There is no "I".
Or
“I” is the ground of being.
What do we mean by "I"?
Read MoreRev. Phillip Hewett: A Personal Memorial
As I began to think about what I might say during this address, I went back into my archive to see when in the past I had mentioned Phillip Hewett. I found an address I gave nearly two and half years ago on ‘David & Goliath.’ It was the third or fourth address I gave here, in which I talked about some problems with postmodernism, and I was critical of a model of Unitarianism which Hewett proposed back in the 50s. The model was a Venn Diagram, of three overlapping circles. Hewett argues that Unitarianism pulls, as it were, in three directions: towards Christianity, towards humanism, and towards seeing the essential value in other religious traditions (which he terms Universalism). His argument was that we must hold that tension and stay within the middle space, and not allow any of these forces to dominate the conversation. My concern with that approach was that by elevating this neutral centre ground you in effect inadvertently create a community which is intolerant towards people who want to actually affirm a particular position. You create an ideal of nothingness, which evades all commitment. I suggested that a far better approach was not trying to conform or mould yourself into some pluralistic wishy-washy ideal, but rather, to be authentically present to the spiritual life as we find it, or inherit it, affirming a commitment to self-integrity in the spiritual life we lead in each present moment. Though of course, what I was doing in that address was not having a dialogue with Phillip Hewett, but rather critiquing something he wrote over sixty years ago, something he wrote when the world showed up very differently, and this Unitarian movement showed up very differently.He was obviously responding to problems as he perceived them then, as I am responding to problems as I perceive them now. So, to that end I made a good straw man of him. Because one must speak, one must have an opinion, one must come down one way or another, and by doing that, by playing your cards upon the table, we mask the true depth of ourselves. As Walt Whitman said, ‘I contain multitudes’. What we outwardly claim to revile, for example, we at different times and in different worlds may well manifest what we claim to stand against. We are always far more than meets the eye. Within Unitarianism we question. We question things as they stand, things as they were, and the direction in which we move.
Hewett and I
Back in January, in the Inquirer, Phillip Hewett had a short article published. It was to mark his 75th year as a Unitarian. He said he, like many of his peers, felt himself turning away from the normative Christianity he grew up under – the faith of his parents. But unlike his peers, he was drawn towards finding an alternative. He read through reference books and came upon Unitarianism. I find that interesting, as I too read about Unitarianism before I experienced it first-hand. He enquired after the closest Unitarian minister. This was in 1942, during the Second World War, when Phillip was 17 years old. He sat down to talk with this minister. After an hour of conversation Phillip asked how he could become a Unitarian, and the response came, ‘after listening to you, I can tell you, you already are a Unitarian’. The article goes on to highlight an enduring view Phillip had come to after all these years (a view which strikes me as wholly at odds with the 1950s Hewett I argued against in that address); he states that at the centre of faith must lie particular persons, stories, poems, and/or places. That we must gather around a flowing stream, the roots of which flow from Christianity. He decried where America had failed to do that, where after 1961 it, in effect, jettisoned its past. He puts front and centre the person of Jesus, and how we respond to the person of Jesus. He says this question of how we respond to Jesus is the most important question within Unitarianism. This attests to something quite remarkable in Unitarianism. That in all our musings and exploration, in this community we are first and foremost for loving acceptance, and as such, in all our ambles through ideas, all our trying on of perspectives, in all the changes we go through, and should go through, we remain at home within this faith. We remain welcome. Phillip Hewett was certainly an example of that – a Unitarian who had traversed a lot of intellectual space in terms of how he viewed himself, this world, and this movement. And yet a Unitarian to the core.
Harris Manchester College, Oxford
I met Phillip just twice. Training for ministry at Harris Manchester College, Oxford, as he did, and I did, he was keen to return for old student association days. I met him at that event two years ago, and then again last year. As I’m sure that any of you who met him know, he was a very warm and kind person, full of a joy for life. He was keen to sit down with me and talk about Ipswich, and the direction of Unitarianism. He gave me copy of his book, ‘The Unitarian Way’ which he saw as his final piece of advice to this movement of ours. In this religious tradition with no creed and no hierarchy, it is sometimes hard to see what it is that binds Unitarians together. And then in 20 chapters he talks about different threads which weave through our tradition. In one chapter, ‘Wider Horizons’, he addresses something of the problem I highlighted: Unitarianism can all too easily become the religion which doesn’t believe certain things. We can easily become a religion which defines ourselves in opposition to mainstream Christianity in particular. Confronted with some of the exclusive claims within mainstream Christianity, we overreact, and deny far more than we affirm. He talks for example about the word ‘Christ’. A Unitarian cannot believe in ‘Christ’, can they, believing the term to point us towards the supernatural dimension of Jesus and the exclusive claims of Christianity, about salvation only being through him, etc.? But to make such a move is to misunderstand and misrepresent how the term ‘Christ’ has been understood in liberal Christian scholarship, pointing as it does not to exclusivity but rather to the conscious embodiment of the universal spiritual nature: a path open to us all. This means there is a higher consciousness at play in Jesus, which finds poetic expression in the sayings of Jesus, like, ‘I and the Father are one’, or ‘I am the way and the truth’... And so, we are tripped up by vocabulary.
We may in this space, in this building, on this cold morning, repeat Jesus’s words that ‘no one can come to the father except through me’, but we will understand such statements as coming through Christ-consciousness reaching for some poetic expression, for words beyond what our vocabulary can capture. But if it’s just kept as an amorphic ideal, a concept in space, it’s very difficult to grab on to. But personified in an individual, in a story, we can see it, and we can get it. And so, Jesus remains central. To quote Hewett quoting Emerson, ‘The Universal does not attract us until housed in an individual.’ Then we get it, when we can see it being lived out. And yet even then, when it comes to Jesus, as the chapter title suggests (a ‘wider horizon’), there remains ever present in Unitarianism an openness and receptivity to recognising ‘the way’ as it manifests in other traditions and people. Ultimately then I don’t think it's overstating it - Phillip Hewett’s love of this movement is what directed his life’s work – he ultimately wanted Unitarianism to succeed, and it came down for him to our efforts to manifest together the sort of community we want to see in this world. Navigating that difficult path between individual and shared beliefs; it is a tension. There is something very shared at play here. Phillip Hewett talks a lot about that in his book, and yet to put that unity into words seems to cause problems, for obvious reasons. A spirit of consensus lies beneath a bed of contradictions and paradoxes. A bond of love, of hope, shared experiences and ideals. Nevertheless these unite us together as Unitarians. But community lived out needs to be more than shared beliefs, but rather a shared way of life, or indeed ‘The Way’. Through shared memories, sentiments, and aspirations we are bound together into one common life. As Philip points out, the diversity of outlook causes a real problem within communities, but it need not. If openness to one another is a central expression of our community, we find that oneness together which is beyond categorisation. To quote Philip, ‘an exclusive, rigid, totalitarian person cannot claim minority rights in an open, free, inclusive organisation. The principles of inclusiveness automatically excludes such a person’s exclusiveness’. Somehow a meta-expression of us as a whole family does and can find form and shape. One people worshipping a shared sense of the sacred. This is the kind of loving, generous Unitarian community Phillip wanted to see take shape. It was a privilege to have met him, and I hope we here can carry on and manifest this vision amongst us. Go well brother.
