Untold Stories – sharing our journey

I’ve just finished reading a really enjoyable story. It was so good that I looked forward to picking up the book at every possible opportunity, but now that I’ve finished it, I’m left feeling a little bereft, because it’s ended. Stories have the power to hold us, envelop us and affect our minds and emotions at a deep level. Whether it is in the form of a book, a film, a play or a spoken narrative, everybody loves a good story.

Telling stories is an ancient art. Whether through an oral telling, pictures on cave walls or the written word, stories provide a timeless link to ancient traditions, legends, myths and history and help to define who we are as individuals and a culture. It is reckoned that there are more than 100,000 new works of fiction published in English alone each year and a Stanford university academic estimates that an all-time total of nearly 5 million works of fiction have now been published. Comedy, science fiction, romance, mystery, historical, thriller or detective; graphic, short, long or tall – you name it and it’s out there. The shortest ever story contains just six words. “For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn”. It’s reputed to be the work of Ernest Hemingway, though this is a story in itself; Hemingway is said to have written it in order to win a lunchtime bet with journalists, sadly a tale which is now believed to be untrue.

Stories teach us about who we are, about right and wrong, about how to act wisely and the dangers of acting foolishly. Through stories, we share emotions and feelings of joy, sorrow, hardships and failures and we find common ground with other people so that we can connect and communicate with them – in spite of our apparent differences.

Story is important in 12 step recovery. The Big Book is full of stories, including those of the founder members Bill W and Dr Bob, followed by more than 40 other stories. As Bill W says, these stories are the written equivalent of hearing speakers at an AA meeting. The format is simple; “Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now.” In meetings, people “share” what has happened to them and the difference now, which not only serves a purpose for them, reminding them of where they once were and how they began to recover, but also helps others to recognise that what they thought was their own private and personal struggle, is in fact common to many others. Understanding this makes it easier to overcome the guilt and shame of things done or left undone. Sharing stories reveals, encourages, supports and frees up both the teller and the listener. The more truth the story holds, the greater the benefit, because truth is the nugget of gold within any story we read, hear or tell.

Jesus was a great story teller. He drew on everyday situations around him and his listeners to tell his stories; things such as farming, fishing, building, weather, birds and animals, losing things, families. His stories recounted events that could have happened in the daily lives of the people who first heard them. Anyone could readily identify with the roles people filled, the work that they did, the relationships that were broken and restored, the losses they sustained and the joy that they experienced. He most often told his stories as parables – short fictitious stories that illustrated a moral message or a religious principle – truths that had to be sought by those with a mind to do so. The parables of Jesus stress the great themes of the Kingdom of God – “the big picture” as Richard Rohr has helpfully termed it. Jesus’s stories often begin with the phrase The Kingdom of God is like…… wheat and weeds, mustard seed, yeast, hidden treasure, a pearl, fishing net, an unforgiving servant, workers in the vineyard, a wedding banquet. Jesus’ parables teach listeners that God reaches out to them with kindness and compassion. They are about the love, grace, and mercy of God to each and every one of us, regardless of who we are or what we might have done – but they also contain a challenge about how we respond and how we live our lives.

Stories engage our attention and help us to step out of our own shoes and experience somebody else’s emotions, actions and decisions. It is interesting to see how we are drawn to somebody when they tell their story. Writers such as Nadia Bolz-Weber and Anne Lamott use personal stories to great effect, fusing their 12 step recovery with following in the way of Jesus, resulting in candid, truth filled writing which shows their flaws and wounds but radiates a deep beauty and attractiveness.

For many years I was ashamed of my story. I kept much of it to myself and only handed out selected parts when I felt safe. It felt as if my story, especially my childhood were my fault and I’d be judged on it. It was a mixed-up confusion of fear, shame, guilt and pride. But as I heard others share their stories and felt only love and compassion towards them as they did so, it has made it easier to begin to share my own story. And when I have done so, some people identify with parts of the story and even more movingly, the others show compassion and non-judgment. By telling our stories, we are letting others know that it’s okay to be honest about who we were, who we are, and who we have the potential of becoming. I recently met a homeless woman who told her story in coloured chalk on the pavement of the City Pavement story updwn where she lived. Her courage in telling her story in such a beautiful way was very moving and brought compassion and connection. When we make ourselves vulnerable like she did and choose to speak up about our struggles and who we are, we’re no longer allowing them to have any power over us, rejecting the shame we feel they contain and the self-hatred that can result. God stands with us in this and rather than condemning us, works through our story. Letting go of what we always held onto so closely can be what heals us the most, and incredibly, helps others who hear our story to find healing too. So let’s not be afraid of who we are or of starting to tell our stories. As the author Neil Gaiman says, “The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.”

