Past and Future

On this final day of the year, the quotation by Tseng-Kuang is most apposite, "Do not worry about the past, turn to the future." 

It reminds me of the annual joy and challenge of filling in my Year Compass, which I will be doing with my other half this evening. I blogged about this here. We will be looking back on the past year (and oh my, what a year it has been!) and looking forward to a (hopefully) less constricted 2021. Although I must say at this point, I would far rather remain in lockdown longer and get this horrible virus defeated, than come out early and risk it going on indefinitely.

In spite of all its oddness - who would have dreamed that everyone not only could, but should, walk into a bank in a mask and ask for money and no-one would turn a hair? - 2020 has not been entirely bad. I have grieved over the loss of friends and acquaintances, and missed all the hugs I haven't received, the friends and family I haven't seen face-to-face, and the Unitarian events I haven't attended (especially Summer School). But like I say, it has not been all bad. I turned 60 in February and am happy about that. My first novel, One Foot in Front of the Other, was published in October, and I would never have dreamed that I would be featured in a prominent broadsheet newspaper, talking about it. And I have crocheted four blankets and worked on my next book most days.

At this time of year, a time of endings and beginnings, I always find the words of 19th century Unitarian and Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson both challenging and reassuring: 

"Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year. No man has learned anything rightly until he knows that every day is doomsday. Today is a king in disguise. Today always looks mean to the thoughtless, in the face of a uniform experience that all good and great and happy actions are made up precisely of these blank todays. 

Let us not be so deceived; let us unmask the king as he passes! He only is rich who owns the day, and no-one owns the day who allows it to be invaded with worry, fret and anxiety.

You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. This day is all that is good and fair. It is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on the yesterdays."

I hope that 2021 will be a better year for all of us - that we will all be vaccinated against Covid 19, that we will eventually be able to meet in person once more, and that our experiences of the past year will have turned us into kinder, more compassionate people. Another New Year will be welcomed in at midnight, full of hints and promises. We have another chance to learn new things, to make new friends, to appreciate old friends, and to recognise the Divine everywhere.

May it be so, for all of us.

 

The Joy We Give

 It is Christmas Eve. We are coming towards the end of an extraordinary year, full of joys and sorrows. Like Kahlil Gibran, I believe that the two are inextricably linked and that, "when one sits along with you at your board, remember that the other one is asleep upon your bed."

Since the first lockdown began, on 23rd March, there has been much to be sorrowful about - the gatherings missed, the hugs and kisses unexchanged, the family members not seen, the friends lost - especially this last. But there has also been so much joy, so much connection, which has lifted my heart. Unitarians of all stripes have found new ways of staying in touch - via Zoom, via YouTube, via e-mail, via telephone, even via letters and cards. Two in particular stand out for me: Jane Blackall's wonderful Heart and Soul gatherings on Zoom, now also being led by others, have been a lovely way to connect for so many people. She has enabled a true ministry of joy to happen. And Celia Cartwright's daily Ruminations on Facebook, recording the joys and sorrows of the year, another faithful ministry. Reading them each day has been a real spiritual pick-me-up for me and for many others.

For myself, when I have joined Zoom gatherings, it has been so good to talk to other people, both friends and strangers, to see well-loved faces and to make new friends. I am very much looking forward to joining the Unitarian Carol Service via Zoom at 6.30 this evening.

This week's anonymous quotation says, "The more joy we give to other people, the more joy returns to our own hearts." And I have found that this is so, this year. We are social beings and reaching out to others, in whatever way, has been such an important part of this year, which has filled my heart with joy. I have had so many appreciative e-mails from people who have read and listened to my online services, it has warmed my heart. 

There has also been the lovely possibility of "attending" Zoom worship services all over the country and even further afield, which has been another source of joy. I understand that many new folk have attended Unitarian worship for the first time in this way. When we "get back to normal" (probably towards the end of 2021) I hope that these online gatherings will continue, as they have enabled us to reach out to people who would not otherwise cross our thresholds. I am certainly going to carry on producing an online service each week, as many of the congregations in the Midlands only meet twice a month, and I want to offer them some kind of worship on "non-Church" Sundays.

May you all have a blessed and peaceful Christmas, and a better New Year.

We are the Sunbeams

 Yesterday, I had a session with my spiritual director, which was rich and good. And towards the end of it, we spoke of our relationship with God, and he shared the revelation that there is no separation between us and God, "not even the shadow of a hair's breadth".

In the past, I have felt moments of connection with the Divine, whatever we name Him/Her/It. But the idea that there is *no* separation between us was new to me - or maybe I was not ready to receive it before. My spiritual director said that it would take time for this idea to move from my head to my heart, that I would have to sit with it for a long time before I truly experienced it. And I believe that.

But this morning, I was mulling over what he had said, during my morning sit, and these words came to me (the first image came from my director, the rest from me):

God is the sun, we are the sunbeams,

we are emanations of God.

