This page is devoted to my thoughts and experiences over a period of time. To me, they mark stages that I have gone through on my continuing spiritual Journey. I offer them to you hoping that they may be of interest. Reiki effects the Reiki Practitioner by developing what is already within. We don't all develop the same way. All healers are encouraged, prodded or even pushed down their spiritual path. The relative speed of this journey seems related to the amount of healing the practitioner is involved in.

1. 21st May 2000 - Searching for a Spiritual Path?
2. 30th July 2000 - A Brush with death.
3. 12th August 2001 - My God.
4. 10th February 2002 - The Next Step?
5. 6th June 2002 - Soul Thoughts
6. 24th August 2003 - About Angels
7. 18th January 2004 - The Meaning of a November Experience
8. 20th February 2005 - Spirituality and the Kingdom of Heaven
9. 11th September 2005 - Moving toward Oneness with God
10. 18th September 2005 - The Path of the Spirit
11. 14th May 2006 - The Illusion of Reality
12. 24th December 2006 - A Meaning for the Birth of Jesus
13. 29th July 2007 - Inner Ears and Eyes
14. 26th August 2007 - What Blackpool Unitarian Church stands for
15. 30th September 2007 - The Holy Spirit
16. 25th November 2007 - Doing The Holy Spirit
17. 30th December 2007 - Abundance and Spirituality
18. 3rd August 2008 - A Little about Love
19. 30th November 2008 - But What is Love?
20. 29th March 2009 - So Then, What is Love Really?
21. 31st May 2009 - The Bible and the 'Feel Right' Factor!

21st May 2000 - Searching for a Spiritual Path
I am on a spiritual path! I am on a spiritual path. I am on a spiritual path?
These are the thoughts that are and have been relevant to me this year.

And I have struggled with them. Is there such a thing as a spiritual path? What does this spiritual path consist of? Is it real? How would I recognise it if I saw it? Am I on such a path? Do I want to be on it? Do Have I have a choice about it anyway? What direction am I going, progressing or regressing? I have been feeling very confused.

I feel like Poo Bear, with very little brain Thinking Thingish Things.

This morning I am risking other people looking at my Thingish Things and perhaps my confusions in the hope that some slight thought or word may trigger a Thingish response with someone ...
Anyone.

Jalal al-Din Rumi (MASNAVI Vol 5: Verses 1733-1734) suggests that we have an inbuilt need to search. It is however difficult to search without at least making a path even if we are not following a pre-existing path, road, or motorway. Rumi (MASNAVI Vol 3: Verses 978-980) also suggests that we should actively apply ourselves to such a search and, importantly, we will (with certainty) find that for which we search. Now that's a thought isn't it? The corollary to this is that if we do not search, we will find that for which we look, that is nothing.

The idea of being on a journey or path during life is not new. Our own literature is full of it with the Robert Frost poem (The Road Not Taken) being just one example.
What appeals to me is the idea that taking the 'path less travelled' makes a difference. Perhaps this effects the quality of the progression and what is perceived and learned along the path.
To me it is the act of choice which is important and specially that there is not necessarily a pre-ordained, pre- determined and way marked route.

Richard Wilkins thoughts contained within his 'the path to follow' (10/10 The Yellow Book: final page) also interests me. Is it really true that whatever path we take it is always the right one for us? Is it the journey that is important rather than the journey's end?

All these thoughts interest me but can I make sense of them? What do they mean for Me? Do questions have any importance to myself? How should I test them to find out their truth?

On reflection there is only one way. Reading and listening to others is interesting, thought provoking but of itself can give no certainty. So where can I look for the answers to my questions about the spiritual path? The answer is simple. I should look at what I think I know most about. I should look at myself. I think that we have lived together, me and myself, long enough now to know a little of each other. To do this I intend to apply the best, the most effective tool that I have, hindsight. It is a wonderful tool if used 'with truth' and with unclouded vision, though I am not sure I have that totally sorted out yet. Hindsight can be very unkind! So, I have a question, I have a tool to apply and I have myself on which to apply it.

So what can my own life tell me about the existence, direction, or perhaps the quality of my possible spiritual path? What do I look at but who I am, What I was, What I have become and then perhaps chart this forward. Is this too easy? Would this answer any of the questions or does the very framing of the process of WAS, NOW and NEXT bare with it an automatic answer of PATH, just like any three dots not in a straight line, when joined will always form a triangle.
Probably, but I am not sure how to escape this thinking.

For what it is, I feel that I have changed during my life, or have I developed. I started out as a very shy, introverted, emotionally insecure child with limited social skills and a poor memory.
What have I become but a shy, introverted, somewhat insecure adult who brazens out public appearances but normally verges on the uncommunicative and anti-social and guess what, still having a poor memory. Doesn't sound like much progress or development does it? Well perhaps I have understated the lack of development just a fraction. My life has taught me, however, the value of what and who I am. Personal success has been important in the development but more importantly have been my failures. These have taught me to empathise with others. My life has forced me to look at myself and to see me as I am not as I would like to be. It has created a need in me to help others, though whether this is only normal growth and flowering of a pre-existing disposition is open to debate.

What does this mean? I am beginning to understand myself and this allows me to guess at an understanding of others. Is this the spiritual path for which I search? I think not, though perhaps an understanding of myself may have predisposed me to ask the questions about a spiritual path, I see nothing spiritual in this.

And that suggests another question, perhaps the most important question. Has there been anything spiritual at all in my life so far? Memory of my childhood and early youth is now fragmentary to my mind, and although there were experiences and lessons learned I cannot say that they were particularly spiritual. In this period I grew up within a Unitarian family (my father having been a minister) and I attended a Unitarian church. The 'free thinking' that I was exposed to demanded of me a number of things. Ask questions. Look beyond the surface. Serve others. Work hard. Strive for what is good. I suspect these attitudes were inculcated within me during this period. Are these spiritual? No I don't think so, not in themselves, no matter how laudable.

Did the next period of my life have anything spiritual? I found love, married and helped (however little) to bring up two children. I strived for academic and professional standing. I was driven to learn and not just in an academic sense. Interesting? Yes. Necessary? Yes.
Spiritual? No I think not, unless I have misunderstood what spiritual is, and that is entirely possible. Perhaps 'spiritual' cannot be really understood before you have experienced and created an understanding of life, living and responsibility.

Has anything spiritual happened in my life that I can poke a finger at?
Anything at all? Well perhaps. My problem is that I am certainly a 'doubting Thomas'. I have to bump into things. I have to have things spelled out. I am after all very slow to understand the obvious. No doubt my 'life-acquired' pre-disposition to be an 'Eeyore' gets in the way. Lynn, my wife, certainly thinks I have this ability to look hard at life and find the worst possible outcome to worry about. I think I am preparing myself for the 'brick-bats' of life which need to avoided or at least survived.

Today, now, I will not do this. I will be a 'Tigger'. Well perhaps that is going too far. So perhaps I will settle for being 'Poo Bear'.

So, has anything spiritual happened in my life that might answer my original questions? Yes, I think I have had a slight glimmer, a peak, a smidgen, enough to acquire a slight inkling about the answer(?) to my questions. And in my 'Poo-bearish' way I will expose my thingish things to you, and hope that they don't become less thingish.

Within the last 10 years, it has come to me to ask the question, is there a God? This thought has come repeatedly to me, without me asking for it. It popped, fully formed into my head and often when I was working my hardest at something difficult but definitely non-spiritual. So far I have never been able to answer the question.

About 4 years ago I decided to stand this question on its head. I would apply the 'null Hypothesis', beloved by researchers and statisticians, to my original question. I will say that there is no God. Can I say that there is no God? I found after many attempts to reflect and answer this that when it came down to it I could not really say, and believe, that there was no God. This knowing was not at a conscious level though my arguments definitely were.

Not long after accepting my thoughts concerning God I heard about Reiki healing and I could not believe that such healing could work. It must be just a money-spinner. Yet within months, despite my objections to the idea of the idea I knew that I would be trained and that I would go all the way to master level in this healing form. No conscious decision was made. The knowledge just appeared, fully formed within me. Two years ago I found out that my eldest brother was a healer within his church, and though too late, he warned me that the effect of becoming a healer was to travel down the spiritual path faster, almost to be driven down it. He said that it was not possible to heal and not make spiritual progress.

In the last 2 years I have noticed with an increasing frequency that friends and acquaintances are offering books of a spiritual nature that I feel the need to read and sometimes buy.

Just over a year ago I knew that I had to come to the church I now attend. Knew. No discussion. No pondering. And when I did not do it I found that the need within me grew until I could no longer ignore it. When I arrived what did I find? I found others also deeply interested in spiritual matters and healing. To my limited knowledge, unheard of in a Unitarian church.

Today, to some extent I find myself increasingly driven by unconscious decisions that 'feel right' rather than are thought through. This 'feel right' factor has, for me, become important. It is forcing me to recognise that within me is a source of knowledge as well as a sense of peace and well being which is worth pursuing.

Have my original questions been answered? I think partly but not in the way that I was thinking that they would be. I think that I can see a spiritual development within me. To some extent it embarrasses me to say so. If I accept what has and was happening to me then it can be said that I am on a spiritual path. Perhaps I have always been on it. Perhaps my progress along this path is in-built within me. Perhaps it does not matter, but to me the recognition of a line of development or pathway is important. I am happy to be there, or here wherever it might be. I am happy to be travelling. I am happy to have taken the path less travelled. I am interested, even excited, to know this. I look forward with interest to further steps along the path into what to me is unknown land. Most of all I am happy that I sometimes find a Thing which is very 'Thingish' within me and hope that you, who find an interest in such 'Thingish Things' will treasure them.

I wish to thank you all for listening and for the chance to speak. Not because I like speaking in public but I feel that the process, thought to paper to mouth has been important to me so that I could pin down some of my thoughts. Thank you.

Winnie is dead. She died earlier this month. I knew Winnie for just 6 weeks, her daughter, with Winnie's agreement had asked me to be involved as a Reiki practitioner. As usual I was the point of last resort.

Winnie was old. She had had a full active life, but since last summer had suffered from the progressive degenerative condition. When I first met Winnie she was in inner turmoil, her condition having progressed so that she could only speak and partially move her head. She was finding breathing increasingly difficult. She had no other control and her hands were locked solid, fingers turned in and the growing nails cutting the palms.

Her passing was, frankly, not unexpected, so what was it about Winnie's death that I knew that I would talk about it here. Well, it was the manner of her death, linked to other things that prompted me to feel that here, in her death, was something to be learned something that I was meant to learn, something worth passing on.

What were these things, other than Winnie's death that caught my attention enough to respond to them. Thoughts, like daydreams and muses are always passing through my awareness yet certain poems seemed increasingly to show themselves as fragments, the odd phrase, a line, and the ideas inherent behind certain poems. There was nothing unusual about the poems and every one of them was one that I use with my Special Needs children as a discussion starter or just to experience. I am a believer in the importance and value of language, even beyond the apparent ability level. I am frequently surprised by the quality of response from my pupils - but that is not why I am up here today! I do get such poem fragments from time to time floating through my brain, that seems normal. But poetry doesn't normally bombard me. Nor do the books that contain these poems, which I haven't used for at least 2 years, at home, seem to attract my attention from among the hundreds of similar books on the shelves at home. By itself I would have ignored this and said that it was because I was working with Winnie that was causing my brain to dig out related thoughts etc.

My church had a 'Treasured Memory' coffee morning earlier this month. I knew beforehand that I would choose one of Mother's letters but not which one. Out of 4 full, lever arch files that contain these letters, the 1st file that I opened at random opened at the beginning of the letter that I read earlier. This letter was to the man who would eventually become my father, concerning the death of his first wife. A coincidence? My life is full of coincidence.

Just this last Monday a friend lent me a book and suggested a particular passage as being suitable for this service. Yes she knew it would be about death but not what slant I would take.
Her offering fitted exactly with my thoughts framed prior to day. Another coincidence and one that I will share with you later.

After a long preamble, what is it that I have learned? Let's take things in order. 1st the poetry, then my experiences with Winnie and finally my friend's offering.

Language, any language is difficult, full of contradictions, slippery concepts that change with spacing, punctuation and word grouping but more often responding to prior experience of the reader/listener. It is for this reason that as I have become older I have been drawn more and more to poetry. Two simple modern examples are "Private? No!" by Willard R. Espy and then "London Airport" by Christopher Logue.

I like poetry and I am going to share, with you, the poems that my thought fragments came from. It doesn't really matter what meaning anyone else says that they have but what it means to me based on my own experience of life, intellectual and emotional.

Horace, who died in 8BC wrote in Odes, book 3, verse 29:-

Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call today his own:
He who, secure within, can say,
Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.
Be fair or foul or rain or shine
The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine.
Not Heaven itself upon the past has power,
But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.

Like the Lao - Tzu poem "All things pass", as a view of death it seems, not wrongful but limited.
They deal with life on the basis of here, I've done this or that and life moves on. Which of course it does and it ends, which of course it does. All things do pass. It is just a reminder of the inevitable.

Roger McGough wrote "Let me Die a Young Man's Death" This is a young persons response to death. Let it be quick. Let it be a long way off. Very understandable but like the previous two poems does not deal with death, the issue or the event in any real way. This is like Mothers "Pull yourself together" advice , but it doesn't deal with the issue.
Though in fairness that was not all that she said which was of value as there were all sorts of undercurrents of real meaningful support. In a sense these passages are a rejection of death.

Poetry is full of authors' responses to death. Death in war. Death of friends. Death of relatives but perhaps it is the poetry that has been written when the poet knows that they are dieing that is most useful to my experience of Winnie They include Christine Rossetti "Remember" who died in 1894; Raymond Carver "Fragment", who died in 1998; Sasha Moorson "Body" who died in 1993; Juan Ramone Jimenez "I Am Not I".who died in 1958 and an unknown poet. This last "Do not stand At My Grave and Weep" came, I understand, to light in a sealed envelope left on his dresser prior to starting a tour of duty in Northern Ireland in which he died. This young soldier died in 1994.

Christina Rosetti in "Remember" has recognised, if not having totally accepted, the inevitable, but was concerned for those left behind. This concern for those remaining seems to me to be the real driving thrust of her thoughts, rather than the dieing.

In Late "Fragment", Raymond Carver has a turned inwards to reflect on life. Asking and observing. What have I really got out of life? What have I learned?
What has been really important?

Sash Moorson's "Body" recognises the beginning of, at least, an intellectual separation of the self and body. That perhaps the ills of the body don't matter after all as there is something else more important.

This recognition of and separation of the essential self from the body is continued in Juan Ramone Jimenez' "I Am Not I".

Steven Cummins' message "Do not stand At My Grave and Weep" to his parents before he was killed in 1994 takes the idea of the separate self to be a continuing self - the immortal self. In a sense this poem turns full circle suggesting that this last idea should be of comfort to those left behind.

These poems , in my mind form a progression, a development of thought.
First is the 'Rejection' the closing of the mind to the inevitable outcome. This is followed by the 'Concern' not so much for self but for others who are close who are to be left behind. After that is the 'Purpose' the encapsulated idea that there is a purpose to life, something to experience, something to learn. Coming next is the 'Separation' of self from body, perhaps initially as an intellectual or emotional recognition of the forthcoming reality. Finally the 'Immortality' that there is no end to self, just a moving on.

Winnie is dead and I was privileged to be with her enough to begin to understand, in however a limited way, what death is. I had not understood anything really of my fathers death in 1952. I was only 7. Though it did effect me. Before this point I was a normal child with the normal childhood illnesses of childhood. After, I was an asthmatic with interrupted schooling from that time on. Obviously a physical/psychological response but one of which I have little understanding, for I have no memories of my father.

Mothers death in 1987 left me feeling relieved, for her as well as myself. Her condition had robbed her if the ability to communicate. Her continued frustration was quite obvious. Her death did not really make me sad, though I felt a sense of loss - a place inside that had become empty. To some extent this feeling is repeated even now when I think of her. Is this the 'selfish side of death', the side that concentrates on how it effects me, that Mother's letter refers to. Well ... I don't know. I only know what I feel.

So what of Winnie? When first I met her, she wanted the miracle cure - to walk again. She was in inner turmoil, trying to cope with the indignity of no control over her own body. Her daughter was also finding it very difficult to cope with as well.
Winnie was in a state of rejection.
A closing of the mind to what was likely to be the inevitable. By the end of my second week she was showing a concern, not for herself but for her daughter. At this point I was spending time with both Winnie and her daughter. Her condition also began to improve with easier breathing and hands more relaxed. The fourth week saw Winnie confidently, though weakly taking with her daughter about her life. Trying in her own way to help her daughter. By this time she knew what she really wanted though by now there were periods when all of her body relaxed. Winnie no longer wanted the miracle cure, but to move on, to follow her husband who had died 18 months earlier. The change in Winnie, the sense of peace, was quite noticeable and still she was trying to make it easier for her daughter. How do I know? Well, I asked her, when her daughter was not there. The next visit, a week later she had begun the separation of self from body. No matter the twitching, the quiet moans or irregular breath, that only seemed to be the body, not Winnie. As I left at the end of my session, Winnie mouthed thank you. It was enough. Her daughter never saw it. But I knew. Winnie died 5 minutes before my next session. She went peacefully. I came away, for I felt that my place was not there.
I had done what I had to do. I had helped in the healing process necessary for a quiet, peaceful death. A passing on. I was not sad but happy.

With this experience Winnie has taught me about the process of dying and I now have a better understanding of the term healing.

My friend's offering to me. Let me read it to you. It comes from a book called 'Handle with Prayer' by Alan Cohen. Page 175 is headed Truth and Appearances ...

"I had the pleasure of meeting Albert Aguas, a handsome Brazilian shaman with the gift of healing. I saw Alberto lay hands on several patients, to the accompaniment of classical music. I felt honoured to watch this dedicated healer move intuitively, his hands and entire body guided by some unseen yet obvious force.

During class, Alberto told us, "I performed two of my most powerful healings on patients who passed on not long afterward."
"How can that be?" a student asked.
"The purpose of healing is not necessarily to bring about a certain physical condition," Alberto explained. "Sometimes its purpose is to bring a soul to peace. The patients I have just described had, on a deeper level, chosen to leave this world. In the process they needed to find resolution and freedom within themselves. I can tell when a patient receives healing; I experience a kind of psychic 'clicking' during which tumblers fall into place. I felt that sense of deep resolution with these patients; the fact that they passed on is secondary to the fact that they found inner peace."

The clicking of psychic tumblers I am not sure of but the inner peace I have seen.

Thank you.

