Learning How To Listen

When I was training to be a Samaritans volunteer I remember we were taught the three golden rules:

1. Listen

2. Listen.

3. Really listen.

Really listening includes listening not only to what is being said, but also to what is not being said. Really listening means silencing your own thoughts so that you can concentrate totally on the person who is speaking – listening to that whole person, not just their words, because the words are just an outward expression of what lies within.

The same is true for music. According to my CD collection, music is a series of millions of samples of loudness and wavelength, and to my ear music is a pattern of compressions in the air, but that is not what we call music. Nor, I suggest, is music just a tune that you can hum or tap your foot to, or some sound that’s on in the background. I recently watched a YouTube video about really listening to music, listening to each instrument, each voice, how they were used and mixed. Only then can you begin to hear the music behind the music, the soul of the music, shouting or declaiming, loving or crying, making you feel.

If this is how to listen to music then how should we listen to the music of life? Just like music, life could be described as just a series of notes, a CV, a photograph album: this is me as a baby, this is me getting married, and this is me with my grandchildren. But is that all there is? Perhaps we should listen harder.

We could start by listening to all the different voices in our lives, the people who mattered – parents, teachers, our best friends – and hear the songs of life they taught us. We could listen to all our struggles and triumphs and what patterns we can detect, what music ran through them. We can listen to the music of love and beauty that warmed and inspired us, that music that still plays quietly in our hearts if we stop and listen hard enough. We can then listen to how our song has developed and changed through our lives, and how wonderful it has become. Finally we may get some idea of how our song has joined with the song of the whole earth and all that is.

“Thank you for the music, the songs I’m singing,
Thanks for all the joy they’re bringing.
Who could live without it? I ask in all honesty
What would we be? Without a song or a dance what are we?
So I say thank you for the music, for giving it to me.”

Abba

Keeping The Peace

Mohandas Gandhi said: “There is no way to peace; peace is the way”.

Picture Screenshot of movie Ghostbusters

 included under Fair Use provisions

I loved the first Ghostbusters movie. The evil god Gozer demands that the team choose a form for him to take. Ray thinks of the most harmless thing he can remember, so Gozer appears on the streets of New York as a giant Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man. Ray actually brought this monster into being just by thinking about it. But that couldn’t happen in reality could it?

When he was a small boy I gave my son a set of Lego bricks and showed him what to do by putting together the stupidest box with a window, pretending to be a house. I didn’t see much of him for a couple of days until he emerged from his room with the most amazing starship that it is possible to make with only Lego. My son is an artist. Same set of bricks for both of us, but he saw a starship while I saw a box with a window in it. We each live in a world of our own thoughts. Reality for us is not found in objects but in the significance we give to them.

Here’s another thing - you can’t have an argument on your own. Try it if you like – you won’t get far. For a good argument you need an opponent. Conversely, by taking sides, you perpetuate an argument. Walk away and it stops. You can go further and actually love your enemies, and who knows – they may become friends.

We are living in difficult times, when hopes of ending poverty, bringing peace and keeping the Earth green seem to be slipping away from us. All too easy for us to get drawn into the game of blame and counter-blame, anger and recrimination, and in so doing we become part of the problem. If we want to bring healing and peace to the world we need peace in our hearts, peace in every step of the way. Our thoughts can change the world.

"If in your heart you make a manger for his birth

Then God will once again become a child on earth."

- Angelus Silesius

Further reading: http://www.dailygood.org/

Another Lego starship. From https://www.toptoysboys.com/bennys-spaceship-lego-set/

The Colour Of Love

 Some people are born colour-blind. They can't see the difference between red and green for example. Colours are muted and drab. The richness of vision that most people take for granted is unknown to them - the luscious green grass or the beautiful blue of a summer sky. Recently special lenses have been developed which cleverly demark the boundaries of colour frequencies so that some colour-blind people can see in full colour for the first time. If you haven't seen the YouTube clips of people putting these glasses on for the first time, you should watch. It is very moving. It is life-changing.

There is another sort of colour-blindness that is less well understood, because it's the colour of love that goes unseen. Once you know this colour you can see it everywhere - in the sun and the wind, in trees and flowers, in the faces of the people you meet. It is life-changing. Some of the things that used to seem so important no longer matter. Little things do matter: a kind word, a helping hand. Jesus described it as like finding treasure in a field. In the end it's the only thing that counts. In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus says the Kingdom of God is spread out upon the Earth but people don't see it.


So how do you get glasses that reveal the colour of love? It's not that easy, and there's a price to be paid. You could compare it to when Neo gets ejected from the Matrix. In every case I can think of, a person's life has had to be unplugged from the system in some way. Some may actually die for a few minutes before being revived; some may lose everything they had; some may renounce normal life for holy orders; some escape common reality using hallucinogenic drugs. Even then, you still have to really want it. Seek and you will find.