A story must be told or there’ll be no story, yet it is the untold stories that are most moving. J R R Tolkien

Wherever my story takes me, however dark and difficult the theme, there is always some hope and redemption, not because readers like happy endings, but because I am an optimist at heart. I know the sun will rise in the morning, that there is a light at the end of every tunnel. Michael Morpurgo

Writing is telling the truth. Anne Lamott

In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell

In The Power Zone – the spiritual risks from personal power

I recently read an interesting piece by Brennan Manning, a recovering alcoholic who wrote some fine Christian books marked through with 12 step wisdom. In it he said that most of our personal battles are about us seeking security, pleasure or power. Whilst I willingly plead guilty to the first two, it has taken me a lot longer to recognise that I am also guilty of wanting power – the speck in other people’s eyes is always much easier to see than the log in my own. Most of the time I do a fairly good job of convincing myself (and maybe others) that I am a fair and benevolent person who shares what power I have and only wants a little power in order to add to the greater good. Which is true. But there is a less comfortable side, because power is always about control – control of what I want, what I do, what I experience, what I have. The corollary of this is controlling others so that these and perhaps more hidden needs of mine get met. It is very hard to see where the cross-over between wanting to do good and benefit others becomes a justification to satisfy my personal needs for power and control.

The reason I can get glimpses of my interest in power through the cloak of innocence that normally hides it, is that other people come clean about their own relationship with power and I see myself in their stories. Sometimes too, people close to me have the courage to shed a spotlight of objectivity onto my actions and self-perceptions. The reality is that I do want power and when I don’t have it, I’m envious of those who do, whether through their schooling, their jobs, their connections, their political positions or through their income, wealth and resources, especially when they seem to misuse it – measured of course by my yardstick of what’s right and wrong. Even as I write (and perhaps because I am writing on this subject) I am wrestling with a decision about my continued membership of a group which has moved away from doing the things which first got me involved and which I no longer really believe in. Do I leave and move on? I am beginning see that it is the power and prestige of membership which is the biggest attraction to my remaining. And of course the silky voice of temptation provides me with a number of very reasonable justifications for doing nothing and staying put.

We cannot get away from the harmfulness of power. Power does change us, and power can corrupt us. Where there is abuse, it always exists in the shadow of power; power that is misused, deliberately and through ignorance or weakness. Physical and sexual abuse, racial abuse, exclusion of individuals and groups who do not fit in, the creation of actions and behaviours to gain compliance are all based on power dynamics. Power structures underpin the Church, and the emotional, sexual and spiritual abuse of countless individuals over the centuries bear witness to the damage that misused power can cause. Power inflates our egos and self-importance – research has shown that individuals rise to positions of authority by being collaborative and selfless but once they reach a high rung on the leadership ladder, many become coercive, impulsive and self-centred.

In the 12 step fellowships, there is a strong recognition of the damaging nature of power. The grounded checks of the 12 traditions have helped to safeguard the programmes from the excesses of power. As tradition 2 says, “our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.” There are no chiefs in AA or NA, no central directives or authority, no managing group or Board. No opportunity for power to be misused. Group conscience decides what individual meetings will do and everyone is entitled to their opinion. Most people would say that this is a recipe for anarchy and yet it works in 12 step fellowships – the core principles of AA remain as they were 80 years ago and it is because it is uncorrupted by power that it remains as effective as ever with no agenda except to carry the message.

Jesus had a unique take on power. He saw the abuses of power, he declined to accept the trappings of power and many of the accounts of his life in the gospels relate to the verbal duels he had with the religious authorities who held enormous power, in spite of the Roman occupation of Palestine. Eventually he was killed because he challenged these powerful and influential men who saw him as a threat. In the account of his wilderness temptations early in his ministry, he rejected power as a way of being, let alone how he would communicate his message, and he consistently rejected the offer of power over the three years that he taught and healed. Even in the days and hours leading up to his death he refused to buy into it. Towards the end he rebuked Peter for using a sword, he did not try to ingratiate himself with the High Priest, Pontius Pilate the Governor or King Herod, and he accepted the nails and the hours of dying agonisingly on a wooden cross. Jesus came into the world to share a new type of power – power based upon compassion, honesty, sharing and transparency that the world has never really liked. He was the Servant King. And sadly, in spite of this example, Christianity has yet to redefine power in the way that Jesus showed us.

None of this is to say that power in itself is inherently bad or indeed that any society has ever existed without a power structure of sorts, but if power corrupts as it surely does, then institutions and individuals need to create safeguards to prevent the harm that unchecked power will cause. So how do we build in actions, checks and systems to prevent us misusing the power we have? Firstly, since a sense of power is associated with a growing urge to gratify our own desires, an easy starting point is to question whether we ever use our positions of power to feed the other two areas of indulgence (security and pleasure) identified by Brennan Manning. As a starting point, resisting the temptation to gratify our desires would massively reduce the destructive impact of power in every context, personal and institutional. Building in some sort of system of review and reflection on our actions is useful. We are more likely to abuse power when we don’t have anyone who will constructively criticise our actions, so having someone outside our positions of power (a mentor, sponsor, spiritual director) who we are honest with and accountable to and who is not afraid to give us honest feedback is so important. As Anne Lamott bluntly says, “Since we can’t heal our own sick mind with our own sick mind, we need to consult somebody else’s sick mind to help us.” It is undoubtedly true that when we have to explain our actions to someone else, we will think twice about what we do. (so long as we can manage to avoid trying to manipulate or control them to give us the answer we want!) External checks are necessary too for large organisations. Finally, and possibly most important of all, we need to be servants in everything we do. Whatever our position but most especially if we hold a position of power, serving others with compassion, consideration and kindness will help to stop us becoming self-absorbed and seeing other people as objects to use for our own ends. As Jesus said to his disciples on the evening before his death, after he had taken on the role of a common servant and washed their feet, “ I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.” Power based on service that is shaped by compassion, honesty and sharing becomes benign and the power of love overrules the love of power, making the world a better place.

Constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go. Montesquieu

Whenever the world throws rose petals at you, which thrill and seduce the ego, beware. Anne Lamott

Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other. Carl Jung

Good people tend to be naïve about power; bad people aren’t – they know it’s all about power. Richard Rohr

The story being told in ‘Star Wars’ is a classic one. Every few hundred years, the story is retold because we have a tendency to do the same things over and over again. Power corrupts, and when you’re in charge, you start doing things that you think are right, but they’re actually not. George Lucas

Power always thinks that it is doing God’s service when it is violating all his laws. John Adams

Open Eyes:Open Minds – Miracles in Life

One of my favourite accounts of the people who met Jesus, comes in chapter 9 of St John’s gospel. Weighing in at 41 verses and covering the whole chapter, it is a good deal longer than most far better-known stories of Jesus’s life. The story comes in three parts: in Act 1, Jesus restores the sight of a man who had been born blind; Act 2 sees the man being cross-questioned by the religious leaders about his blindness and healing, whilst the final Act is a second meeting between Jesus and the man, with a discussion about the spiritual life. The story is all about light and dark, seeing and not seeing.

Whilst Jesus is of course the central character in the story, which includes one of his most memorable all-time lines when he says “ I am the light of the World,” the man who is healed gets my nomination for best supporting actor. He is open and hungry for whatever Jesus can give him and positively uppity with the religious leaders.

The story goes something like this. Jesus and his disciples are walking along the road and see a blind beggar. The disciples ask whether it is the man’s fault or that of his parents that he was born blind. Neither, said Jesus – it is simply an opportunity for the power of God to be displayed in his life. He then proceeds to heal the man in a theatrical and visually powerful way. Jesus spits in the dust and makes a paste which he applies to the man’s closed eyes. He then sends him off to wash in a nearby pool and carries on his way. The man does what he is told. No discussion or debate – he just does it. As soon as he washes in the pool, he is able to see.

Neighbours and those who had previously seen the man begging argue as to whether he was the same person or not. Some said he was just a look-alike. “I am that man,” he insists. “Okay,” they say, “if you really are the same person, how come you can see?” So he tells them what happened. “The man called Jesus did it; he made some mud, put it on my eyes, told me to wash in a nearby pool and then I could see.” Their response deliberately ignores what the man has said about the miracle that has happened. “So where is he now then?” they ask. He doesn’t know.

Next, they take him to the religious leaders who cross-question him. They already had strong views about Jesus. They regarded him as a rebellious upstart, flouting their authority and teaching, whilst mixing with the worst elements in society and seemingly enjoying their company. Once again he has overstepped the line, because he healed the man on the sabbath, a day when the religious authorities say that no work should be done. Elsewhere Jesus tells them that they are wrong, doing good on the sabbath is never a bad thing. Here however, there is no sign of Jesus so they have to make do with the man. He tells them what happened. Straight and simple. Instead of believing in the miracle, they doubt that he was really blind. It’s just a trick. So they send for his parents. When they arrive, you get a strong sense of a frightened elderly couple, wanting to be honest about the fact that their son had been blind all his life and could now miraculously see, but desperate to avoid offending such powerful and vindictive officials by saying the wrong thing. So they pass the buck. “He was born blind but we don’t know how he can see again. He is of age – ask him yourself”.

Re-enter the ex-blind man from stage left. The religious leaders start off by telling him Jesus is a sinner – implying that the man needs to choose his words carefully. But nothing is going to stop him now. “I don’t know anything about that,” he says, “but one thing I do know is that I was blind, but now I can see”. Get out of that! Alright they say, if you know so much, how did he manage to restore your sight? So he tells them the miraculous story once again and with a nice touch at the end, asks whether they want to become his disciples since they’re so interested in hearing the story. It doesn’t go down well! They hurl insults at him – “You’re his follower, not us. We follow Moses who God spoke to, not this fellow. We don’t even know where he comes from.”

This is the blind man’s finest hour. He is not to be silenced and you can hear his sarcastic tone as he replies – “How remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from and yet he healed my blindness. Nobody ever heard of a man born blind being healed. If this man were not from God he could do nothing!” That does it. “How dare you lecture us!” they say and proceed to throw him out of the temple.

Jesus hears about the exchange and the outcome. He finds the man and declares himself to be from God. The man’s response is immediate and he becomes a follower. Jesus then uses the opportunity to use blindness as a metaphor for the spiritual life. His work, he said was to give sight to the spiritually blind, and with a pointed dig at the religious leaders, he was there to show that those who thought they could see, were in fact blind.

If you strip away all the detail, what is really astounding about this story is that a man who was born blind receives his sight and people don’t believe, or rather, don’t want to believe. Miracles really don’t get much bigger than this but both the local population and the religious authorities go out of their way to avoid believing what had happened. Why was this? I think that like so much of what Jesus said and did, he offended their sensibilities, challenged their comfortable views of the world, highlighted the misuse of power and showed how hopelessly lost and blind they really were. The blind man could see reality, the so called enlightened religious leaders could not.

