Participation in the Life of God

This week, in his daily e-mails from the Center for Action and Contemplation, Fr. Richard Rohr is writing about hope. And on Wednesday, these words jumped out at me: "Hope is a participation in the very life of God. It has nothing to do with circumstances or events going well. It can even thrive in the midst of adversity and trial. True faith, which always includes hope and love, is a predisposition to "yes". I would go so far as to say that a foundational "yes" is the most distinguishing element between an ego- and fear-based agenda, and a Spirit-guided one."

It is commonly during the second half of life that we begin to yearn for something other than earthly goals – a sense of longing can possess our souls, turning us towards the spiritual, towards the divine. This second half of life pilgrimage does not have an end point – we travel on, deeper into the heart of God, letting go of the things which seemed so important in our earlier years – status, belongings, and so on.

I have learned that this second half of life journey towards authenticity and wholeness is about the attempt to become whole, about being the same "me" wherever I am, and whoever I am with, rather than cutting my cloth according to the circumstances. It is also about doing a lot of shadow work, about digging deep to discover the real me, the open and vulnerable person behind the façade I had spent so many years carefully cultivating. Then working out how to integrate that authentic self into the real world out there. It is a tough call, not for the faint-hearted. But so worthwhile.

Part of the journey has been about reclaiming a childlike trust in life. For me, being childlike means being open and vulnerable, trusting and curious, rather than closed down, armoured up, mistrustful and cynical. It is a courageous way to live because it means that we are more vulnerable to being hurt by others. And when we have been hurt in the past, it may be difficult for us to trust others again, to trust that the universe is not (all appearances to the contrary, sometimes) “out to get us.” I found that I wanted to trust that the universe is (on the whole) a benevolent place in which to live. Believing this may be naïve, but it has made me much happier.

I have come to understand that faith and trust are facets of our deepest nature. But as life goes on, and we encounter betrayal in our lives – as we surely will – that faith and trust can be eroded. It can take a lifetime to choose to be sufficiently vulnerable to dare to trust again. These betrayals, which sadly seem to be an inevitable part of life, need not be great ones which bring our whole world crashing down around us.  Any time someone lies to us, even a white lie, or doesn't turn up when they said they would, or is unkind to us, we can feel betrayed. Once we feel that way, it can take a lot of time to build up sufficient faith to make the world seem trustable again. It can even shake our faith in the essential goodness of humankind.

Yet I now realise that if I am to live authentically, with faith, I need to take the bold step of trusting. Otherwise, my soul will shrivel in my body and I will turn into a suspicious, armoured-up person who trusts no-one. I would not be “me” any more.

Part of learning to trust has been often choosing to leap before I look, rather than being sensible and sober and looking before I leap. I have always tended to be impulsive about seizing new opportunities to grow as a person. I’ll see an advert for a new online course (for example) and sign up for it just because it looks interesting. I have always tried to jump in the direction of new opportunities, choosing to say “Yes” to life, rather than “No, I can’t, I’m scared, what if I fail?” (Hence the bungee jump in New Zealand!) I would far rather try something new, something different and not succeed, than rest on my (very few) laurels and not LIVE.

The Word and the Language

Last night, my husband and I watched a fascinating episode of the BBC programme Hidden Treasures of the National Trust. It featured the austere Welsh farmhouse, Tŷ Mawr, where William Morgan, translator of the first Bible into Welsh, lived and worked. We visited it a few years ago, and were captivated by its collection of Bibles in the vernacular. Including, of course, William Morgan's Welsh Bible, which was published in 1588.

Title page of Welsh Bible 1588

(image Wikimedia Commons)

One of the things repeatedly mentioned during the programme was the huge impact the publication of the Bible had on the Welsh language. In a very real sense, it shaped Welsh as we now know it, and preserved it as a living language. As did the King James Bible for English, when that was published in 1611.

Tŷ Mawr now holds a collection of Bibles in many languages, donated by visitors - I think they said over 300. The more obscure of which would undoubtedly have become "dead" languages, with no living speakers, had it not been for the existence of a Bible in their tongue.