The choice is yours:the red pill or the blue one.

A Change Is Gonna Come

It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centres of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

Robert F Kennedy

Image:Robert F. Kennedy appearing before Platform Committee, August 19, 1964.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4524203

This is my third attempt. It’s so important I can’t mince words. A big change will come and it will be good but it is so big that no-one can fully imagine it.

For too long we have shambled along, muddling by. Our great stores of wisdom, the great religions, have forgotten their meaning and just repeat the same old patterns without knowing why. They have been used as tribal totems, banners to fight under, when they were made for peace. But still they gave a voice to men and women of goodwill and if their ways were mildly eccentric it didn’t really matter.

That’s all changed.

We are so arrogant, we think we’re so clever, as we preside over poisoned seas, polluted air, extinction of species, destruction of the rainforest, floating continents of plastic waste, global warming, poverty, war, mass migration and more. Faced with such monumental challenges we indulge in our own personal grievances and petty squabbles while nothing gets done. Time is not on our side.

We simply do not have the luxury of shillyshallying any longer. We will have to unite. The basic principle of the major religions is this: that if we truly care for each other without preference or prejudice, and if we truly care for the earth and all its plants and animals, we can have happy, fulfilling lives and there will be peace and plenty for all. That’s it. All the rest is embroidery. If we can all come together under these principles and set aside our minor differences, then we can start rebuilding our broken world.

All the old arguments about whether God exists now become obsolete. The question never made sense anyway. True belief cannot be contained in words; it has to be expressed in the way we live our lives. This belief-in-action is something everyone can share in. It’s simply a question of working together for the common good.

Everyone has a part to play in making our new world. We are all here for a reason. Some may be called to become martyrs for the cause, there will be activists, but there will also be a need for artists, poets, flower arrangers and people who sweep the floor. The one thing they will all have is a belief in a better world, and a burning desire to make it happen. They will be guided by a love of this beautiful world with its lands and seas, its plants and animals, and all of its diverse and beautiful people.

As Robert Kennedy said: “There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”

It can be done, whether in our lifetime or our children’s or great-grandchildren’s, it can be done. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Take that step.

Take that first step - ask yourself: What is the unique gift that I can offer to the world? Then see what happens next.

We are all connected

Imagine, if you can, that you have been blind since birth. All your other senses work well, you can smell if the bacon is burning, you can recognise people by their voices, you can reach out and touch things, people – you can know a person by feeling their face. You map out the interior of your home by sound, by temperature, by knowing the surfaces. You navigate outside in the same way, knowing familiar places by their sound or smell. All your senses combine to give you a model in your brain of the world, and using this model you live a complete, non-visual life.

But how will you know if your son is waving to you from a window? How will you know the look of love in your lover's eyes? How will you understand the dazzling beauty of a glorious Summer day? We who have sight take these things for granted, but try to imagine how difficult it must be for a blind person to understand how we know that eight miles above us a plane is silently streaking across the blue sky. But the blind person is unaware of the limit of their perception because they have never known what it is like to not have that limit.

We are all like that blind man. We can look back in time but we can't look ahead. In order to communicate we have to frame our thoughts in words, so that the listener can reconstruct our thought from the spoken words. We can only be in one place, we can only look in one direction at a time. We don’t have a sense for our connectedness with each other and the universe. Our capacity for accepting and giving love is attenuated. But all this is normal to us; we are unaware of our limitations because that is all we have ever known.

Imagine, if you can, how it must be for someone who has known life beyond these boundaries. Well, some people have. It is estimated that about 15 million people in the USA alone have had an NDE, a Near-Death Experience. They tell of a sense of love a million times stronger than any love they have known, they can communicate without words, they have all-round vision, they can be in many places at the same time. But above all they know that they are not separate individuals, but are an integral part of the universe, connected and interconnected with every living being, with every star and every atom. For them it is as though they have lived all their lives in darkness and now someone has turned on the light. St Paul had a similar experience on the road to Damascus; he wrote from personal knowledge about how it will be for us at the end of this earthly life:

“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”

So this is the first lesson: “We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey”. (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin).

But it doesn't stop there.

Their brief taste of real love, as a tangible fabric of light that is the substance of all existence, changes their lives forever. They dedicate the rest of their lives to helping other people, in medical care, education, counselling, or any of the caring professions. They are more tolerant, less competitive, less interested in material possessions, more into friendships and Nature. They are full of enthusiasm for life, determined to make the most of each day. They all agree that love is the only thing that matters, the only thing you really can take with you when you go. This is the second lesson.

