Our value

I was speaking in my last blog about how we search for the meaning of life often in the wrong places. I was also trying to say something about how our life's value lies not in what we do or have done or have achieved but simply, truly in who we are; that we are. However, our world is such that that is very difficult to accept.

The other day while I was on the bus coming home there were two young women standing near me - I think they may have been University students. I have to admit to being a chronic eavesdropper and so I was listening to their conversation. I wish I had counted the number of times the word 'stress' arose in this conversation over about 10 minutes. And it is a word and a reality it seems, that has become a huge burden in people's lives. Why is this so? What is it that we are reaching for that makes life so stressful? Part of my question would also be: if we liked ourselves and believed ourselves to be of infinite value irrespective of what we achieve would we be more at peace?

I have a number of friends who have taught me a lot about the gift of being somebody without worldly success. These folks are my friends at l'Arche - I have spoken of them before and hope to do so many times again. But my point is that here are people who are not only beautiful in themselves but have far less sense of the stress that comes from being a chronic high-achiever. It isn't that each person hasn't felt the sting of rejection or hasn't suffered deeply because most have, but even so, there is a beautiful gift of just being.

Ken Milne

Here are some of my friends
to whose friendship
I owe more than I can
say.

Melina Boote and Gwenda Dunlop

You will see in these people the amazing gift of human dignity that we all desire. And because we are all getting older there is as well, the acceptance of self that brings a greater peace.

I would like to trust that as our world faces more of the trials that seem to lie ahead we could learn to value each other person as a gift - regardless of rank or wealth or place in life. It would be amazing if we could come to a new, truer sense of what beauty actually is and where peace really comes from. 

Finding our center

I was reading an article in the British magazine *'The Tablet' by Daniel O'Leary - a man whose wisdom I admire very much. He is writing about some of the 'social anxieties' of our day. In particular he tells the story of someone he was taking somewhere in his car. They had traveled six or seven miles when his passenger said 'Please turn back. I have forgotten my mobile'[cell phone]. He goes on to say 'Even though there was no emergency in her life just then, and we would be back in a few hours, the thought of being phoneless was very distressing. Full blown FOMO - the Fear of Missing Out - is one of the most insidious social anxieties of our age'.

I of course, had never heard of FOMO but as I read further it began to make sense. The need frequently (constantly?) to check Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites is so ever-present not just for young people but older as well. Daniel goes on to suggest something about what he feels is happening, ' There are, currently, an increasing amount of reports and warnings about people's deep fear of losing a sense of themselves, of right relations with others...anxious teenagers are constantly monitoring their popularity among their peers, tormented by feelings of inadequacy and doubt'.
             
O'Leary then goes on to speak about our human need to believe there is meaning to our lives, to believe that I am worth something. He suggests we need to become more attuned to that sense, deep in our selves, of being valued, loved. 'However driven, drained or damaged people may be, is there not always some inner belief in a feeble flicker of a finer self, a moral, mystical seed still alive in the depths...?' Daniel goes on to say 'From that awareness emerges their true identity. It is a treasure hidden in the neglected fields of their souls'.

I do think Daniel is touching on something so vital in our modern lives which are lived mostly, without an awareness of the God who loves and cherishes us. We seek to be loved for superficial things (designer things, monetary success, etc) and miss the beauty which is there and is true and is worthy without having to prove anything. 

                                                                           How do we get to know who we are?

Which leads me to another article from *Sojourners that someone sent which is about the recent death of Philip Seymour Hoffman a most wonderful actor. The author suggests that a very special gift that Hoffman had as an actor was his ability to reflect back to us, our frail, vulnerable humanity...and our dignity in the midst of it. Here is the link: 

http://sojo.net/blogs/2014/02/04/philip-seymour-hoffmans-invaluable-gift-revealing-our-humanity?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sojourners%2Fgods-politics+%28Sojourners+God%27s+Politics+Blog%29   . 

Modern life presents so many challenges to our humanity; to our ability to accept who we are and how we are. It challenges our yearning to be true to ourselves; to accept our failures (if indeed they are); to love ourselves just because we are, just because we exist and for no other reason.

Both these articles have raised for me, such vital questions about our existence as we move forward in an ever more challenging world. We can help each other first of all, by caring.

 *http://www.djoleary.com    http://www.thetablet.co.uk/
 *http://sojo.net/magazine

Trees and Life

I hope you will forgive me for using my photos again but sometimes when I look at them they suggest things I would like to say. This post is mostly photos of trees of one size or type. The thing about trees is that they are stupendous. They have their own wonderful and unique beauty at any season.

And at each season they reflect in such a fantastically obvious way the amazing processes of nature especially of life and death.

This is Tony the shepherd and the trees at their fullest

Each growing thing, including we humans, starts out with what it takes to grow and multiply and die. In spring the fresh beauty: flower and seed, in summer a coming to maturity - sometimes looking a bit eaten and worn and then of course in fall, the process of death at least of some part of the plant or tree. 

Is this the instinct for survival we all have?

Trees and all growing things also help to keep us alive by providing the air we need - that is why people worry about the cutting of forests especially perhaps the Amazon rainforest which provides our planet with 20% of our oxygen apart from all the other amazing  things that live and grow there. 

This makes me think of community: grow together, help one another survive.

I guess what I am wanting to say then is that the trees around us provide us with beauty, with life, with amazement. So let us love them and care for them, treasure them and protect them.

Is this not breathtaking ?

A quote from that wise man, Thich Nhat Hanh* We can get so caught up in our plans, fears, agitations and dreams that we aren't living in our bodies anymore and we are not in touch with our real mother, the Earth, either. We can't see the miraculous beauty and magnificence that our planet offers to us. We are living more and more in the world of our minds and becoming increasingly alienated from the physical world...Our planet is right here, powerful, generous and supportive at every moment. 