I find the link between the Word and the language so interesting. In the case of English, of course, a certain Stratford playwright also had a huge influence on the shape of the language. But between Shakespeare and the Bible, English as we know it was formed, in the late16th / early 17th century. The centuries since then have merely added elaborations. I think it is noteworthy that on the long-running Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs, each 'castaway' is automatically given the complete works of Shakespeare and the Bible (although these days, it might be another religious or philosophical work of choice) and then allowed to choose a third book. The point being, Roy Plomley, the originator of the programme, saw Shakespeare and the Bible as fundamentals.

Today, we are a proudly multicultural country, speaking a plethora of languages. But I think we should always be grateful for the influences that the language of the Bible has had on them, enriching and preserving them.

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?"

image PxHere

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.

Blessings

The Irish mystic, John O’Donohue, calls a blessing, “a circle of light drawn around a person to protect, heal and strengthen.” He suggests that a blessing “is different from a greeting, a hug, a salute or an affirmation; it opens a different door in human encounter. One enters into the forecourt of the soul, the source of intimacy and the compass of destiny.” And that blessing someone can help them to become whole.

My understanding of the power of invoking a blessing on someone is that it somehow alerts the divine (as if it needed alerting) to our good wishes for that person, our benevolent feelings towards them. As O’Donohue says, “The beauty of blessing is its belief that it can affect what unfolds.”

I truly believe that each of us can bring blessings to the wider world – to the chance-met stranger, to the people in our city, town or village, to causes we care about. If you believe, as I do, that every human being has a spark of the divine in them, then we should try to respond to every person we meet as though we are encountering a possible new friend. I wonder how different our world would be if we tried to bear that in mind, every day?

Another aspect of blessings is our ability to recognise when we feel blessed. Sometimes, another person may bless us directly with words. I will never forget an experience I had on a Saturday intensive during my spiritual direction training. There were twelve of us and the course leader asked us to do the following exercise: Six of us sat in a circle, the other six standing behind. Each standing person was asked to think silently of what they would want the most important person in their childhood to say to them, and then to go around the seated circle, whispering it into the right ear of each seated person. Then we swapped, and the seated people did the same to the other six.

To receive the six benedictions was incredibly powerful – I was in tears by the end, and I was not the only one… And then to share my own blessing with those six friends, “My precious child, I love you just the way you are” was also so very special. It left us all with deep feelings of thankfulness and connection. In the words of Marianne Wilkinson, “If I choose to bless another person, I will always end up feeling more blessed.” So very true.

Sometimes, the blessing we experience will be less overt, and will need to be sensed and appreciated. One time that I was very conscious of feeling blessed happened a few years ago, when my husband and I spent a week in our favourite part of Wales with my daughter and her fiancé. The kids were tired out from work, and so was I. So we decided to take each day as it came. We got up late, had leisurely breakfasts, then headed out to explore that beautiful part of Wales – Dolgoch Falls, Portmeirion, Harlech Castle (and the wonderful ice-cream shop just below it), the Panorama Walk above Barmouth, and Bodnant Gardens. We ate some fabulous meals, and relaxed each evening, either playing some hilarious games of pool or watching DVDs together.

Each day was different and each day was wonderful. Full of wonder. We managed to let go of “ought to” and “need to” and simply went with the flow. Whatever we did, wherever we went, I tried to be present and full of wonder and joy and gratitude. The whole week was a lesson in the gentle art of being present, of having no particular goal in mind. Of simply being. Looking back, it was one of the best holidays ever. I was so blessed.

 

Aging with Grace, Mischief, or Both

The other day on Facebook, I came across the quote below on the Wild Woman Sisterhood page. It reads, "Your time on Earth is limited. Don't try to 'age with grace,' age with mischief, audacity, and a good story to tell." A little googling has told me it was written by "mindfulness expert and author", Case Kenny.

On the surface, I thoroughly agree with him. I have seen far too many older people (men as well as women) "disappear" as they grew older - disregarded by their families and their communities. Or at least, this is often true in the West. In societies such as Japan and China, the old are honoured as sources of wisdom, sages. We in the West should take a leaf out of their book, I think, and be willing to learn from our elders.

As many of you will know, I fully intend to "age with mischief and audacity, and a good story to tell." I started the process last March, by bungee-jumping off a 141 foot high bridge in New Zealand, for charity. It was an absolutely fabulous experience, which I will never forget, and it has set me up to age boldly.

