We are always too busy, yet we need to take time aside to recharge, to nourish and to build our spiritual life. Our Service today considered: how we might bring stillness to our lives; how we might bring beauty into our being; how we might use art, and the idea of art, to bring Creation forth. With help from Angela Herrera and Auguste Rodin, a recording of our words today can be found here, with the words written below:
Life is busy.
There is always so much to do. So many things to complete, to join, to write, to e-mail, to attend, to file, to share.
Life is busy.
I was at the Annual Meetings of the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches last month. This is the body to which all Unitarian, and Free Christian, churches belong. It is, perhaps, the Unitarian Synod. Although I’m not sure many would see it as such a beast.
It was, for Ministers, five days in a slightly bewildering spa and golfing hotel in Daventry – and never leaving the campus, and with no automatic view of TV or radio, you very quickly lose track of time, date, week, reality.
But it’s still busy. There are workshops, there are business meetings, there are times for worship, there a communal meals, and social times. Always plenty to do. And they are great fun, they really are. And I wouldn’t miss them for anything – I was quite happy to attend voluntarily before I was a Minister; the annual meetings really are a great way to connect with the wider Unitarian movement.
But I was exhausted by the end of it.
I met with friends. I made new friends. I ate. A lot. And, outrageously, I found myself moving further away from spiritual calm as the week went on. A General Assembly of churches. A gathering of the Unitarian tribes. And, aside from some excellent set-pieces – morning worship, the Anniversary Service and a final morning Unitarian Communion – the rest was very, very business like.
Business. And busy.
*
I’m not sure that my week in Daventry was any different to most people’s week. And not particularly different to the week I might have had if I had stayed in Tonbridge, or here in Dover. I would still have found plenty of things to fill my time with.
I would have remained. Busy.
*
For me, it is not until I really bury myself in things, and end up knowing neither whether I am coming or going, that I start to recognise that something is missing. That I am in some way failing to draw in the spiritual support I need to keep me going.
That I am missing the healing power of God.
Now, for all of us here, the notion of God is likely to be slightly different. But that’s a good thing. God is puzzling. But always present. For you, God might be a supreme being. God may be the world all around us. God might by that intangible ‘something’ that just seems to be there. For you, God may well not be known s God – you may use another name to try and describe that ‘something’.
But whatever it is, God, the Spirit, the Universe, whatever it is, it is something that can provide healing at times of stress. Nourishment at time of emptiness. And spiritual water in times of drought.
And God is found in the silent things. That sustaining and unfathomable depth can be found only if you step back from the mayhem and busyness once in a while. That ‘still, small voice’ that we hear of in so many stories. The voice and guidance you might only find once you stop and listen.
*
In our first reading, from Angela Herrera’s meditation on Hustle and Bustle, there was a wonderful phrase to help focus on this inner calm:
Beneath our habits of momentum and stirring,
There is a stillness,
Deep and peaceful,
The place where Creation begins.
And again:
Beneath our habits of momentum and stirring,
There is a stillness,
Deep and peaceful,
The place where Creation begins.
And this is, perhaps, the connection we need. The connection we seek.
*
Something has brought each of to this church this morning. This is a place where, I hope, people feel they are able to connect. With others, with their inner selves, with their God.
This will be found in many different ways.
It was Ralph Waldo Emerson, the eminent 19th Century Unitarian minister that noted:
I love the silent church before the service. Before all the preaching.
Now, I’m sure that wouldn’t be true if he was an attender at this church. But maybe I’m wrong.
I love the silent church before the service.
There is a strength in stillness and silence that is hard to define. Silence is identified through absence. It is the absence of noise that defines the idea of silence. It is the absence of distraction that leads to stillness.
Silence and stillness are nothing. Yet we can feed from them in a way that noise will never allow.
Some Monastic Orders recognise this. Enforced silence. Vows of silence.
This is a common phenomenon in so many different religions – Jainism, Buddhism, Christianity, and many more. A recognition that silence will, or at least might, enable greater connection.