For many years I have known that despite my upbringing in a predominately Christian country, I could not accept an image of God continually being depicted as an old, or young, white man in an elevated position, or a throne. For me, this is a cultural stereotype of the worst kind. I found it sexist, recognising the pre-eminence of men. I found it racist, as it portrayed a perceived superiority of a particular race. For me, the elevated figure or enthroned figure represented power and control. This sort of God would want to dominate or demand, and would never appreciate any who question. Whether benevolent or not I found these images of God at the least distasteful and at the worst, insidious and actively dangerous.
For myself, this image was totally at odds with what I had thought of as Christianity. Of course I blame my upbringing within a non-conformist, searching, intellectually demanding Unitarian family, and church. There was no hope for me was there? I was lost. Eventually I was going to ask questions and demand sensible answers. But I was obviously tainted from the start. A lost cause. To 'real' Christians I am already dammed forever. I have to tell you that on this basis I have already been refused goods and services necessary for my healing activities, but that is another story.

In my search for understanding, in this area, I had some years ago looked at the other still active major religions and their spiritual power base or God that they described. At this time I thought that it might prove useful. Now I am one of those unfortunates that has always had a poor memory and so everything, every idea has to be pared down to its bare bones, its essential concept. To aid the conceptualising process I decided to encapsulate such thoughts on God into no more than one sentence per religion. Grossly unfair, of course, to the religions concerned as well as their God. Why did I do this? Well I thought that the intellectual process involved in producing such a brief resume would provide the meat for the 'inner me' to respond to and the sense of 'rightness' that I get. In the last analysis that is all I have got to aid me, as I find that just an intellectual process often leaves me at the edge of decisions rather than carrying me through them to a conclusion.

So what did I find for all the brain energy expended? At the first attempt I seemed to find nothing. I found that the task that I had set myself was not easy. I found a mismatch of related ideas and concepts. To aid the data processing I established the information in date order of when the religions had sprung up and with that the beginning of a pattern started to emerge. Not enough to base any judgements on though. So I went back and started again. The problem that I found was that the practices of various religious groups seemed to get in the way of understanding their God. In some cases I had misunderstood, or more often than not, misinterpreted what I had been seeing, hearing or reading. It was just too easy as an outsider to make suspect conclusions. For example, if in ignorance you wandered into a catholic church you could be forgiven if you thought that there was a whole panoply of little gods or 'godlets' called saints. Or that along with other Christian churches was practiced an institutionalised and sanitised form of cannibalism called communion. All religions are open to this sort of misinterpretation. Sometimes what the public say, or church's public practice, or its public face does not seem to match what the thinkers within the church are saying about the religion. It was also all too easy to bring my own preconceptions to the task at hand.

So it was back to the drawing board. I can't think why I did not give up, except that if I wanted spiritual clarity of my own I should at least look for it in others.

So, after re-evaluating my data I came up with this. Initially the religious gods of those religions important now, came in two broad forms. On one hand there were those where the spiritual power, or god centre resided within the environment in total including people. These included the 'earlier' religions, the earliest starting before 3500BC to the last one starting at 500BC and included in this were the shamanistic folk religions (for want of a better way of putting it), Hinduism, Shinto, Jainism, Taoism(Dowism), Buddism (though they don't really ascribe to a named God) and Confucianism. On the other hand were those who looked to an identifiable single deity. The earliest of these was in existence by 2200BC and the last by 1800AD and included Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism and Baha'ism. Although I was not totally happy with either of these two positions I found to my surprise that my 'feel rightness' was nudging me more towards the earlier religious Gods rather than the later ones.

This was a bit disturbing to me. What was it about the earlier religious gods which called me to them. What was it that was putting me off the more modern Gods.
Whatever it was something was holding me back from making a decision one way or the other. There seemed no basis for making a firm decision, irrevocable or not. So I looked at the data again.

At the simplest level the earlier religions talked about their spiritual power or God force, (though sometimes showing different facets of itself as smaller deity's of different sexes or none) as being timeless, being everywhere, being in everything. They said that this spiritual power or God force was responsible for everything from creation to the end of time. They talked about this spiritual power or God force, being available to all who looked for it, both within the environment and within themselves. The spiritual power or God force was described more often as supporting, helping, guiding, caring, loving, the source of good. Now I really could accept that. This has a very high 'feel right' response from within me. So what was wrong with the other religious Gods, because to me as mentioned last year I felt there was a god and only one. So I returned to my studies.

The other religions, what did they say? They said that there was only one God or spiritual power. Getting behind the trappings of these religions, their power structures and the public voices, the symbols, their separateness, their hates, their pettiness, their blinkered single mindedness of purpose. What else did they say!

All these religions had followers who thought deeply, explored, discussed and didn't just accept what was said about their religion and their God even if they tended to be kept out of sight from the general public and sometimes persecuted. What did these people actually say. None of these when you finally got down to it actually believed in the public stereotypes, the public face of their religions, the public face of their God. Nor did they think that their original spiritual leaders or prophets really say these things when viewed within the context of their own times.
The same thing seemed to have happened to them all. It did not matter who you looked at Abraham and the others, Zarathustra, Jesus, Mohammad, Nanak or Baha'ullah, the message had been altered, skewed, changed and hedged about by and for the purposes of others. They did not say exactly the same thing but were obviously talking about the same things.

What did they say? They said that there was only one God which was all powerful. That God had created, is creating us and our universe. That God was beyond time, was everywhere, was in everything and is available to us now at an individual level. God is more often described as compassionate, supporting, helping, guiding, loving and good. God is described as having both male and female attributes or none. Now haven't I heard this all before? The earlier religions were and are saying this about their spiritual power base, their God.

In general then, behind the people driven public face and power structures of the religions there seems to be little or no difference between one description of God or another. This, for me does have a pronounced 'feel right' factor. It seems to me then, that what is wrong is not the original religious concepts of God but the interpretations, the semantic twists, the word games, that some have applied to those concepts of God, to manipulate and twist them to and for their own ends. The problem to me seems not with God but with man who often seems only able to see God in his own image.

So where has my inbuilt 'feel right' factor led me? The me that is here now, this minute. Well ... for me there is only one spiritual source, power ... call it God if you will. The names and semantics do not bother me for it is all one in the end. It is everywhere; in everything; within and beyond time and beyond space (wherever that is). It is the source of life, the universe ... everything. This is so far beyond me that I cannot conceptualise it except by what I know and experience and this has been the trap of the priests and clergy over the ages and one I do not want to fall into. For me God is unknowable and that does not worry me one jot for if God was knowable it would be limited and therefore not God.
For me God has no limits but importantly God is available on an individual and personal level, for it is the source of all. It is the force for life, for good.

So how does this God concept affect, dictate even, my relationship with my God?

Well my God by being in everything is a part of me and not separate at all. I therefore, whether I recognise it or not, must be a part of God because we are not separate, but so must everybody and everything else be. This therefore should rule how I relate to others and the world as a whole. This God of mine by being within and a part of me is instantly and always available to me (reprobate though I am), as it is to everyone. Because of the nature of my God concept and the semantic manipulation I have carried out within that concept, despite falling to some extent into what I call the 'priest trap' I am left with the following. God is available to me on an individual and personal level and as such does not need an interpreter. All I need to do is to learn how to listen.

Thank you.

Over the last year or two I have read a number of books about spirituality. What comes over, very strongly, is that spirituality and religious belief are not synonymous with each other. Most people, whether religious or not are not spiritual. I have met one or two people who I would describe as spiritual but I am sure that none of them would agree that they were. Spirituality is a slippery concept recognisable perhaps only in others and never recognised in ourselves. That makes it very difficult pin down.

The underlying common theme in all books on spirituality is the word love. In Jesus asks us to love God and to love our neighbour as ourselves. This theme underpins much of what Jesus and his disciples say and it echoes across the New Testament in various forms. To make a stab at the original question I will therefore have to explore in some way what is meant by the word love.

So what is this love that is being demanded of us? Our western thinking is bound up in the largely classical tradition of Eros, and Agape and often seen as a continuum stretching from the sexual through family to a more generalised brotherly love. I am left uneasy in using these definitions of love though I believe that they are generally true. In our history and our culture they have been twisted too many times to justify all sorts of beliefs and practices. I will therefore use another culture and tradition to cast light on the concept love.

In the Tibetan tradition there are said to be seven types of love. Three of these belong to man and the remaining four to the Gods. The first love and the most primitive form is sheer magnetic attraction. It is a surface thing often mistaken as 'true' love but it is transient. When it is gone husband and wives can wake up one morning and realise that they are wedded to a stranger in whom they have no interest. This seems a common problem in our society. I do not think that this is the love that Jesus refers to.

The second form of love is when a lasting friendship and commitment arises between couples and which extends and reinforces and extends the narrow sexual attraction of the first love. This second love is the love that binds and supports couples across the years no matter what is thrown at them by life. But this love is often an exclusive love. It focuses usually on one other person or a small group and tends to exclude all others and the world outside the relationship. This love invariably looks through 'rose tinted' glasses, never quite seeing the world or partner as they really are. It is seen as a functional love, which on the death of the partner leaves the survivor totally bereft and unable to cope. This, it seems to me is the basis of most successful marriages within our culture but I do not think that this is the love that Jesus refers to.

The third level of love in the Tibetan tradition is said to approach the ways of Gods and is generally seen as difficult for man to attain. This love is said to be all embracing for everyone and everything. This love recognises reality and others as they really are and still loves. This is the love that is often seen as 'spiritual'. This form of love has to be learned. This, to me, seems to be the love that Jesus was referring to. Certainly it is the love that Paul refers in 1 Corinthians as being patient, kind, unselfish, generous, full of humility, courteous, outgoing, simple, slow to think the worst, excludes wrong, hopes for the best, and endures regardless.

This also seems to be what the books on spirituality are referring to. Love in this context seems to be a much enlarged capacity for love. It is focused on everybody and everything, in a way that is not pushy, nor threatening nor manipulative. It does not retreat from life or even be in an acceptance of it but is totally involved with it. Love In these books always starts with self, not others. In fact it seems to work out from self to encompass others in an understanding derived from an understanding of self. Like in the second part of the first reading when the lover could only gain entrance to his beloved by becoming at one with the beloved. 'Love your neighbour as yourself' comes to mind or the corollary of this - 'love your neighbours as themselves'. Self, self, self, again there is that commonality between Jesus and modern spiritual texts.

So where does this leave us with the original question and questioner. It leaves me looking at myself. What do I see. Well I see in myself a certain lack of control, persistence, direction, understanding, compassion, a mixture of pent up emotions responding to reality in a way that sometimes shocks me. Not much going for me there is there? Perhaps though I am just like everybody else? I am left with the feeling that if I have made any spiritual development at all then I am still more like the chicken-eagle in our first reading except that perhaps, like the original questioner I now know that I can be something else. We all can. I am left with the view that somehow we should extend our capacity to love ever outwards to encompass all, in a fully accepting and non-judgemental fashion. Not easy that. Not only do we have to do this but that this can only really be achieved by being a part of the world as it is and not retreating from it.

So what advice is given as to how to achieve this level of love. I have to say that I have found the bible although giving some clues about what needs to be done is a bit sparse about how to go about doing it in practical terms. The spiritual texts on the other hand seem full of helpful and sometimes very different and conflicting advice about how to go about making spiritual progress. However I have achieved something already. I have recognized the importance of the question. I have done some reading and some thinking. I have some experiences, no matter how limited they are which might be of help. I have at least one tool. I listen to the thoughts and prods that come from within and I tend to act on the basis of what I call my 'feel right' factor. I recognise that this process has already started and probably started some time ago. All I have to do is to continue down this path, difficult though it is. But what path? Do I see one leading out in front of me? No I don't. But I do think that I should use what I have within me, my 'God given abilities'(?) to take the next steps.

The next few steps that I see, however simple or difficult, seem to be placed in front of me. My 'feel right' factor tells me this. It keeps telling me this. Some of these steps I am taking now. Some steps I have taken already, more than once sometimes and no doubt I will revisit many of these steps again in the years to come for it seems that these steps are not linear. They sometimes don't even seem to be heading the same direction. When I think of it, like in the healing I do in which time and distance don't seem to matter, perhaps direction doesn't either.
These steps when put together seem to be cyclic, even though I jump steps occasionally. Perhaps that is because I can't see the spiral that is taking me towards my goal. Perhaps even the concept of goal is incorrect. Perhaps this is only a mirage to reach for, or a carrot to encourage, so that I will strive. Whatever is the reality, I will share my few steps with you in the hope that these will be of use to you on your own spiritual journey.

Most spiritual texts largely focus on encouraging us into viewing ourselves. They talk in terms of the 'I' watching the 'me'. This seems to be a pedantic way of explaining that you are observing yourself. I am not sure that the 'I' can be separated from the 'me' in any real sense without being classified as schizophrenic. What does Jesus say ... 'The kingdom of God is within you.' That seems a good starting point. I will turn my thoughts and actions inward.

On reflection there seem to be three steps incorporating a number of actions to be taken. I am not sure that the order of these steps matters, nor even their separateness, except for the person taking them. In some ways the order is a convenient generalization. What I need to do is to strip myself down to the real me so that I can recognise it on the rare occasion that it pokes its head up and looks at me. A bit like peeling an onion and perhaps just as uncomfortable.

My first step is to trace how I have become the me that is now. I want to look at what seem to be key points in my life. Not so that I can beat myself with my perceived failings but so that I can gain some understanding of the who I was. I need to accept me. I need to accept what has happened in my life that has influenced and moulded me? More importantly I need to recognise the layers of me that have been imposed upon me by myself and others such as parents, family, friends church, school, state etc. I need to begin to question myself and search for answers so that I can get a glimpse of the real me hidden away behind this facade. I am there somewhere. We all are. For I am neither the role I play nor the label that categorizes me which I have either accepted or has been thrust unto me by others. Perhaps we are all hidden inside our 'me onion'. If I can begin to know and accept the 'me' that I was, complete with mistakes and hang ups then I can begin to accept the 'me' that others are.

The next step is to pin down who the real me is now. Is the real me different from the 'me' of the past. I need to observe what I am doing now. I need to begin to recognise and understand how I react, question what I do. I need to strip away the irrelevancies, the unthinking - ness, the controlling factors that limit me and cause me to lose sight of who I really am. I need to accept that I make a 'pig's ear' of things sometimes. If I don't recognise my own frailties how can I accept them in others. In this process I need to caste off the irrelevant roles that I play and the labels I give myself and reject those that have been thrust unto me by others. I am neither the role I play nor the label I might aspire to.

Then there is 'me' and the 'others'. It is no good sitting in my own safe place and thinking only about myself. That by itself is a dead end. I need to reach out to others. I need to interact. I need to share. I need to relate. I need to observe, especially myself for this is as much about me learning about 'me' and understanding and accepting the 'me' as it is about knowing 'others'. I do need to understand and accept 'others' as I find them. I need to encompass others on their own ground to in order to extend my awareness of me. I feel this is very important for without this how will I recognise the 'me' in them or their 'otherness' in me.

All this is great it sounds like a frenetic search with eagle eyed observation. I don't believe that it is like that nor should it be. No process should of itself take over and steamroller forward. This process of waking myself up or finding me should be slow and steady with places for rest and recuperation. Of necessity there needs to be time for working, for dreaming, for creating, for reflection and meditation, for meeting and being with people, for being with the world, for being alone, for enjoying myself. Breathing space is important. Time to recap. Time to reassess. Time to recognise the progress that has been made. Time to become aware. Time to just be still. Time to ask for guidance. Time to listen. Time to listen to that inner voice. Time to recognise the next step. But most of all, time to just be me.

Thank you.

For a long time I have viewed meditation as very useful to me. A life saver in fact. One which has made it possible to continue my day job, teaching that is, a lot longer than I ever would have expected,. When my meditation goes well I feel comfortable, warm and a feeling of being nurtured. Time does not seem to matter and my frustrations diminish or disappear and I am left with a sense of peace. I have used a meditation, not unlike that suggested by John Donohue, called the 'light body' meditation for a long time but recently I have found myself changing and extending its scope. In this meditation, starting at a point within, I visualise my body slowly being filled with light. Now when I meditate, this light grows until it extends beyond the body. It can extend a few feet, fill the room, the building, the district etc. I am left with the feeling that I have not made that which I see. I am just illuminating it, allowing myself to see what is already there. Is this purely a mind induced visualisation or is it, as John Donohue suggests, contact with the soul? When doing this meditation I have such a sense of 'rightness' that I feel that there is something here that I have to take notice of, to learn. The question is, what is soul?

Soul. An airy fairy term. A word that has a place in world religions and spiritual practices down the millennia. A word that we cannot agree amongst ourselves as to what it means leaving a dictionary with a range of suggestions. A clutching at straws. Immaterial, vital principle, animating, essential are the words that are used to describe soul. Something which is here and not here. Something which we cannot be without. The part of us that exists beyond death. The part of us which is eternal. Is that right? 'The part of us' Or is it that we are a part of it as Meister Eckhart, John Donaghue and others would suggest. For my part I feel that this last is right. My 'feel right' factor tells me so but I have no proof. Just little hints.

Over the past fifty or so years, the understanding of reality has changed. Physicists and mathematicians now view our world through different ideas. Yes this is the mind stretching part but please bare with me. I am not going to go back to Planck's idea of quanta, even if at sub atomic level, matter and energy are as one, are each the other and are interchangeable. I'll start with David Bohm. He postulated the hologram and the idea that the whole is implicit within each of the parts. That is what is special about any hologram. Take a small piece of it and you have an image of the whole. He also said that because of this 'whole to part linkage, each of the parts would also be interconnected in some way. This was substantiated mathematically by J.S. Bell who went on to show that this connection of the parts transcended time and space.

Great! Now we know that we are connected at a sub atomic level. In fact everything in some way is connected or interconnected. But how does that affect me? I seem to be of a higher order of size. On the back of Bell's work Rupert Sheldrake postulated the presence of Morphographic fields. To you and me that means 'invisible organising fields'. These fields seem to have no energy in the normal sense because their effect reaches across time and space in a way that energy cannot. These fields have the same strength no matter what the distance. Does this matter, I say to myself. Well it seems that if right, it does, or at least it might. Sheldrake went on to suggest that these fields form the basic blueprint for organising both form and behaviour. This, as far as I understand has not been substantiated yet.

So before we get totally bogged down let us recap. The image of the whole is in a sense held within each part. All the parts are interconnected in a way that transcends time and space. This last means that it cannot be in our dimension. Now, in our world, reality or dimension any good idea is used, by nature, over and over again in lots of different ways and at different levels of complexity. Can this be true? Can we actually see some evidence for this at other than at sub atomic levels?

The answer would seem to be yes. We heard about some of them earlier. At the more molecular level is the glycerine event in which glycerine across the world seemed to learn how to crystallise itself even when it was sealed in airtight containers.

At the cellular level, an experiment in Russia with a tissue culture showed that when split in two and held within separate sealed containers, the poison induced death of one tissue sample somehow caused the other to die within twelve hours and with identical symptoms.

