INTRODUCTION
“What’s
it all about, Alfie?”
So sang Dionne Warwick in a famous
song, which became a major hit for Cilla Black way back in 1966. It was written for the film of the same name –
Alfie – and she went on to ruminate about life: what was all about? A moment’s
pleasure? Making more than you give? And then asked if it’s it foolish to be
kind, wise to be cruel? Does life only belong to the strong? The turning point
came when she admitted that she believed there was a heaven above, that there’s
much more to life and that even non-believers can believe in love. In one
poignant line she sang:
‘Without
true love we just exist, Alfie. Until you find the love you've missed you're
nothing, Alfie.’
The song may have been written over fifty years ago but
the question remains: what’s it all about? It’s the kind of question that we’re
suddenly faced with at times of crisis. Teenagers, when they hit upon that
existential phase, often stumble upon it. Lovers wonder at it. As we gaze on
nature we find it can ask us – what meaning does life have …? Is it really all summed
up as ‘eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you die’?
‘Love is our
true destiny.
We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone - we find it with
another.’
Fr. Thomas Merton (1915-1968), monk and writer. From: 'Love and Living', Houghton Mifflin, 2002
This book isn’t meant to be a deeply philosophical tome
or intellectual or theological critique of modern Britain but a reflection – a
meditation, an exploration – into some of the fundamental questions about life
and death each of us can find ourselves facing. Many of the fundamental
questions about the nature of our being touch on the religious dimension of
life and yet many have no time for religion and many of the questions which we
have always asked – ‘Who am I?’, ‘Is there any purpose to life?’, ‘Why does
there have to be pain and suffering?’, ‘What does it mean to be human?’ ‘Who is
God?’ – all these and more were and are matters with which Christianity has
struggled. But the wisdom gained by that
struggle is no longer accessible to a generation cut off from its ancient roots
as it loses interest in religion, a generation which has little sense of having
a soul in need of nurturing and nourishing, a soul which bears the image of
divine beauty. That is what we are – women and men who bear such beauty within
us that needs to be revealed. So that is what this book concerns.
Religious
abuse
Perhaps your memory of being
taken to church as a child and the words or actions of those who call
themselves ‘Christians’ has left you cold or scarred you for life. I remember,
when I was a child and had been taken to church, thinking that I never wanted
to go there again. Or you or someone
close to you has been deeply hurt – physically, emotionally or spiritually – by
the church. This is tragic and anyone who has been abused in this way will
rightly feel anger, bitterness even hatred. And when, so often, what is
reported is the way Christians have exercised power for their own ends, denied
people their sexual or gender rights or refused to accept minority’s people rightly
become disillusioned. Whilst many faiths can be narrow-minded, bigoted or
homophobic it is Christianity that is seen to be offering simplistic answers to
life’s deep and complicated questions. And the kind of worship offered in many
churches doesn’t really appeal to the soul, doesn’t nourish it. Rather some
churches seem to offer ‘candy-floss’ worship – appealing to the senses but
having no substance – and even prayer has too often been taught as a means to
achieve what you want; it’s about asking for things, celebrating success and
God’s apparent ‘power’ rather than offering a means to encounter the deep
mysteries of God or provide us with anything more than a five-minute
after-glow.
Christianity, like any religion, isn’t exempt from
corruption, misuse or a fundamentalist interpretation. Something which offers a
way of life that can unite us with that which is most noble and creative in our
humanity can be, and has been, abused and used as a means of control over
others. Of course, we are all ‘fallen’, broken people but it would not be wrong
to say that Christ weeps at the inhumanity some in the church exercise and
which can prevent people from encountering His compassion. Thankfully God is
not limited to the churches and the knowledge that a person is held in the
mystical love of a higher power can still be realised. Those who practice the
12-step programme of Alcoholics Anonymous, for example, will know the
importance it places on a deity – ‘God’, ‘Him’, or ‘a Power greater than
ourselves’ — or to religious practices such as prayer. And the ultimate goal of
sobriety, as the final step states, is to achieve a “spiritual awakening”, a
goal that is set before all of us but discovered by few.
“Do not be
afraid. Do not be satisfied with mediocrity.
Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.”
Pope John-Paul II (Inaugural Homily)
Spiritual,
not religious
Because there are some who will
say “I’m spiritual, not religious” this book will try to re-connect us with
some of those spiritual roots of that faith which nurtured and nourished our society
for two thousand years yet now seems irrelevant (what an over-used word!). We’re
detached from faith – or semi-detached at best. But the house we inhabit has forgotten
cellars containing vast hordes of wisdom for us to explore. We’ve hidden
springs for refreshment, caves containing treasures, yet the doorway to these
can have become ignored and covered in cobwebs – “we don’t want to go there,
what’s the point?” But if we lose touch with our roots – with our soul – we’re in
danger of becoming destabilised, a shallow generation satisfied by
superficialities. And always, when we descend sufficiently, is a still, small
voice which says:
LORD, you
search me and you know me.