What sort of world would we have if we all had an NDE? Perhaps a world without violence and war, without addiction or homelessness, without racial conflict, without a compulsion to own more and more things while other people have less and less. It might be a place where everyone would feel valued and wanted. We could have a planet that we cherished and cared for.

NDEs will always be the exception not the rule. Only one in seven who come close to death have an NDE. But the rest of us can learn from them. As Albert Einstein said:

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” (Albert Einstein)

Love is a blog

Does Love exist? No-one is quite sure. Astronomers have now detected background radiation from the farthest edges of the universe and yet there is no sign so far of Planet Love. Venus was a big disappointment, just a lot of hot air, a celestial body maybe but not one to cuddle up to. “Love all” says the tennis umpire; all that means is nothing's happening.

“All you need is love” sang The Beatles, but try telling that to the rent man. It doesn't seem to make you happy when you have it – witness all those sad blues songs. Love is not dependable; it's always the ones you love who let you down. “Only love can break your heart” sang Neil Young. Love is illogical – you try all you can to keep it for yourself and it disappears, and yet when you give it away it comes straight back to you. Love is messy – just messy. Need I say more?

What does it mean anyway? For a cat it's a matter of stroking of fur; for a dog, throwing a ball. It can mean doing what your Dad tells you or remembering when it's your Mum's birthday. For those in their twenties it just means sex; for those in their thirties it's arguing; for those in their sixties it's company.
All in all it's simply too much effort. Wouldn't it be much better if we forgot all about it? We could have nice, predictable lives doing what we wanted for ourselves, without having to even think about anyone else.

Nice boring predictable pointless lives.

All right then I was only kidding. You can't throw love away, it makes the world go round, it makes you sing, it's “the little thickness of the coin” (E.E. Cummings), it's the fifth element, it's the seventh wave (Sting), it's all around (The Troggs), love is the answer, love is the flower you've got to let grow (John Lennon). Life without love is like a tree without fruit (Khalil Gibran), or like a song with no tune.

“Love is patient,love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking,it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” 1 Corinthians 13.

According to the ancients, it is love that holds the stars together.

February 14th is approaching. If you have found love, be thankful; and if you haven't, watch out! St Valentine is coming to get you!

Land of the midday night

One of the things I would love to see, but probably never will, is the midnight sun. If I were to travel North to somewhere like Tromsø in Norway around the middle of June, I could stand on the elegant bridge across the Tromsøysundet Strait and watch the sun set over the water, then around midnight it would hover briefly just above the horizon before ascending once again to start the new day.

Of course what goes up must come down, and every year around Christmas time, the sun never quite manages to rise as far as the horizon. The sky begins to lighten around midday but then darkens once more and falls back into night. In Tromsø it requires a special kind of courage and endurance to keep your spirits as Winter approaches. The days get shorter, darker and colder and then disappear altogether into perpetual night. You need to stay strong to survive, but each year some inhabitants find they no longer have that strength; that is why there is a tall fence along the Tromsø bridge.

That is also why all over the world above the Tropic of Cancer, around the middle of December, there are festivals of light: Christmas, Saturnalia, St Nicholas Day, Saint Lucia, Hanukkah, Yule. We need the reassurance of good company, laughter, food, bright colours and light. Some authorities call it a superstitious attempt to rekindle the sun, but that is just a metaphor. We are really keeping the light alive in us.

Spare a thought for those who are alone this Christmas, those whose light has been taken away, whose loved one has died, those who find no joy in the tinsel and glitter. For some, Christmas simply adds insult to injury.

For the twelve days of Christmas the year holds its breath, the days refuse to lengthen, but gradually at first, then faster and faster as we move towards Spring, the light returns. For us too, in our lives, like a miracle out of nowhere, after sorrow, we find peace. May the spirit of peace bring light into your life this Christmas.

Just remember in the winter

Far beneath the bitter snows

Lies the seed that with the sun's love,

In the spring becomes the rose

The Rose, Amanda McBroom

Forty Years On

Forty years ago I stood at the altar next to my beloved, repeating the marriage vows after the minister, surprised to find they were different from how I remembered, somehow finding just enough voice to be heard down the aisles, full of trepidation, full of confidence anyway, with my life spread out in front of me like a pile of presents waiting for me to unwrap them.

I wrote my speech on a scrap of paper on the way to the wedding reception. Jenny the bridesmaid, aged 4, ran up and down between the tables shouting while I strained to make myself heard. My new bride and I slipped away to the nearby canalside to have some romantic photos taken by my old school-friend Tim. Eventually we said our goodbyes to all the friends and relations and were driven to the railway station, thence to Devon for the honeymoon. When we changed trains at Exeter, the friendly and sharp-eyed train guard made sure we had the carriage to ourselves.