At the specie level, Lyall Watson described the 'hundredth monkey' principle in which a group of monkeys learned a new behaviour. Other monkeys, often separated by great distance and geographical barriers, learned the self same new behaviour. Other species have exhibited similar abilities, for example the Blue tits. Some of the more mature amongst us will remember the introduction of foil caps in 1952, for milk bottles, replacing the then traditional card inserts. The London Blue tits learned quickly, they're a sharp lot down there, that they could acquire breakfast by pecking through the foil cap. This ability spread in a manner which was seen to be unusual. Birds separated by great distance and geographical barrier suddenly acquired this breakfast habit as the ability spread across the U.K. and Europe.

There are hundreds of specie experiments which suggest that individuals are interconnected and that this interconnectedness involves abilities seemingly to break the normal time and distance barriers. This is true of very large shoals of fish and flocks of birds. Here, direction changes of the group, are instigated by a single individual. Those on the edge the shoal or flock who are often out of sight of the change instigator also change direction appropriately. However the speed at which they respond is shorter than it would take a visual or mechanical signal to work outwards away from the instigator to the periphery. Normal time and distance has somehow been transcended.

For humans, it seems that there is an enormous amount of information transferred between people. This ranges from feelings formed, for or against, about someone only glimpsed across the room, sometimes at distance. 'Mind messages' between separated family members at times of stress or trauma, breaking the normal time and distance barriers are not unknown. This, to such an extent that it would seem that at times we all have the ability to somehow step out of our normal reality.

But what of our ability to perceive the whole from the part? It is not unknown for authors and composers to suddenly glimpse the complete, fully fleshed out story, poem tune or symphony before the basis for such was hardly conceived. The one sometimes triggers the other. The part triggers the whole or is somehow the whole encapsulated within the part. Major scientific leaps have often been seen to be this type of event. Here, from a few isolated ideas and a strong underpinning of knowledge, a whole unified idea or concept have generated in one leap, leaving the researcher only to fill in the holes. It is based on this type of evidence and more, that Karl Pibram postulated that our brain structures our senses in a holographical way. Our brains are always taking a piece and generating the whole even if the whole has to be adapted later in light of experience.

So where does this leave us? Well it seems that we can operate, at least sometimes, outside linear time or three dimensional space. Somehow we seem to tap into another dimension. How do we do this? What is this other dimension where linear time and three dimensional space do not exist. It seems that it would not be a place of no time and no space but rather where all time is now, and all places are here. This dimension could justifiably be referred to as eternity where everything is eternally accessible.

If our physical body has this connection built into it as a facet of the physical body surely that part would have in some measure an aspect of the eternal. That is, it could not die. To my knowledge, even though different parts of the body die at different times, no part of the physical body seems to be eternal. It all dies and much of the apparent weight loss at death has been put down to continued respiration of these parts of the physical body that don't die straight away.

Is then the connection with the eternal to be found within our body's energy systems? Increasingly modern science is showing that all living things are surrounded by energy fields. Spiritual tradition across the world have said this for millennia. Yes there is some research to suggest that our energy field around us is multi layered both filling our physical body and extending outwards in layers. Seven layers, each more tenuous than the last one nearer the physical body. A part of this energy system even seems capable of travel away from the physical body for periods. In general though, the body's energy system seems focused on the physical body which in some way supports. There is a little research that suggests that at least one level, 'healers' increase the energy vibrational rate of a recipient's energy field in order to start the body to promote healing. At death though, this energy system, aura or bioplasm, call it what you will, just fades away in proportion to the death of the body as a whole. Even the travelling part stays near to the 'dead' person, usually fading over a period of two to three days after death. There is not even a tradition that this energy, or any part of it outlasts the physical body for long. This gives no indication of any possible eternity.

The world's spiritual tradition does, however, give one particular aspect of our selves some attributes of the eternal. It is described to us as the soul. This is the part deemed eternal. If this is true then the soul must indeed have the attributes of eternity. That is, it should not be bound by either linear time or three dimensional space. All time must be available to it and all places. In this sense therefore it would by definition extend beyond the confines of our physical body rather than being encompassed by it. Perhaps the soul is just attached to or focused on our physical body. If this is true then perhaps it is through contact with our soul that we access the effect of the eternal. It is here where we can be in touch with any time and any place.

How do we do this? Well, pray with words or particularly with silence. Spiritual tradition says that we quieten ourselves down and turn our attention inward and ask. Reiki uses just this technique for it's distant healing. Didn't Jesus say that the kingdom of God was within? When we pray for someone not with us or even when we pray for a number of people spread across the globe at the same time, and have a positive effect, haven't we distorted our normal time and space in some way? The effect is detectable by those aware and prepared to receive the healing prayer. It is immediate. It can be anywhere. Neither past, present or future seems to be a barrier. Now does this not seem to have aspects of the eternal?

It is said that at death when the soul finally separates from the body, the essence of the person you have known, is suddenly gone leaving only a dieing physical shell and a fading energy system. Onlookers watching this process describe just this. That the person they knew is suddenly gone and what is left is somehow no longer the person they knew. Surely this means that the person they knew was perhaps more likely a product of the soul and not just of the body.

For me this makes the soul important and trying to be in conscious contact with it a worthwhile activity. I believe that it is through this contact that I will begin to understand perhaps even love myself through that sense of peace and nurture mentioned earlier. Perhaps, as my soul is larger than myself it must impinge in some way on other souls. Is this the way that I gain understanding of others? Soul connected to soul. If 'part' interconnectivity seems to work this way at our physical level is it not likely that the same system occurs at the soul level? This would mean that I can get an understanding of others by opening myself to my soul. I can learn through soul experience to love my enemy. Now where have I heard this before?

If the scientists are correct about the universe having holographic features the part that is me may yet get a glimpse of the whole, meet God and be surprised.

Angels are however, not new. Comments about them are to be found deeply entrenched in the Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions and teachings. Peake's Commentary on the Bible has 224 angel references. The Analytical Concordance to the Bible has 280 angelic references. Even in this Unitarian church, of the 476 hymns in the hymn book, 26 have an angel reference in the text. In my Unitarian childhood and for many today, angels seemed to be relegated to textual or story props for significant biblical events and as such are viewed almost entirely as myths. Angels were considered to be of little or no consequence, not relevant or an historic religious anomaly which sooner or later would fade away entirely.

Is this right? Are angels only figments of imagination or are they real? Should our thinking and experience take note of them? What is it that, at this time, has brought angels to the fore in at least a significant section of the public consciousness? Are angels just a fad of the moment to revel in and to make money out of? Mmm. Lots of questions.

So what is said about what are angels? In the Christian Testament these celestial beings are divided up into seven orders called angels, archangels, principalities, powers, virtues, dominions and thrones. These are added to the two orders of cherubim and seraphim of the Jewish Testament. Later Christian theological thought regrouped these nine 'choirs of angels' into three orders. Whichever system you follow the word angel is used in both a generic sense as well as to identify a specific angelic group. This hierarchical and organisational structure, to my mind smacks of human rather than the divine, as it seems to reflect societal power structures. Does, therefore, the angelic hierarchy reflect a true reality or is it the desire of early church to bolster a rigid societal power structure? Was this done on the basis of... 'well if the angels are organised like this then it must be all right for us to be organised this way'? This must have been very useful for popes, kings, princes and all the other levels below them, except perhaps for those at the bottom of course.

So, personally, I am not keen on the way that angels are structured. But what do angels actually do? What is seen as their function? Nearest to God, in the first division so to speak, are the seraphim whose role is to make music and to pass on God's 'love and light' down to the lesser ranks. The cherubim are there to make sure that the universal law of divine love is kept. While the thrones are responsible for seeing that divine justice is done in all situations in order to keep cosmic harmony.

The second division includes the dominions whose job is to supervise the duties and actions of the lower angels. The virtues organise miracles and bestow grace and courage on those of us who need it. The powers bestow the strength to stand up for ourselves.

The lower division is made up of the principalities who are like guardian angels for our planet or parts of it while the seven archangels have specific tasks for which they are responsible. These include helping us to oppose evil, that's Michael, bringing us good news (Gabriel) or helping people to be creative and to pass such knowledge on (Uriel). Haniel is the guardian of all the kinds of love while Metatron helps us to bridge the gap between us and the divine. Auriel is the general protector of Earth and night and lastly Raziel is the guardian of inner knowledge and mysteries. The lowest of the angelic ranks are called angels. These look after us on an individual basis, our own guardian angels.

I find that the more I read about the angelic host the more I become muddled and confused. The angelic system seems very complex with all sorts of overlapping inter-relationships, roles and sub roles of which I have referred to only in a limited way. In a sense the first division oversees the law, the second division make sure the law is carried out and the third division are the day to day workers. To a large extent I am left further from understanding than I thought I was at the beginning. This information, to me, reinforces the humanness rather than the divineness of the structure. It seems almost pantheistic like Hinduism with its myriads of god lets each with their own roles and uses. Is that what angels are all about? Are angels only the remnants of an earlier and more primitive religious belief structure which has been passed down to us? I rather think that this may be true but I also think that there may be actual, practical and down to earth reasons why the concept or the reality of angels has survived.

The concept of angels I believe would probably disappear unless there is something happening which keeps it alive. Initially, and for many centuries, the idea of angels was kept alive by the Christian church and during this period angels spread throughout our folklore. Over at least the last two hundred years, however, Christianity, under the influence of science, has slowly moved to marginalise angels within its teachings. After this period of time there should be little left of angels within the public consciousness. But there isn't. It seems to be or it wouldn't be possible for publishers to give it so much prominence in their drive to make money. Angels therefore must be very firmly bedded into our culture and beliefs. A surprising thing considering how the established church and science has been doing its best to 'pooh-pooh' them. It seems likely therefore, that angel belief must, at some level, be related to the real experience of our population as a whole as little else would account for its survival following sustained suppression. What I mean is that people are actually experiencing angels.

Interest in angels has been growing in this country for the last ten years or so. A useful product of this more public acceptance has been a raised profile of angels as being an acceptable area of academic research. Yes, some people have actually been doing research about angels. The one I am going to quote today is Emma Heathcote-James who has been working on angels for some time and at the time of publishing her book -Seeing Angels- last year was putting together her doctoral thesis on this subject. Her book gives lots of examples and useful statistics.

In over 800 accounts received from all parts of the U.K., from different religious backgrounds and across all ages, one thing was common to all. Those involved were absolutely certain that their experiences were of an angelic nature. No ifs, no buts, just certainty. Most had been the butt of or feared ridicule and yet still believed that their experience was true and not an hallucination.

These accounts showed a number of common patterns. Nearly a third involved seeing the traditional angel form i.e. a figure dressed in white with wings. Other experiences involved a human form or scent, light, sound, physical, internal or other sensations. The importance of the experiences was seen to be that there had been a positive after effect. In this context comfort and reassurance was the most common experience. This was followed by direct protective and often physical intervention including life saving act by the angel. The next most common was delivering of meaningful messages. Closely following this was the more general comfort and hope received in the midst of death or illness.

What seems clear is that a small part of the population in this country is actually having an angel encounter. If this is true now then there is no reason to believe that it wasn't true in the past. Perhaps there have always been some who have had angelic encounters. It is likely that such ongoing experiences are actually responsible for the continued acceptance of the idea of angels. This is so in spite of the efforts of science and religion to marginalize this issue.

The question is however, are angels really real? Those who experience them are absolutely certain. Can those of us who have not had an angelic experience find a basis for the acceptance of such experiences. The first thing I have to say is that I have always been a bit of a 'doubting Thomas' which in my case makes it more difficult to accept someone else's reality. But I will try.

My first thought is to ask myself if I have had any unusual experiences in my life, which I have not put down to angelic influence but which another person might. Like many people I have to admit that I have. For example, when out rock climbing many years ago, without thought and before I was aware of what I was doing, I lifted up my climbing partner and pulled him to one side and safety with only my left hand, when a section of the quarry face of some tons in weight broke free. It was done immediately. Such unexpected strength in an emergency is not unknown in this world and personally I look on this event as being more likely to be untapped bodily ability rather than divine or angelic intervention.

At another time and place I heard a voice. Now I often hear a voice in my head but it is my own voice and it goes on most of the time. There is always some general background noise. That I believe is fairly normal. On this day I had been driving down south from my home very early in the morning after having had little sleep the night before. I was tired but the journey was over and I was relaxing with a book. I was finding the book hard going and had to keep stopping and thinking about what I had just read. In one of these reading pauses my ongoing 'brain noise' stopped, tuned out like a pre digital radio coming onto station. I then heard three words in a calm quiet masculine voice, well predominately masculine. It said "Well done Joe". After a slight pause my 'brain noise' started up again. I was flabbergasted. It took a moment or two to realise what had happened. What was interesting was that for the rest of that day I felt I was on a high, everything around me looked new and shiny ... special. At the time I thought it might have been God but I didn't 'know'. Since then I realise it could equally be put down perhaps to a personal spiritual guide or helper. Not once did I think angel. I understand, however, that an angel believer would immediately brand that experience as being angelic.

In the third event or events I had allowed myself to get into potentially difficult, perhaps life threatening, situations. As each situation developed I found that I had an overwhelming desire to stop, to go, to get away, to get out. I was filled with the feeling that all was not right and I must do something.... now, which I did. This has happened three times on three different occasions. What was interesting was that what I felt seemed to come from outside rather than within myself. But I did not once think angel.

The fourth series of events arose from my Reiki. When in healing mode, during these years my perception, has changed slowly and subtly to incorporate a physical feeling of another's energy field or aura, the hearing of words in my own voice indicating where hands should be placed, a system in which I can ask questions (and receive answers) and an element of 'guided ness'. This last takes the form of either showing me where I need to be next or by direct intervention where my hands are taken over and do, sometimes, things about which I have no prior training or knowledge. When I ask for this last to happen I get the distinct impression that it is not me that is using my hands while always retaining the control of stopping the process at all times. Although I accept the reality of 'guided ness', never once have I thought that angels were involved.

Recently I had my 'between lives' events, sparked off by regression and later meditation on the death process. Even here, during these experiences, faced by a white human-like shape I did not think angel. Though I am sure that others would.

So where does that leave me in trying to make sense of this angel thing. A lot of things are said about angels and what they do but I have no real basis for accepting or rejecting any of them. They have a long history within a number of different cultures. Quite a few people believe angels exist. Some people have had meaningful angelic experiences from which they cannot be persuaded. I, like many others have had some unusual experiences that angel believers would call angelic episodes but I am not convinced because they could quite easily be classed as higher self, spirit guide, or spiritual helper involvement, if you are in to that sort of thing.

Does science have anything to add that could help? I suppose the medical profession, when commenting on the strength event, would say that I was tapping into my body's reserve of strength in some way. This has been noted on a number of occasions where danger is to yourself or another. People have lifted cars to save children etc. They may even be right but as far as I know, no one has come up with where the extra energy is and how it is accessed. Perhaps in the third of my experiences someone is bound so say that my experience is somehow tied into a basic fight or flight response in response to high stress levels caused by perceived danger.

In the second, third and fourth events psychologists would say that I was giving advice to myself. They might even draw in such concepts as conscience, the subconscious, higher consciousness or higher self or psyche that are all ways of saying that the experience is what we call 'mind' based in some way. It would be said that one part of the mind was talking or influencing another part. There are lots of explanations but no basic proof and perhaps, it could be argued, such are just ways of excluding or ignoring the possibility of outside intervention by guides or angels.

Where does that leave us? With the idea that such experiences might by induced by my body and mind, in response to certain situations. So what else is there. Well Emma Heathcote-James' research also pointed out that the majority of the angel experiences occurred when either the person was actually in danger, highly stressed or in what she called the 'twilight' state which occurs in meditation, prayer or just before sleep. But what is special about these states of mind?

Brain activity is measured by an EEG which measures the speed at which brain neurons fire in cycles per second. In the normal healthy relaxed person's brain, governed by the thalamic pacemaker, neurons will be firing off at between 7 and 12HZ (cycles per second). This is called the alpha state. In the twilight or theta state the brain neurons are working at a much slower rate, that of 4 to 7HZ. This state is seen as that which we go through on the way to deep restorative sleep. In this state we seem to open the gateway to learning and memory, our visual imagery is more acute. It is in this state that our intuitive abilities open up. It is also the state we go to when we employ relaxation techniques, meditation, hypnosis and deep silent prayer where the presence of God is felt. This is the state that many receivers of Reiki describe as 'not awake but not asleep'. This is the state that many angelic experiences are seen to probably occur, but not all of them. Not the angelic experiences during times of immediate danger when the brain is in the beta state (13-40Hz) associated with peak performance, concentration, heightened alertness and visual acuity.

So some angelic experiences are involved with a specific brain function. Some would therefore say that because of this link, it is likely that all such occurrences are brought about by our own brains. But this is not necessarily so. It would be a mistake to assume that because the physical brain is involved in angelic occurrences it therefore means that it is necessarily the brain that controls them. That is not at all certain. It is like a child looking at the arrival of mail through the letterbox of a solid door saying that the letterbox is somehow controlling the arrival of the mail. I suspect it may be much more complicated and we haven't even begun to understand what is really going on.

But it certainly leaves me with a quandary. For some, angelic experiences really happen, as do experiences of being communicated to by a spirit guide or spiritual helper. What I do think is that there is something going on that we have not explained. To some extent it is a problem of language... angel... spirit guide... spiritual helper... personal guide. Are these just words for explaining the same experience. Are we more likely to see angels if we are from a Jewish, Christian or Islamic background and if we are from the East are we more likely to see our personal guide. I think that is likely. I think that when we undergo an experience of this kind our brains try to make sense of it. That is what brains do. That is their function. But there is a problem with this. Our brains can only do this on the basis of pre existing experience and knowledge. Pictorial illusions show that the brain works in this way. A black and white picture of a black ornate wine glass may switch to a picture of two white outline faces turned inwards. Our understanding of such a picture can switch backwards and forwards at random. Our brain trying to create an understanding of reality. So an angel experienced by one, could be the guide experienced by another. However, the understanding that their brain creates might still not be the truth. Perhaps the reality of such experiences is something different again.

Does this destroy the validity of angel or guides. No it doesn't. That experience is reality for that person. Help is still received. Prayers are answered. Healing occurs. God is experienced. Yes this might still be an untapped function of the brain or mind. But at the moment I don't think so.... And does it matter anyway?

What happens works. Danger is averted or survived. Information received is understood. Comfort is experienced. It is useful. Angelic experiences are seen as a touch of the divine. For that person it is reality, a part of their belief system and a part of their religion perhaps. Such people do not sway from that belief no matter what. They are secure. Guide experiences tend to be kept separate from religion in a separate compartment. I wonder which is the better way and what as a church should we do about it?

It is now more than a month and the incident is still alive and crystal clear in my mind when many experiences have already merged into the background.

