In retreat

I want to shave all my hair off and enter a monastery, or at least go on a retreat, or at least shave off all my hair. The hair thing feels quite important – perhaps it’s having been raised on Kung Fu – although I’m less sold on the monastery (that would actually mean having to sign up to some kind of dogma, right?). Are there Unitarian retreats? I’m looking for something upon a mountainside…

Continued at UKSpirituality

To be Nick... or Nicholas

So, it turns out I can blog about spirituality reasonably confidently, although whether this actually has any relevance to anyone else I’ve really no idea as no one ever comments…

In the “real world” I come across pretty confidently too, doling out advice to clients who appear mostly satisfied, and it would be false modesty for me to claim deep down I secretly doubted myself in this regard because if that was true then I simply wouldn’t feel comfortable. I’ve always been a hopeless bullshitter, a bit of a handicap for a consultant, but I’ve built up a solid enough record to be able to occasionally utter those heretical words ‘I’ve no idea’ and clients seem to like it – perhaps it’s the novelty.

Yet there is one question over which I am having a real crisis of confidence – whether to be Nick or Nicholas...

Continued at UKSpirituality

Bravery

Watching the footage of the latest pro-democracy demonstrations in Iran, I meditated on the nature of bravery.

Despite the shootings, show trials, the two hundred who remain behind bars, the beatings, rapes, “ring leaders” sentenced to death, some brave souls continue to demonstrate...

Continued at UKSpirituality

A Revenger's Tragedy

On my journey to work I read some Schopenhauer to assuage my feelings of revenge. Arthur, who himself was conned out of a considerable income, writes:

When he suffers an injustice the natural man burns with a thirst for revenge, and it has often been said that revenge is sweet.

Ah, yes, I can certainly relate to that, having been conned out of my pension pot by an unscrupulous property company...

Continued at UKSpirituality

Take me back to Chester

To many secular, non-Christians the current controversy over Pope Benedict’s “poaching” of conservative Anglicans may have succeeded in putting the mysticism back in to Christianity… in so much as it’s all pretty mystifying.

The sight of poor Rowan Williams torn spiritually asunder at the hurried press conference in response to the move was sad to see. He must have wondered if all the ecumenism of recent decades was just a bluff and the Catholic Church had simply been biding it’s time – 500 years to be precise – before putting the boot in...

Continued at UKSpirituality

Power, shillings and pence

The Conservative Party's Age of Austerity seems to particularly chime as the nights draw in. We're running out of light and warmth - we're running out of money. Whether their message maintains its resonance come next Spring when the sky, far from having fallen upon our heads, is breaking in to blue and with it the promise of a brighter future, remains to be seen.

But for now it feels as if time is running out, and as my friend Michael and I walk down Islington's Upper Street, our talk is about money...

Continued at UKSpirituality

This Sunday...

Cross-posted from UKSpirituality

TRUTHS & TRIALS

While most readers of this blog will have been drawn here by an interest in or expression of spirituality, most of us will not have suffered persecution because of what we believe in.

Persecution can define religions – the Christian church was shaped on the anvil of martyrdom, Judaism and Islam developed their unique characteristics simply to survive. Unitarianism even embodies its spirit of dissent in its name – an original rejection of the Holy Trinity.


Persecution can define countries and causes – intrinsic to Britain’s understanding of itself is the Summer of 1940 when it beat back the Nazis. Socialists still speak of the Tolpuddle Marchers, Irish Republicans Bloody Sunday.

Even today, in England, some individuals almost consciously seem to seek out persecution – the registrars who refuse to marry Gays, the niqab-clad school teachers.

Persecution can put our faith to the test. It can even, dare I say it, make us feel special. I remember as an awkward, oddball teenager being told by a girlfriend: the reason they don’t like you is because you’re different, and different is good – it means you are better than them.

It certainly lifted my spirits.

So persecution can cut both ways. It can seek us out, or we can seek it out.

What spirituality means to me is truth and I don’t mean – this piece of dogma over that, or the “true” story of creation. What I mean is what speaks to my soul, be it a work of art, a beautiful (or bleak) day, a moment of intimacy, or an insight that strips away all pretence.

So I seek to live in truth as best I can. To me, truth is an expression of holiness, a holiness some might call God.

It is also a useful way of cutting through the crap. What is a true persecution? Are we being faithful to a greater cause, or just striking a pose?

Christians still face genuine persecution in countries like India and Pakistan. Attacks on British Jews are at an all-time high, while in the Middle East, Bahais, who in many ways resemble a kind of Islam-influenced Unitarians, are regularly victimised. I was actually inspired to post by news that a date has now been set for October 18 for the “trial” of seven Bahais in Iran for the capital offences of “corrupting the earth” and “espionage for Israel”.

What can we do? What can you do? Not a great deal, it is true – there sometimes seems to be so much suffering in the world.

But as small as each of us is, in smallness we can do what we can – as individuals remember, pray even for these seven on the 18th.

As communities – reach out to local Bahais and join our small voice to theirs.

In their uninvited persecution is our fellowship – in their truth is our truth.

And truth is holy.