Aim for the Moon

 The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche has some good advice for us: "Aim for the moon. Even if you miss it, you'll end up among the stars."

Aiming for the moon requires a certain combination of qualities: an innate optimism, a large dollop of self-belief, and the courage to try and fail, then try again. If any of those elements is missing, it will be more difficult for us to aim high. 

If we do not have at least a little innate optimism, we'll tend to concentrate on what might go wrong instead of on what might go right. And will shrink from taking risks, just in case... When we ask the "what if?" question, our brain will supply us with negative possibilities, rather than encouragement. 

If we don't believe in ourselves and our abilities, we will find it harder to aim high, because imposter syndrome will raise its ugly head, "Who do you think you are to aim high? Other people are much better at [whatever it is] than you. You don't deserve to be here, doing this." 

If we are frightened of failure, we might rather not do anything, than try and risk not succeeding. Failure doesn't feel good and it takes a special kind of courage to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down and stubbornly try again. I've blogged about this here.

I believe it is fatal to listen to the pessimistic, self-doubting, mouse-scared voices in our heads - they will hold us back from growing into our best selves, from aiming for the moon. And I can testify to the joys of being an innate optimist, with some self-belief and courage. I have always "gone for it" and the rewards have been enormous. My life has been much happier for it.

Considering End of Life Choices

 I have just returned from a rich retreat with some Unitarian friends, during which we played a fascinating card game called 'The Conversation Game'. The cards are available from Conversations for Life.

Each participant was given 36 cards, each of which has a particular statement about possible end of life / dying choices written on it, and we were invited to divide them into three piles without thinking about it too much, according to the following criteria:

    Pile 1: things that we really want to be in place

    Pile 2: things that are less important to us, but we'd probably still quite like, depending on the circumstances

    Pile 3: things that we are not bothered about or which we actively do *not* want to happen.

Then, following that initial sort through, we were invited to take a more leisurely browse through the three piles, before finalising them into three equal piles of 12 cards (for today, for now, because each of us were aware that our choices might change when we were actually at the point of dying). 

Then we were invited to share however many of our choices we wished to, taking Pile 3 first, then Pile 1, and finally Pile 2, giving our reasons for placing each statement in that pile. And it was fascinating to hear each other's choices and to notice the differences between us, and how much what the other participants said caused each of us to think at different points, "Oh, yeah, right, I need to move that one into X pile." in the light of the received wisdom of the group.

I've ordered my own set of cards, because I believe they'd be really useful to share with Unitarian congregations or engagement groups... 

Reconnecting with the Quiet Centre

 I've been away from home quite a bit for the last couple of weeks - I went to stay with a dear friend for a few days, came back home for 48 hours, then drove up to the Nightingale Centre in Great Hucklow to attend the Ministerial Fellowship's Autumn Conference. Which was marvellous.

The Nightingale Centre 

Nevertheless, in spite of the joys I found in visiting my friend and attending the conference, it was good to reach home again yesterday afternoon and, after catching up with my e-mails and recording this week's worship service, to spend a quiet evening with my husband and the cat, before having a soaky bath and an early night.

This morning, I felt the need to reconnect with the quiet centre and was glad to be able to spend some time in front of my personal shrine and simply sit. I found a beautiful greetings card which reminded me of the importance of this while I was at Hucklow... by Gwyneth Roper of Altrincham. It is beautiful and I will be adding it to my shrine...

Because I find that when I have been away, or even too busy at home, I tend to forget how deeply I need to reconnect with that quiet place inside myself, with the Divine presence within. I love the words of hymn number 21 in our hymnbook Sing Your Faith, written by Shirley Erena Murray, which reminds us all of the need for cultivating some peace in our lives:

"Come and find the quiet centre

in the crowded life we lead,

find the room for hope to enter,

find the space where we are freed:

clear the chaos and the clutter,

clear our eyes, that we can see

all the things that really matter,

be at peace and simply be."

Where do you find peace?

 

Why Worrying Doesn't Help

I am not generally a worrier, having been blessed by having been born without the "worry gene", which I've blogged about before. Nevertheless, it does get to me sometimes... I am due to have an operation on my left foot in early December to correct some deformity in my toes, which has been caused by arthritis. And I catch myself worrying about it every day. What if it goes wrong? What if the anaesthetic wears off befoe they've finished (to my horror, it's being done under a local anaesthetic rather than a general one. And yes, I understand that it will be better for me not to be knocked out, but urgh...) What if it doesn't make a good difference? What if I'm left off worse than before? What if I can't do things I can do now - like hill climbing etc? In short, a whole platoon of "what ifs" is haunting my mind, making me fretful. And I don't like it, not one little bit.

So it was good to read the wise advice of the Greek Stoic philosopher, Epictetus: "There is only one way to happiness, and that is to stop worrying about things that are beyond our control." [And I've just had a small moment of joy when I looked him up on Wikipedia: he was born in Hierapolis, Phrygia, which is now known at Pamukkale in Western Turkey. There is a World Heritage site there, an area of glorious travertine terraces which also features hot springs) and my husband and I visited them in 2013. They were astonishingly beautiful see below].

(image: Wikimedia Commons)

So, thanks to the nudge from Epictetus, I am going to try to stop worrying. It is making me miserable and will make no difference whatsoever to the outcome of the operation. 

In fact, there are very few outside events that are within our control as human beings. I believe that the only thing we are able to control is our reaction to our worries... we can allow them to take us over, removing all the joy from our lives, or we can choose to tell ourselves, "Nope, can't do anything about that. But I can let it go. I can choose to not let it get to me. I can choose to bring myself back to the present moment, the present pain, the present pleasure, and not lose myself in dark imaginings."