Amen.
Look At The Birds
Part 1
Birds upon the Sea of Galilee
Today we’re thinking about these ‘Do Not Worry’ passages in Matthew (Matthew 6:25-34). First of all, why? Why are we thinking today about these passages in particular? I’ll begin by giving you the fastest summary of the Gospel of Matthew you will ever hear! We'll begin by thinking in terms of the story as we have received it, as it has been passed down to us, before we allow issues of historicity to enter the picture. - First, you get the genealogy of Jesus. Then all the Christmas stuff: his birth, the wise men, Herod killing children etc. Then John the Baptist, ‘Prepare the Way of the Lord’, then Jesus is baptised in the River Jordan and immediately he goes into the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights, and there he is tempted by Satan. Then he goes to the Sea of Galilee, and starts recruiting his disciples. Then we have a large section with lots of teaching, lots of healing, the bit where Jesus does his whole Jesus thing, then as we hit chapter 10 the threat dial starts getting turned up. Jesus says because of the fear in this world, we should expect resistance and persecution. Then, like you get in a film, we have a call back to John the Baptist, who reasserts his message that it’s all about Jesus. He was just the messenger to prepare the way for the one who was to come – Jesus! Then there’s a bit more teaching, some more parables, the mustard seed parable etc., then we have lots of miracles, the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus walking on water, healing various people. Then, finally, we hit the pinnacle of the story. Jesus goes into Jerusalem. He goes to the temple. He gets very angry and throws some tables around. Then we have the betrayal of Judas. The Lord’s Supper. The arrest of Jesus. The crucifixion of Jesus. The resurrection of Jesus. The End.
In terms of the liturgical calendar we’re in the lull which happens every year just before we’re launched into the season of Lent – a reflective, introspective period, the period when Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness. This period is to prepare us for the pinnacle of the story: the events of Holy Week, from Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem, to his death and resurrection. So the liturgical calendar doesn’t follow the narrative arc of Matthew. Liturgically, one second, Jesus is in the wilderness, then it immediately fast-forwards through all his teachings, parables, and miracles (about three years), then, bang, we’re at the events of Holy Week. So this morning’s reading then, the Do Not Worry passages, are essentially to prepare us for the period of reflection which will in turn prepares us for the events of Holy Week. We can think of the ‘Do Not Worry’ passages as a frame through which everything that follows can be understood. A foundation upon which everything is built. A lens through which everything else can be viewed.
"Lilies" is a tradition translation choice: most likely a catch-all term for many Galilean flowers, such as these Colchicum autumnale.
So now to the content of those passages, these teachings of Jesus. In a nutshell, Jesus says do not worry: do not worry about food, drink, your body, shelter, what you’ll wear. Because look, the birds don’t worry, so why should you? Do not strive for these material things, rather, strive first for the Kingdom of God, and let everything else worry about itself, because God is sovereign! Now upon a first reading of this passage it comes across as a bit odd, a bit counter-intuitive. You would have to be mad to not worry about food, drink, shelter, or clothing. You would not survive without these things! And so it’s not about not having these things, but rather Jesus is talking about not allowing these material things to define the orientation of our lives. You should live to live, not live to eat, or live to dress well, or live to acquire a better house, but live to live! And you achieve this living to live by recognising that you now inhabit a new paradigm! A paradigm which recognises that God infuses everything. A paradigm which is lived wholly in the present, as I’ve talked about many times before, not a future or past orientation, but a present orientation.
Part 2
I’m going to talk about the resurrection of Jesus; I must begin by giving my standard disclaimer. The resurrection of Jesus, I feel at my core, at the most foundational level of my being, to have a deep and critically profound significance. The Myth of Resurrection, that a saviour figure has died and risen, seems intuitively to me to be woven into reality in some way beyond my comprehension. It’s obviously a recurring mythological motif which exists in many forms, in many other myths, and many other literary works. Think of the Phoenix, rising from the ashes, reborn! However, and this is a big however, that makes me an odd sort of Christian. I don’t believe the resurrection to be an historical event. But counter-intuitively, the reality of the myth is so critical, in a way it sort of trumps the reality! So how does resurrection relate to the ‘Do not worry’ passages? Remember, the ‘Do not worry’ passages are acting as the frame through which we are situating Lent and the events of Holy week: Jesus’ death and resurrection. So I’m not thinking about the resurrection in terms of it being an historical event, but rather thinking about it as a mythological happening with psychological implications.
Phoenix
In psychological terms, let’s think about our own lives. In order to progress psychologically, to grow as a person, one must release those things in our life which impede our progress. The tricky part is identifying what is impeding our progress, especially as the things which do impede our progress are often things which seem natural to us, enjoyable to us, or even dear to our heart. It could be a concrete thing, like Jesus says, an unhealthy orientation towards a material something - money, food, clothing, property, etc. - or it could be a deep-seated belief, an ideological orientation, a belief about the sort of person you are. So, we discern in ourselves, or with the help of others, what this something impeding our psychological progress is, and we let it die, which allows for a new dimension within us to spring forth. The odd thing here is we often are unable to see just how toxic that thing in our life was, until it’s released. We fail to see its negative effects. It is released, and then the scales fall, and we move into a new paradigm. It’s as if we’re given a new lease of life, as if a spirit has risen within us; now reality shows up to us revitalised.
