The core of life

What is the core of life?

This week's quotation is by Oscar Wilde. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find an English version of it, to compare with the translation. And my German is not wonderful. And I'm not sure I agree with the Google translator. So I offer you two versions of this German phrase: "Im Wachstum liegt des Denkens und des Lebens Kern."

Which Google thinks, means, "Growth is the thinking and the life of the core."
I think it may mean. "In growth lies the core of thought and life."

Either way, I think it's saying that without thinking deeply and living wholeheartedly, we will not grow as people. It is so easy to skate along the surface of our lives, not going deep, being involved purely with exterior matters. But going deep hurts. It means facing those parts of ourselves which we have hidden for years, maybe decades, and coming to terms with what we find there. It is the only way to grow, spiritually.

And it's about letting go of the need for the approval, the approbation of others. When we go deep, when we live from the core of our lives, we will find the courage to stand up for what we believe, rather than going along with what others believe, for the sake of fitting in. And living from our core also means letting go of comparing ourselves with others, because we, just as we are, are enough.

It's also about compassion, about walking a mile in the other person's shoes, realising that they, too, have a unique, precious life at their core. Deep may talk to deep, seeing past the shallow façades we present to the world. Allowing our vulnerabilities to show, because that is the truest way to live. Living from our hearts, not our heads.

Karen Armstrong writes, in The Spiral Staircase, "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."

Compassion enables us to grow spiritually, to live our lives from our cores.

Taking a New Path

Last week's quotation (which I haven't blogged about until today, because the photo took 48 hours to make its way from my mobile phone to my computer!) is by Charles de Foucauld. In translation, it reads, "There is not a moment in our lives, in which we cannot take a new path."

Which I guess I agree with in principle. However, in practice, we are often prone to missing the new path at our feet, and plodding along the same, well-worn track, however poorly it is serving us. Because it takes courage to make a change in our lives, and the ego part of our brains much prefers the status quo. And we also have to be awake, aware of the new path opening in front of our feet.

In my own case, there has to be a definite nudge, a definite call, to take a new path.  And being a bookish type, it has often come in the form of something I have read, from whole books to single sentences, which have jumped off the page and hit me in the face. Or the wise words of a friend or colleague.

For example, my decision to take the path of quitting drinking, five and half years ago, was the result of an unfortunate incident, when I got drunk and incoherent in front of people I respected, and my spiritual director's injunction to "sit with the shame and see where that takes you." I gave up drinking a few weeks later, and have not had a drink since.

The decision to take a new path is often not an easy one. But it is always, always worthwhile, so long as we have thought it through and don't do it on a whim. I believe that our hearts and wills have to be pulling in the same direction as our heads, in order for a new path to be successful. We have to deeply desire to take the new path, not just feel we "ought" to. Ought to, in my experience, rarely works.

For example, I have lost count of the number of times that I have said to myself "I really ought to lose ten pounds." But my will has not been working in harness with my mind, so I have stuck to the diet for a few weeks, and then given up. Because I've not had the nudge, not really desired, with all of me, to lose that weight. My Personal Trainer at the gym wants me to lose a few pounds, but I'm finally happy with my body as she is (after years of self-loathing and beating myself up) - all my clothes fit me, and at 59, I have come to accept a few lumps and bumps as part of growing older. I work out to be healthy and strong, not to lose weight... and, I love chocolate so much! The idea of depriving myself to lose that ten pounds is not an attractive one, so I don't.

What new path may be opening in front of you?

Peace in Community

I've just spent four wonderful days at the Annual Meetings of the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches - one day at the Ministers' Pre-conference, and the other three at the Annual Meetings.

photo by Rory Castle-Jones

As usual, it was wonderful to catch up with friends, many of whom I have not seen since last GA (as the Annual Meetings are affectionately known).

The Ministers' Pre-conference included a gorgeous session about Metta meditation, led by Maud Robinson, which included a twenty-minute practice of this loving-kindness meditation. In retrospect, it set the scene for the whole GA, at least for me.