However, I would also like to say a word for aging with grace. As we grow older, and have seen more of the world, we will (hopefully) have garnered some wisdom along the way. And will perhaps have realised that the "small stuff" - the petty irritations of day to day living - doesn't matter. For me, aging with grace is about letting go of the stuff that doesn't matter, while holding on to (and advocating fiercely for) the stuff that does.

As I have grown older (and perhaps a little wiser) I have learned to think before reacting. I believe that this is the core of aging with grace. The one constant of life is change, and the art of aging with grace is accepting that, not passively, but actively. It is not about no longer caring, but it is about not going off half-cock, whenever something happens. It is about the unique ability to take the longer view about events, because we have "been there, done that", and hence have a different perspective. 

Happy Beltane!

Beltane, which is the Pagan festival celebrated on 1^st May, is the third Spring festival of the Pagan year. The first is Imbolc, celebrated on 2^nd February and the second is the Spring Equinox, celebrated on 21^st March. As my friend, Celia Cartwright, wrote, “The cycle of Summer is ushered in at Beltane, a time for warmth, sunshine and for crops and cattle to grow strong and fat, and so provide a rich harvest to last the winter.”

It is also, as she wrote, “a time of renewing energy, of thanksgiving and hope.” And this Spring, I can sense all these things in the world around us. The Annual Meetings of the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches are always held during the Spring. And this year, they too were a time of renewing energy, thanksgiving and hope. More than three hundred Unitarians from all over the country attended and I think most of us left with hearts uplifted and new hope for the future. Daniel Costley’s Anniversary Service was particularly inspirational. It was an honour to stand on the stage during it and be recognised as a retiring minister.

 I think it is important that we can continue to experience the wonder of Spring – the sense of divine renewal, the small annual miracles of the first flowers and the first buds appearing. They have got to be a sign of hope, that Winter cannot last forever. There is the wonderful dichotomy between the revelation of the eternal round, and the revelation of that which is new. Every Spring we encounter something never before seen, a glimpse of potential for the future.

Spring is also the time when we feel renewed and have new resources of energy. It is no accident that Spring cleaning has endured as a tradition through the centuries. Partly it is a necessity (more so in times past, when people almost hibernated during the cold winter months, and Spring was the time of the big clear out). But it is almost an instinct too – it is a time for taking stock of what we have, of discarding the broken and useless, of repairing what is worn but useful, and of setting our faces forward for the year ahead. 

If we don’t carry out a periodic Spring clean, our lives can become cluttered and stagnant, with no space for renewal and growth. You can guess by this that I’m not just talking about physical Spring cleaning, satisfying though that is, but also about mental and spiritual Spring cleaning. It is only too easy to plod along in the same old ways, carrying out the same old duties, not realising how flat and dull our lives have become. Sometimes we need to have a good breath of fresh air blowing through our lives, revitalising us and setting us on a new path in good heart.

 

All We Have To Decide

When I was in New Zealand, I treated myself to a black t-shirt from the Weta Workshop in Wellington. It has an image of Gandalf on the front, with the following words printed around him: "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."

Gandalf says these words to Frodo, who is bemoaning the fact that the Ring has come to him, and darkness is gathering. "I wish it need not have happened in my time." In the book, this happens very early on, in the crucial second chapter of Fellowship of the Ring, 'The Shadow of the Past'. 

I wonder whether it was hearing these words from his old friend and mentor which gave Frodo the courage to set off on the quest to destroy the Ring. "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us." From somewhere deep inside him, Frodo finds the courage to begin, although at first he does not realise that he will end up taking the Ring all the way to the Cracks of Doom in Mordor.

As in fantasy fiction, so in real life. As in Middle-earth, "our time is beginning to look black. The Enemy is fast becoming very strong." All across the world, there are wars, violence, hunger, and poverty. In our society, homophobia, sexism, racism, insidious privilege, and other aspects of intolerance and hatred are growing like rank weeds. Our planet is being despoiled and many species (both flora and fauna) are facing extinction. 

So, "all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us." It sounds so simple, but it is absolutely not. No one person can cure the ills of the world. But each one of us can choose to Stand on the Side of Love, as the Unitarian Universalists say, and speak and act against the evils we see and experience. We may not be able to make a huge difference - we are not all Greta Thunbergs or Martin Luther King Jrs,  - but every little helps.