Discovering the Source

In the last couple of days, two memes by very different writers have been posted on Facebook. The first was by Richard Rohr, one of my favourite religious authors, who is a Franciscan monk, and Director of the Center for Action and Contemplation:

"Love is the source and goal; faith is the slow process of getting there; hope is the willingness to move forward without resolution."

(image: Center for Action & Contemplation, shared by Contemplative Monk)

The other was by Geneen Roth, whose books about women's relationships with their bodies have had a huge impact on me, particularly Women, Food and God, which taught me to love my body, rather than hating her. She wrote: 

"You already have everything you need to be content. Your real work is to do whatever it takes to realize that."

(image: Geneen Roth)

It strikes me that they are both talking about the same thing. For me, the recognition that God is Love, and that my whole life should be about growing into a more loving relationship with Him/Her - both source and goal, is a life-changing revelation. 

Having faith is the realization that God *already* loves me, just the way I am - I already have "everything you need to be content". My "real work" will be to be aware of this every day, so that I can grow closer to God, and grow into the sort of person who walks lovingly through life, cherishing that of God in everyone, and in the the natural world..

It will take a lifetime, but now I know where I'm going.

A Good Read

I am very grateful to my friend Jane for sharing a post by Kester Brewin, which appeared in Huffington Post UK, about reading as a spiritual practice. The paragraph that particularly caught my attention read:

some of my good reads - the bookshelf is horizontal; the photo is not!

"To read widely, and often, is thus to hope to be changed, to still believe that change is possible. It is never, ever a waste of time. Be it an essay or short story or novel or article, a good read never goes unanswered, because a good read opens up a world that requires our attention. That might be the inner world of the self, it might be the domestic world of a family relationship, or it could be the plight of a whole people."

"A good read opens up a world that requires our attention." Yes. I think that this is so true. A good read can change your life, whether it is how you see yourself, how you relate to other people or other living beings, or the rest of creation, or it might galvanise you into action. I have posted before on this blog about "Ah! Books", which fundamentally change your way of thinking. Ship of Thought in March 2012. I wrote then:

"Yet few things give me greater delight than the discovery of a new book that makes me think; that makes me see the world and everything in it in a new light. In his introduction to Mister God, This is Anna, Vernon Sproxton speaks of Ah! Books, "those which induce a fundamental change in the reader's consciousness. They widen his sensibility in such a way that he is able to look upon familiar things as though he is seeing and understanding them for the first time. ... Ah! Books give you sentences which you can roll around in the mind, throw in the air, catch, tease out, analyse. But in whatever way you handle them, they widen your vision. For they are essentially Idea-creating, in the sense that Coleridge meant when he described the Idea as containing future thought - as opposed to the Epigram which encapsulates past thought. Ah! Books give the impression that you are opening a new account, not closing an old one down."

And there are new Ah! Books, new good reads, to be discovered all the time, which makes it such a joyous process. Recent discoveries of mine include Women, Food and God by Geneen Roth, Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott and An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor. And the poetry of Ellen Bass. Each of these books has made my life richer, more complex, and I am grateful.

I hope that the process of change and development will continue indefinitely, as long as there are new good books to read.

Enough Already

You know how it sometimes happens: you receive a certain message / hear a certain idea. It can be from a Facebook post, a talk, an article, an address And once you have heard / read it, once it has squirreled its way into your consciousness, every other thing you hear or read seems to chime in to back it up or elaborate on it. Some may call it synchronicity, but I'm not so sure.

And it has happened to me this week, with the concept of Enoughness. At our District Annual General Meeting at Shrewsbury last Saturday, our Guest Speaker was Brighton Unitarian John Naish, author of a marvellous book called Enough: Breaking Free From The World Of Excess. In his entertaining and inspirational talk, John preached the doctrine of "practising enoughness in a world of more, more, more." He explained that instead of forever chasing after the next goal, the next project, the next gadget, we should appreciate what we have and be grateful. And that we should grow our gratitude by appreciating our bounty.

John commented that "gratitude is one of the select number of things in life for which we cannot actually get enough". Another is spiritual commitment. He argued that we needed to take the time to go deep spiritually, rather than skating over the surface, always trying out the next spiritual practice that promised peace and contentment. He illustrated this by joking: "There would have been little opportunity in 2nd century Nepal to say, 'Buddhism? Yeah, I've been exploring that. Really great, inspirational stuff. But then I wanted to try 'Shamanic Whirling', and both those classes are on a Wednesday evening, so ..."

He argued that spiritual exploration only bears fruit if we commit to certain practices, and stick with them. And he concluded by saying that "For me, and for many of you, I trust, Unitarianism has provided a central thread, a community, a tradition, and a discipline from within which we can explore the spiritual wisdom of all the world and of all time, in order to develop our own ideas, build our own faith, nurture our consciences, and set our moral compasses. ... Unitarianism is enough. ... So keep the faith. Keep fast to the heart of your Unitarian practice. For faith is something that sustains us. And it is something which, surely, we can never have enough."

Once that note had been struck, on the Saturday, it has continued to sound over and over again during this week. Enoughness is about knowing when you have enough and then being content, whether you are talking about food, or information, or entertainment or work. Enoughness is good. Except for those spiritual "never-enoughs" which John talked about, such as gratitude and commitment and love.