When will there be peace?

Ten years ago today, the largest ever anti-war rally in history took place, as millions of people in sixty countries expressed their opposition to the imminent war with Iraq. In spite of this, the war began on 20th March.

It is now well over fifty years since World War II, but since then, not a single day has passed in which there was not a war going on somewhere in the world - whether it was called a civil war or a "police action".

War is an expensive business, in every sense of the word. If all the money currently spent on defence were to be channelled into education, health and welfare; into feeding the hungry and housing the homeless, what a different world this would be.

If we reject the concept of war altogether, the alternative is pacifism. In the 1930s, an Anglican minister named Canon Dick Sheppard founded the Peace Pledge Union. Tens of thousands of people joined it, pledging never again to wage war. In her autobiography Testament of Experience,  Vera Brittain reports a discussion with her husband, George Catlin, on the issue of pacifism:

Vera Brittain

 Catlin wrote: "I will not stop to inquire whether pacifism as an absolute principle is sound. In measurable time you will not convert to it the majority of this great nation. and therefore (whatever one's private view) it will not, as a public fact, avert war."

Brittain argues that "the same argument applied to all forms of revolutionary teaching, costly and often dangerous to its interpreters, which visualised life in terms of a society still to come. The fallibe Apostles could never have hoped to convert the great Roman Empire to Christ's doctrines "in measurable time". But surely few would now say that the early Christian Church should have abandoned its task as too difficult, even though neither the lands once ruled by Rome nor the rest of humanity were converted even yet?"

She went on to join the Peace Pledge Union, and bore witness for peace for the rest of her life, often at considerable personal cost.

And yet, and yet. I have blogged before about my feelings about pacifism: "To fight or to take a pacifist line is one of the deepest and starkest choices of personal conscience. Is pacifism a cause worth fighting for? What a paradox. I speak as one who has a fairly volatile temperament at times, and one who is not a naturally pacific person. I admire Vera Brittain enormously, and the Quakers too. I am also deeply impressed by the realisation that we are all human beings, given life by God. What right have others to take that life away? What cause can possibly justify it? Not many, I think."

Maybe all that anyone can do is their best, where they are, to promote peace through following the Golden Rule in our lives, and trying to behave towards those we connect with, with loving-kindness, or compassion.

 

 

The Joys of Spring

It is a cold, crisp, clear morning, and the sun is shining in a pale blue sky. I have just been for a walk down to our village post office to post a parcel. All around me were signs of new life and renewal - leaf buds in the hedges, a couple of dogs in the pocket park racing around madly just for the joy of it, and smiles on the faces of the people I met. The air was alive with birdsong.

On days like these, I rejoice to be living in this world, and feel such gratitude and wonder for the beauty of it all. A meditative prayer by the Unitarian Universalist minister Terasa Cooley sums up how I feel beautifully:

"In this time of anticipated Spring, let us allow ourselves to extend the anticipation - to value the time of budding before blooming, of seeding before sprouting.

This is a time of revelation: the revealing of that which is eternal, which we see every year, but still need to be reminded to see it in a new way.

There is also the revelation of that which is new. Every Spring we encounter something never before seen. It is that very newness which embodies hope and potential for the wholeness which is yet to be.

Let us allow Spring to unfold slowly that we may appreciate the true mystery of rebirth and renewal.
Amen"

 

 

 

Final Warning

A member of my congregation was handed a little note in the street. It read:

Beware!

This may be your

FINAL WARNING

 

Your final destination is of imperative

importance - it's either

HEAVEN OR HELL

There's no "in between"

You are either saved or lost for eternity.

If Jesus Christ is your Saviour and Lord then

Heaven is your home forever.

If you reject him on day (sic.)

HE WILL REJECT YOU

 

 

This was followed by a series of quotes from the Gospel of John. There were no contact details, no indication of where to go for help, nothing.

 

I am bemused. What is the point of handing out messages like this on the street? Do some Christians really believe that people have to be terrified into converting? What happened to brotherly / sisterly love? What happened to compassion?