It was just dark and the evening was moist with the potential for mist or rain. It could go either way. The traffic was light and I put relaxing music on the radio. It was a normal evening and I was going home to some extent on 'auto pilot' after dropping our grand daughter off at her own home in time for bedtime. I approached the traffic lights still some two hundred metres away, having slowed down to go past the speed camera I noticed a difference. At first it was it was only faint but as I progressed towards the traffic light so the feeling became stronger. The feeling is difficult to describe. It was not 'a brightness'. Time didn't stand still. I was able handle the car as usual. What I felt was an increasing 'special-ness'. A feeling that encompassed my surroundings and included the car and myself.

As I drew to a halt at the traffic lights, unable to turn to the right because of the stream of traffic coming towards the junction, the feeling was very strong. It was the feeling of being a part of the whole. I felt totally connected to everything around me. In fact it was as if everything was a part of me and I a part of everything. There was no feeling of separateness at all and yet I was still an individual in my own right able to operate the car and watchful of the chance to make the right turn. An individual bound to all the other individualities that made up my reality at this time, where living and non-living were bound together. At some level I felt I was everything. I felt at peace. I felt supported. I felt loved.

I was stationary for two to three minutes and then the chance to turn right came and I drove away from the junction. As I drove away from the junction, towards home, so the intensity of my experience began to wane until it disappeared some 200 metres away from the traffic lights. It was as if I had travelled through a static bubble of a different reality. I was a bit stunned yet had no desire to turn around. The experience seemed complete in itself. I drove on without any feeling of a sense of loss. I had experienced what I had known about for a long time and I had already come to, intellectually, know. The reality of one-ness. Experiencing this reality is so much better. It was so fulfilling, this experience of God at the traffic lights.

Experiences like mine are far from being rare and have been a source of interest to a number of noted psychologists. For example, Maslow, refers to them as 'peak experiences' and Jung, calls them transcendent experiences. No matter what they are called all seem to agree that such events seem to trigger a broadening of personal perception and understanding in at least one way, as if the person has tapped into a 'greater' reality. In the population at large these are seen as spiritual experiences. Such experiences generally offer the recipient an insight into some aspect of their life and the basis of their reality.

Within the bible the level of importance of this type of experience is markedly raised and within the Christian testament seems to be of prime importance. It is now generally accepted that over the centuries the content and phrasing of the Christian testament has been altered. Despite this degree of tinkering with the biblical text we can get glimpses of what is generally referred to as the Kingdom of God or just the Kingdom.

The Kingdom, as written of by mainly the disciples Matthew and Luke, is seen as being of prime importance for Jesus. This is the main central and core idea. However most references to the Kingdom are buried in parables and they have to interpreted and the hidden secret teased out. Jesus prompts his listeners to think further by ending many parables with the words 'those who have ears to hear let them hear' or the other version when it is 'eyes and seeing'.

Jesus says many things about the Kingdom. The place of the Kingdom is always 'at hand' or 'near'. So this place perhaps is not just in a heaven above, or just a post death state or experience but rather it is available to us here and now. It is both within and around each of us. To gain access to the Kingdom we have to change, be 'born again', by being as little children. We can work towards being in the Kingdom if we 'try' or 'are ready' to do it. It is available to all regardless of social or other position though, some high positions in society and power structures are recognised as making it more difficult to achieve contact with the Kingdom. The way to make contact with the Kingdom is by turning inward and not outward in any open display.

The more recently found Gospel of Thomas reiterates the biblical hints about the Kingdom in shorter but often more cryptic form saying much the same things.

To my mind this suggests a relationship between what I have experienced and what the Gospels were talking about. My experience was directly to do with the outward and inward reality. I do not think that my reality change at the traffic lights would have been seen or felt by any other person there. Why, because it was generated from within me. However this directly raises the question, was I experiencing what in the bible is called the Kingdom or some facet of the Kingdom? For myself I think that there are too many indicators that suggest that this was the case.

Now all this is interesting and raises many questions for myself. Not the least being that if everything is 'as one' and is 'as one with God' then the acceptance of this will have far reaching consequences on how I run my life. It will affect how I will relate to others. It will affect how I will relate to my environment. In fact everything is thrown up into the air and I have now to cope with a new ball game. The effects of this could be far reaching and profound. It is obviously special for me but why do I think that it may be special for others.

For myself it is not as if I have not had other experiences. I have had other experiences in my life before November and some since so what made this experience special? My initial reaction to this question was to immediately recognise that this experience was different from other experiences that I have had. It was longer, it was much more intense and it took place while I was actually doing something, that is, driving. All my other experiences that I would call spiritual in nature have been when I was stationary and not doing something potentially dangerous. It directly reinforces, in me, the my idea that anyone who is spiritually changed can be so and be within the world as it is. You do not necessarily need to withdraw from it.

On closer examination of all my experiences I was able to identify a trend ranging from the almost mundane to a recognisably increased spiritual level. The progression, over the years prior to last November included an intensification of my normal senses. At all these times I had the feeling that somehow I had moved towards a different reality from that which I lived in. When looking at an object it became more beautiful, an event taking place became more humorous, a place became more peaceful, another seemed to shine with a special-ness that I could not define and when in yet another place I felt that I could stay forever and which I have been drawn back to over the years again and again because it makes me feel so good when I am there. With hindsight I have come to recognise that with each incident came a slow intensification of experience leading me to that November sense of one-ness.

But it has not stopped there I have had other experiences since which have given me that same sense of oneness and each was at a different physical time or place. They had the same intensity but shorter in duration. It is almost as if I am being shown something, being prompted, reminded to take notice and that my nose is being rubbed in it until I do do something about it.

But how and why can my experiences be of importance and useful to others? I looked again and I saw that although my spiritual experiences span about 25 years, the vast majority of them are within the last five or six years. So why? Have I needed special support over this period? No I don't think so I didn't get dumped on in a big way by life until quite recently. Were any of these other experiences life changing? No not at all. They were certainly interesting but individually not life changing. At the most they were just nudges. Am I, somebody special, to be held up as a specific example to others? I shouldn't think so, I hope not. What a frightening thought. I feel quite ordinary and definitely not special, well no more than anyone else. So is it something that I have been doing during the last five or six years that I wasn't doing before?

Well, this period is notable to me as being a time when I started doing a number of things. Not all at the same time I hasten to add. I started doing healing. I started going to church. I started meditating. I started reading and discussing spiritual texts wit others. For me these stand out. Each of these activities didn't start through random choice. I was not interested in Reiki but woke up one morning and knew I had to do it. The same happened about going back to church after many years of non attendance, only this time I put off the doing it for six months during which the feeling that I should go to church became stronger and stronger until I eventually started attending. I started meditating because it felt the right activity to do and it made the healing time easier on me. The feeling was very strong. As for the books to do with spirituality, they almost jumped off shelves to get into my hands. They were thrust upon me as gifts from others, some new and some that were passed on to me and some which I had to save from some future skip. Some were so strongly recommended that I just had to find out why. So, in brief, I started healing, meditating and became increasingly focused upon my own spirituality.

Are these activities important? Yes I think that they are. Research carried out in the last twenty years suggests that involvement in these and other activities connected with spirituality, whether religious or secular, have a positive spin-off. Those who are involved in such activities on more than two days each week become healthier, withstand stress better and live longer than those who do not do this. On reflection I feel that these physical gains, though easier to measure, may be only half of the story. What if there is a spiritual bonus as well. On the face it, for myself, more spiritual activity seems to mean an increased quality and frequency of spiritual experience.

Now, despite feeling that I have been pushed or guided into doing these things that I do, I feel quite strongly that it is the act of doing the spiritual activity which is of most importance. Spiritual texts read and discussed help only to put the experiences and the thoughts and ideas they generate into context. Though that is useful what makes the actual difference is doing the spiritual activity. Socialising and enjoying yourself is not important in this context. Nor does the activity have to be done in a group. It is, however, easier in a group of like minded individuals and being in a group makes it easier to sustain any activity over time and therefore should not be dismissed. But spiritual growth is an individual journey. We don't all move at the same pace or even in the same direction at times, because we are different. We have different skills and aptitudes, our lives and experiences are different. How can we expect to be exactly the same as another person. Yes, there will be times when you will feel frustrated and jealous of others and what you see as their progress in comparison with your own. Fine, these feelings can all be overcome. But continue doing the spiritual thing anyway

Are spiritual activities important? Yes I think that they are. What my experience has and is telling me is that I have, during the last five or six years, changed and that I am now not the person that I was five or six years ago. I see myself as still being me but changed. Perhaps what you see today is the real me but more likely it is that I am progressing towards the real, real me. Perhaps you are now seeing a birth or a re-birth of that real me. Perhaps this is what being 'born again' is all about. Perhaps it isn't an instant thing but a process, and we can all do it.

Are you doing the spiritual thing or just thinking about it? Remember, it is the doing that makes the difference. Perhaps we need to raise the profile of spiritual activity within our lives. To re-label one or more of the golf balls (of the 1st reading), perhaps getting rid of some sand and then act upon this different reality. And yes I still like the 'two beers'.

Our bookshops are full of books on 'spirituality' that are all offering advice on what to do to become spiritual. There are two main forms. The first type list things that you have to do. The second type tell you about how the author became spiritual on the basis that if they became spiritual this way then you could do it as well. All you have to do is follow my example. Failure for you, of course, is not contemplated but if you do fail it is because you haven't been doing what you were told to do, you gave up too soon, you must try harder because the spiritual path is hard. So the underlying idea of course is that the lack of progress is your fault and not the fault of the author who of course has made it and is by any definition a 'perfect being'. Now that doesn't seem to be very spiritual does it.

I may be just a bit jaundiced but isn't an important purpose of writing a book concerned with making money, hopefully lots of it, so that the author can live in the style that they would like to be accustomed? Certainly that is what bookshops are all about - making money. Are these people really doing this spirituality stuff out of the kindness of their hearts - to help us to make spiritual progress or is it just an ego trip based on the author having 'made it'? Doesn't all this seem to point to perhaps limited spiritual progress or a lack of spirituality somewhere?

Despite such misgivings however, I have spent a good deal of time reading such books, trying to make sense of what they say, trying to find common themes and suggestions. Some of these books I bought, some I borrowed but a surprising number were given to me because it was thought that the particular book was worth reading. Perhaps some were passed on to me to create shelf-room. Whatever the reason for giving I have dutifully read, and inwardly digested, quite a wide range of books on spirituality that I have felt drawn to read. Yes that does mean that I have some books that I have not read yet because I don't feel drawn to them.

So what sense have I made of these 'spiritual' books? There does seem to be some commonality in what is provided for us though it is a rare book that touches on all aspects. In general it seems that virtually all of their teachings can be summed up in the famous phrase, reputed to have been carved on the gates of Delphi, - 'Know thyself'.

Books on spirituality talk about finding out who you have been in the past. They talk about searching for who we really are, not who we would like to be or even who others would like us to be. Finding the real me is seen to be really important. In this context many talk about achieving balance in all aspects of your life. A development from that progress is the growing understanding that there is more to me than just the me of this physical body. In effect a world-view change is expected even demanded and that can be a real put down when you are reading at home and although you understand the context you don't see that you have changed. On the back of this world-view change is the growing importance of finding that 'inner voice', that direct and personal contact with God the experience of which can be life changing.

One thing that books on spirituality seem to be saying, to me, when taken on mass, is that there is no one path to spirituality. There are many ways to spirituality and all the people who do it do it in different ways. Perhaps that is because we are all different and the 'trick', if trick it is, is to find our way, the way that works for us.

All very laudable and I am not pooh-poohing any of these ideas especially as they have been and still are important to me in my attempt to become more spiritual. However what we have mentioned so far is a sort of intellectual way of looking at yourself. But there are things that you can actually do which seem to have the effect of helping the development of spirituality. What are they? Well spending time actually doing a spiritual activity. What we are talking about is practicing such things as Tai' Chi, yoga and meditation for example, practices from the Eastern tradition and contemplation and prayer from the Western tradition but it does take a lot of practice and time. This range of activities seem to help create what the books on spirituality are searching for. It seems that doing a spiritual activity makes you more spiritual.

However, there is one activity or practice that virtually all the books on spirituality do not mention and that is healing. For me the practice of healing has been life changing and has been and still is the single most important thing that I have been doing. The odd thing is that anyone can 'learn' to do it. The ability is within us all. It just needs to be triggered off. What a waste that so many people seem to turn away from the very idea of healing assuming that you have to be a 'special' person to do it. What rubbish. It is not even something that you have to do but rather something that you have to allow to happen.

Now I ask myself, who else thought that healing was important? Well, Jesus did. It was so important to him that when someone was brought to him to be healed because his disciples had not been able to do so, Jesus was not happy, he was miffed and rebuked the person for being a part of an "unbelieving and perverted generation". He then went on to heal the man. In private he accused his disciples of 'littleness of faith'. Does all this seem a bit strong? The sick man had been preventing his own healing? Well this does happen even today and I have experience of it. Obviously Jesus felt that the disciples lacked faith in their own ability to heal. Perhaps this is where the "do it in my name" comes from. Just a crutch to help his disciples heal when they couldn't believe that they are capable of doing it. Modern Reiki gives crutches until the practitioners don't need them any more. For me healing has become not something that I do but something that I allow to happen. Its continuous success has produced a 'knowing' in me that it will work. This seems to allow the healing process to take place.

So Jesus and myself seem to agree on the importance and the way healing works. Is there, then, anything about who Jesus was and what he was saying that might impinge upon the topic of spirituality and spiritual progress. Is this what Jesus is all about?

In my understanding of the Christian testament, apart from healing, Jesus' main thrust was to point out that it was important to move to be in the 'Kingdom of Heaven'. He didn't talk about enlightenment which is an eastern concept but he does say that the Kingdom of Heaven is a state that is achievable in this life because it is in us and around us already. Perhaps it is only achievable in this life. Moreover, he says that we all can achieve this goal or state. This sounds a bit like the modern books on spirituality. He certainly said that he had already achieved this state, he 'was of the Kingdom'. He demanded that his disciples achieve this state and recommended that everyone else should be like him i.e. in the Kingdom. So, what was Jesus like? Was he perfect, God like?

What little we know of Jesus comes largely from the Christian testament despite the tinkering and the variety of translations. We don't actually know for certain who wrote the four gospels because they were unattributed and it was the early church elders who decided that the gospels were those by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Despite this I think that there are more than enough hints about Jesus the man and what he thought was important. To this end I referred to the most recent translation of the scriptures, the New American Standard Bible

Just by looking at Matthew we can see times when Jesus responded, at least in part, emotionally. When he finds his mother and brothers demanding to see him he dismisses them with the words, "Who are my mother and brothers?" This at least partly sounds like exasperation though it is used as a teaching point. He was human enough to be stressed by constant crowds demanding words and healing. At these points he withdraws, for example, to the mountains and talks to his disciples while he recovers. He pours scorn on the scribes, priests and Pharisees for not doing what they should be doing i.e. helping people towards the Kingdom. He became upset when people would not accept his teachings. He was showing anger when clearing the temple in Jerusalem. He was compassionate when he fed the 5000 and 4000 and when healing. He was dismissive in the parable of the fig tree when he kills the tree that bore no fruit. He showed fear just before being arrested and when on the cross he exhibited doubt. In general terms however, Jesus is described as being gentle, humble and loving.

Why is it important for Jesus to be human? Because being a human being who had attained the special state of 'the Kingdom', reinforces the idea that we to can achieve this state. We can do it in this life. We should do it and do it now.

In the bible Jesus often gives the details of who are most likely to achieve the state of the Kingdom of Heaven. These are those at the bottom of the social heap. It's the 'lost sheep'; the weary; the children or the child like; the tax collectors and the prostitutes. However, there are other criteria for entry as well. You should be orientated towards seeking the Kingdom, ready and prepared for this state. There is a definite reminder that having achieved this state you mustn't change what you do or you will slip out of Kingdom of Heaven again.

Those who would not get into the Kingdom are those people who are focussed on money and societal positions. Jesus particularly puts scribes, priests and Pharisees and church elders into this bracket. Though he recognises that if a scribe became a disciple that man could have high standing in the Kingdom. So, he doesn't say that it is impossible for you to have money or position in society but it will certainly make the move to the kingdom much more difficult if you had these.

There are certain things that are important to do that Jesus mentions. These are important for attempting to attain the state of the Kingdom of Heaven. You must actively be engaged in seeking for and working towards the Kingdom and believe that you can do it. God must be your focus and not the physical things of the world. This does not mean that you can't have things but they mustn't be an important focus. In this context he reinforces the value of rules to live by. The rules he comments on are the 10 commandments and he sums these up in loving god with heart, soul and mind and loving others as you love yourself. Loving yourself is particularly important, and not easy, and it is unlikely that you can do this without understanding and accepting yourself, a common theme in spiritual texts.

In terms of characteristics to be acquired, Jesus comments on truthfulness, compassion, forgiveness, being non-judgemental, shrewd, and being of clear mind, the ideal 'good' person. Definite no-no's are gloominess, worry. Especially worry about tomorrow and yesterday for he wanted a focus on today. Deeds matter whether they be actions or words as these can either promote or inhibit progress. In summation, you should try to do the right thing.

Two further activities that Jesus seems to see as important, are prayer and healing. Asking is very important in both of these. However, neither are about show. I believe that both prayer and healing can be transformational tools that push forward personal development and awareness in the direction of the Kingdom of Heaven.

It seems to me that what Jesus talks about is the same as most of today's books on spirituality talk about. The context might be different but the spirit of it is the same. It is not about actively changing who you are it is about finding out who you really are. It is about altering your view about what is important. This is not about others, it is wholly about your self. The path to the Kingdom is very much a spiritual path.

If this is to be the primary focus of your life then how will we know when we have achieved it? It is not about losing your human emotions or humanity - Jesus didn't and neither did those people who I have met, heard or read about who are in the Kingdom today. How do I recognise this state? It is from Paul's comments of the 'fruit of the Spirit' seen in people. When someone feels the spirit, feels love, experiences joy and, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and exhibits patience and self control as a normal function of who they are, these will be in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Some get to the Kingdom by going through horrendous times, some with illness and some with other problems. They talk about reaching rock bottom and then asking for help. Help they say was forthcoming. At this point their life was turned totally around. Immediately they felt different. Sometimes this state was lost again and sometimes many times. Some people are in the Kingdom from birth. Some believe everyone is in the Kingdom from birth and that most of us lose it. For us lesser mortals it is possible to achieve the Kingdom but it often goes unnoticed because the progress has been so slow and the incremental changes small. It is often others who see the change when viewed over time. This is the frustration and, I believe, that this is the path that most people are on.