The AGM of the Unitarian Peace Fellowship was on the first afternoon of the Meeting proper. The Peace Fellowship was founded in 1916, the depths of World War I, and for the last few years, the theme of the gathering following the AGM has been connected to the centenary commemorations of this bloody, futile war.

But this year, 2019, our theme was "Where do we go next?" Nearly a hundred people turned up (twice as many as normal), and the discussion that followed was rich and fascinating. The hunger for peace, for Unitarians to be involved in social action related to peace, was palpable in the room.

Then later, it was time for Peace Vespers, led by the current ministry students. Again, the turn-out was greater than usual, and it was a gentle, peaceful end to the first day of the Meetings.

The following morning, I attended the morning meditation led by Richard Bober of the Meditation Fellowship, which grounded me for the busy day ahead.

In the evening, the Anniversary service was conducted by Maria Curtis and Andy Phillips, on the theme Knowing Our Place - an impassioned plea for humankind to take care of our world and each other.

On the final morning, the motion on knife crime was passed - more evidence of our desire for peace in our communities. At the end of the session, our Peace Fellowship Treasurer, Celia Cartwright, was inducted as President of the General Assembly.

I came home on Thursday afternoon feeling comforted and strengthened for the year ahead. I had experienced peace in our beloved community.

Learning by our Mistakes

This week's quotation, by James Joyce, spoke to me straight away: "Mistakes are the gateway to new discoveries."

That is, if we have the humility to learn from them. Sadly, common human reactions to making a mistake are to either sweep it under the carpet and forget about it, or to repeat it, because we haven't learned from it.

Let me share an example. A long time ago, I was studying the Unitarian Theology and Thought module of the Worship Studies Course. In my second assignment, a Unitarian view of Jesus, I included a throw-away disparaging remark about Christianity. My tutor, Alex Bradley, gently pointed out that Christianity was the soil out of which Unitarianism had grown, and that many Unitarians were also Liberal Christians, and that speaking disrespectfully about Christianity should be avoided. This opened my eyes, and in the years since then, I have encountered many radical Christians, and have realised that Christianity is a very broad church indeed, and that its teachings hold much which I I agreed with.

Another teacher was the wonderful Rabbi Lionel Blue. who helped me to understand that it is through our failures that we actually learn the important lessons of life. "Your successes make you clever, but your problems make you wise." Oh. I wrote in Gems for the Journey  that "His books are full of wonderful stories, in which he is absolutely honest about his mistakes, his small meannesses, the grudges he is holding on to, and which show how accepting these and learning from them bring him closer to God."

No human being is perfect, infallible. We all make mistakes. It is what we learn from them that matters. They are part and parcel of the spiritual journey, through which we learn to grow into our best selves.

Trust for the Journey

Following our dreams is part of being human. Every one of us aspires to do something, be someone. And yet, the quotation by Günter Kunert, from this week's postcard tells us that the journey is already under way...

"Wohin auch immer wir reisen, wir suchen, wovon wir träumten, und finden doch stets nur uns selbst."

Which being translated, means: "Wherever we travel, we seek what we dreamed of, but always find only ourselves."

Every day we are on this Earth, we are adding new adventures, new experiences to our lives. And we always, always take our past experiences along with us. Every human being is the sum of their experiences. And these past experiences will inevitably have an impact on how we perceive what is in front of us today, now. That is how we learn, how we grow.

I don't think it is possible to "start afresh" to leave our pasts behind us. At least not completely. Because our brains do not get wiped clean of our memories. But it is possible to process our experiences, to discern their meaning, to learn from them, and then to move on, enriched by them.

Both therapy and spiritual direction help with this process. When I started my spiritual direction training, we were given a beautiful poem by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin on the first week of the three year course.

Patient Trust

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.

If we can trust, we will find ourselves in the course of our journey through life.