So what of today? Would people believe? Miracles 2 Interestingly, recent surveys in the UK have shown that 60% of adults believe in miracles, even though those who would claim to have any sort of religious faith is far lower. An amazing 72% of people aged 18 to 24 believe miracles can happen — more than any other age group. Figures are even higher in the United States. One of the greatest and most consistent miracles of our time is how people with severe addictions have had their lives saved by following a 12-step programme of recovery. So God is still restoring sight to the blind. Not only have their lives been saved, but they live life in a new and different way – life in all its fullness was how Jesus described it, because they have had their spiritual sight restored. And in the most interesting parallel to the story in John’s gospel, there are many doubters of these miracles; those within the treatment establishment, who take offence at the self-help, spiritual nature of this programme. “What place does the idea of God have in treatment provision?” they say. “This only works for a small number of people”. Academics too have their doubts and demand “an evidence base” when there are hundreds of recovered people now well, against all the odds, a walking, talking evidence base. “Isn’t going to AA meetings just another addiction” someone in the church once said to me, oblivious to the fact that they probably attended as many church services a week as most people in recovery attend meetings, yet they would never see this as an addiction or sign of weakness. So the miracle is ignored. But it doesn’t go away. Like the light, salt, and yeast that crop up repeatedly in the stories of Jesus, people in recovery are quietly, steadily and miraculously playing their part in God’s big plan of restoration, the Kingdom of God that Jesus talked about. Research has shown that 5 years into sobriety, people in 12 step fellowships are contributing more to society than others who have never had an addiction.

Miracles happen, but for all this, there is something of the doubter in all of us. Offended by things which don’t fit our given perspective or philosophy, what are the miracles that we don’t see and maybe go out of our way to ignore? God has a track record of helping the blind to see, so our prayer must be for our eyes to be opened too, so that we are able to see the miracles taking place in us and around us, each moment of every day.

Miracles happen every day; change your perception of what a miracle is and you’ll see them all around you. Jon Bon Jovi

Miracles are not contrary to nature, only contrary to what we know about nature. St Augustine

Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see. Freddie Mercury/Queen

There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle or you can live as if everything is a miracle. Albert Einstein

Miracles happen every day. Not just in remote country villages or at holy sites halfway across the globe, but here, in our own lives. Deepak Chopra

Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see. C. S. Lewis

I was waiting for the miracle, for the miracle to come. Leonard Cohen

On Gratitude Street – with grateful thanks

A couple of weeks ago I overheard a young woman I know talking to herself. She was saying how very fortunate she was to have friends who cared for her and expressing gratitude for the many good things in her life. Knowing a little about her situation I am aware that she has had a very troubled life. A professional woman, she fled her own country a few years ago, with her son and young daughter following persecution, violence and torture, arriving in the UK with nothing but the clothes they wore. Life here hasn’t been easy, and the road ahead is very uncertain, yet she was still able to reflect on her current situation with thankfulness and gratitude. I found it very humbling.

Gratitude is about an acceptance of things as they are and being thankful for what we have. It sees life and all we have as a gift. This is in stark contrast with a mindset that is not content and which always wants things in our life to change. This often includes those around us changing too. Living in a consumer society doesn’t help, since this cultivates discontentment; the idea that what we have now isn’t sufficient and that if we had a better, newer, smarter something or other, we would be happier and more fulfilled. And of course, we could then be grateful. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like this. Neither new stuff nor anything else we do such as drinking or drugging to make us feel better or happier can do so more than fleetingly, so we’re never really content, grateful and happy for what we’ve got. Resentments and self-pity can become even greater obstacles. It becomes all too easy to live our lives without ever really reaching a place of gratitude.

Of course, it can be hard to be grateful amidst the humdrum stuff of life, and even harder when difficult, painful things happen to us and to others. Sometimes, with the passage of time we may be able look back and see blessings that arose as a consequence of bad times and be grateful, because mostly we learn through our failure and suffering, not through success. Sometimes though, pain and struggle do not have an obvious purpose or meaning. Gratitude is not about living on a pink cloud or cultivating a false and dishonest positivity. Instead it means realising the power we have to reframe how we see a problem or difficulty and turning it into something more positive for which we can be grateful. Or we can look back or forward to some other things for which we can be grateful. In the midst of the bad stuff, our lives have still been blessed. It is hard for others to show us this or tell us – we have to be open to discovering it for ourselves. Like the young woman I overheard, we can actively decide to be grateful whenever we can; grateful for the glimmers of light, the small joys, blessings and fulfilments that we continue to experience along the way. God is at work around and through us to make something beautiful from the mundane and the messy bits of life – and just believing that, is something for which we can be grateful.

When Jesus healed a group of ten lepers only one of them returned to thank him – a reminder to us that if we seek the gratitude of others for things we do, we’d better get used to working with small percentages! Jesus talked a great deal about God’s loving care, knowing what we need and providing for us. About our relationship with him being as a father who only gives us good things. He sought to encourage a loving, trusting, grateful relationship with God. Giving thanks in all things. And this gratitude is not for the benefit of all those around us; it’s a quiet inner thanksgiving to God for what we receive. It’s a relational thing and a mind-set which always has us openly facing towards God, not turning away.

Gratitude is an important part of recovery too, replacing self-pity and blame which help to sustain addiction. There is gratitude for another chance of life, trusting that all will be well in the end. Seeing good in people and circumstances, concentrating on these rather than the negatives and accepting things as gifts. Gratitude is all about having the right mind-set which helps us to think less about ourselves, develops humility and gives us a much more positive perspective on life. Seeing our glass as half full not half empty. As a narrative on step ten says, “we seek to have an honest regret for harms we have done, a genuine gratitude for blessings we have received and a willingness to try for better things tomorrow.”