If you are in the presence of someone in the Kingdom it is possible to feel a difference. They can give us a sense of peace and healing when we are in their presence. They themselves often don't recognise that they are in the Kingdom. Some don't even know about the kingdom anyway. These are all very special people and I think that the more special they are the further they are into the Kingdom.

Just as Jesus said "Some are eunuchs who are born that way from their mothers womb; and there are eunuchs who are made eunuchs by men; and there are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven. He who is able to accept this, let him accept it."

For myself this statement is not about eunuchs but about gaining the Kingdom of Heaven. Let it be so. It is never too late to start or continue on your own spiritual path. Have a good journey. It is surely time for us to fly like the eagle and not die as the chicken.
Amen

There are a number of times in the bible when Jesus referred to becoming as a little child as the prerequisite for entering the kingdom of heaven. He often referred to ‘the kingdom’ as being a really important goal to be attained. Why was it important? It was important because ‘the kingdom’ was something that was attainable here and now, in this life. To my mind this is what an important part of the ministry of Jesus was about. It makes sense, therefore, that his disciples asked him "If we are infants will we enter the Kingdom?"

Jesus was not one noted for easy, literal straight-forward answers to questions. In fact there is clear evidence that he knew that perhaps most of his audience at any one time probably would not be able to understand what he was getting at. This is why he used the phrases ‘those who have ears to hear let them hear’ and the equivalent for eyes. His response, in saying 22b of the Gospel of Thomas, is of this sort, difficult and seemingly obtuse. Perhaps he didn’t expect all his disciples to immediately understand what he was getting at. Perhaps he thought that some of his disciples might never get it. Let us therefore revisit this conundrum of a saying.

Jesus said. "When you make the two into one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the upper like the lower and the lower like the upper, and thus make the male and the female the same, so that the male isn't male and the female isn't female. When you make an eye to replace an eye, and a hand to replace a hand, and a foot to replace a foot, and an image to replace an image, then you will enter the Kingdom."

Two into one. Inside like outside. Upper like lower. Male like female. Replacing the eye, hand, foot and image. And all necessary before you can enter ‘the kingdom’. Now, to me, this in a somewhat shorthanded way rings a bell. I have come across things like this before. One of these sources may link us directly to Jesus. What is this? It is the Quabalah. Not the modern western Quabalah. Not the Greek Quabalah. But the Jewish Quabalah that can be traced, with documentary evidence that goes back at least as far as Jesus and with hints that it is much, much older.

So what is this Jewish Quabalah? Quite simply it is the Jewish mystical tradition studied predominantly, even today, by mature Jewish men. Within the Jewish community Jewish men who are married, over forty years old, having sired, and preferably raised their children, and who are fully established in whatever trade they have, seem to be expected start this body of study. Single men who have, for whatever reason, not married nor are likely to, I understand, are able to start this study at an earlier age. It seems to me that Jesus knew of the contents of the Quabalah and being unmarried, was likely to have studied it and obliquely referred to this knowledge in saying 22b.

This, however, does not make the understanding of saying 22b any easier to understand. This is not an easy passage is it? But I feel that it is possible to make some sense of this passage and I shall try to give you ‘my sense’ of it this morning. Well it is, after all, the only sense that I have. So let’s look again at the passage pulling it into meaningful pieces.

By stating the goal at the end he underlines the importance of the prior steps to be taken. Jesus was laying it on the line. But this is also a rallying call. He is saying that if you want to become like a little child then you actually have to do these things. He doesn’t say that it is easy but he does say that it can be done. ‘The kingdom’ is achievable by all. Over and over Jesus said to others, in the Christian testament that ‘the kingdom’ is attainable. And that means by us as well.

This saying, for me, is comprised of a list of five important steps that need to be sorted out in order for the goal of entering ‘the kingdom’ to occur. It seems to me that they are listed in a roughly descending order of difficulty, that is with the most difficult first and the least difficult last. Another puzzle, but if the order is reversed then it seems to make more sense to me. This would mean starting with the easiest to achieve and finishing with the most difficult. It is my contention that if we do the easiest first then once we have achieved the easiest part, this in itself makes the achievement of the next more difficult step easier to make. On this basis I shall refer to the fifth and last step first and then work steadily forward to the first.

The fifth part of this Jesus’ saying was "When you make an eye to replace an eye, and a hand to replace a hand, and a foot to replace a foot, and an image to replace an image". Now I do not think for one moment that we are talking about some sort of spiritual plastic surgery. However, he is talking about a total ‘make over’ that must take place before oneness or ‘the kingdom’ can be achieved. In a sense he is talking about being born again and this ‘make over’ concerns our understanding of who we are. We can’t stay the same as we think we are and expect to make progress. He is saying that we have to change. We can’t stay the same as we are now which is a form of self imposed blindness. We must find out and accept who we really are. To some extent each of the five steps takes this ‘makeover’ further but this first step is about looking at the wholeness of ourselves. The effect of taking this step is to make us comfortable, or at peace, with ourselves.

The next step in this reverse reading of this saying is, "and thus", meaning and when you have done all that, "make the male and the female the same, so that the male isn't male and the female isn't female". Now we know from this mornings 2nd reading that males and females are markedly different no matter what ‘political correctness’ in our society has tried to say. But Jesus is not talking about ‘political correctness’. He is commenting on something that can actually be done and had already happened for him. The proof of this is in what we know of Jesus. He is known for his gentleness, caring and healing nature. All of these three aspects are generally seen as feminine traits. He is known for being single minded during his ministry that led to his physical death. This is a male characteristic. It seems apparent that either naturally or through self development Jesus in earlier life had acquired or boosted the feminine aspects of himself in order to achieve a balance as a part of his own developmental process. If we can achieve this state of ‘balance’ this would markedly affect how we interact with the world around us and the people in it. It would give a much wider view and increase the chances of seeing the win-win solutions in life, rather than just the win-lose solutions.

In the second but for us the penultimate piece of this passage we find, "when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside". In this statement Jesus is talking about moving closer towards a direct contact with god by being more aware of the reality of god in our lives. This is also about the lessening of the boundaries between self and others. This takes the idea further that we are greater than our physical body. The boundary between inside and outside would be increasingly irrelevant as the focus moves further and further from the physical body. At this step the interpersonal boundaries tend to diminish and there is an increase in understanding, knowledge and empathy for and of others.

The third step says, "make the upper like the lower and the lower like the upper". This is about a change of focus in what we do. It is about the beginning of the process that will eventually end with us being at one with god. It is about increasingly turning away from the focus on and the need for things. It is about accepting the difference between our wants and our needs. It is about beginning to see beyond the ‘normal’ physical world and developing an awareness of how our reality really seems to work. It is about making god an important focus in our life. It is about further integrating who we are. It is about the beginning of the blurring of the boundaries of physicality. It is about listening more and accepting the possibility of guidance. It is about extending our understanding about how we can relate to god within the context of the world.

In the original, the first part of the saying is "When you make the two into one". This was the last and most important step for Jesus and those who follow him. It can be broken down into three possible aspects. The first aspect is being in or ‘of the spirit’ where you feel enfolded by ‘a supporting warmth’. The second aspect is about largely silencing the ‘me, me, me’ mind concerned with yesterday and tomorrow. This effectively puts the essential ‘I’ in charge. By doing this it is possible to live in the ‘now’. This aspect is about further integration. The third aspect is to become, at some level, as one with god. In this it is as if the final boundary blurs more to give direct god contact. This is not always permanent but is often an intermittent channel or link that is established. This is because having the god contact makes it more difficult to perform in the physical world. A more permanent contact may, I think, come later with practice. If all these steps are achieved and maintained then we will be in ‘the kingdom’. Achievement of any one of the aspects, however, can be enough to land you in ‘the kingdom’. There is no grand fanfare etc you are just there. Some people don’t realise when it has happened, but others recognise that they have changed.

Jesus wanted his disciples to be like him and, like him, to become as one with god. This is particularly clear when considering Jesus’ words in his prayer on Gethsemane. "My father and I are one". I think that he wasn’t talking just to and for his then present disciples but anyone who followed his teachings. This seems to be a particularly important goal. Not just to raise the level of god in our life. Not just to make god our main focus but to take the steps towards becoming as one with god.

This is what I think Jesus’ saying 22b is about. It is all laid out for us - all the steps to take to achieve ‘the kingdom’. Now what are we going to do about it?

He in a new confusion of his understanding;
I in a new understanding of my confusion.

There is a good deal of confusion about spiritual growth, or put another way, the development of spirituality. However I feel strongly that this is what Paul was talking about in our first reading.

Paul was quite upset with what he had heard about the goings on of the Galatian Christians and he definitely told them to clean up their act. What act? The act of the desires of the sinful nature is what he is talking about. This includes "sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like". Paul says quite definitely that a sinful nature centred on passions, desires, conceit, provocation and envy is not going to do anybody any good. Those who are like this will never get into the ‘kingdom of god’.

What does he say that we should do? He says that we should not just turn away from sin but should live by the spirit. And how do we recognise this spirit? Quite simply, Paul says that it can be seen by its fruits which include love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. Christians today would go further and say it is about being ‘in’ the spirit and not just doing what the spirit tells us. They describe this state of being ‘in the spirit’ as being wrapped in a warm supporting or comforting blanket of energy, or power if you insist. All these ‘fruits’ of the spirit are a product of being in ‘the Kingdom’ that Jesus talks of. Summed up - if you want to get into ‘the kingdom’ then you have to change. You have to change a great deal.

I am not saying that the people in this church are sinful, terrible people. This congregation is not a ‘bad lot’. I say this not because of fear of personal retribution or of losing out on a biscuit and drink at the end of this service. Unless you have kept it quiet no one is like the Galations in Paul’s letter. Anyway if there was anyone here in the depths of despair from over indulging in ‘sinful’ things, then their spiritual path is more likely to be like Eckhart Tolle and others. When things reach rock bottom the process is to admit totally that you can’t save yourself on your own, you ask for help and then just let go, allowing the ‘saving’ to occur.

Being like that and taking that path is not a sinecure and doesn’t seem to work with those in the middle ground, like us in this church, at neither end of the spectrum, it is a much harder task. It is harder for us because we have already made choices that have moved us a short way towards ‘spirit’ and ‘the kingdom’. We have become stuck in the middle ground, this no mans land. We lead normal lives doing what we can to help others. ‘The kingdom’ is no nearer now than it was last year or at the turn of the millennium or any decade before that. Being in this no mans land tends to leave us with few directions or help along the road. We are secure in our world and we make little or no progress.

This lack of progress is what I now feel pushed to address. Overcoming this state of spiritual ‘stuck-ness’ has become increasingly the focus of my life over the past year and a half though the threads of this go back much further. All is not yet in full bloom in my mind, not yet in place but the outline is there. I would like to share this outline with you this morning. Last week I talked about the five major steps to be taken so that ‘the kingdom’ could be attained. This week I think that I should fill in more of the details.

The goal that Jesus, and Paul, talk about is entering ‘the Kingdom’. It is of prime importance. Knowing that is the easiest task. "But what do we have to do", is the often asked question. The un-useful reply often said is that "you don’t have to do anything to enter ‘the kingdom’". "You can’t work your passage to heaven" is another frequently used homily. So is "You can’t get to heaven by being good". I refute these statements not because they aren’t true but they hide more than they illuminate. Anyone who has taken the step of asking what they have to do so that it is possible to enter ‘the kingdom’ needs practical guidance about the options, if options there are.

Yes we don’t have to do anything to give us the right of access to the kingdom because it is there and available and waiting already. It is not about being ‘good’, yet before entry to ‘the kingdom’ you may well be recognised by others as being ‘good’ but by this time ‘good’ would have ceased to be important. You can’t ‘work’ at getting into ‘the kingdom’ because getting into ‘the kingdom’ is not about ‘work’. It is not about of these things to get in but it is about preparation for the step into ‘the kingdom’. It is however, all about removing those things, those aspects of ourselves, that are preventing us from being in ‘the kingdom’. We have to open ourselves up to the possibility of being in ‘the kingdom’. We have to change. We have to transform ourselves. When this is done we will be in ‘the kingdom’. There is no step. There is no passport to present. When our personal transformation is complete we will be in ‘the kingdom’. The spiritual path is a path of self transformation.

So what do we have to do.

Paul says that Jesus’ commandment was that we should "love our neighbour as ourselves". This is so right, but learning how to love yourself so that you can love your neighbour is for most people extremely difficult. The hardest part is that we have to recognise what we are really like, who we really are. This is a transformational process.

This morning’s opening words from the Gospel of Thomas encapsulate the essence of the spiritual path. Of last week’s five steps derived from ’saying 22’, three of those steps directly relate to finding out who we really are, hidden away behind all the walls that we have made, still make and allow to be continually maintained. Jesus said "One who knows everything else but who does not know himself knows nothing" (in saying 67).

The last step of last week’s ‘saying 22’, that of ending duality, is restated again in saying 61c. "If one is unified one will be filled with light, but if one is divided, one will be filled with darkness". This reference to darkness also reinforces the view that ‘the kingdom’ will not be gained until all the steps are taken. Said another way it won’t happen until your transformation is complete.

This accounts for four of the steps mentioned last week. So where does the missing one relating to the main themes of Jesus come from? This of course comes from Jesus’ most important commandment that is to " love the lord thy god with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." This is the missing step that is to do with being focused on god and not anything else. It is about not being side tracked. If you want to be in the kingdom then you need to be focussed on god and not the physical world we live in.

The steps towards ‘the kingdom’ can be grouped, therefore, into three important areas. The first category is ‘knowing yourself’ with its attendant parts of finding yourself, achieving a balance and the greater you. The second is changing the focus away from physicality to god. And finally ending duality in which incorporates overturning the power of the mind of ‘me’ in favour of the ‘essential I’, being in spirit, and ‘oneness with god’, all of which seem to independently make ‘the kingdom’ achievable.

Today I have referred to the steps of spiritual development towards ‘the kingdom’ in a number of ways and order. Does this order matter? The answer as always is yes and no. Yes the order seems to matter for the individual but one individual’s order might be different from the next individual’s order. I will, however, ignore the immediate transformation of such people as Eckhart Tolle that I dealt with earlier.

One thing that has become apparent from hearing about and reading about the spiritual development of other people is that there is a wide variation in how these people achieved their transformation. Despite that, there is still some commonality in how they did what they did. One of the things that makes these people seem as if they are different, is that many seemed to miss out one or more of the major steps mentioned earlier. Others missed out aspects of one or more of these steps.

To me this indicates not that the spiritual process was different for each person but rather that these individuals didn’t need to do some of the major steps or sub aspects. The only way that I can account for this is that in this state of affairs somehow they had already acquired the insights and experiences linked to the areas that were missed out. What I mean is that some things didn’t need to be done because they had already learned what they needed to. They had learned it in a previous part of their life or perhaps even a past life.

The other thing that was different between different people on their spiritual path is that they did some things in a different order. Sometimes they returned over and over again to seemingly the same places. This can be accounted for the idea that some people don’t deal with everything that they need to at one sitting or in one place. Perhaps in order to complete a particular aspect or step they need to also work at other aspects from other steps. This would leave the impression that some people fail at some aspects of some steps, however, I do not think that this is the case. For some people advancement needs to be made across the board, with all the steps at once.

Another thing that is common is that although a significant number do this spiritual journey alone, others need to have a confidant to bounce their developing ideas or misgivings off or to work with. Some people just need to share with others and this is expressed and reflected in how they make progress in their spiritual journey.

In summation, people are different in many aspects of both their spiritual needs and spiritual progress. This is how it should be. This process needs to take place in order to grow spiritually. Knowing that this is the case then, leads inevitably to the possibility of supporting spiritual progress by group work, and at the same time separately as any individual of that group. On this basis I look forward to this happening so that we can all move forward if not together at least in common. That is, with our eyes focused on god and the goal of ‘the kingdom’.

Amen

Joe Potter - Reiki Master

In our first reading this morning, Ecclesiastes suggested that wisdom is good but we should not take seriously all words which are spoken. Anthony de Mello in our second reading stressed that every statement and every answer to questions holds an element of distorted truth. Is this true? This suggests that no one has the total answer and that seemingly sensible statements can be misleading, very misleading or totally wrong. I wonder is there any basis for these ideas in reality?

So let us look at what is held up as being absolute and certain. Science! Science says that what it says is 'true'. This is so because it has been shown to be so and that this situation can be replicated by repeating the experiments that justified the original hypothesis that the practical science is based upon. Can we accept such a statement? Well only in part. Science has created much that is useful and usable, but in a historical sense the one thing that we know about science is that what it says is certain is almost certainly wrong. In the past science has told us that our planet is the centre of creation, it is flat and that the natural state of glycerine is a liquid. All of these and many more have been shown to be untrue. In fact, given time, all things seem to be overthrown by 'modern science' showing a 'new truth' that undermines the prior accepted ideas. What is true in science is a 'movable feast'. Therefore to accept what 'Science says as being true' is to accept an illusion.

It is an illusion that we are aware of reality. How can I say that? I hear you say to your self. That's rubbish! Isn't it? I see, feel, hear, touch and taste things as they are. I use my brain to make sense of this - to make sense of reality. Well perhaps if there is something medically wrong with some part of me then perhaps I won't be able to perceive things quite as they are will I? Like my eyesight or whatever that has deteriorated but that is something that I understand. It is real. Becoming old and wearing out is part of reality. It still doesn't change my view of things. My reality is what sense I make out of what I see, feel, hear, touch and taste.

So, having knocked science for not getting it right. Let us look at what some leading edge scientists are saying about whether we really know what our reality is. What they are saying is wonderful. It could even be marvellous. What they are saying has thrown everything up in the air and some are still waiting for it to come down.

What are they saying? Well, work on the human sensory system including the brain, has made it possible to determine how sensory data is collected and what the brain seems to do with it. This scientific work is saying that our sensory system is collecting data in the order of 400 billion bits every second. This is an absolute massive amount. That is an enormous amount of information and its every second. That is 400 million, million bits of sensory data every second. WOW!

The frightening thing about this scientific information concerns how much of it our brain actually uses. It is frighteningly low. Every second our brain uses barely 2,000 bits of information. That's 2,000 out of a possible 400 billion available. That is 1 bit in every two hundred thousand million. I thought that I didn't have enough zeroes on my calculator to effectively work out how small that is as a percentage. I was wrong, of course. So I worked it out. There was just enough space on the display of my calculator. After two goes to get it right, because I am wonderful with calculators, I finally pressed the equals button. Staring me in the face was my answer. I blamed the calculator. I repeated the operation again and again. My calculator kept giving me the same answer. What was it? It kept saying that the answer was... ... zero. My calculator couldn't cope with how small the answer was, but in its limited capability the answer was so near to zero that, in effect the answer was zero.

So how does this state of affairs actually come about? How does our brain decide to throw away so much information about our reality?