So, do you believe in death and resurrection? Well perhaps you can see how the answer to that question can be both yes and no at the same time. Through the ‘Do Not Worry’ passages we are essentially given a blueprint by Jesus, which he later boils down to ‘I am the way’! The symbolic way! The way in which we commit ourselves to the voluntary deaths and rebirths of the self. Jesus’ way then is the way of progress, psychological progress, towards the full life Jesus speaks about. As a side note it’s worth reflecting on just how thin the line is between believing something to be true, and acting or living as if a thing is true. To illustrate this point, you can think about free will. Free will is probably an illusion. We act in this world as if we are rational agents, but countless things mean that we don’t operate as free agents. Our state of consciousness can vary wildly - have we slept enough? Are we eating well? Are we frustrated or angry? All of this stuff affects the chemical makeup of our brains, which affects the supposed free choices we make. On top of that there’s the impact of unconscious thoughts, and that’s before considering all the problems theoretical physics throw up for the free will problem. Is time even linear? Etc etc. Despite all this, everyone lives today their lives as if they have free will. We’re all willing to live as if is true, even if it isn’t. But the even weirder side of this is that it seems unlikely that human beings always perceived themselves to have free will. If you go back into our primordial past, our ancestors did not think of themselves as free agents as we do. They didn’t perceive themselves to be sovereign over themselves. You could look at it this way: everyone in the world today is a free will fundamentalist – we’re subjectively so utterly convinced of our own free agency that even if we’re shown the facts that free will is an illusion, at the core of our beings we cannot believe it. In other words, it’s possible to straddle that line between what we perceive as real, and what we treat as real. We’re able to do this so well that it ceases to become clear to us where the real ends, and the unreal begins. God herself straddles that line for me, as I am both, in a sense, convinced of God’s non-existence, and experience God’s immediate presence. Gods infusing of reality then, is a paradigm I, in a way, choose to believe, or at least I would have chosen it, apart from the fact I don’t have free will to choose.
Primordial handprint – suggests to me emerging human agency.
So, back to the evolution of free will. As humanity’s collective consciousness, or collective psychology, evolved, the consciousness dial within humanity was slowly turned up. At first, the only beings sovereign over their own personhood as far as humanity collectively was concerned were Kings and Gods, or The God. Then nobles followed, then men, then through Christianity every individual’s soul was infused with sovereignty. Today, we take our individual sovereignty, our individual worth, so for granted that we cannot perceive how that was ever not the case. Our legal system hinges upon the idea that every individual is equal before the law. And when this is not respected, when individuals are treated as if they are not free agents, not treated as individuals who are actively determining the direction of their own lives, we feel intuitively wronged. However, and this is where it gets tricky, although Christianity on one hand empowers everyone with their own sense of sovereignty, there are several occasions in the New Testament when Jesus seems to undermine this claim, as he says that we should die to ourselves. You could read that as flying in the face of liberal religion as I understand it, undermining the claim that we each have individual sovereignty. However, in the light of this morning’s Matthew verses, through the ‘Do Not Worry’ passages, you’re able to reframe that sentiment in a different way. We should live to live. This is the way towards psychological progress. To not orientate ourselves towards food, money, or whatever, and not even orientate ourselves towards the betterment of our own psychological progress as the end in itself. In other words, ‘Individualism’ is a byproduct of living a Kingdom orientated life, not an end in itself. Instead of talking about obstacles to psychological progress, you could use the more religious word ‘idol’. When food, money, or acquisitions become our idol, we are unable to see the Kingdom of God present. We lack ears to hear. And ‘Individualism’ itself can be such an idol. If our own spiritual, psychological, intellectual progress becomes our end goal, our idol, it blinds us to the reality that Jesus describes, infused with love and divinity: a mindful, presently orientated state of being, always ready to release those dysfunctional orientations to clear the way for a new spirit, a new life, a new vitality. A newness which supersedes even that which we previously perceived possible. A newness which wells up within us from such an unexpected place. So unexpected such a paradigm shift can be, that we are left with only one appropriate response - to praise the spirit of God or Love which released it within us.
This next point is a bit more speculative on my part. It requires you accept my presumption that the resurrection was not an historical event. Assuming that, it begs the question where the idea of the resurrection of Jesus even came from. If the Gospels are not relaying to us an historical event, then why does this resurrection narrative motif suddenly explode onto the scene, after Jesus’ death, in the first and second centuries? Again, I think these ‘do not worry’ passages go part of the way in explaining that. Inadvertently, Jesus, in his teaching about releasing those dysfunctional orientations in our lives, creates the climate in which his own resurrection, in mythological terms, was likely to follow. Remember, Jesus’ death would have been perceived as a monumental blow. It’s likely that many around him believed he was on the cusp of leading a political revolution. Many believed he was the Messiah, the Saviour, the one foretold who had come to rescue the Israelites from bondage. And then he died. How heavily must that death have hung over them, blackened the horizon, and foreshadowed utter ruin for them. The significance of that death would have been the ultimate physiological barrier. It was not simply the loss of a loved one, it was the loss of all purpose, direction, and meaning. As Jesus died physically, so too, he had to die in the hearts and minds of his followers. And in doing that, in releasing the psychological baggage of his death, a new space is opened, a newness rises. His whole message about turning away from barriers, towards Kingdom Come, seems to take on a vibrancy, dynamism, a new Spirit previously unknown. Jesus’ whole embodied persona, teachings, manner, and life, in this new paradigm was subjectively more alive and present than it was prior to his death.
So, do you believe in death and resurrection? We strive for a present Kingdom, where like the birds and the lilies of the field, we shall not toil. We shall not worry, quibble, or plan, but live into a present reality, a present vision infused with the divine. And then the Kingdom will truly be present amongst us.
Amen.
Does Tradition Have Any Value?
Westcott House, Cambridge
Does tradition have any value? This provocatively simply question occurred to me a few weeks ago, and it struck as being a good way to start on a Sunday which would be followed by the post-service discussion slot. Does tradition have any value? It’s a question on which everyone would surely have an opinion. What I could not have foreseen however, is the extent to which this question would feature in this week’s news. A few days ago, a story appeared in the Guardian: “C of E college apologies for students’ attempt to ‘Queer evening prayer’.” The College in question was Westcott House in Cambridge, where I trained for the Anglican priesthood. At Westcott, the normal pattern of evening prayer consists of the words found in the book ‘Common Worship’, and to a lesser extent the words found in the ‘Book of Common Prayer’.