You know my
resting and my rising;
you discern my
thoughts from afar.
Behind and
before, you besiege me,
your hand ever
laid upon me.
O where can I
go from your spirit,
or where can I
flee from your face?
If I climb the
heavens, you are there.
If I lie in
the grave, you are there.
If I take the
wings of the dawn
or dwell at
the sea’s furthest end,
even there
your hand would lead me;
your right
hand would hold me fast.
If I say, “Let
the darkness hide me
and the light
around me be night,”
even darkness
is not dark to you,
the night
shall be as bright as day,
and darkness
the same as the light.
For it was you
who formed my inmost being,
knit me
together in my mother’s womb.
I thank you
who wonderfully made me;
how wonderful
are your works,
which my soul
knows well!
(Ps.139
– extracts)
In
depth living
Much of my life these days
involves sitting and listening to people who are trying to make sense of God in
their lives and explore all the movements that happen within them as they try
to give attention to God – it’s called ‘spiritual direction’ and if you want to
know more then there’s some notes at the back. Many of the issues that people
want to explore and which seem to be around in society, both sacred but mainly
secular, concern matters that the great Traditions of Christianity, for want of
a better term, have always addressed: ‘Am I simply re-acting to life?’ ‘Life’s so full I don’t have a chance to slow
down.’ ‘Why is X having to suffer?’ ‘What
will happen when I die?’ ‘I’m doing so
much but life seems empty.’ Just because someone may have jettisoned religion,
faith, God etc. these questions don't go away. Getting rid of God just means
we’ve blocked off a source of wisdom and insight; ignoring Christianity might
mean we don’t have to bother with deeper questions but it also means that we’ve
lost the ability to access that ‘wisdom of the ages’ which has helped people to
live and not just survive. As someone
wrote to me:
‘As you know I am
one of your acquaintances who does not have a faith, is not a believer. Neither
am I an intellectual in anyway
shape or form. However, I do question where our humanity has gone, I love the wisdom of the ages from those
spiritual leaders, be it religious or pagan. I think the past has so much to teach us; so much in this modern age
is being forgotten. Everything is so shallow and meaningless.’
So this book sets out to look
at matters such as what it means to be human and why we’re here; why the God questions
don’t go away; what gives meaning and purpose to life; why we resonate with
‘spiritual’ things; why people suffer; how we can become more beautiful and,
perhaps most poignant of all, aging and death. And throughout I’ll try to look
at what that ‘wisdom of the ages’ might have to offer us for religion, down the
ages, has looked at all these matters, and more, and tried to make sense of
them. At its best religion doesn’t attempt to provide answers but to shine a
light on the path that leads into the heart of our being, into the heart of
that which we call God, where we can discover the truth of who we are and how
we connect – and realise ourselves, with our unique wonder, as part of a vast
whole which finds itself embraced in a mystery. The mystery of God.
Has
religious faith any appeal?
The transcendental appeal of
religion remains and still tugs at the hearts of many, in-spite of a chorus of
cynical disapproval. It’s certainly not cool to be a Christian, or even to talk
about Jesus, God, the Saints, prayer (spirituality is OK), worship and so on.
But Christianity has rarely been popular; as G. K.
Chesterton wrote: ‘The Christian ideal
has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left
untried.’1 (1‘What’s Wrong with the World’, Part I,
Chapter 5). Yet the heroic lives of saintly men and women continue to have an
appeal; they are like beacons shining in the dark. Of course, sportsman and
women and ‘celebrities’ can have an instant and greater glow about them, but
have you noticed that their appeal is often passing? And many of our ‘gods’ also
turn out to have feet of clay. But true holiness, that which takes us out of
ourselves so that we are living in the light of the Other, lasts and we can
continue to savour it long after a holy one has disappeared from this earth.
‘Man
is called to a fullness of life which far exceeds the dimensions of his earthly
existence, because it consists in sharing the very life of God. The loftiness
of this supernatural vocation reveals the greatness and the inestimable value
of human life even in its temporal phase.’