Scientists now say our brain works like this. There are five discrete stages or levels of operation that the brain goes through. At each stage what it doesn't use it throws away. How does it do this? It does it by looking only for what it already knows. What it doesn't know it ignores. What a sorry state of affairs. If the brain only looks for what it already knows then it is amazing that we actually learn anything at all in our life. So what does it do in these five stages.

At the first stage the brain looks for remembered basic shapes, colours and patterns. That is really exciting isn't it? Everything else is thrown away. The second stage is the brain matching colour patterns to stored memories. It is at this stage that if a colour pattern matches say ... a lion, then the brain is bypassed and instructions are sent to the body to either remain very still or to start running. The first thing that the brain would know about this was when it realises that it's body is frozen or is rapidly making for the horizon.

So, assuming no known danger, stage three of the processing looks at the stored emotions and stored events. Yes the stored emotions is seen as more important than the stored events. Any stored emotions will then be used to limit the events being looked at. This is great. We the great intellectualisors and our brain looks for survival, emotions and then events. It isn't surprising that so many humans are a bit odd, is it.

At stage four, the brain finally produces a picture from the information received. At stage five the picture is sent to the frontal lobe of the brain for 'us' to see. What an appalling state of affairs. The only saving grace is that the brain goes through this process forty times each second. Forty still frames, every second giving us the illusion of movement and change.

So, to recap, we make sense of only the smallest fraction of what we perceive as being 'out there'. That is based on what we already know. The choices are largely based on emotions memories. Why emotions? Well because, some are saying, the brain produced chemicals, that we recognise as emotions, are used to fix specific memories in specific places in the brain.

You know, it is a wonder that we are still here and threatening to destroy this planet. We can't possibly know what our reality really is because what our brain shows us is based on so little evidence. But the picture that is flashed on our brain screen forty times per second is really showing us something about what is out there isn't it?....... Isn't it?....... Well, not necessarily.

Brain research is clearly saying that the brain paints a picture for us and when it has difficulties with picture content it just paints in what it what the brain thinks should be there. Remember, this is based on what the brain already 'knows'. Does this mean that the brain makes things up that are not out there in reality? Well yes. In our eyes there are no light receptors at the point where the optic nerve enters the back of the eyeball. In reality we therefore should see a blank spot in the middle of everything that we look at. But we don't do we? That is because the brain makes up and paints in the blank space, what it thinks should be there.

It gets worse. Research with stroke victims clearly shows that when an area of the brain has been irrevocably damaged so that the brain is unable to access certain memory groups for recognising, say for example, specific noses, the brain will paint in a generalised nose on the brain picture rather than leave the nose off the face because it knows, from other stored memories that all faces have noses. This gives us the certainty that we can be sure of hardly anything after all.

I came across, recently, the following situation reported in the newspapers and referred to in a book called 'What the Bleep Do We Know'

This book says "Recently an insurance company was trying to analyse a particular problem in Saskatchewan. It turns out that light aircraft pilots who ran into engine trouble would try to land on the nearest freeway they could find that was relatively empty. One thing that consistently happened is that once they had landed and slowed down they hadn't enough speed to pull off the road - happy just to be alive. Drivers would then crash into the planes.
On being questioned by the police they would say that they hadn't seen the plane.
The last thing that they expected to see on a freeway is a light aircraft. So they don't see it."

So where does that leave us? Well Candice Pert, a leading researcher into brain/body cell chemicals, amongst other things, says that "we see what we want to believe."

It seems therefore that we use very little of the information collected by our sensory systems. With the little that we do use, emotion as the main determiner of what the resulting brain picture will have in it. Any and all gaps in the brain picture are painted in. What does this mean? It means that what we understand as being our reality is in fact an illusion because we 'experience' only the smallest fraction of what reality is.

Jesus says in the Gospel of Thomas saying 17: "I will give you that which eyes have not seen, ears have not heard, hands did not touch, and minds have not conceived."

And in saying 113: They asked him: "When is the Kingdom coming?" He replied: "It is not coming in an easily observable manner. People will not be saying, 'Look it's over here' or Look it's over there.' Rather, the Kingdom of the Father is already spread out on the earth, and people aren't aware of it."

The reality that we live in is, to a greater or lesser extent, an illusion. As Jesus frequently says "Those who have eyes to see, let them see" or "Those who have ears to hear, let them hear""

Surely it is time to step beyond the illusion into the Kingdom that Jesus talks about?

Amen

Joe Potter - Reiki Master - 14/05/2006

In this morning's reading we heard what is said about the actual birth of Jesus as depicted in the Christian testament and also those gospels excluded from it that also deal with this subject matter. What are we to make of the discrepancies between these versions? Was Mary married to Joseph? Had Joseph, sons predating Jesus? Was Jesus born in Bethlehem or on the way to Bethlehem? Was he born in a stable or a cave? Was Joseph and/or a midwife present? Did they miss the actual birth?

If we wanted to quibble we could note that the gospels of Matthew, Mark Luke & John were actually unsigned and only attributed to them by the early church. No one really knows who physically wrote them it is only a convention that says it was Matthew, Mark Luke & John. This ,of course, is also true of the extra canonical texts we heard this morning. The sources mentioned are traditional or a researcher's 'best guess'.

Does all this guesswork actually matter? No it doesn't. What matters is the sense, or not, that we make of it. Are these texts we have heard this morning really important? Yes they are. Are they true in a literal sense? Of course they can't all be because they all differ in some aspect from each other. They differ in the way that the best storyteller's stories differ from the original root idea or story, or for that matter in their retelling from day to day. Are they believable? Are they enjoyable? Do you remember them? Does something about the story ring true? Is there an important truth hidden within this story?

If we accept any of these questions then the story teller has succeeded. Story teller? Yes! For it is surely likely that these stories were told orally from memory before they were ever written down and they still have the flavour and format of an oral story telling tradition. We all like to tell a good tale. We all like to hear a good story. How many of us have added something to the story in the telling. We all do that. That is what story telling is about. But this does not mean that the story has no meaning to us.

To me these stories aren't important at all ... except that is, as recognition that in all of the versions, the story teller is saying that Jesus was actually physically born. It doesn't matter even whether it is true or not.... it is a story! So what do I find in these birth stories? Well....the only commonality in these birth stories is that there was a mother and father going through the experience of giving birth.

Does it really matter whether there was anything miraculous going on surrounding the birth? Not to me, except that, for those involved in the birth process, both the woman having given birth and her partner, the process is always seen as being miraculous. No matter what difficulties there are in the process, when the new born baby is finally seen and held there is such a rush, an up welling of...... love(?) for the baby, the partner and for the whole wide world that, for the two partners involved, at that moment in time, miracle and miraculous are very suitable words to use.

So it is right, even essential, that any story teller would sometimes incorporate birth into their stories. Stories only work well when the storyteller can trigger again emotions previously felt by the listener. For that matter this is also true of the best authors of the written word and why they are successful. And that is why it was important to tell a story about the birth of Jesus.

It is important to be reminded of the importance of birth. It is important to remind us, by reliving the event emotionally, following the birth of a baby. Why, because this love with its bliss, is subsequently hidden from us by the day to day reality and workload of a new life in a family. We forget.

It is important to remember, to relive the welling up of the love and the bliss with total acceptance for everything and everyone, with no buts and maybes. This is the real inclusive spiritual love. The state of being we should be reaching for, is that which we are reminded of, and we do need reminding don't we.

Joe Potter   December 2006

Just over a couple of months ago Lynn and myself were exploring a narrow lane that led up over a hill not too far from Sedburgh which is nestled at the southern end of the Howgill hills. It was a grey day, rain had stopped but everything was dripping. A cold wind blew across the fell. We just wanted to see where this lane went to and what the words 'Fox's Pulpit', written on our map referred to. Both of us had a strong feeling that this was an important thing to do.

A dry-stone wall ran along the right hand side of the little road and a sheep fence along the left. There was little chance of parking easily. And then over the top of the stone wall we saw a short craggy outcrop barely ten feet high and upon the vertical stone was, what seemed to be, a large plaque. We had to drive about another mile to find a place where we could turn round.

Arriving back just short of where we knew the plaque on the rock was, we squeezed off the little lane into a gateway and parked. The gate was lying flat on the grass. It was not a great day, the wind was cold and was still supporting occasional raindrops as if to keep the grass from drying out. From the car we had stepped through the gateway into a large dry-stone walled enclosure which had a solitary gravestone leaning at a slight angle. A faint path led to it. My 'trainers' and my feet were soon wet and I found the slabs of local lichen marked rock which crossed the footpath very slippery. There was nothing special about the grave stone except that it was here, nearly on top of a hill, miles from anywhere. It recorded the death of a wife in the mid eighteen hundreds and the earlier death of her husband around the turn of the century. And then we noticed that the enclosure some forty to fifty feet square was entirely covered in old graves each covered with a number of pieces of local stone laid side by side. This cemetery which was not cared for, obviously dated from the late 1700's. There were no properties in any direction for at least two miles and that one an isolated hill farm. It was a great puzzle as to why it was here.

We walked back to the gate, lifting it back up into place, turning towards another narrow way through the dry-stone wall. At last we could see the plaque that we had originally seen from the car on our way up. We walked the fifty or sixty feet to the base of the crag and read the writing on the plaque. It said, "Let Your Lives Speak. Here or near this rock George Fox preached to about one thousand seekers for three hours on Sunday June 13th 1652. Great power inspired his message and the meeting proved of first importance in gathering the Society of Friends known as Quakers. Many men and women convinced of the truth on this fell and in other parts of the northern counties went forth through the land and over the seas with the living word of the Lord, enduring great hardships and winning multitudes to Christ".

I knew that I had heard of George Fox but couldn't bring to mind any details, what or why I knew of him, but was left with the feeling that this event in our lives was important. That in some way we had been led or encouraged to be at this place and at this time. I knew it, not by the inner eye or inner ear but by an inner certainty that something here was important to follow up on and to share, that this would be the start or basis of today's sermon. For that reason I will share what I have, since, found out about George Fox.

George Fox was born in 1624, in Leicestershire, and he died in 1691. He lived in a troubled time. Although English churches had been allowed to use English versions of the Bible, off and on, since 1540 it was still forbidden, as heresy, for the common man to have or read one and the penalty for such was still prison or burning at the stake. That right only came in 1611 with the King James' Bible, less than a generation before George Fox was born. England was riven by civil war from 1642 with Oliver Cromwell, as the 'Great Protector', dieing in 1653. The Great Plague of London was in 1665 and the Great Fire a year later. The Act of Habeas Corpus, in which you couldn't be sent to prison without a trial, only came into being in 1679 and the Toleration Act, giving freedom of worship to all, was passed three years after George Fox's death. During the period George Fox's life saw the major upheaval of religious searching and unrest for the 'common man and woman' of this nation from which all of today's nonconformist churches, including Unitarianism, have arisen.

So who was George Fox? Well, that I can't say but it is known from his writing what he thought and did. He was a nonconformist and one of the great 'English Dissenters'. He believed that you could only be 'saved' by what you actually believed and not by what you did. He believed that anyone 'led by the spirit' had the right to minister to others. He believed that God dwelt in hearts and not in specific buildings. In a sense he listened inwardly to his inner ears or saw the meaning with his inner eyes and then did what he knew that he had to do. He believed in the simplicity of the words of Jesus. He took great risks for his belief, starting his ministry when only 24 years old. In 1650, three years before being on my lonely fell, he was imprisoned, for heresy, for a time in Derby. In the same year that he was on my lonely fell he was imprisoned in Carlisle, for heresy, where he was under a sentence of death until this was overturned, directly, by parliament.

Concerning his preaching on my lonely fell, George Fox wrote in his diary, "While others were gone to dinner, I went to a brook, got a little water, and then came and sat down on the top of a rock hard by the chapel. In the afternoon the people gathered about me, with several of their preachers. It was judged there were above a thousand people; to whom I declared God's everlasting truth and Word of life freely and largely for about the space of three hours." George Fox never started any religious movement but continued throughout his life to encourage those who listened to 'do their religion' in the way that they 'knew' was right. He said this was the Holy Spirit talking to us.

George Fox 'knew' that he had to preach as a way to encourage others to follow their own inner knowing concerning the form and content of their own Christianity. George Fox 'knew' and he called this knowing the voice of the Holy Spirit, or sometimes the Spirit. For George Fox this knowing was God speaking to him. This was George Fox's god contact and he took great risks based on this understanding. Yet he didn't do it for his own aggrandizement for he never started or became the head of any nonconformist movement he just encouraged others to follow their inner voice.

Our opening words by Barry Long said something similar - "Everything I say is either true or false. There is no in-between. But please do not believe me. Test each statement in your experience. Only in that way can you ever know truth." Surely he is telling us to test all things based on our own individual experience. This sounds eminently sensible doesn't it? To test our understanding of our world against our own experience of our world and life. That's fine but in my own experience and that of many others that I have met and known, our external worldly experience has not been the only thing experienced. For most people, at least sometime in their life, and for some, many times, there has been an inner experience which transcends the daily chattering mind.

Of course, what I have just been saying is not new. In our first reading this morning, from Rumi's Masnavi, surely this is what he also was saying. "But if your inner eye is open...", "Since your vision is so limited, close your eyes and see with the eyes of God. His sight for ours - what a recompense! With His divine perception, you will find everything you desire" etc. He surely is saying that there should be an inner experience and that this inner experience is important. Like George Fox, Rumi also sees this as the 'God contact'.

Jesus also talked about the same sort of thing. He commonly ended a parable with some phrase concerning having eyes that see and ears that hear.... and he wasn't talking about our external seeing eyes or our external hearing ears for in our second reading this morning we hear from the Gospel of Thomas - "I will give you that which eyes have not seen, ears have not heard, hands did not touch, and minds have not conceived." Surely this is Jesus talking about the inner senses of seeing and hearing. And when Jesus says "If you do not fast from the world you will not find the Kingdom." Is this not a plea to look inwardly for what is important to find? And when he says "the Kingdom of the Father is already spread out on the earth and people aren't aware of it." - isn't this another plea to become more aware? I believe that this is exactly the case. And where does Jesus say that we find it? He says "Go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." Surely this doesn't mean that you go and lock yourself in the smallest room in your house? Of course it isn't, it means the room that is within each one of us. He is saying that we should be inwardly aware.

So what does all this mean for us today? Jesus, Rumi, George Fox and many, many others say that we have to be internally aware to see and hear what is there for our benefit. They also say that this is God communicating to us. Most of this is there to help us in what we should be doing. Now, not many of us today say to others out loud that we hear voices or that we have just been talking to God do we. That would be perhaps the short road to being committed wouldn't it? We would be seen as being mad, not just a bit odd. Of course I accept that I am a bit odd and to my mind you all here today are also a bit odd and it doesn't worry me at all and it shouldn't worry you either. We should celebrate our 'oddness'.

So what do I mean by saying that about myself and about all of you. We are all odd. Why because 'odd' just means 'different'. If you come to church then you are different to the majority of our population who don't go to church. Therefore, we are not normal because normal means not church goers. For myself I have recognised that I am not normal because I go to church. I am not normal because I sometimes lead a service in a church, I am a healer, I eat natural and organic foods, I live by what feels right to me, I don't like meat much, I don't live in a town or city, I follow my intuition - my 'feel right' which comes from within, I don't get drunk when I go out to enjoy myself, etc, etc, etc. I gave up, a long time ago, wanting to be like everybody else, even though it seems that this is demanded by our 'modern' society, because I wanted to be me. And what is more, I also decided that I didn't care what others who are not like me, thought.

Jesus also knew that he was odd and that most people who saw and listened to him would not understand his message or what he was asking them to do. He also accepted that he would eventually pay the ultimate price for oddness - physical death. Now I am not suggesting that you go that far today, well not just yet anyway. But I am asking you to recognise the message of Jesus, Rumi and many, many others, which is to find out more about who you really are. To become more inwardly aware, involving hearing and seeing but more commonly just the 'knowing'. Allow the certainty about who you are, who you should be, who you could become and what you should do to flower. This is the time for decisions and actions. The time is now! This is the time to recognise that you too can access the God contact through accessing the 'knowing'. George Fox and many, many others did this during the turbulent 17th century. Many others have done so at other times across the millennia. It is not what you know or say, but what you do that matters. Yet 'knowing', is all there is!

Amen

Joe Potter   July 2007

The issue that I am going to discuss with you this morning is not an easy one and to be frank, I may not end up with an answer that we can all be comfortable with. I know, however, that you will listen to what I say and will arrive, in due time, at an opinion which is ineffably all your own. I realise that whatever you decide for yourself may or may not relate to what I present to you. This is because this is a Unitarian church and a fundamental expectation of the Unitarian movement is that you have the right to make up your own mind about what is presented to you. Perhaps this isn't a right but an expectation to make up your own mind. Perhaps it is not even this but more of a demand, that you use your faculties to make your sense in a way that is meaningful to you because this is the demand that is laid upon any and every single Unitarian and Unitarian church.

This leaves us with a difficulty. If each person here today has a different understanding of today's sermon then how can this can be reflected in a single global understanding that would reflect the group or church's view or understanding? Is this single global understanding actually possible or is it just a nice protective smokescreen that keeps us all in our individual collective comfort zones? Is this just a nice pipe dream or a comforting fairy tale that will last the morning or perhaps the day and then is forgotten as the activities and pressures of the week take over again? Is it?

The Rev. Dr. Ray Walder in our second reading of part of a sermon, given by him probably in 1999 or the year 2000, indicated that it was possible to achieve what he saw as a 'cohesive state' or a cohesive system in which was exhibited a cohesive tension between, perhaps, a disparate range of individual views within a cohesive whole and a common view. My understanding is that Ray saw the glue for this systemic tension as being love, not the 'lovey dovey' and passing love but rather the love that binds people together in stable long term relationships as it also binds together our universe and reality. This is not the little love but the big love! Another way of expressing this, in our context this morning, would be with such words as this community being bound together with the sense and the reality of a supporting fellowship.

So, we accept that love is the message and reality of this church and all its activities.

This morning I intend to see if I can't tease out the reality of what this church stands for, what it promotes and expects from this congregation so that we can perhaps see as individuals what the totality of this church actually is, what it believes and what it stands for. So what belief is there that is common to all or most of this congregation? When you think of this question and you think about what you have heard people talk about when you meet them, it is only then that it slowly dawns upon you that perhaps there isn't much at all that is held in common.

The existence and reality of the 'holy trinity' is held in common as a negative belief. It is commonly held that the trinity, as described in both mainstream Church of England, the Catholic, Nonconformist and evangelical Christianity, is held not to be true or acceptable. In general Unitarians do not see Jesus as being divine. But you know I am not keen on having a negative belief. I want to point to what we actually believe and not what we don't believe. So what is there that we actually accept or believe?