Today on the first day of a New Year, as I look out of the window from where I am sitting, sipping a mug of tea, I can see the sun shining brightly in a pale blue winter sky. From the warmth of my home, I watch Geoffrey, the neighbour’s cat walk briskly down the street with an unusual sense of purpose. A child is laughing and the occasional bird flies past the window heading for a roof or treetop perch. This very ordinary scene becomes truly extra-ordinary when I stop and think about what it entails and suddenly I am full of gratitude. I have sight, hearing, warmth and security, but would I have been thankful for these simple, taken-for-granted things if I weren’t writing this piece about gratitude? I doubt it.

It’s been said that gratitude is a decision of the will, and if it’s a decision of the will, the choice to be grateful or not rests firmly and squarely with each of us. So, although New Year’s resolutions are not really my thing, I’m going to break with this and pledge to practice gratitude every day in 2019. Gratitude for the small and simple things of life, gratitude for the many wonderful people I know, gratitude for the pleasures of living, gratitude about my circumstances – even when they’re not great and I can’t see how things are going to work out. And of course, gratitude for God’s love. If I stick to doing this, I hope that there will be more joy, beauty and happiness in my life and perhaps the world around me may be that little bit better too.

Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world. John Milton

I don’t have to chase extraordinary moments to find happiness – it’s right in front of me if I’m paying attention and practicing gratitude. Brene Brown

To be grateful is to recognize the love of God in everything He has given us – and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him. Thomas Merton

It is through gratitude for the present moment that the spiritual dimension of life opens up. Eckhart Toll

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. John F. Kennedy

Gratitude-Word-Cloud

Guerrilla Gardening – spreading kindness

It takes a brave person to give up everything and voluntarily rely upon the help of others to achieve a goal. The Kindness of Strangers is a book by Mike McIntyre, a journalist from California, who, feeling unfulfilled and trapped by his safe life, left his job and without any money, travelled coast to coast across the United States, relying upon other people’s acts of kindness to help him. To make it even more challenging he refused to accept gifts of money. Kindness of Strangers Six weeks later, having met many wonderful, kind people, he completed his life-changing journey, having travelled 4233 miles, across 14 states, getting 82 rides, 78 meals, 5 loads of laundry and a round of golf! He noticed how often it was people with very little, or those who had experienced terrible, tragic events in their lives who not only took the risk to help him but gave with immense generosity too. The book’s real strength lies in the way he introduces us to these people and how their kindness comes to touch our lives too.

Kindness is the outworking of loving our neighbour as ourselves, which Jesus spoke of as the second great commandment. Jesus is constantly referred to as showing compassion to people he meets and to all those with great need whom he healed, taught and fed. His stories too were often about the importance of showing kindness, compassion and generosity to others – the good Samaritan, the parable of the sheep and goats, and when he received an act of great kindness from a repentant woman who poured expensive perfume on him, he predicted that her story would be told for ever. Kindness is also one of the nine fruit of the spirit mentioned by St Paul.

Central as compassion and kindness are within the teachings of Jesus, they are by no means the monopoly of those following his way. Kindness is encouraged within all the World’s great religions, but it is not even exclusive to religion, for those with no religious beliefs at all embrace the importance of kindness and look for ways to practice it. Kindness seems to transcend all people, beliefs and nations and research suggests that positive relationships and kindness are at the heart of our health and well-being.

A recent report from the Carnegie Trust argues that nowadays many people feel an increasing sense of risk in engaging with others and asking for or giving help. As a result, there is a tendency to use more formal routes to help those in need, and we measure kindness in contribution to organised charity rather than our individual interactions with people. Unfortunately, these charitable organisations are also increasingly preoccupied by risk, which together with growing levels of bureaucracy, regulation, performance indicators and professional detachment, crowds out everyday kindnesses and the intuitive nature of kindness. This certainly resonates with my experiences. I can only think it fortunate that the Good Samaritan didn’t have to risk assess, impact evaluate, time-manage or outcome measure his involvement with the victim of robbers he found by the roadside! He just helped him. The Carnegie report concludes that those things which ‘get in the way’ need to be balanced with a greater confidence and support in the value of trust, goodwill, affection, warmth, gentleness and concern.

Within the 12-step tradition, kindness is seen as an important way of helping us to stop being so self-absorbed, enabling us to look beyond ourselves. If we are thinking about other people, which requires some imagination, empathy and most important of all, action, then we are taking time out from just thinking about ourselves. At this point it is worth noting that there are those who say that in helping others or being kind to them, we are still self-absorbed and preoccupied with our feelings, and are only acting in this way in order to feel good about ourselves. Well, this may or may not be true, but even if there is no such thing as altruism, (which I dispute), I would still always choose to live in a world where people are kind to one another and do good things for others, whatever their underlying reason for doing so. When Mike McIntyre was feeling guilty for putting on people who often had very little, one of those who had helped him said, “Mike, on this trip keep in mind that when people give you something, there’s always a reason for it. They have their own motivations for helping you.” Compassion, helping and kindness are virtues whatever the motivation. Period.

