who are better fed than his father’s servants. He realises the error of his ways, and goes back home, with the idea of asking his father if he could be a servant in the house. But when he gets there, his father is overjoyed; he dresses him in a fine robe, puts a ring on his finger, and kills the fatted calf in rejoicing. As it says in the Gospel of Luke: “While he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.” That is loving in spite of human imperfection. That is living your life in the spirit of love.

Happy Valentine's Day!