*Thich Nhat Hanh: Love Letter to the Earth, Parallax Press, Berkeley, Calif., 2013

Children

“Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows.” John Betjeman

This week I don't want to write much but I do want to share with you some photos that I have taken of children. These are not children that I know personally but I felt each time I saw them that they represented a sort of 'childrenness' (I don't imagine this is a real word but you will understand what I mean). I guess the reason I wanted to share them is because I often feel as an adult how much of that quality I have lost. It isn't that childhood is all wonder or joy by any means but I do feel feel that what they experience, whether it be joy or fear or uncertainty or curiosity is much less guarded and protected than later in life.

Almost everything is an adventure and a learning.
 















 








 












 









 






The other thing that strikes me in many of these photos is that for most children trust is a totally necessary part of their lives. They must trust the adults in whose care they are placed. 'Life' tends to make us less trusting as we grow older- sometimes a good and necessary thing but sometimes a sad and hardening thing.

Courage

For several reasons I have been thinking about courageous people. One reason is that I have just finished reading a very special book called 'My Mother's Secret' by J.L. Witterick*. Ms Witterick has written a small but very powerful and poignant book about two brave Catholic women who sheltered Jews in their small farmhouse in Poland in WWII. The book is a novel but the two women did exist and have been honoured in Israel as Righteous Among the Nations.

Golda Meir compared the Righteous Among the Nations to drops of love in an ocean of poison, and said that "they rescued not only the lives of Jews, but had saved hope and the faith in the human spirit."     (this is taken from the website of Yad Vashem - the holocaust museum in Israel)

At the end of the book Ms. Witterick quotes from Sydney J. Harris " Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable".  I could see as I read the quote some of the things that hang over me that I did not do and should have done. I would guess that may be true for many of us. 

It is something to think about: the things we did not do and should have, because it isn't too late. We are still alive and we can change, we can choose to live differently. We know that we can't undo the past but we can certainly act in the present which will become the past.

The other reason I have been thinking about courageous people is because of a hymn that someone sang at church recently. The song was a Spiritual called, I think, Deep River and it was explained to us that not only were the slaves singing about their hope of crossing a river to heaven but that underlying it was also their hope to cross the Niagara River to safety in Canada.

There have been many books and articles and programs in the last few decades about slavery. I never ever fail to be almost overwhelmed by the strength of faith and courage that so many people had in the face of lives of horror and apparent hopelessness. How did they manage to cling to the hope that they were in fact important in the eyes of God and that somehow, life here or 'in heaven' would make up for it. I am so in awe of such courage. 
   

Ordinary people giving us all the hope that we too can be people of courage in the face of darkness, are such a gift. I am so grateful.

A new year's resolution?

So, we are starting a new year. And it has been a very cold beginning here in Toronto and in much of eastern North America. Thinking about this, I found my mind turning to what, if anything, the beginning of a new year means to the men and women who live on our streets - and there are many; or to the families who are living in cold housing. Does this seem a grim way to think when for so many of us it is the time when we look forward in hope, believing in the possibility of good things? 

Maybe I am thinking a bit more about this right now because recently I heard once again, one of the most powerful passages in the Christian gospel. This passage, found in Matthew 25 has Jesus saying to some people:  'I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me'. Almost every time I read these verses with their opposite verses which say things like 'I was hungry and you gave me no food'..have always made me feel badly. I feel badly I think because I understand the truth and the life-giving power of what is being said and I am very aware of my own many failings. 
   

I believe this passage outlines the key to human happiness. We are indeed meant to take care of one another. If I take care of you and you take care of me then we are both well and happy. If my city and my country also live by these words, then our world will be well on the journey to the wholeness that we are called to. It isn't of course a free journey or an easy one, but I am absolutely certain it 'works'.

The other thing that is being said here is that for those of us who are Christian - and I am pretty sure each other faith has had its own way of saying the same thing - Jesus is saying basically - this is what it means to be a follower of mine and when you do these things to and for one another, you are in fact, doing it to me. I believe that Jesus is also saying (though not in words) that this is more important than remembering dogma or rules. It is, he says, living faith.
   

I don't explicitly make New Year's resolutions but I do hope that this year to come will bring me and all of us closer to the realization of this costly gift of love.
 

Light and Dark

This Sunday is for many Christians the Feast of the Epiphany. The scripture that is read from the gospel is mostly about the magi/kings/wise men that came in search of the child Jesus. So, it is about following a light and about a journey. 

Another scripture reading comes from the book of the prophet Isaiah. It begins: 'Arise, shine out for your light has come, the glory of God is rising on you, though night still covers the earth and darkness the peoples'. That is very mixed sign isn't it? Light and darkness. The theme is carried forward in the gospel of Matthew where we see the men following a bright star but on the journey they are also faced with the dark ambition and fear of the rulers of the land. It is a journey then towards the light but which includes more than one confrontation with the dark.

In the story they reach the light most certainly, but it requires great perseverance and wisdom as they go. Theirs is a long and tiring journey during which they are not sure what they will find. They only know they must go on. 

All this made me think of life's journey for us all. Our days, our months, our years are surely that mixture of seeking light: what is good, what is true, what is loving and at the same time, constantly being confronted by the dark within ourselves and others. But we do, mostly, go on don't we? We are drawn towards something? Someone? or is it just well-being?  peace?  Light? or are those all the same?
                 

What is it that draws you forward? What is it that gives your life meaning? 

I wanted to share with you a TED talk I watched recently which isn't so far off the track of this meditation:http://www.ted.com/talks/maysoon_zayid_i_got_99_problems_palsy_is_just_one.html