But this is not just the absence of speech. A monastic vow of silence is agreed not to be quiet, but to enable a conversation with God, or with the, or a, Higher Self. Just not talking is not enough. This is an active silence.
As Angela Herrera said,
‘a stillness, deep and peaceful, the place where creation begins’
That silence becomes the start of something bigger. The silence is a gateway to a recognition of something bigger than ourselves. Often intangible – a ‘something’ that really cannot be described. But something clearly bigger, nonetheless.
*
And this emergence of silence, of stillness, from the clutter of the everyday mayhem of our lives, truly is, I believe, where Creation begins.
It is the start of something deeper, some as yet unexplainable connection to the Divine.
As the Indian mystic poet Kabir said in the 1400s:
‘If you want the truth, I’ll tell you the truth:
Listen to the secret sound, the real sound, which is inside you’
Or, as we read in the Bible, listen to that still, small voice.
And where does this silence, this launch into Creation take us? What more might we need to help us make that deeper connection with the all-that-is?
Of course, the answer to that will be dependent on a number of factors. But for me, and I suspect a few others, I found the words we heard by Auguste Rodin earlier to have some resonance.
Rodin, in his piece ‘Art in Life’ spoke of the value of beauty in the world.
He started by talking about the positive effect of having beautiful things in our homes. Not necessarily great art works, but instead the need for utilitarian items to have a beauty about them. Tables, chairs, jugs. Making use of articles that are pleasing to the eye.
I can understand the sentiment here, but I’m not sure that beauty in itself, or art in itself, is sufficient to draw us to the Divine – to the God, or Higher Self, that we might feel grounds our everyday lives.
However, Rodin went further than this. Rodin contends that great artists are, in reality, celebrating their own souls in their work. The artists to whom Rodin is referring are drawing from their own selves in making beautiful things.
And the inspiration for these, Rodin believes, comes from nature itself:
‘there is not a living organism, not an inert object, not a cloud in the sky, not a green shoot in the meadow, which does not hold for the artist the secret of the great power hidden in all things.’
The artist celebrates his or her own soul, in nature. And the appearance and sight of a beautiful piece of art, or simple piece of craft, will always gladden the heart. Although, as I suspect we acknowledge in this sacred space – especially as we are dissenting Unitarians - an agreement on whether something is beautiful or not remains very much in the eye of the beholder.
And despite my inability to draw even a stick-man successfully, I can empathise with this idea of putting the awesome influence and inspiration of nature into my own creation. To find myself fulfilled and sustained by the sheer brilliance of nature itself.
We have finally had a few days of, relatively, warm weather this week. And, as we knew it would, Nature has woken with a vengeance. The shoots are heading up, the leaves are forming, a fresh green carpet is rolling itself out over scraggy fields and patches of previously dull overgrowth.
And surely it is not just me who finds this change uplifting?
The beauty of the natural world is indeed food for the soul. Rodin’s reference to the beauty found in the line of an horizon. In a silhouette of trees. This is the unrepeatable beauty that can inspire and refresh.
*
But, the beauty of good art, of art inspired by the soul-feeding natural world, is not enough on its own. To rush through an awe-inspiring landscape, whilst focused on twelve different pieces of business, or tasks to do, will not lead us to the oasis of calm we seek.
However, when combined with the opportunity of silence, the opportunity of an uninterrupted chance to speak with your God, suddenly the conflation of nature, art and stillness can connect us to the Divine in a way like no other.
PAUSE
We live busy lives. We are forever chasing our own tails in an ever-increasing circle of business. This church alone, the very bricks and mortar, keep us busy. Too busy perhaps.
However, we need the chance to be inspired, the chance to take a step back, to breathe, to reflect and listen for another voice, a voice both inside and beyond us. As Unitarians, we recognise our paths to contact with the Divine will always be personal, yet I trust and hope there are some common threads from which we might all weave our links to peace.
Through the beauty of the world, the beauty of other seekers and the beauty of sacred space such as this place, I have a belief we might all be able to find that necessary space we seek.
May we be restored to wholeness
And blessed with peace,
May all those whom we encounter
Receive this blessing
Through our being in the world.