Kindness has a ripple effect. When somebody does an act of kindness, it can not only affect both the doer and the receiver in personal, emotional ways, but it also affects other people who hear the story. At a surface level we may be impressed at the kindness somebody has shown, but at a much deeper spiritual level we are moved by the way the actions unlock something much more profound about ourselves and our lives together. Kindness promotes connectedness and this I think is touching on what Jesus referred to as the Kingdom of Heaven. So, as well as doing acts of kindness, we need to speak about acts of kindness too, rippling the effects more widely afield.

Acts of kindness are unilateral and radical. In a world where so much isn’t in our control, we have complete license to do acts of kindness, to pretty much whoever we want, whenever we want to do them. A year or two ago I did a bit of guerrilla gardening. I used to walk to work across an uninspiring trading estate, which apart from a few spring bulbs and flowering trees, had little in the way of natural beauty amidst the roads, offices and factories. I made small dried cakes of compost, fertilizer and seeds and deposited them on the muddy verges and derelict sites. Being an inherent coward, I didn’t hurl them like grenades or Molotov cocktails in case some lurking security guard challenged me. Rather like prisoners of war in the Great Escape who dropped waste soil from their escape tunnels down their sleeves or trouser legs whilst walking around the compound, I would furtively release the flower bombs from my pockets without breaking stride, all the while looking in a completely different direction. This approach did mean that my aim and the distance achieved were not all they might have been but in time there was some success. It was not the greening of the estate with fields of flowers drawing astonished crowds as I had fantasised, but flowers did grow and maybe in time more will appear as they seed themselves and dormant seeds begin to sprout. In the same way, random acts of kindness each day can spread the seeds of hope, love and connectedness which will flower and in time spread more widely.

Finally, acts of kindness do not require a lot of resources. Sure, we can give gifts or money away, but kindness is not really about the size or scale of the act. Jesus commended the poor widow for what she gave, not because of the size of her gift but because she gave out of what little she had. Kindness is all about the thought and willingness to think about the needs of others, to put ourselves out, or give up a bit of time, comfort or security for the sake of someone else.

Hearing about acts of kindness or reading about them in Mike McIntyre’s book, I know that I tend to see myself as the generous giver. But the reality is almost certainly a little different. Would I really take a stranger into my house or find the time to accompany him to a café and pay for his food and enjoy his company, or do I regard it as too risky, myself as too busy or else find one of a myriad of other excuses for passing by on the other side. In a crowd of people I know, do I go to talk to the person who seems alone or do I stay safe and look after my own wants? Do I worry that an act of kindness will seem foolish or weak? If I am to break out of such self-interest, self-absorption and fear I need people, methods or tools to help challenge me to step out of my comfort zone and do more acts of kindness that may have a cost to me. The ‘Just for Today’ Card popular amongst all 12 step fellowships, with its many actions that we can manage to do for one day, can be a very helpful tool. Part of it offers both an active suggestion for kindness and a reactive way of behaving kindly: “Just for today I will do somebody a good turn and not get found out; if anybody knows of it, it will not count…… Just for today I will not show anyone that my feelings are hurt; they may be hurt, but today I will not show it.” Both actions are more challenging to do than they sound, and in trying to do them they reveal a great deal to us about who we are and how we relate to those around us. And they will both help us to be more kind. We may want to have a month of kindness – thirty days which can have a lasting effect upon how we look to the needs of others. Or it may be an outworking of Christmas goodwill, or a New Year’s resolution. How we help ourselves to start matters much less than actually doing random acts of kindness whenever we can. In doing them we become guerrilla gardeners of kindness, helping to make a brighter, better world.

Kind hearts are the gardens. Kind thoughts are the roots. Kind words are the blossoms. Kind deeds are the fruits. 19^th Century children’s rhyme

Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again. Og Mandino

A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees. Amelia Earhart

A bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives roses. Chinese Proverb

Kind words can be short and easy to speak but their echoes are truly endless. Mother Teresa

Suffering is only intolerable when nobody cares. I continually see that faith in God and his care is made infinitely easier by faith in someone who has shown kindness and sympathy. Dame Cicely Saunders

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The Parable of the Fruit – God provides

Ambulance John came to the Food Co-op this week. We hadn’t seen him for a while. He brought with him two sacks of apples and some bananas which were a welcome addition to the fruit we were giving out that day. John drives a beaten-up old ambulance, crudely painted in a shade of dark green and collects food, clothes and furniture from many undisclosed sources which he then takes to charities and people he discovers are in need. How he found us or where he comes from remain a mystery, and for some reason, those of us helping to run the Co-op like to keep it that way. His coming and going is about as predictable as the national lottery winning numbers. Who knows when he will return – he blows where he wills.

The Food Co-op in Bensham is based on the beautiful, humanising model of food pantries begun by Sarah Miles in San Francisco, recounted in her book Take This Bread. The Co-op is as far removed from the conventional UK food bank as we can make it; lots of fresh vegetables, people are members rather than recipients and they choose their own produce, most of the volunteer helpers are also members and access to the weekly co-op is for as long as anyone needs it. Like the first of Sarah’s food pantries at St Gregory of Nyssa, we operate out of a church (the only place willing to offer us rent free space) but unlike California, the North East of England does not have a ready supply of cheap fresh fruit. Prices are too high for us to buy it in for the increasing number of members and their hungry families. Fruit may seem like a luxury, not one of the staples of life, but I can buy fruit when I want to, so, in the spirit of loving our neighbour as ourselves, our view at the Co-op is that we want the people who come to us to get fruit too.