On occasion, however, this regular pattern was broken for what is referred to as ‘creative worship’ - an opportunity for a student (or a group of students) to do something a little bit out of the ordinary. Sometimes that was quite a subtle change: this evening we will do Evening prayer in the round, as opposed to all sitting forward... Or sometimes a little bit more creative, praying with stones that we all drop into a bowl at the end; writing something on a piece of paper which is passed around; or playing with the music a bit, more contemporary music, or Jazz perhaps. In the light of this month being LGBT History Month – a time in which the country is to celebrate and reflect on LGBTQ lives throughout history - some students at Westcott were given free rein to mark the occasion through a special ‘creative worship’ service. So far, so good.
As we all know, the Church of England has some serious problems affirming the lives of LGBTQ people. Just over a week ago, the Church restated its position in support of marriage inequality, in its vain attempt to appease the conservative strands of the Church, and avoid schism. Human history is one long list of examples of people having to choose one of two paths. The path of saying, ‘sod you, I’m going to say and do the right thing regardless of the consequences’, and the path of kowtowing to the status quo, the path of least resistance, the backhanded deal with the devil. In Jesus, we seek the way of love and justice even if that leads to persecution, even if that leads to a raw deal, regardless of the consequences. Like Holden Caulfield in ‘The Catcher in the Rye’, I have an axe to grind when it comes to phoniness. I can’t stand superficial style over substance, it drives me nuts. Westcott House has a big problem with style over substance. Many a trainee priest perfects a certain affectation, a certain concern less for the Gospel and more with the number of buttons on their cassock. Less a quest after the object of ultimate concern, and more the need to be seen genuflecting at the appropriate moments. When it comes to language, this includes the use of Polari, the gay slang of the 1960s. As absurd as it is true. It’s probably politically incorrect to even acknowledge that Polari can be amusing. I mean, it’s somewhat old fashioned humour these days, and brings to mind comedy of a bygone era: Bless me Father, Round the Horne, or comedians of the 60s like Kenneth Williams. But none the less there was clearly a time and place for it. What is surprising is the appropriation of this slang and subculture into today’s Church. So, when I heard that Westcott House was in the news because some student put together a Polari evening prayer service I was not at all surprised. What is funny is the extent to which some have suggested this was a regrettable isolated incident, when in fact it points to far deeper and more significant problem within the Church of England, a fake posturing of radicalism within narrow confines. It would be a grave mistake to imagine this subculture of Anglicanism was in any way representative of LGBTQ Christianity. Gay liberation activists from the 70s onwards have regarded such as offensive. So, does tradition have any value? I think this incident is quite interesting when it comes to the question of traditionalism. The principal of Westcott commented to the BBC that this incident will require a “tightening [of] the internal mechanisms of the house to ensure this never happens again." This moronic response clearly suggests a clampdown upon the students, a reigning-in of their already incredibly limited creative freedom. Whereas of course it is within the freedom, within the risk, that ministers can actually grow into competent curators of worship. It takes experience, not oversight, to discern what is and is not appropriate.
The 1662 Act of Uniformity
Okay, now I’m going to change tack a bit, and talk about the ‘Anabaptists’. When we think about our Unitarian roots, we can start in one of several different places. Quite often we start with the ‘Great Ejection’, in the wake of parliament’s Act of Uniformity in 1662, which required greater adherence amongst the Churches’ ministers to the prescribed customaries within the ‘Book of Common Prayer’ (which obviously resonates quite closely with what we were just talking about). At that critical moment in history, thousands of ministers were driven out of the Church of England, and this led directly to the establishment of this religious community, and this building. Another place we could start however is a Century earlier with the ‘Anabaptists’. The ‘Anabaptists’ were not a homogenous movement in unanimous agreement. Rather the ‘Anabaptist’ label encompasses much of the impulse within the radical end of Christianity throughout Europe in the 16th Century; an impulse which manifested in a few different ways. Because the ‘Anabaptists’ didn’t play by the rules, they were greatly feared as a great, potentially destabilising, force. The word ‘Anabaptist’, we could say, was synonymous with a word today like ‘Terrorist’. So, the characteristics and traits of the ‘Anabaptist’ you could say set the stage for us Unitarians to follow. They defined the parameters of the conversation if you will; which is to say we are not the same, but to a greater or lesser extent you can see similarities which have endured from them to now.
Okay, so briefly these are the things which characterised the ‘Anabaptist’: a desire to get back to a simplified Christianity, akin perhaps to the kind of Christianity we read about in the Book of Acts; there is a strong pacifism strand – no wars, no soldiers, no violence; an anti-society strand, and that usually includes a scepticism about the value of cultural trends, like celebrity culture, or materialism; an anti-hierarchy strand, not being subservient to Bishops or committees on high, but being directed by the people for the people; and finally, and most significantly for our purposes this morning, a strong anti-tradition strand, and that came from people in the 16th Century recognising that there was a lot of stuff in the Church (which was all part and parcel of doing Church) which was completely absent from the Bible. Like organ music, like set prayers, like having ordained priests with robes, like a traditional communion service, almost everything could be, and was, questioned along these lines.
'Anabaptists' being burned.
Now, I think with all of these characteristics of the ‘Anabaptist’, we as Unitarians would want to be critical to some extent. To use a metaphor, we could say that these characteristics represent the wind filling our Meeting Houses’ sails, but that does not necessarily mean that the wind dictates our direction. Our reason, our experience, the rudder of our ship can be turned this way or that, collectively and as individuals. So, in the light of anti-traditionalism, we can see in this space that a lot of the traditional trappings of “Church” have been stripped away. There is no cross, no altar, no green altar cover, no priest, no rood screen, and within the structure of our services there is nothing so sacrosanct that it could not be absent. We are free and at liberty to experiment, to try different things out, to shake things up a bit. But, and this is very important, though we can do that, though we can throw everything out the window, in reality, here in community we develop our own patterns and traditions. Like a family, certain ways of doing things emerge. Now on one hand, rules are made to be broken, and to some extent it’s the minister’s job to break the rules, and make sure people don’t get too comfortable. But on the other hand, one must feel at home within their family church or Meeting House, and so there is a balancing act, a middle approach which is to be discerned. But it is important, I think, to note that though we have some of our own home-grown traditions, which have grown up through us, nothing has come down upon us. And I think that is a big part of what being a Unitarian is about.