It is my contention that all, or most, of us believe in a 'divine principle'. Most would call this God or the 'All That Is'. For some it is because they see their world as being finely crafted and in careful balance and they can't see how that could come purely by chance. Others would see in the 'natural world' great beauty and design. Some wouldn't use a word for this at all for it is just a feeling or 'an awareness' that there is actually something and that this something seems to be what other people call God. It certainly isn't seen as a white man with a beard sitting on a cloud dispensing justice. It certainly is beyond male and femaleness or any other duality that we can think of. It is so immense that its immensity is beyond description as it encompasses all distance, time and eternity itself. So what is being said is that there is a 'divine principle' and this is largely accepted as being totally beyond description yet in some odd way the 'divine principle' is, or encompasses everything.

So, we believe in the reality of a 'divine principle' often referred to as God.

So how is all this about the 'divine principle' known? Is it taught and fed to us along with our milk since we were babies? Well perhaps, and if there wasn't more to this, then that would or could be a valid statement. However, a fairly common thought concerning people within this church and congregation is that some aspect of the 'divine principle' has actually been experienced as part of one or more 'spiritual experiences'. I certainly have and I have heard many others talking about their own spiritual experiences during which, in some way, the everyday reality was transcended.

Do I hear "What a load of rubbish" being shouted from the back row? No I don't. Such 'spiritual experiences' can involve an expanded sense of reality with the accompanying expanded understanding. It may be about receiving directly, useful guidance that involves hearing a voice or even several voices sometimes congratulating us or giving comfort at a time of great need. For some it is about the power of prayer that gives actual practical results in our day to day lives. Sometimes it is about healing that seems to come through us rather than is a part of us. Sometimes it is less specific than that and involves us with a sense of 'knowing' about something important or the answer to something that we have been struggling with. The list goes on and on and on. Many of them different but leaving the receiver with the certainty that this is or was the 'divine principle' getting involved in their lives.

Yes I know that others would scoff and be dismissive and talk about mental aberrations. Perhaps on occasion they are right.... perhaps? But these experiences are beyond 'accepted' reason. Spiritual experiences and the 'divine principle' experience is beyond reason. Therefore it isn't reasonable. And this is because the 'divine principle' cannot be comprehended in totality. It is beyond all that and so any experience of it is also going to be beyond all that and all you get is an unconnected tiny sliver of understanding which is totally meaningful to the receiver but is easily scoffed at by those who haven't had, haven't recognised or even rejected their own spiritual experience because there is one major difficulty with all this 'funny' stuff.

This difficulty is that all experience has to be channelled through our brain before we can begin to recognise or understand the experience. And herein lies the problem. It is said that our sensory system takes in something like 400 billion bits of information every second and our brain only uses about 2000 bits a second of this to create what becomes our perception of our world. And if that is not enough the brain only makes sense based upon what it already knows, that is, on the basis of what it has already experienced. That means that if someone sees an angel during an experience, it may not really be an angel that their senses are really looking at, but the brain makes the sense based on the learned experience that angels might be real - and they might be! To my mind this does not reduce or decry the value of the spiritual experience but I hold on one side the thought that the real experience might be stranger and more interesting still. But what is important is the actual message or the sense made of the experience, that is, what we have understood or learned from it. That is what is important.

So this congregation, in general, and often based on direct personal experience, seems to accept that spiritual experiences are real and they teach us something. In fact they are seen as important within the context of personal spiritual growth. Further to this, such experiences, because they have been experienced, should therefore, be incorporated into our personal understanding of reality as a whole and that this situation should also be reflected within our religious understanding and/or belief. The largely inner experience of the spiritual experience should not be excluded because other people think that they are a bit odd or because it is not their experience.

So, we recognise the importance of personal spiritual experience.

Why is personal spiritual experience important? This is more difficult than recognising the actual existence of the spiritual experience. But it seems to me that although such experiences teach us something for our benefit, there is a general feeling amongst those who have such experiences that the frequency, depth and length of such experiences can be increased by taking part in certain practices such as prayer, contemplation, meditation, healing, helping others etc. If that is true then why would we want to do this? Does it lead somewhere or are we just playing at getting more of a vicarious kick out of such experiences? Well, yes, we do get something out of such experiences. We get what some call a change or raising of consciousness, fleeting though that may be. It makes us feel good. It opens us up somehow. It sometimes feels as if we are somehow and in some way closer to the divine and that we are wrapped sometimes in a comforting, warm and loving blanket. Because of this, people try to repeat and get more access to the spiritual experience as a means to becoming closer to the 'divine principal' or God if you wish. This is about trying to establish an individual 'God contact' because such people accept the reality of the personal God. There is a general acceptance the 'divine principal' or God can be experienced at an individual level and that does respond to personal need.

So, we recognise the reality of the personal 'divine experience' and the possibility of a direct, ongoing relationship with the Divine.

There I go again. I keep using that word experience don't I but experience is important and that the experience and understanding are of central importance in this process. That is the bottom line isn't it? We should be making a sense of what we experience. It is not enough just to experience, we should test the experience with the application of reason. Any experience, whether it is inner or outer, needs to be understood. The application of intellect is necessary in the 'making of sense'.

Of course traditionally in Unitarianism, the making of sense has been seen to be paramount. We have the right to challenge anything that anyone says is sensible or that they say should be accepted or believed. We all have the freedom not to accept what we are told is true and to openly challenge such statements. And we also have the individual right to use the test of reason on both what we are told and what we experience as well.

Traditionally the 'catch words' are Freedom, Reason and Responsibility. As this is a Unitarian church we have the right not to accept what another says and the expectation is that we will apply reason to all things. Another way of saying this is that we must apply reason to the mirror of experience, the inner or the outer experience of ours or another's. There is a demand made of us to test and create a continuous unfolding and development of understanding and belief.

So, we expect to create a better individual understanding by applying reason to the mirror of our experience.

But an important part of our experience is based on what we hear and read, both in church and in our daily lives and what we learn about what others say now or have said or believed in the past. This is an important aspect of the church - to challenge us, to challenge what we think we believe and what we think we understand. Why, because it is through such a challenge that our own understanding grows.

So, we expect to have our understanding challenged so that our own individual understanding can grow.

So where do the ideas come from that are put to us to challenge us? Well historically, Unitarianism has arisen out of the Christian church and because of this the teachings of Jesus are seen as being important though this does not mean that other teachers are ignored.

So, we see Jesus as an important teacher from who we can learn. We also recognise that others across the world and millennia have had important insights which can teach us.

There are many, many things that I could say to add to my list of what I think that this congregation in Blackpool thinks is important. Let us at this point just recap these again

1. We accept that love is the message and reality of this church and all its activities.
2. We believe in the reality of a 'divine principle' often referred to as God.
3. We recognise the importance of personal spiritual experience.
4. We recognise the reality of the personal 'divine experience' and the possibility of a direct, ongoing relationship with the Divine.
5. We expect to create a better individual understanding by applying reason to the mirror of our experience.
6. We expect to have our understanding challenged so that our own individual understanding can grow.
7. We see Jesus as an important teacher from who we can learn.
And finally -
8. We also recognise that others across the world and millennia have had important insights which can teach us.

I hope that you find that this list is a true reflection of what this church stands for.

Amen

Joe Potter   July 2007

"Suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit." (Acts 2, 1-4)

That is a really great piece of theatre isn't it. A violent rushing wind 'God wind' from heaven you can almost hear the house creaking under this new burden. This could be straight out of a Hollywood block buster with the 'God fire' dividing to touch each of the disciples and to fill them with the 'Holy Spirit'. You can see it all even the words Holy Spirit lit up in capital letters. This is good stuff! And then? The disciples began to speak in tongues so that all could understand them in their own tongue. Hold on, the disciples are inside a solid house but never mind, the people outside must have heard the rushing wind and come to find out what it was. That still leaves them outside the house and the disciples inside..... doesn't it? So how could they hear them each in their own language. I would expect that someone speaking inside a house would not be heard by anyone, crowd or not, who was outside the house. The traditional thick walled houses of this part of the world designed to keep people warm in winter and cool in summer.

This is a great piece of theatre. It needs to be theatre and special because this is the point when the disciples, who are often portrayed as not understanding much of what Jesus talks about undergo a transformation. From here on they are leaders with their own powers to heal and to speak. At this point the disciples become 'special'. At this point, to my mind, the Pentecost experience begins to lose its credibility. In this form it just can't be real. And that is sad. However if this is a theatrical version of a real event - what could have happened?

What can we say about the core experience of receiving the holy spirit.
1. Prior to this happening the disciples experienced a prolonged period of trauma leading up to and beyond the death of Jesus in which each one of the them would have felt personally under threat of death from the establishment.
2. The event takes place inside a house.
3. Something special happens to them, depicted as a rushing wind.
4. Further to this the disciples are touched and filled with warmth and feel very special.
5. They call this 'being filled with the holy spirit.
6. Following this event the disciples are seen as having gained a great deal of personal confidence and seem to have acquired an expanded ability to communicate to others.

This event can be seen as an important turning point for the disciples as it is after this experience that they begin to publicly teach about Jesus and the teachings of Jesus. It is such a pivotal point that I feel that the words used to describe it, in the passage read earlier, have in all likelihood been tweaked to make it stand out or to make it more memorable.

It has been made to be more special. It has been re-worked and made into the blockbuster version we heard earlier.

It is a pity really, for it tells of an experience that can be life changing and yet is available to all. This is the message of our first reading (Luke 11, 5-13) this morning when Jesus said, "So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, it will be opened." And also "If you then, being evil ( i.e. un-godly or turned away from god), know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?" This Pentecost experience of the disciples is the 'Holy Spirit' experience that is open to all who 'ask' in expectation. This experience is that which is given to all those who 'ask'. This is the gift that brings you into the 'Kingdom of God', a central concern of Jesus, is the gift that the holy spirit brings.

And in the second reading (John 3, 1-12) Jesus also says "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God" and "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, you must be born again." To be born again is to be born of the spirit. To put it another way it is to actually have the Holy Spirit experience that the disciples gained at Pentecost. This experience is that of being born again, or being of the spirit. Or to put it another way it is the 'way' to enter the Kingdom of God. This is the often repeated and underpinning idea of the teaching of Jesus - to enter the Kingdom of God. This is what is on offer - being in the Kingdom of God on earth.

So why is being in the Kingdom of God important to us? It is because, as long as we remain in the kingdom, it changes us (for the better), just like the disciples, as we heard in the second part of this mornings reading (Galatians 22-23) when Paul is explaining what the fruit, being in or of the spirit brings: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who [follow] Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other."

So where does that leave us? Jesus frequently focused his words on being in the Kingdom of God and this was important to him. This can be attained by asking for it or in other words making it our focus. So how do we know when we are in the kingdom? How do we know when we are in this state called 'spirit'. In fact how do we know that what has been read this morning is real. Is this writing about the 'kingdom' stuff really true even?

Well, we know that the Bible New Testament was not written during the life of Jesus. In fact nothing was committed to paper until much later. The best guesses for the writing of the gospels used today is.... Mark 55years after the death of Jesus; Luke between 59 and 63AD; John 85AD or later; Acts 63AD; and Galations perhaps 50AD. This means that when the initial writing took place at least 50 years had elapsed and even then such writings, scholars tell us, were not in the form we read now but were in the form of 'sayings of Jesus' very like that found in the Gospel of Thomas. They also say that there is a solid suggestion that the Christian church tweaked, embroidered and embellished the biblical stories for at least 4 centuries and perhaps continuing on well into the middle ages as it brought the bible into line with the then church doctrine. So when it comes down to it there is no real certainty of the correctness of the actual words.

For all that I have just said about the authenticity of the bible, there is still often a ring of truth connected with the bible. There is something that strikes a cord within us. Why is this? Could it be that something about these biblical stories actually has a ring of truth? Not the individual words printed for us but something beyond that. Could it be that somehow it reflects in some way a truism based on actual experience?

There are two churches that, to my knowledge both seem to accept the reality of the Holy Spirit and the state of being 'in spirit'. Of course there may be more, but I do not have certain knowledge of this. These are the Christian evangelical churches and the spiritualist church. These both say something that relates to this 'problem'.

The Christian evangelical church recognises the reality of the Holy Spirit and the state of being filled or enveloped in or by, the Holy Spirit and this last is seen as a crucial state to be in. One, their teaching says that when praying we should be filled or enveloped in or by the Holy Spirit. Only then will prayer be effective. This, of course, is what Paul in the Bible says also. But the Christian evangelical church points to and recounts actual experiences when asking prayers are answered and changes take place. When praying 'in spirit', it works! It doesn't work or is less effective if the petitioners are not totally focussed and in this Holy Spirit state. Also, being in this state is important when preaching to the congregation. No preparation is necessary, no notes are made, they certainly don't have a script like I do. They just open their mouths and speak in 'the certain knowledge' that what will be said will be relevant and correct. The Spiritualist church also says something similar and certainly acts in a similar way for sermons. They both see that being 'in spirit' is of crucial importance. Remember the effect of the biblical Pentecost experience was a greater and enhanced ability to communicate with others!

So how do we know that the experiences in these two churches is the same as that described in the New Testament? Of course we don't really know because there is only a limited description of the experience of Pentecost. What we do know is that:

1. Something special or out of the ordinary happened.
2. The disciples are touched and filled with warmth.
3. They call this 'being filled with the holy spirit.
4. Following this event the disciples are seen to have gained a great deal of personal confidence and seem to have acquired an expanded ability to communicate to others.

I don't know how the Spiritualist church describes the 'Holy Spirit' experience but my brother, a Christian pastor, describes the state of being in spirit as being filled with a warm and slightly tingly sensation. He also says that 'externally' he is enfolded in a blanket of warmth that also has a slight tingle and that this gives him the feeling that he is being cosseted and loved. This to him describes the 'God contact' inherent in being 'in spirit' because for him the Holy Spirit is the active arm of God. To me, though my brother describes the effect in more detail, it has enough overlap with the 'Pentecost description, which mentions being touched and filled with warmth, that I am left with the impression that both could well be describing the same type of event.

So now we get down to the bottom line stuff which seems to be suggesting that access to the Holy Spirit is not a one off biblical event. It happens now. Also such experiences are available and are happening to anyone who expects it to happen. Does this have relevance in my own life? Have I actually had an experience of the Holy Spirit and not known that it had happened? Have I had this and recognised it for what it was? Might the Holy Spirit be more common in the lives of people today than I had thought and not just kept for 'special people'? Yes it does!

I have had experiences like my brother describes and yes I do believe that these experiences have changed me. So what are these experiences? For me they fall into two parts. One is connected to meditation and the other is connected to the reiki healing that I do.

I have been meditating, rather infrequently, on and off for a number of years.... perhaps eight years now I think of it. Also, meditation is a small part of reiki training because of the importance placed upon it by the founder of reiki and as I have been teaching reiki I am therefore involved in teaching others some forms of meditative practices. During this period, when meditation is going well I go into an energetic state that I have always called the 'Readybrek Boy' state. You remember him on the television adverts don't you? He eats his 'Readybrek' for breakfast and acquires a visible warm glow (at least on the advert) which can last all day! So when I meditate and it is going well I feel filled up and wrapped in a warm blanket of 'energy' that has a faint tingle that can last beyond the meditation time. T also feel like this during and following our own communion as well.

Now that is very near to my brother's description of his Holy Spirit experiences, isn't it. But on top of that I also feel exactly like this when I am doing reiki, when it seems to be going well, I practice reiki most days for myself and for others. During this period of nearly nine years other people have noticed a change in me - luckily one for the better. I have been pushed towards an understanding of god, I feel I am more loving, less stressed and more at peace with myself. I seem to have more patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, though I did feel I had a measure of this already. On the face of it, I seem to be accessing the 'Holy Spirit' and am receiving the 'fruits of the spirit' as well. If this is true for me, this surely is also going to be true for others? The thing is though are they aware of it?

Amen

Joe Potter   September 2007

I don't really know what to say today that might not upset someone, or hurt them. Yet I feel that I am going to say it anyway. Isn't that sad. I am setting out to upset some of you, but I fear that it is true. Two months ago I talked to you about the Holy Spirit, what it was said to be, how I came to experience it and what it feels like. I introduced the idea that the Holy Spirit was important and something that we should all take on board within this church, in a real and concrete way, and that this was an important tangible, achievable and important goal.

However from past and somewhat limited experience though, I know that a significant number of those sitting here today will do nothing about it. Others will learn to access it, or have already accessed it, on an occasional basis and because little comes or develops from this access, it will eventually fall out of use. I have really no expectation that anyone will develop their Holy Spirit contact, or awareness if you will, of this contact into a permanent ongoing state. Yet this is what living in spirit is. Now how is that for negative thinking. This is what past performance has taught me. This is what personal experience has taught me. It is too easy to let your daily life squeeze the Holy Spirit out of your experience and reality. And that would be a shame. It would be terrible to lose something that could change your life and your understanding of what the real reality really is. So I challenge you here today to prove me wrong.

The world is full of tools that can be the stepping stone to access to the Holy Spirit, or awareness, or spiritual progress, or enlightenment or spirituality etc. etc., and I am sure that there are other words that I could use to describe this personal change or focus. Continuing involvement in the act of healing is one such. Continuing involvement in meditation is another. Continuing use of prayer - especially silent prayer is a third. Yoga, tai chi, chi gung and the martial arts will all deliver it eventually if this is your focus. I think it highly likely that the world is full of such tools used by some but not others. Each guarded jealously as 'the only way' by its 'blinkered' proponents who cannot see beyond the use of their tool in their own individual world view. Now isn't this is the human condition?

There are others who focus on such activities and achieve little for their effort. They slave away for years and seem to gain nothing and eventually they become embittered or lost and give up. Why is this? They have done the work so where is the reward? But it isn't like that. It isn't the working at something to achieve a goal. It is allowing the activity to change us without the expectation that it will. It is about allowing us to change ourselves. It is about allowing us to become. It isn't about paying our money to buy an entry ticket so that we can be allowed entry into a hallowed place. Oh no, it is about allowing ourselves to grow up. It is about coming to know who we really are and who and what we have been and accepting it all. It is about the individual making or allowing the change to take place. It is not so much about turning away, but turning towards, by making space for it in life when all around us is also vying for our attention and our time.

This is not something that can be done for us. This is something that we have to allow to happen by not even reaching for it but accepting that it is already there. For that is what it is. It is here already we are constantly bathed in the Holy Spirit all the time. Everything is bathed in the Holy Spirit all the time. It is above us and below us. It is within us and it is outside us. But do we experience this? No we don't because our senses are turned away from it. We don't feel it, therefore it is not there. It is not there because we don't feel it. But it is we who are hiding it from ourselves. We are so screwed up that can't experience it. Now isn't that sad.