 

 

 

I cannot help thinking of Karen Armstrong's reflection in her autobiography The Spiral Staircase:

She writes: "The one and only test of a valid religious idea, doctrinal statement, spiritual experience, or devotional practice was that it must lead directly to practical compassion. If your understanding of the divine made you kinder, more empathetic, and impelled you to express this sympathy in concrete acts of loving-kindness, this was good theology. But if your notion of God made you unkind, belligerent, cruel, or self-righteous, or if it led you to kill in God's name, it was bad theology."

 

Yes, yes, and yes. It is what we do in this life that matters, not what we believe.





I Know Not How To Say Farewell

I found this sad little song in Stephen Donaldson's book White Gold Wielder. It speaks of grief and loss, and how hard it is to let go:

My heart has rooms that sigh with dust

And ashes in the hearth.

They must be cleaned and blown away

By daylight's breath.

But I cannot essay the task,

For even dust to me is dear;

For dust and ashes still recall,

My love was here.

 

I know not how to say Farewell,

When Farewell is the word

That stays alone for me to say

Or will be heard.

But I cannot speak out that word

Or ever let my loved one go:
How can I bear it that these rooms

Are empty so?

 

I sit among the dust and hope

That dust will cover me.

I stir the ashes in the hearth,

Though cold they be.

I cannot bear to close the door,

To seal my loneliness away

While dust and ashes yet remain

Of my love's day.

 

May all who are grieving find peace, and the strength to move on, and embrace life once more.



"That of God in everyone"

I love Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's words: "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience." With the Quakers, I believe that there is "that of God in everyone"; a divine spark reaching out to the rest of the universe and to God. Some Unitarians believe in the Holy Spirit as "the active divine presence in individuals and communities, as the divine breath that gives us life, as ... the divine mystery moving among us and within us as we work and worship." (Cliff Reed)

The belief in God as the Spirit working through human beings is one which many Unitarians, including myself, are increasingly warming to. While we may have rejected the concept of an omnipotent, omniscient God, many of us still believe that God definitely exists, as that "active divine presence" that Hall refers to. As Mother Teresa wrote: "Spread love everywhere you go: first of all in your own home. Give love to your children, to your wife or husband, to a next door neighbout ... Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting."

 

 

"Comparisons are odorous"

Thus said Dogberry in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. It is something I need to remember more often than I do.

Today I went for a run, and was feeling really pleased - I did a shade under three miles in 31 minutes. I was just walking back up the hill to cool down, when I met my neighbour, Alan. Now Alan is a super-athlete - tall, slim, rangy, and has run sub-3 hour marathons and a couple of Ironmans for good measure. We got into conversation and he mentioned that he was in training for a 900-mile bike ride in July (London to Edinburgh and back), which would take a maximum of five days.

Oh.

I told him he was crazy, and wished him well. Then, as I plodded back up the hill, the thought crossed my mind: "Well, that put me in my place."

Then I thought: "Woah! Wait just a minute! You are Sue Woolley and have just run three miles in 31 minutes. That is something to celebrate. Comparing yourself to Alan is stupid and pointless. he is him, and you are you, and so you need to celebrate your own achievements and feel good about them."

Comparisons are odorous indeed.

To Find Happiness in Small Things

And so another year begins. Another year of resolutions and plans. In previous years, I have set the bar quite high, and inevitably fallen short. So this year, I have only one resolution - to find happiness in small things, and to be aware of God at work in my life.

This has partly been provoked by re-reading, over the Christmas period, Gretchen Rubin's book The Happiness Project, which I blogged about back in March. Her overall message seems to be that it is possible to find happiness where you are, and that doing so is largely dependent on increasing things that make you feel good, decreasing things that make you feel bad, doing things that make you feel right, all in an atmosphere of growth.

I think that the Quakers are getting at the same approach, when they advise:

"Be aware of the spirit of God at work in the ordinary activities and experience of your daily life. Spiritual learning continues throughout life, and often in unexpected ways. There is inspiration to be found all around us, in the natural world, in the sciences and arts, in our work and friendships, in our sorrows as well as in our joys. Are you open to new light, from whatever source it may come? Do you approach new ideas with discernment?"