So, does tradition have any value? As you had probably guessed my answer was going to be: yes and no. It has a lot to do with personal preference, it has a lot to do with the community within which you find yourself worshipping. For some Christians, a very prescriptive approach to liturgy is not oppressive, like we may find it to be, but liberating. It’s about discerning what is appropriate for you, what is appropriate for your neighbour, and what is appropriate within your faith community. That may not always line up neatly, but through grace, and patience, and understanding, we learn to muddle through with each other, and grow together.
Amen.
Fourth Sunday of Advent: Gaudete Sunday
At this time of the year, we gather around probably the most familiar of all Christian narratives, the Nativity Story – the way made straight by John in the desert, song of angels, gold and myrrh, flying star, king of kings. It’s time to rekindle joy, to find hope when hope is lacking. It’s instilled in carols, in the Christmas feeling, it’s in the mistletoe. It can be found in the stories we tell and gather around, words with values we share, that call us into covenant one with another. Call us into a shared language, a shared dream, a shared Meeting House, with breadth and depth, and warmth and growth. One of the oddities of thinking about the coming of Jesus, baby meek and mild, is that within orthodox Christianity it immediately brings to mind the death of Jesus. For Jesus is imbued with cosmic purpose. He may just be a man, but through the inherited narrative we have received, through the central role he takes within our religious story, he becomes more. He’s given symbolic importance well beyond himself. As Cliff puts it in his credo, there is truth in myth, a truth that rises above the mere facts to the point where the facts become, in effect, irrelevant. The historicity of anything in the New Testament has no bearing on my faith. Facts and rationalizations cut against the absurdity of what Jesus represents, and it’s the absurdity which is to be embraced. ‘The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and we will call him Immanuel.’ It’s obviously absurd. The lamb being imbued with divine significance: it’s absurd. The crucifixion: the highest being meets nakedness, torture, and death. This is the surely the pinnacle of absurdity.
Over the last few weeks we have been journeying through Advent, thinking about opening up space in our lives for the sacred. We began by thinking about this process, and how it’s not always comfortable or nice; it doesn’t always leave us with a warm fuzzy feeling. Then we thought about the in-between space, the place between who we are and who we would like to be, our lived and unlived lives, and then last week, for Bodhi Sunday, we thought about what it might mean to inhabit that in-between space, to get past our conflicted selves, to empty our heads of all our ‘what ifs’ and ‘what cans’ – and simply be. The common theme to all this has been the ‘absurd’. The absurdity of simply ‘being’ in a world which constantly demands ‘doing’. The absurdity of embracing the in-between, the uncertainty, the confusion. The absurdity embraced: no, it’s not always comfortable or nice.
Dark Poet, a maid's breast
Haunts you,
Embittered poet, life seethes
And life burns,
And the sky reabsorbs itself in rain,
Your pen scratches at the heart of life.
Forest, forest, alive with your eyes,
On multiple pinions;
With storm-bound hair,
The poets mount horses, dogs.
Eyes fume, tongues stir,
The heavens surge into our senses
Like blue mother's milk;
Women, harsh vinegar hearts,
I hang suspended from your mouths.
The ‘Dark Poet’ By Antonin Artaud (Umbilical Limbo 1926).
'The Great Martyrdom' by Lovis Corinth, 1907
It’s shocking and confuses us. ‘What does that mean?’ we ask. It is not to be understood – it exists to rupture meaning, to break against convention. It not unlike hitting someone in the face with a fish while doing a silly dance. It is where the highest meets the lowest. Virgin child, divine lamb, death of God.
Mythologically speaking, in the birth of Jesus God is born among us, God lives among us, God is crucified among us. In that moment he is neither highest or lowest, for in the crucifixion the highest crashes into the lowest. In that place, everything fails to make sense, everything is turned on its head. Here in enters chaos and unknowing. In our own lives, then, as we experience the unsettling in-between, the Dukkah of life, the impermanent anxiety of all this, that is when we can identify most closely with God. The place where you experience and carry the absurdity of life, is where you encounter God, where you carry the cross. To explain this all away then in more rationalistic terms, like ‘Jesus was just a good chap, with some good moral ideas’, which is kind of the liberal religious impulse, robs the narrative of its absurdity. It makes it reasonable and respectable. Far better, I think, to view the Christian narrative in all its theatrical, apocalyptic, and cosmic glory. At Christmas God leaves heaven, he comes to earth to die. God is crucified on the cross, and the spirit of God is reborn within us, within his people, when we embrace the absurdity of life, when we embrace the in-between.
‘Gospel’ means good news. The Gospels are the first four books in the New Testament - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John - called as such because they are the books which tell us the good news. What the central Gospel message of the Bible is, however, has been debated for centuries, and understood in many ways. In Christianity at its most radical, the Gospel message, the good news, is that on the cross God has died, left the Heavens, and opened himself up to oblivion. And as such, we are wholly liberated into the in-between. This is what Jesus in a manger points us towards. So, it is both absurd, uncomfortable, and yet when lived out – or lived into – a joyful reality. For God is no longer hanging over us, no longer the arbitrator, no longer the guarantor of meaning. Each of us is liberated to find our true expression, to discover how the spirit moves within us individually and collectively. There is no blue-print anymore. No pre-trodden path. Which is all my long, and rather roundabout way of saying, that only Atheists can see God.
Amen.
Second Sunday of Advent: The Unlived Life
'Could it be that self-knowledge is a form of self-denial?' As Adam Phillips poses. To know one’s self is to limit one’s possibilities. To say, ‘my character is thus’, is to imply one might act one way but not another, choose one path but not another, and so we close doors upon ourselves. For one’s character implies a way to be and act in the world, and therefore the road ahead narrows. There are those things we care about, and then those things we care about more. One commitment excludes another. Whenever we permit ourselves, we are forbidding ourselves something else. Convictions, commitments, and strong beliefs necessarily narrow our mind, and therefore perhaps stunt our development. Another way to think about this is that we all have our lives, but we can all imagine, or fantasise, or even beat ourselves up over the life we could have had, or should be having, or would like to have yet. And in a way, each one of us is our lived and unlived lives. That is what it is to know a person: to see all the forks in a person’s life, the person they are, and the person they turned away from being, whether they chose to turn, or circumstances forced the turn. We are all haunted by the people or things we were persuaded to exclude. In each one of us there is a desire for something else, what we would like to have, and this desire within us shapes the people we are, and the relationships we have. To know a person is not simply to know their life, but to know their frustrations. To know a person is not simply to know what they have, but also know what they would like to have, what yearning stirs within them, occupies their thoughts, fantasies, and dreams.