Two weeks later we were on our way to Gadaffi's Libya, where I would take up the post of English Language Teacher at the Petroleum Institute. That was followed a year later by a similar assignment in Saudi Arabia. Those two years changed my life. Returning to England I retrained as a computer programmer, bought a house, and brought forth a child.

Twenty years later my children had flown the nest or were about to, my parents were dead, the computer work had finally dried up, my house was sold, and my dream of becoming a Church minister was history. At this point my life as I knew it came to an end.

I bought myself a canal boat to live on and the next twelve years were spent wandering the watery wilderness. As the old song goes, “Life goes on, long after the reason for living is gone”. Probably the only reason I can sit here writing this now is because my wife never gave up on me, which I suppose proves I married the right one, no-one else would have stayed the distance. I survived as best I could, taking whatever work came my way – shop assistant, driver, chambermaid (yes!). Canal life was beautiful but hard. I remember one night searching for firewood in the pouring rain so that I could light a small fire, as there wasn't enough money to buy fuel for the stove. All through this – and more – my wife stuck with me, keeping me going, because I just didn't care any more.

There's a great passage in Ezekiel where the prophet is taken in a vision to a valley where the bones of Israel's dead warrior's lay strewn. God asks: “Man, can these dry bones live?”, and all Ezekiel can say in response is: “Only you can answer that” (my rendition). That was exactly how I felt about my life, and so apparently did God. Because bone by bone, piece by piece, he reassembled my life.

It hasn't been easy. I'm older and I hope wiser now. Almost all the older generation who witnessed my marriage have gone from the Earth, Gadaffi is dead, my best man (and best friend) won't talk to me, my children are forging careers in art and music, Jenny is managing a holiday business in France, my photographer friend became director of a well-known company, left (to run a hotel, lost it) then made a heroic come-back. Time passes.

I don't know what the future holds in store for me, but I hope I will live it authentically, and I hope I never stop until I get to the very end. This weekend the two of us will celebrate with a quiet couple of days on the coast and a meal out. I think we deserve that.

All Is Full Of Love

Isn't it annoying when you've got a tune going round in your head and you can't remember what it is? It happened last night as I was listening to the internet radio station Chill FM. Slipped in between two tracks of angelic ethereal beauty, one short piece that I know well, and almost certainly have on CD. Is it Nitin Sawhney? I picked my way through Prophesy one track at a time; not there. Moby? So I stepped through Play as if crossing a stream on stepping stones. What a lovely stream, how it flows! But the mystery music did not swim by. Transglobal Underground? I followed that cavern down to the end but failed to hit gold. Was it on the World Chill compilation? World Chill on Chill FM? How cool would that be? But no, the trail was getting colder.

In the end, I found a lot of things that I was not looking for. I found the Lost City Of Atlantis, the Lost Chord, I discovered the source of the Nile and the proof of The Trisection Of The Angle, I unearthed a sledge called Rosebud, found Lord Lucan and Shergar but that track got lost in the undergrowth.

I had listened to some fine music along the way though.

So instead I looked up the third of the trio of tracks I had heard. It was a remix of Bjork's All Is Full Of Love.

“All Is Full Of Love...

Maybe not from the sources

You have poured yours

Maybe not from the directions

You are staring at”

That's when I realised my failed search had been successful, because without it I would never have listened to all that great music. My CDs were All Full Of Music which I had not been looking for.

Last Friday I was walking on the edge of Salisbury Plain near the Westbury White Horse. It was a clear sunny Good Friday and a fair number of people had come up the hill – walkers like me, motorists and their families, army jeeps, a trail motorbike, hang gliders, model plane fliers. Everyone appeared to be enjoying themselves. The wind blew steadily up the North side, keeping the hang gliders and model planes aloft; children ran around up and down the grassy slopes shouting and playing. I had got out of the house, stretched my limbs and breathed the fresh Spring air.

Before I reached the White Horse I stopped walking. I was no longer a hiker, but a listener. First I heard the silence, a stillness stretched over twenty miles of secluded fields and trees, virtually uninhabited bar the odd army quarters. As I stood still, the quiet slowly receded and the sound of the breeze softly stirring the grasses sang in my ears. Suddenly a bird started up behind me, and then the music of the skylark fluttered down from the sky with a sound like water rippling over pebbles. That skylark - and for all I know, farther and farther, all the birds of Somerset and Wiltshire, for it seemed as if all time and distance existed in that moment.

I'm sure everyone up at the White Horse got what they wanted on the hillside that day. I had my walk and a pint of Cornish beer at the end. And if that was all I was looking for it was all I would have got. But like someone crossing the road I stopped, looked and listened. All is full of love, and we pass by without noticing.