Pope
John-Paul II (Evangelium Vitae)
Religion
re-invented
What I find so fascinating is
the way that so much of our religious past hasn’t actually disappeared but has
been taken over – Advent calendars now offer us chocolates rather than insights
into waiting for the birth of the Man who can lead us to life in all its
fullness; All Saints now offers fashionable clothes rather than being men and
women clothed in holiness; Halloween isn’t a way of lovingly remembering the
dead but a chance to go a bit mad. Incense is now a costly perfume to enhance
our bodies rather than a mystical aroma which announces the presence of
holiness, of God; and the ability to make your Confession is now rewarded with
an invitation to appear on some ‘reality’ TV programme rather than the ability
to find real absolution. And we’ve drained the great mysteries of the Faith –
the birth of Christ and his death and resurrection – into times of excess
governed by the gods of commerce, holding out nothing more than a plastic Santa
or chocolate bunny. Can these satisfy our real needs, our deepest needs? Or are
they part of a culture which has to make us feel we need ever more and more to
make us happy and find … contentment … but is basically about making a profit
for shareholders and never satisfying our needs for fear we won’t spend our
money? Yet all the while, dimly maybe, behind it all and almost masked by the
deafening clamour of commerce and entertainment can you hear that quiet voice
asking: ‘What do you seek? What do I seek?’
What
do we seek – what’s it all about?
Have you ever thought of
that? Isn’t it such an important
question and doesn’t it often get ignored – what do I seek in life? It’s
another way of wondering ‘what’s it all about’? Does my life have any meaning
or purpose or am I just a creature of evolution waiting to disappear off the
face of the earth, to be forgotten in a generation or so (if that)? Those
aren’t the sort of questions that often get aired on TV or discussed in the
pages of the tabloids (or, come to that, the broadsheets) but aren’t they
important questions to ponder? But where do I go to explore them? And do I want
to?
‘The purpose
of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honourable, to be compassionate,
to have it
make some difference that you have lived and lived well.’ (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
It has been the task of religion to help us do that, to
open us to those questions and explore the meaning and purpose of life. For
some, that purpose is to be happy; no one, normally, wants to be un-happy. For
others it might be to live in a close and loving family or find a satisfying
career (which is OK until that comes to an end. Then what?) But, and here is
the question again, is that all I seek? There's a famous affirmation by someone
called St Augustine, who was born in what is now Algeria, north Africa in
the 4th century AD which somehow seems to get at the nub of all this: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and
our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
Now if the real task of religion is to help each of us
grow into this fullness of life something’s got in the way and managed to palm
us off with thinking all we need is a better car, bigger house or a win on the
Lottery. That a make-over will, somehow, answer our needs. Surely, unless we’re
re-making the heart of who we are anything else is like playing with the
deckchairs on the Titanic.
"Love is
a one-way street. It always moves away from self in the direction of the
other.
Love is the
ultimate gift of our-selves to others. When we stop giving we stop
loving,
when we stop
loving we stop growing,
and unless we grow we will never attain personal
fulfilment;
we will never
open out to receive the life of God. It is through love we encounter God.”
(Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, Where there
is Love, there is God, p. 26)
Do I realise that I am made for love and to be
love for others? As one of Jesus’ closest friends said: ‘let us love one
another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows
God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.’ (I John 4.7) So, might love be the way
whereby sacred and secular find common ground? Might it be that it is as we
learn more about love that we are drawn out of ourselves to encounter the
mystery of the other – and of the Other (the greatest Other)? Well, there’s
nothing new in that reflection: "We
become what we love and who we love shapes what we become” declared St
Clare of Assisi way back in the 13th century, “If we love things, we become a thing. If we love nothing, we become
nothing. Imitation is not a literal mimicking of Christ, rather it means
becoming the image of the beloved, an image disclosed through transformation.
This means we are to become vessels of God´s compassionate love for
others." And St Thomas à Kempis, who lived just over a hundred
years later, wrote in his famous book ‘The Imitation of Christ’: ‘Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing
stronger or higher or wider; nothing is more pleasant, nothing fuller, and
nothing better in heaven or on earth, for love is born of God and cannot rest
except in God, Who is above all created things.’ So we come to the point, I hope, where
believer and unbeliever can discover a language which communicates a divine
narrative and agree with what that remarkable woman Julian of Norwich
(1342-1416), the first of her gender to write in the English language, said in
her book, ‘Revelations of Divine Love’:
‘Understand (this) well: love was his meaning. Who showed it to you? Love. What
did he show you? Love. Why did he show it? For love. Hold yourself in this
truth and you shall understand and know more in the same vein.’ (Ch.86)
So let’s begin by turning to
the vexed question – just what do we understand by that three-letter word: God?
‘God is love,
and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.’ (I John 4. 16)
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