Sometimes these wants, if they go unfulfilled and unexpressed, express themselves not in our thoughts, but in our aches, in our stiff necks, and in our fatigue. Carl Jung speaks about the significance of the unlived life. It is so powerful that it can be carried by our children, even if it is never put into words. So, here we are in the in-between place, in between the person we are, and the person we would like to be, the person we would enjoy to become. We are forced to act in this world – forced to choose – and in making these choices we are stuck in a place of unknowing. We must act, but it’s never clear how we must act. Our choices ultimately begin feeling quite arbitrary. Condemned to our choice, and condemned to our freedom, some of us fall into one of two traps. On one hand, the trap of inertia, unable to choose, refusing to choose, we fall into depression, or cynicism. Or on the other hand, overwhelmed by choice, we delude ourselves into believing that, in fact, the choices are obvious. We appeal to authority, and allow the simplicity of black and white to clear everything up. Herein lies the temptation towards more conservative religious paths, the temptations towards allowing some authority to tell us how we ought to act, that we can be assured we are doing the right thing as we do so. But here we are in the in-between, confronted by a world which demands action. But what action? To be human then, is to live in the in-between, in-between who we are, and who we would like to be, in-between needing to act, and not knowing how to act. No wonder it induces anxiety within us.
It’s like when little children throw big temper tantrums in the supermarket. They know what they want, but reality denies it them. Inside, we’re not that far removed from the little child throwing a temper tantrum – we’re just most calculating, and more savvy. We delude ourselves into believing that if we could just get what we wanted, we would be happy, we would be fulfilled. But reality gets in the way. If only we could get rid of pesky reality, oh the bliss that would be on offer… But in actual fact, if we could get everything we ever wanted, whenever we wanted it, we would not be in heaven, we would be in hell. If the quest, or process, or journey, is stripped between here and our goals, the pleasure is stripped with it. The value of completing something, of building something, or writing something, of going somewhere, of climbing a mountain, is lost if we can simply teleport to our desired destination. The ultimate wish, the ultimate fantasy, or guarantor of meaning, the get-out-of-jail-free card which many cling onto, is often termed ‘God’. The higher-authority which tells us how to act and be in the world. But of course, it does not work. The religious person who wants to project their religiosity is merely repressing their fears, repressing their anxieties, and their unknowing, repressing their doubting and questioning, and that is not good for us. It’s a deception we play upon ourselves and others. People like Richard Dawkins and the new atheists look at this wish-fulfilment God, this ‘I’m right and they’re wrong’ God, this fantasy God, and say how silly that is. Quite rightly, they want to reject that type of God. But then they turn right around and turn other things, other disciplines, or material things, into their gods, into the guarantors of their meaning, into their get-out-of-jail-free cards. And therefore, they blunder in just the same way. Atheists are rarely good at being atheists, because they don’t really get rid of God, they merely replace him. Proper Christianity is not about this fantasy God. The magical God, for all intents and purposes, is dead to us. We should not be about escaping the in-between place, but embracing it. We are in a world that demands action, and yet we don’t know how to act. Good! That is where we should be. It’s absurd of course, but that’s life, to embrace the absurd. We are torn between the person we are, and the person we wish we were. Good! That is where we should be. We are torn between what we have, and what we would like to have. Good. That is where we should be.
We are in Advent. We await the coming of Jesus. We prepare our hearts for his coming. But what does a Jesus in the manger mean? It can sound a lot like we are waiting for our guarantor of meaning, that perhaps for a brief moment, at around Christmas time, we will forget ourselves and imagine that magic is real after all. That in Jesus’ coming, pesky reality will fall away, and we will be left wholly in ownership of those wants, dreams, and fantasies. But this is precisely what Jesus comes to reject. Jesus comes into the in-between with us. He asks us to locate the focus of our intention not on magical beyond realities, not on idols beyond our reach, but on manifesting the Kingdom in the messiness of the in-between. Once, Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, ‘The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, “Look, here it is!” or “There it is!” For, in fact, the kingdom of God is within you.’
Amen.
First Sunday of Advent: A Time of Anticipation
In the Christian liturgical tradition, this is the period in which we begin preparing our hearts for the coming of Jesus at Christmas. The liturgical calendar is structured as a journey you take throughout the year; periods divided into seasons. These seasons have different emphases, different moods, there is an ebb and flow to the year, periods of penance, periods of reflection, and periods of joy. Here at the Meeting House, we rightly hold to the liturgical calendar very lightly – giving us lots of opportunity to draw on other sources, such as music, fiction, philosophy, other religious traditions and so on… But it is valuable to just reflect for a moment on what is lost in doing this. Take this period of Advent - the mood of the period is expectant waiting, a hopeful anticipation, as we create the space in our lives to allow God in. It’s all about hope. It’s like when you have a guest come round to your house, you might do the vacuuming, tidy away that pile of papers that’s been sitting on the dining room table, and make up the spare bedroom, ready for their arrival. But instead of it being your house you’re getting ready, it’s your heart, and the guest is Jesus.
It has been said if you’re sick of Christmas by December 25th then you haven’t done Advent properly. Doing the vacuuming, doing a spot tidying, is not always fun, but it’s done in hopeful expectation of what is to come. In other words, we are supposed to be delaying gratification, doing the heavy lifting now, so that in four weeks we can celebrate together. Within the Unitarian tradition, we largely (though not entirely) take each service, each hour together on a Sunday morning, as its own hermetically sealed little thing. We think to ourselves - did we find that service good? Which means, did we enjoy it, did we find it interesting? This is problematic way of thinking about it, but we’ll come back that. This morning’s reading from Matthew 21 about Jesus getting hold of that donkey, upon which he rode into Jerusalem; Jerusalem, where he was crucified, where he died because his radical ethical message was too much for everyone. So it’s a ‘both and’ Gospel reading. We’re on a journey with Jesus, towards his birth during this Advent season, but also towards his ministry, towards his message, and towards the culmination of that ministry.
Jesus cursing the fig tree.