Sourcing it has been another matter. We contacted the obvious people – supermarkets and wholesalers who may have surplus, but generally they failed to reply. The few who did were already supplying their surplus fruit to horse and pony sanctuaries. We thought that a local factory which produces fruit juices for the UK market might be able to offer us fruit at cost price but they didn’t respond to our letters or calls, and neither did their parent company, a multi-national concern with a high level of Corporate Social Responsibility. One or two of us prayed and we continued to look for a supplier, a connection to a guaranteed supply of fruit. But we never found one.

I don’t know when it was that we realised that although we didn’t have this guaranteed weekly supply, fruit was arriving every week. And it was always enough. It never came from the same sources – sometimes an unexpected supermarket surplus, sometime Fareshare, sometimes a cheap offer at the wholesalers and often it came as small individual donations. Fruit pile My controlling, organised mind-set wanted a nice tidy, planned supply of fruit for the next few years, but instead, God supplied what we needed, when we needed it. No more and no less. And what variety! Over the last couple of months alone we have had plums, peaches, apples, limes, grapes, pears, melons, bananas, mangos, blackberries, strawberries, lemons, raspberries, oranges and pineapples!

Inevitably, this brings us back to that whole question of living in the day and trusting in God to provide us with the resources we need at the time we need them, rather than fretting ahead and wanting everything sorted out in advance. The antithesis of fear and worry is always faith and trust. Constantly I have to learn and re-learn the words of Jesus that we should not worry about what to eat or drink as God provides for the birds of the air and the flowers of the field and cares much more than this for us. It’s all about trust. As it says in the Big Book, “We trust infinite God rather than our finite selves.” “We never apologize to anyone for depending upon our Creator. We can laugh at those who think spirituality the way of weakness. Paradoxically, it is the way of strength. The verdict of the ages is that faith means courage. All people of faith have courage. They trust their God.” To me, this faith and trust is not found in the doctrines, dogmas and creeds of religion but rather in placing my trust in a God of love and grace. Where I discover this God, or more to the point, where God chooses to appear is irrelevant – it could be in nature, in the Eucharist, in the kindness of a stranger, in a 12-step meeting or in the arrival of much needed fruit. As Richard Rohr so brilliantly (and uncharacteristically simply) says, “the gospel is not primarily a set of facts but a way of seeing and a way of being in the world because of God. Jesus speaks to the heart, saying (1) God is on your side; (2) God can be trusted; (3) the universe is safe and benevolent; (4) trust yourselves, one another and God; (5) there is no reason to be afraid; (6) it’s all heading toward something good! He does this primarily by touch, relationship, healing and parables.”

As we enter the months of winter, my challenge will be to trust that we will continue to receive what we need at the Co-op when we need it, including fruit. And of course holding on to this trust applies to every other aspect of my life too. I don’t begin to understand how it works, or how I can explain places of atrocity, warfare and starvation and how God’s love and provision is found there, but somehow, I believe it is. But we can only bloom where we are planted and that is all each of us is here to do. So next time you eat an apple or a banana remember this parable of the fruit, reaffirm your trust in God’s care and provision for you and keep on blooming.

You say to God, “I have never seen you provide for me.” God says to you, “You have never trusted Me.” Corallie Buchanan

God will always provide; it just might look different from what we had in mind. Anonymous

Miracles happen everyday. Change your perception of what a miracle is and you’ll see them all around you. Jon Bon Jovi

When we are able to take the next step with the trust that we will have enough light for the step that follows, we can walk through life with joy and be surprised at how far we go. Henri Nouwen

My trust in God flows out of the experience of his loving me, day in and day out, whether the day is stormy or fair, whether I’m sick or in good health, whether I’m in a state of grace or disgrace. He comes to me where I live and loves me as I am. Brennan Manning

Breaking Good – freedom from shame

The young woman stood there crying and shaking, barely noticing the soreness of her wrists or the stinging of the cuts and grazes on her legs from when the men had dragged her out of the house, just minutes before. She grabbed the loose sheet covering her body more closely around her and shut her eyes – but it didn’t help. She could still sense their angry, threatening presence close by and smell their hot breath and body odour. She was paralysed by fear and overwhelmed by feelings of shame.

The full account of this shocking story and the beautiful, sensitive way in which Jesus cared for this nameless woman, can be found in the gospel of St John. It is one of the many accounts of his meeting with individuals whose behaviour or circumstances were deemed sinful or shameful by the religious authorities and as a result censured by wider society. Jesus’s response to these shamed people was to talk to them, touch them, eat with them and befriend them. Those self-same religious leaders had brought this woman to Jesus, demanding his opinion on what to do with her. She had allegedly been caught in the act of adultery, for which Jewish law at the time demanded death by stoning – for both partners. Predictably they brought no man to this face-off. Had it been a set-up, a honey-trap to find a convenient victim? Or was it more likely, just a typical, everyday example of the way in which women were systematically discriminated against and the man allowed to leave. The religious leaders’ behaviour and language says everything about how they viewed the woman. “They made her stand before the group”. “We are commanded to stone such women”. She was like an object and of no value, simply a pawn in the game of those who wanted to trap Jesus. He ignored their questions, bent down and started to write on the ground, choosing not to gaze or stare at the woman in the way the men who surrounded and accused her were already doing. But they kept on questioning him. “What do you say we should do to her?” If he said stone her, then he was flouting the Roman rulers who had sole authority about the death penalty. If he said not to stone her, then he would appear to be disobeying the religious law. Finally, Jesus stood up and spoke directly to the accusers. “If any of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” He bent down again and carried on writing in the ground. Gradually the arrogant, self-righteous men, clothed in all their religious finery, so keen to point the finger of shame at this woman, recognised their own spiritual nakedness before The Teacher, and slunk away, until none were left. It is only then that Jesus stands up and speaks directly and compassionately to the woman herself. Far from condemning her, he affirms her and sets her free from guilt and shame to lead a transformed life.