God is the Light within us all,

reflecting and connecting with the Light around us.

God is the water, we are the ripples,

caught up in the Divine Flow.

God is the air, we are the breath,

each breath in, a breath of Life,

each breath out, a breath of Love.

God is the One Tree, we are the branches,

growing out of the Source of Being.

God is the fire, we are the sparks,

lighting up our universe from within.

God is Love, we are lovers,

sharing, caring, healing, understanding.

There is no separation between us,

"not even the shadow of a hair's breadth."

We are working parts of God.

I believe that sitting with this will give me enough purpose and meaning for a lifetime...

Wisdom from Missed Opportunities

I had not previously heard of Henriette Wilhelmine Hanke, the Silesian author of this week's quotation. But according to Wikipedia, she was considered to be "one of the most successful authors of the first half of the 19th century," (at least in Germany). She had an unhappy marriage to a much older man and is best known for her "didactic" works, "where one can find much of the sentimental enthusiasm of popular romanticism. It was always about being there as a comforter and counselor for other lonely women after her own unhappy marriage, giving them the feeling of comforting togetherness by reading her novels and short stories."

Which made the quotation chosen by Harenberg Kalender more poignant, "Missed opportunities never come back. But they teach us to be aware of new ones." It made me wonder what opportunities she had missed, what regrets she had, about becoming the third wife of an elderly pastor at the early age of 20, and having to spend her prime looking after his six children. And to think about what opportunities I might have missed, and what they have taught me...

The only one I could think of was that I had always planned to spend a year after graduation working at the hotel of a friend of my father in Seefeld, Austria, to become fluent in German. But then I became engaged, and the slump of the early 1980s happened, and it felt more important to get a good job and settle down. So I never made it, and my German remains very much sub-fluent. I can understand far more than I can speak, but I would love to have been fluent.

Since then, I have always tried to jump in the direction of new opportunities, saying "yes" to life, rather than "No, I can't, I'm scared, what if I fail?" I would far rather try something new, something different and not succeed, than rest on my (very few) laurels and not LIVE.

I love the Quaker Advice, which I first came across in my late twenties, "Live adventurously. When choices arise, do you take the way that offers the fullest opportunity for the use of your gifts in the service of God and the community? Let your life speak." 

And I have rarely regretted following it, even if it does sometimes make me feel vulnerable. I would far rather dare and fail, than not dare at all. But I also need to bear in mind another Quaker advice, as time passes: 

"Every stage of our lives offers fresh opportunities. Responding to divine guidance, try to discern the right time to undertake or relinquish responsibilities without undue pride or guilt. Attend to what love requires of you, which may not be great business."

I think I will find "relinquishing" more difficult than "undertaking." May I have the grace to do so, when the time comes.

Grandad's Roses

 "If a man had no other ability but to grow roses, he would be perfect." These words by Wilkie Collins, immediately made me think of my grandfather, Alec Ellis. Who was a perfect grandfather. He and Grannie used to buy me special books for Christmas and birthdays, and fed my love of reading and beautiful words. He may be better known to Unitarians as the author of Lawrence Redfern: A Memoir, which was a tribute to his friend and minister at Ullet Road Church in Liverpool.

I only knew him for a few years - he died when I was still quite young - but I loved him dearly. And he was the very first author I ever knew. The first book of his that I read was his chapter of autobiography, The House of Woolton Hill, which tells the story of how he and my grandmother moved from an ordinary house to a small mansion on Woolton Hill in Liverpool, and bought it sight unseen, as it was on requisition to the Army at the time. But they had fallen in love with the gardens... this is his description of his first view of the rose garden:

"We turned aside down an overgrown path which led to a secluded rose garden. It was triangular in shape, one side being bounded by what must have been a magnificent rock garden... a shrubbery occupied the second side and the remaining side was devoted to a pergola covered with rambler roses. The bush roses had been planted in a number of shaped beds. There was a centre round bed surrounded by three curved beds. These in turn were surrounded by four curved beds.... The remainder of the space was filled by small round beds, each containing a climbing or rambling rose..... The roses had grown tall through lack of pruning, but they were flowering in great profusion and there must have been a couple of hundred in flower that evening, filling the garden with sweetness. I was instantly struck by the peace of the place. Beautiful it certainly was, even in its neglect, but it was the peacefulness of the place which did something to me. I felt it was the sanest place I had been in for many a long day."

In due course, the whole garden was restoed to its former glory, and a picture of the rose garden adorns the cover. 

When I knew him and Grannie, they had moved to a bungalow in Hereford (my grandmother had had a serious stroke) but the front garden was also a glory of roses. Sadly, I have not taken after him in one respect - I am no gardener. But both my father and I inherited his love of words, and the joy of writing them down. I owe both of them a great debt.