Following this morning’s reading in the Gospel of Matthew, we have the incident concerning the fig tree. It goes like this. “In the morning, when he (Jesus) returned to the city, he was hungry. And seeing a fig tree by the side of the road, he went to it and found nothing at all on it but leaves. Then he said to it, ‘May no fruit ever come from you again!’ And the fig tree withered at once. When the disciples saw it, they were amazed, saying, ‘How did the fig tree wither at once?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only will you do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, “Be lifted up and thrown into the sea”, it will be done.” We’re on a journey, we’re heading towards Christmas, and we confronted with a withered fig tree – what an earth is that all about?! What is the purpose of this story? Is this really just a story about Jesus cursing stuff because he is grumpy and hungry? Because that’s how it appears on the surface. But no, there is a deeper meaning, lost to our contemporary ears. In 1st Century Israel the fig tree had symbolic meaning; it represented the Temple, more specifically the political power of the Temple, the establishment - the Jewish Religious authority. The political class of that time. What does Jesus do on the way into the city is that he effectively burns the flag! This is a loaded, theological, social, political gesture unlike any other. He is condemning the system – the industrial, economic, religious, political system – and why? Because salvation is no longer to come down from on high, no longer to be meted out by priests and politicians, rather it is to be found within us. The Kingdom of God is within us.
Cursing a fig tree could get you killed! It’s a pretty risky thing for Jesus to do, the kind of gesture which is going to upset some people, even though they need to hear it. Really the Jews who are upset by fig tree being withered need to receive that message, need to hear it, more than those who aren’t. This story of Jesus withering the fig tree is an important lesson. It’s an important but divisive message about how we should relate to the Kingdom of God, as opposed to the establishment of the day. Whether individuals Jews on that particular morning found that message edifying or good or uplifting is not simply irrelevant, it would be to entirely misunderstand the spiritual journey. The Sermon, or Address, is to be endured? Is to be evaluated? Is to be examined? To stand with your head above the parapet? I wonder if anyone can hear me?
What is the purpose of an Address? Part of it is discerning where the line is, working out what’s going to take people out of their comfort zone, and then just stepping over that line just a little bit. But you’ve got to be careful, if you misjudge where that line is, you could lose everyone in the room, or be so bland that then there’s no point at all. That’s what you’re doing some of the time. An address should also help people grow in their spiritual stature, or grow into person they are called to be, or God calls them to be, or the universe calls them to be. And being challenged to grow in this way is not always comfortable, or feel uplifting. Sometimes we need to be brought into an uncomfortable place for a time, to be challenged for a time, and to be left churning ideas for a time.
‘So, did you like it? Yes, I liked it. Oh you liked it!...’
An address should be about being there, about experiencing something, about wrestling with something and coming out yourself a different person on the other side. ‘I liked it’ is missing something. If the address just becomes the thing which is done, and it’s not about movement, or a journey, or an awakening, or a process of self-discovery, then we’re just in the maintenance game. And I don’t want to be in the maintenance game. Do you? When I was talking about the liturgical calendar at the beginning, this is where I was heading. With a rolling liturgical calendar everyone knows there is a process taking place. We might be in a challenging space now, but it won’t last. We might be confronted with a burning flag now, but it won’t last. We might be asked to look into the darkness within, to self-examine, but it won’t last. And in the same way, during this season of Advent we enter into a period of anticipation, and a time of waiting, which means in a sense this service will be left incomplete, as will the next, and the next... As we do the hoovering, the heavy lifting, and clear the papers… Because something is coming, and it’s going to change us.
Amen.
Remembrance Sunday: Operation Restore Sanity
Part 1
When it comes to Remembrance Sunday, the Church of England has a big advantage. With its liturgy, its pre-set prayers, maybe a bit of Scout involvement, the old timer in uniform reading today’s Bible lesson, a nice bit of pageantry – you can quite easily get through the entire Sunday without ever actually talking about what we are doing. I, however, do not have the luxury anymore of avoiding it.
The first world war had an enduring impact as it marked a level of violence previously unexperienced. It crushed an optimistic belief that the 20th century would be a time of progress: onwards and upwards. Colossal events of this nature cannot help but be politicised. They are naturally hijacked by one group or another to further one agenda or another. Following the end of WWI, Armistice Day was thought of on very different terms than when compared to today. It was about the Christian valour of British soldiers bringing militarism to a close, dying not in vain, but ushering in a new era free of war. Great derision was always levelled at those who expressed a belief in the futility of the war; the establishment, both church and state, furthered a narrative of sacrifice for a higher purpose. I wonder now, in retrospect, what was the higher purpose of that war. There has been no end to war, the military machine has not been reigned in. In 1930 the parliamentary Peace Committee asked if the name of the 11th November service could be changed to the ‘peace and memorial service’. ‘Unthinkable!’ cried the war office official. ‘We get more recruits for the army in the fortnight after the Armistice ceremony than at any other time of the year.’ Now why is that? There has historically been an undeniable, unspoken even, blurring between the respecting of the dead, nationalism, and the glorification of war, a romantic view of war. We are now asked not to question why people died, but to simply accept that it was worth it, and that when the time comes it will be worth it again. Remembrance Day is used to perpetuate a myth that war is inevitable, however regrettable, and sometimes necessary. Today then, as I stand here wearing my red poppy, I want to call us back to the lofty hopes of those British soldiers returning home after fighting on the Western front. Let these blood red poppies be a reminder not of war’s glory, but of war’s futility. Let us strive to match their efforts, not for war, but to bring about peace, love, and a more just world.
Part 2
Batman fighting baddies.
You know things are about to get serious when I start talking about superheroes. Let’s think about Batman for a minute, I promise it is very relevant. Who is Batman? He is a fictional character obviously. He has two identities, as many superheroes do. By day he is the businessman, philanthropist, billionaire, and womaniser, Bruce Wayne. By night, he is the Dark Knight, the caped warrior, bringing vigilante justice to the underbelly of Gotham City. A billionaire who solves his problems with violence; solves his problems by violently oppressing the most down-trodden within society - I wonder if that reminds us of anyone? Another person who in his own way is larger than life, not with big ears, but big hair! Although admittedly, somewhat less cool, and more orange. The character of Batman conforms to a recurring literary theme – The Myth of Redemptive Violence.