I appreciate that this is difficult advice for us to take, and may well be impossible for those who suffer from real anxiety, who may find it both irritating and laughable. If this is you, my reader, I apologise.

But I don't. So I'm going to try...

The Benefits of Seeing Life As It Is

 Sir Adolphus William Ward, an eminent historian and man of letters, once wrote, "The pessimist complains about the wind, the optimist hopes that it will turn, the realist hoists the sails."

Which is a clever aphorism to illustrate the differences between pessimists, optimists and realists. As regular readers of this blog will know, I am a born optimist, and proud of it. Yet Ward's words have made me wonder whether I am sometimes ridiculously naive - whether all optimists are.

Because all the hope in the world will not help any particular situation. Change for the better will only happen when our hope is translated into a firm plan to do something about whatever is bothering us. So the fierce practicality of the realist is perhaps something I should cultivate more. I can see that there is little point in being optimistic about the future, unless we are prepared to buckle down and do our bit to make it so. All the optimism in the world won't change that world. Only concrete actions can do that.

Yet I also believe that realists (who can often be quite pessimistic in their outlook, because they see things as they are, and there is so much to grieve about in the world today) might also take a leaf out of the optimists' book. The leaf of hope, the belief that something can be done. The belief that the world can change if we work at it hard enough.

A combination of optimism (so that we believe in the possibility of a better future) and realism (so that we are prepared channel that hope into action) is perhaps the best course to adopt. 

Off the Beaten Track

The German novelist and poet, Theodor Fontane, advises us, "But all the best, as everywhere in life, lies beyond the main road."

There are several different ways of interpreting this... Perhaps he means that it's important to remain curious during our lives, so that we poke our heads down proverbial rabbit holes, simply to see what's there. Even if that means sometimes wasting time, as the road leads to nowhere in particular.

Yet, I do wonder whether it is even possible to "waste time" when we are following our curiosity. Over the years I have had huge amounts of fun doing just that. And sometimes, being curious has led me to marvellous new experiences I would not have had otherwise... One example was in September 2014, when I was sent an e-mail by the London Centre for Spiritual Direction, asking me for a reference for a new student, who was a fellow Unitarian. I was inquisitive enough to click on the link about the course, which led to a deep and wonderful three years training to become a spiritual director. 

Curiosity about new ideas, thoughts and experiences is a very Unitarian thing, or so I have found. Many of us came to Unitarianism because we heard or read something about it, and decided to find out more. And, once we are in, there are many opportunities for "going off-piste", so to speak, by following our curiosity wherever it leads on our spiritual journey. Which is not uniquely Unitarian, of course, but we see it as a virtue, rather than a hindrance. We tend to enjoy exploring little known byways.

In Matthew's Gospel, we read, "Enter through the narrow gate; for the road is wide and easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it." Which may, perhaps, have been interpreted to mean that the Christian has to follow the authorised path of faith laid down in the Bible, rather than being distracted by the world around them. The problem with that, for me, is that the Bible contains so much contradictory advice. I would rather use my own reason and conscience was my authority. They haven't led me "to destruction" so far, and I don't believe they ever will (or even could).

Or perhaps he is warning us not to become so fixated on our immediate goals that we are blind to all else that is moving in our lives. This is something I have had to learn the hard way. When I am focused on a task, my attention on it is laser-sharp. It often takes a nudge from a friend (or from my guardian angel) to lift my head up and look around me, to see what is going on "beyond the main road." Which may be just as important.

So yes, let us follow our noses and see where our curiosity may lead us...

Running After Happiness

 According to Wikipedia, Adolph Kolping, who lived during the first half of the 19th century, "was a German Catholic priest and the founder of the Kolping Association. He led the movement for providing and promoting social support for workers in industrialised cities while also working to promote the dignities of workers in accordance with the social magisterium of the faith."

He once wrote, "Some people run after happiness and don't know they have it at home." I agree with him, up to a point. It can be very tempting sometimes, or even often, to get trapped in an endless cycle of "if onlys". "If only I had / was / could..." We get seduced into thinking that if only X, Y, or Z would change, our lives would be complete, and finally, finally, we could be happy.

And yes, I agree, that when our lives at any particular moment seem (or are) filled with problems and challenges, it is far more difficult to appreciate the actual minute by minute slices of happiness that may come our way. And for me, there is one outstanding example of this in action:

There is an old story, which was for long years considered to be apocryphal, about how a small group of rabbis in Auschwitz put God on trial, and found him guilty. In 2008, the Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel told an audience at a Holocaust Educational Trust appeal dinner in London, "I was there when God was put on trial." Which caused quite a stir among Jewish rabbis and academics.

It was reported in The Jewish Chronicle, who interviewed  Wiesel the following week. He said, "Why should they know what happened? I was the only one there. It happened at night; there were just three people. At the end of the tiral, they used the word 'chayav', rather than 'guilty'. It means, 'He owes us something. Then we went to pray."

At the end of its report, The Jewish Chronicle concluded, "The story is the subject of a famous midrash, or biblical commentary. Many people have assumed that the story was a way for those of faith to try to make sense of the Holocaust."

It is the final line of Elie Wiesel's testimony that touches my heart. "Then we went to pray." In spite of the horrific conditions in Auschwitz, in spite of the fact that they had just found God 'chayav' of neglecting them, "we went to pray."

Their faith was too important to them to dismiss it. So they grasped the moment of happiness they could find in that moment, which is what the Kolping quote is about, and went to pray.

I believe that even in the hardest situations, there is always a sliver of happiness to be found, if we are awake enough and aware enough to see it. And that running after future happiness simply doesn't work - all it does is to make us ignore what is happening in the present moment. Which I believe is the only instant when time touches eternity, when the Divine makes itself known to us.