So what can we do about this state of affairs? Do you continue to ignore it or do you do something about it? It is up to you. But before you start, let me point out some of what some people see as the down side of the changes that I am asking you to begin to make or to extend the making. You are effectively going to all intents and purposes to change the you that is shown to others. Of course, if these changes take place, then others will notice them. Perhaps they won't like these changes because what you will think is important will no longer match what others are demanding of you. This change will affect what you read, watch and do. This will affect what, how much and of what source and quality you eat, drink, listen to or watch. Your interests will change because your expectations, values and activities will change. It could be the makeover of your lifetime.

And others won't like it. Why? Because you will no longer find the same activities appropriate. You will become less easy to persuade into an activity or personal stance that you disagree with. You will become less easy to be manipulated. You will become bored with what others do and think and demand because they will have become more meaningless and unimportant to you. So what happens is that those you called friends will tend to drift out of your life. And until you find others of a like mind you may experience a degree of separateness, of loneliness because you will have stepped out of the world of those you knew. The world will not have changed but you will see it differently. You will become more of an observer. Even when in the company of others you will feel as if you are 'on the edge' of the group, not a full member of the group or organisation. All this because you will have changed.

Over time it will be increasingly like Paul lists (Galatians 22-23) as the fruit of the spirit or what being 'in spirit' brings. You will feel love increasingly in the world around you, joy will arise within you as an internal smile and you might even achieve the 'fixed grin' syndrome where the corners of your mouth try to push themselves upwards. Despite everything you will feel more at peace with yourself and therefore others. You will increasingly act with patience and kindness and goodness. Being faithful to what you feel and know is 'right' will be important and others will see in you an increased gentleness and self-control. And against such things there is no law.

If you want all this and are prepared for all it brings both positive and 'negative'. Then sign up right here and pay your deposit....... No that isn't what I wanted to say at all. It is the reverse of what I have been saying for it is not what I have experienced and do or say that matters it is what decisions you make and what actions you take in the hours, days, weeks, months and years ahead. It is nothing to do with me..... is it..... because it is all about what you do.

So what can we do, starting right now? If there are two qualities that we can try to be, then try to be these. Every time you catch yourself reacting in a negative way then stop this and turn it around to be positive. Every time you catch yourself being judgemental then stop yourself and create a non-judgemental response. If you can make these two changes in how you think, act and react in your life so that they become second nature for you then they will be who you are and Paul's 'fruit of the spirit' (Galatians 5:22) should also be becoming self evident as the person who also exhibits love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and be self controlled. Such a person is much more likely to be able to access the Holy Spirit in a meaningful way because you will have been aligning yourself with Holy Spirit which is and promotes these qualities.

Having said all that, to know that there are others who are as daft as you, or more so, can be a great comfort. To know that there are others that have done and are going through this process can be a great comfort. To realise that there are others who will not laugh over the difficulties being encountered can be a great comfort. To be aware that there are others who will always support you and listen to you regardless of what you do or say and won't run screaming out of the room but will reflect back to you the qualities that you have and are developing can be a great comfort. To experience the reality of a growing community and Oh - how rare it is, how lovely, this fellowship of those who meet together... (from Psalm 133) in this place. For "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is 'born again' (another way to describe this process) he cannot see the kingdom of God (John ch3 v1-8)." Nor can they feel or experience or really understand the ramifications and the reality of the Holy Spirit and become the inner "well of water springing up to eternal life" (John ch4: v7-26). Now is the time there is only now for yesterday has gone and cannot be retrieved while tomorrow may never arrive. Act now. There is only now! You are the only one that can allow this. It is time to allow yourself to become the person you have always been but never knew. It is time is time to reach out for the greatness and godliness of the greater you that you have always been. It is time and the time is now. Don't wait for a better moment start now! There is no better time than NOW!

Joe Potter   November 2007

Over the past year or two there has been a massive increase in the number of books published concerned with abundance. This has been reflected in the prevalence in this subject area on the internet. When I was thinking about perhaps dealing with this topic a friend recommended that I 'Google it'. It seemed a reasonable way to get into this topic so I did it. The first 10 items displayed included two encyclopaedia sites and eight wanting to sell me something. The items on the next page were all trying to sell me something and like the first page would titivate your interest with freebies. I didn't look any further because at this point I looked at the 'search results' and saw that my search for 'Abundance' had found me, it said, at least twenty two million nine hundred thousand entries and the vast majority seemed to want to sell it to me. I did not go any further. The first eighteen entries had confirmed the opinion that I already held based upon the books that I had dipped into i.e. that all were right in what they said but wrong because they didn't go far enough. Would what had been written work? Well yes it would work but was, in the main, it was concerned with consumerism and the world of 'things' and therefore my answer would as readily be no it won't work. I felt and still feel that the probability of these abundance ideas working in the general population is very small.

Our second reading this morning was saying, in a nutshell, that 'everything in our life is a result of what we know, what we experience and how we interact with our consciousness' and that 'these elements make up the ultimate source from which everything else evolves'. Now that is a sweeping statement isn't it. What we experience in our life has been caused by what we have experienced or thought about. Therefore we make our own reality. There is no one else to blame but us. Can this really be true....can it? This mornings e-book is definitely saying…. 'Take a good look at your life right now. Where do you live? What does your furniture look like? What kind of car do you drive? How much money is in your bank account? Look in the mirror - how do you look? Everything has been manifested one way or the other, by you.'.... The question 'Is this true?' remains however. My own view is that it really is true but for most of the population, for one reason or another, it has always remained untrue.

There was an attempt in the extract that I read to you, to indicate the science that underpins the abundance process - but there is some science and it does hinge upon the mysterious reality, that underpins what we see when we open our eyes - the quantum reality. Yes, we are back to talking about the sub atomic levels where matter isn't matter but just an electrical potential. Where even the energy between the subatomic 'particles' is immensely greater than that within the sub atomic 'particles'. Where there is a constant seething maelstrom of change and everything is only a probability rather than a real thing. Even that isn't quite right and scientists talk about waves of probability in which everything is possible. In this 'system' even the impossible is possible but generally speaking the collapse of a probability wave repeatedly leaves us with the known world. Yes this mornings reading touched on this but didn't really establish the link between the constantly changing 'possible' and ourselves, but it is there in leading edge science.

The missing link in the process is us. You and me, him and her. Each one of us that is in existence is actually in constant contact the seething quantum realm of the 'possible'. More than that even. We are not only in constant contact with the possible before it exists but we can interact with the possible and under certain conditions and circumstances we can institute a pro-active change that will directly result in a change within our reality. An American scientist called Hameroff and a British scientist called Penrose are both showing that the structure our brain offers a physical path between conscious thought and the mysterious world of the 'possible'. What this means is that we are wired to make changes to our reality. Isn't this what Jesus was talking about in Saying 108 when Jesus said: "He who drinks from my mouth will become like I am and I will become he. And the hidden things will be revealed to him." Isn't this what Jesus was talking about in Saying 106 when Jesus said: "When you make two into one, you will be called sons of men. When you say 'Move, mountain!' it will move."

Is this really true? Are the good and the bad things that are in our lives really organised and delivered to us through our own actions and thoughts? Well many mystics have repeatedly said just this, across the millennia. Has anyone taken any notice of this? Some have - but very few. Some of these, from Jesus onwards felt the repercussions of this by paying with their goods, chattels or even their lives. The entrenched political and theological power structures tend to not want 'power' to be taken into the hands of individuals who may largely be beyond their control.

So, yes there is a scientific explanation for how 'abundance' works. So why is it that when many people try to raise the issue and importance of abundance, in some form, within their lives it seems not to work, they feel a failure and so they give up. Well one reason is that many people are not sure it will work and this self fulfilling prophecy is then acted out. In our society it is viewed by many with scepticism and at the group level this is also acted out as a negative self fulfilling prophecy. I think that this prophecy is so ingrained that when it resurfaces, as it does from time to time, it has to take the form of appealing to our egos with such as; 'you can be rich, beautiful, slim etc. or you can have a beautiful house, car or family. It is sad really, isn't it, that these ideas are sold to a populous that wants and reaches for the goal that they know is unachievable.

But is it unachievable? No it isn't. It is being achieved all the time. The change that needs to be made is within ourselves. Let me give you an example from within my experience within this church in the last twelve months. Over the last couple of years we have been renovating our church hall, meeting room and kitchen. During this time we have spent a substantial amount of money. The church did not have this money at the start of the renovation project. The church members didn't raise enough to cover what was going to be spent. Different organizations gave money towards the renovation costs but not enough to close the gap. Over the period of the main renovation the builders gave consistently favourable estimates and lower than expected costs and sometimes unknown generous people gave us sums of money to be used in our renovation project. Yes the completion of the renovation was due to the hard work of all involved.

But what I found interesting was that this congregation had periods when it began to lose heart and therefore, focus, concerning the renovation. When this happened so it seemed to be that less money would come into the renovation fund. When the congregation's collective heart picked up so the progress and funds increased again. It seems to me that this is abundance in action.

What this teaches me is that whatever we focus on as a goal and whatever we give importance to in our lives this is rewarded by bringing the focus or goal in the form we want or need to us. This is abundance. So what can we, or should we be doing to enhance this process further within our lives. We should develop the ability to hold a focus, preferably a positive focus for sustained periods. This is what many forms of meditation are doing. It is also what prayer is about. We should expect all the positive things that we would like to have in our lives, to happen. This in itself will empower any meditative, healing or prayer focus so that the expected outcomes are more easily achieved because by being more positive for a longer part of each day we will be actively reducing the space in which we could fall into negativeness.

As a more pro-active approach we should guard against what we think by looking out for negative thoughts and conversation. When the negative is recognised, say to yourself 'this is not how it is or this is not true or this is not going to happen'. With practice it will be enough to just say to yourself 'no' and this can develop into just the recognition of the negativity which will be all that is necessary to stop the negativity from coming to us.

In brief, what I am saying is that in the coming new year we should be taking positive steps to remodel ourselves. The spin off of getting rid of negative thoughts is that your life would only have positive and neutral thoughts in it. Because of abundance such ongoing and positive thoughts will draw ongoing positive experiences into your life. You will smile more. You will have more and longer periods of happiness. You will feel more at peace with everything and everyone around you.

A spin off of this is that all who are in your company will also increasingly experience the positive experiences that you draw to you especially if your positive experiences and thoughts concern others. It is a case of helping others by helping yourself. This is a practical way to 'love your neighbour as yourself'. Now where have we heard that before?

To make this objective even clearer still. If you don't employ what many refer to as the abundance principle then you are likely to continue to draw positive and negative experiences into your life. You will be no worse off than you are now unless you become more negative. If you employ the 'abundance principle' as an ongoing aspect of your internal and external life then you will develop into a more spiritual person. You will become more aware of the needs of others and how best to help them without robbing them of their own humanity. You will have entered the Kingdom of God, on Earth. Let this last be your first New Year's Resolution so that not only would you benefit but all the rest of us in this church, community, town, country and world would benefit as well.

Amen

Joe Potter   December 2007

The thread in today's service has been constant through all the readings and hymns, that of love. This word 'love' is a very difficult word to understand. Why is this so? It is because we constantly misuse it.

We often in our daily life say, "I love this ice cream or I love those flowers. We say that we love a particular television programme, a friend or a group of friends, a football team, a TV or film star, a sunset, lying in bed on a Sunday morning, a particular drink, a rainbow etc, etc. etc. We all do this to a greater or lesser extent. We all use the word 'love' to mean 'like'. But love does not mean like. It's meaning is nothing like the word like. But we all do it. Vaguely like, greatly like or massively like, are nothing like the word love. Like is a very limited word. It should be used on generally small limited experiences that create within us a positive emotional response to the event, place or time. 'Like' is a recognition that we have realised that we have gained a positive emotional lift, even a 'kick' if you like.

Ah! You say to yourself I know what love is because I love my husband, wife, child etc. Yes, I know and will accept that the word love is related to those nearest and dearest to us. It is even related to experiences and things. But not in the way that people commonly use the word. So be careful how you use it. Love of a family member is also not love. It is nothing like love. This life experience that binds us into long lasting relationships and family groups is not love. This is attachment. This is emotional addiction. It is quite necessary for the stability of the family unit however. It is so strong that we are sometimes even prepared to risk death for it. For example a parent trying to save a family member from a burning building or throwing a child to safety knowing that they cannot move quickly enough to get themselves out of the way of a vehicle about to hit them or giving their loved one the only food that there is when there is not enough for all.

In the initial stages of a relationship, this 'attachment' binds us to the other person. This is an emotional-hormonal-chemical binding and we do it to ourselves. We tie ourselves to a particular man or woman and this can last sometimes for life. But in this state of attachment we rarely see our partners or our children as they really are because our attachment imprints a fixed set of misconceptions about who the other person actually is. These misconceptions act like a filter to our experience of the person we have an attachment to. This keeps us from seeing who and what they really are like. Not only can we not see things as they really are but we really expect to receive something from the other person on an ongoing basis. The only saving grace to this setup is that the other person is also caught in this very same trap. But is this love?

This is not love and while we are in this state we are lost to reality. This is evolution being played out at a personal level. This is physical and cellular life making sure that there will be successive generations of people. Important though this is to the survival of our species it still isn't love. No matter how many times we use this word love in this evolutionary sense it still does not make it true. Love is not the pre programming and hard wiring of our body and brain which reacts to air born chemicals and surface skin chemicals produced by a member of the opposite sex. We have got it wrong again. This is a misuse of the word love. This is not what Jesus or any other of the great mystics was talking about when they used the word love.

Love is a state of being.

So what does that statement mean? How would I recognise this love and how can I attain this state of being. Do I even really want it? Do I really want this on top of all the rest that I have to do and cope with in this life. My life is full to the brim already and to add just one more straw to my back might break me. I can't do any more. I can't be any different. I am who I am. The risk is too great. I have responsibility for my wife, children, mother in law and all the others. I have responsibilities towards my boss, my job, my customers, my neighbours, my friends. Do you recognise this from your own life experience? Well there we go again with an attachment.

We are attached not only to those who we think we love. We are attached to lots of different people and organisations. We have expectations about these people and who these people really are. These expectations, sometimes unrealistic expectations, hide the reality of what these interactions really are. And just like the earlier evolutionary attachment, these attachments are also emotionally based and locked into a range of rigid expectations. This is evolution played out through society. This is based on us knowing who we are and how we relate to others. This is important, we say. We need to know where and how and when we fit into this large societal framework. This is because it is important to our survival and therefore our family's survival because the survival of our children is important.

And we play this attachment of society out in the same way that we play out that of our evolutionary-chemical-emotion attachment of sex and families. And we find the same misuse of the same words that we use to describe how things are going. We say I love my job, my co-workers, my business etc., etc.. We are even likely to push ourselves to the actual point of personal self destruction through high levels of stress and overwork. In fact increasingly our society demands just this of us. In the attachment of 'society' we no longer see things as they really are. As with all attachments, we see things as we want them to be. We are blind here in our society just like we are in our relationships. We are lost - totally lost.

So what is love then? Well the one thing that we do know is that it isn't anything to do with being attached to some person, some object or some activity. I say activity rather than job because we can have an 'attachment' to anything. An ardent footballer or supporter can be attached to specific players and his club. We can become attached to a band or group, even the brand of equipment that we use in our homes or gardens and just like all attachments we are bound by our blinkered certainties. Just like with the earlier attachment of sex, I have offered you this morning, with these attachments we become just as unthinking and unknowing. We don't see things as they really are…. and so we are lost.

As a simple rule of thumb when we hear or say "I love.... whatever it is." This is most likely not true. It isn't love. It is attachment.

So what is love? I know, I said it was a state of being and it is. So what then is attachment. This also is a state of being. This is a state of blinkered or filtered seeing. It is the state of being in, but not a functioning part, of reality because we don't see the totality of reality. We can't see reality as it is. This is a state of being as well but it is more accurately a state of 'un-being' because in 'attachment' we can't see things as they really are or reality as it actually is.

Conversely, love therefore, is the state of being 'in-being' or 'total-being' or perhaps 'totally-in-being' because a person in this state of being begins to see things as they really are. It gives a much wider grasp of reality.

So what is it like being 'in' love. To some extent this differs from person to person. For some, 'total in-being' can be very frightening. All the props that have been used up to that point, are gone. All those things and ideas and words that we have been hiding behind no longer serve their purpose. At the moment that someone has 'become' they can take fright and trigger back to their original state of 'un-being'. They go back to their comfort zone. This is possible because the step into 'being' or 'awareness' is very small.

If this happens it is not because they have really decided to be as they were, but rather that the fright and the aloneness seems to trigger the previous and more long standing state. After this happens some of these people have no memory that they ever reached the state of 'being'. It is not beyond the realms of possibility, that with some people, this process is acted out over and over again.

So how do you really know that you have crossed into 'being'? Well, I think most people don't know. They might have an odd experience, or they might not. What they do though, is carry on with their life because that is what they have to do. However, because they are seeing things as they really are they now begin to act in a different way. Often, this is not seen by the person, but rather by their family, friends and work or other associates. Over a period of time many of their friends drift away because the person who is in 'being' has begun to act and react differently to that which was previously expected. The person may no longer find that what they were doing satisfies them. So they stop doing it or they do it in a different way. Little by little they change.

It isn't that they have been hit by a bolt of lightning which leaves them on a high twenty four hours a day, seven days a week for ever more, though for a small number this is just how it seems to be. It is that they slip more often into being more loving, experiencing more periods of joy in unexpected ways, Kindness, goodness and faithfulness become more pronounced. Over time they become more patient and seem have more self control. In a nut shell they become like Jesus is portrayed to us and certainly like the mystics across the ages. These changes are not an end in themselves but rather the effect of the outward manifestation of love that they are now more open to. Remember this is not the love as seen and experienced by the rest of mankind but rather the greater love that embraces and underpins the whole of our reality.

Yes, you have heard me mention this list that contains: love, joy, kindness, goodness and faithfulness, patience and self control before as I have frequently spoken of them over the last few years. These attributes are referred to as the 'fruits of the spirit' and are listed by Paul in the 'Christian testament'. However, be wary, neither these attributes nor the state that they point to can be said to be the sole property of Christians or Christianity, because they are not. Many other cultures also have people who have come to 'be' and this has been going on for millennia. You can experience this 'Kingdom of God on Earth' and the transcending effect of love. All you have to do is to allow yourself to 'be'.

This state is only a step or a thought away. There is no entrance exam. When you change to 'being', you 'become', you have 'awareness', you have become enlightened, you have entered the 'Kingdom of God on Earth'. It is just a part of growing up. However, most people don't seem to do that - grow up, that is. This is a real shame because I think that this is what we are supposed to do - grow up I mean.

So have I really said what love is? No I haven't. I have only given a glimpse of what others looking in, tend to observe. But that is all right because I will return to this topic again, perhaps again and again. But to give a hint, it is about being in the wonder and the now.

Amen

Joe Potter   August 2008