Carl Jung
This notion of recurring myths, characters, tropes, and images which emerge within history and society over and over, is the Jungian idea emerging forth from our collective unconscious. Jung’s technical term is ‘archetypes’. The Myth of Redemptive Violence is one such ‘archetype’: ideas which just keep coming back again and again. Other examples are the wise old woman, or the hero, or creation, or the devil, the scapegoat, good vs evil, the quest, the magic weapon. And so on… Ideas which emerge independently in disconnected cultures and religions since the dawn of humanity. Because these ideas are somehow in us already – that’s the idea. The Myth of Redemptive Violence is the idea that violence is an efficient way to solve problems, or bring about prosperity. And note: I’m using the word ‘violence’ in broad terms, not simply the inflicting of physical pain on others, but oppressing, or limiting freedom, or limiting movement, or denying rights. This type of violence can often be worse than the physical kind. So, The Myth of Redemptive Violence: this archetypical theory was developed by the theologian, the late Walter Wink. It’s a story the dominant in society tell their subordinates. It enshrines the belief that violence saves, that war brings peace, the might makes right. It’s a narrative structure found all over the place – in the Bible, in cartoons, in computer games, in films. There is a central character, a hero; he suffers, he seems hopelessly doomed, until miraculously the hero breaks free, vanishes the villains, and restores order. It perpetuates an idea of natural chaos, that humanity is incapable of peaceful coexistence, and therefore, order must continuously be imposed from on high: men over women, master over slave, rulers over the people.
It is the divine duty of the dominant to subdue any who would threaten tranquillity. The Myth of Redemptive Violence is the story of order bringing victories over chaos, by whatever violent means necessary. The violent means are justified in the end. So we, look at these fictional heroes: Batman, the Jedi, James Bond, Popeye, and so on, and knowing they are good, they are on the side of the good, we identify with them, which in psychological terms allows us to project our darker selves, our repressed anger, our violence, on the bad guys. And through taking it out on them, we are, as it were, cleansed, or saved. Saved through violence. This happens in fiction as I have said, but it also happens in organised sport, in nationalism, in the media, in militarism. This becomes the lens through which we see the world – we always locate evil not within us, but out there in the other, in the Mexican, or the woman, or the Muslim, and we are affirmed in our own goodness when they are beaten, repressed, driven from our land. They are scapegoated for the wrong in our world, and the god of order is glorified.
Batman & Superman
This week the Myth of Redemptive Violence, in all its vulgar stupidity, had a very significant victory. Jesus calls us to turn the other cheek, to go the extra mile, to resist evil in the most challenging way of all, by not becoming evil. By not responding to violence with violence, in the broad sense. By not becoming the Dark Knight, or the caped warrior; that is not the way of Jesus. You have heard it said, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, but I say to you, do not resist evil violently. Do not mirror evil. Do not let your opponent dictate the terms of your opposition. Resist evil in non-violent ways. Through dialogue, through discussion, through substantive debate - something we’re seeing very little of at the moment. And so, this morning, we affirm peace. We deny the Myth of Redemptive Violence its ascendancy. We wear our symbolic poppies as the reminders of peace they were meant to be, and we strive after a message of hope. Hope is not idealistic or silly. It is not naive to believe we can bend the arc of history towards justice. Because it’s been done before. And it will be done again.
Amen.
Harvest Service - 'More Life'
I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” These sentiments are shouted on our street corners, clung to as armour by people unwilling to go deeper and unfold the paradoxes and discrepancies of our present life and age. A couple of weeks ago I spoke a bit about the Wisdom tradition as we receive it from the Old Testament; this will kind of act as part two of that address. You don’t need to remember the address however, because I can sum it up for you all in one sentence – “Stop. Be still. And ask, what’s the greater thing.” Today, when we think about life and death, we think in entirely literal terms: being alive, and moving about, being seen, and talking to people; and being dead, being in the ground, being no more. In the Wisdom tradition this is not how the words ‘life’ and ‘death’ are used at all. Life and death are present states we can be in now. Present realities. They are choices we make. We choose the way of life, or we choose the way of death. That means that your body can be dying, you could be terminally ill, you could be sick, you could be frail, but more alive than ever before. Or vice versa, you could be a physically very impressive specimen, but be spiritually vacant, dead to this present reality. “Stop. Be still. And ask what’s the greater thing.” This is an important question to ask ourselves because it shocks us into the present reality.
Think of that landlord, he needed to be shocked into the present reality, because it is so easy to glide into a normality which makes us blind to the truth, blind to the bigger picture. In Deuteronomy Moses speaks to his people, he says, ‘Today I am giving you a choice. You can choose life and success or death and disaster.’ Isn’t it funny how similar this choice Moses presents his people with is to what Jesus later says? Jesus presents us with a choice - ‘I am the way, the truth and the life. Follow me. Or don’t, but I warn you that that way leads to death and destruction’. Here we usually trip up in one of two ways. Jesus is speaking through the lens of the wisdom tradition, so when he talks about life, he is not talking about magical immortality, he is talking about a present state, an invitation to enter into the fullness of life now. Do you want to live now? Or secondly, speaking through the lens of wisdom, or Sophia, meaning that he in effect is putting that voice on. In the same way that if I say, ‘I came that you may have life, and have it abundantly’, I am not talking as me, because that would be mad. I’m talking as Jesus, and Jesus in turn is talking as Sophia, or wisdom personified. So you could say, that the question is not so much, is there life after death, but rather, is there life before death?
So what is it to be more alive? We gather here for our Harvest celebration, a celebration of the abundance which comes forth and sustains us. It’s about connectivity, remembering those connections we have with everything else, because it’s when we feel that connection, that connection with others, say, over a meal with friends, that is when we feel most alive. Life is when you feel an abundance of freedom. You breath in the space of life, and out of that you feel a great sense of possibility, that we’re not imprisoned in a tomorrow which will be the same as today. Tomorrow will hold all the possibilities of new creation, a new way of being in tomorrow, holding our energy differently, being liberated to hold life anew. Living out of the depth of our being, the depth of our soul, the depth of our true self, being alive, freedom, connection, possibility, that is the harvest we are being called to reap. It goes deeper than our current circumstances. The choice to be alive comes right out of our core. No matter what crap life is throwing at us today: difficulties with health, or broken relationships, or finances, responsibilities, burdens - we can choose life. I’m sure we can all think of people who were in a big mess, or sick, and yet somehow more alive than ever.
Stop. Be still. And ask what’s the greater thing. Ask what is the thing that makes you more alive. Even when the exuberance of summer is gone, even when the world externally seems to be drawing in, as the night is drawing in, and winter is coming, even then, we can pick life. If we don’t in those moments pick life, then there will always be an excuse, we will always be subject to circumstances, afloat upon the turbulent seas of this life. We must pick life, we must travel our own journey. Is life feeling "meh"? Then stop, and ask what’s the greater thing. Better to have nothing and be alive, than everything and be dead inside. Life… more life… more life I pray… Amen.