Guilt and shame are often spoken of in one breath and whilst far from distinct, there is nevertheless a difference. Guilt is feeling a sense of remorse for something we have done whereas shame is the feeling that if people knew what we had done or thought, they would no longer respect us, like us, care for us or love us. Or as the ever enlightening Brené Brown puts it, Guilt is about saying to ourselves, “I did something bad,” whereas shame says, “I am bad.” Guilt is about our behaviour, shame is about who we are, and we tell ourselves that we are a bad person because of what we’ve done. The woman in the story maybe felt guilt, but the way she was treated was all about shame – “we are commanded to stone such women”. Such women? To those accusing her, she hadn’t just done something bad, she was bad.

Shame is perhaps a deeper emotion and as a result less easy to fix. It goes to the heart of living, the importance of feeling valued and above all of being loved. And this is deeply rooted in experiences of having been rejected because of things we have done in the past. In some cases this has been a subtle process, in other cases we are explicitly told that our actions have made it harder to love us or that we cannot be loved as much because of something we have done or intend to do. In consequence it can make us very preoccupied with appearing to be doing the right thing, to prevent people discovering the shaming things we do or think, so that the love we need and long for is not withdrawn.

In the popular TV series Breaking Bad, one of the most interesting relationships is that between mild mannered, underachieving chemistry teacher Walter White and his former pupil, less than competent drug dealer Jesse Pinkman. They team up to cook crystal meth, and make large amounts of money from doing so, but as the series develops we see Walter taking more extreme and increasingly brutal measures to protect the business, whilst Jesse has growing misgivings about each new step, plagued by guilt at what they have already done and shame at what his parents, younger brother and girlfriend will think of him. Pink Teddy Bear He even takes the blame for his brother’s cannabis to protect him from receiving the same shame and rejection that he has already experienced from his parents. Towards the end of the final series Jesse is overwhelmed by guilt and the “blood money” that he possesses. He attempts to deal with this by throwing a bag of money out of his car window and trying to give it away to people in need, or those to whom he has a connection. Whilst we may all use various means of anaesthetic or mental justifications and rationalisations to be like Walt and protect ourselves from feeling guilt and shame, in reality most of us are more like Jesse. Even if we pull it off, it is exhausting and ultimately can become overwhelming.

People in 12 step recovery seem to understand a lot about guilt and shame and the difference between them. I would go so far as to say it is the only treatment or help for addiction that considers or even goes near these concepts – which possibly explains its success rate. I’ve heard plenty of talk about guilt within Christianity, but not a lot about shame. Which is kind of curious because now that I understand better what shame is, and can identify with the experience of being shamed, it seems to me that it’s a pretty central part of human social life. Even more to the point, as we’ve already seen, it appears to have been something that was well understood and opposed by Jesus. He never spoke of it directly, but his actions and behaviours were very intentional and were always about not shaming people. In the gospel accounts of his three years of active teaching, he met with people who were already marginalised and cut off because of shameful things. Sexual behaviours, financial misconduct, health conditions. And his consistent message was that these people were all okay. He accepted them, restored them and set them on a new path. Jesus made a constant habit of sharing meals with all kinds of people so that the religious leaders regularly questioned whether he knew what sort of people they were. He did know and he didn’t care one jot – eating with them became a very public statement of their acceptance and worthiness.

As Christians, there can be an unconscious tendency for each of us to concentrate on polishing our glittering images and ensuring that our best side is always on display. To do otherwise makes us fear that we might be seen as bad Christians – extremely shaming, even though we know that none of us is perfect and accept the importance of regular confession and forgiveness (generally a safe private affair.) It’s also natural for us to avoid showing our ugly and broken bits because this is what we’ve done all our lives, yet the more we see others’ shiny selves, the harder it is to admit our own bad thoughts or actions and the more shame we feel. Within 12 step fellowships, people accept the reality of guilt and shame and in undertaking steps 4 and 5 admit the nature of their past actions to another trusted person (and to God). In doing so, they lay bare their real selves and discover that they are not shamed for what they have done and admitted, which offers great release. Perhaps such “confession” and honest sharing is something that Christians need to do more of, helping us to recognise ourselves for what we are without shame and so accept others without judging or shaming them. We can then be a vehicle for them to experience God’s grace and love. As Henri Nouwen says, “Nobody escapes being wounded. We are all wounded people, whether physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually. The main question is not “How can we hide our wounds?” so we don’t have to be embarrassed, but “How can we put our woundedness in the service of others?” When our wounds cease to be a source of shame, and become a source of healing, we have become wounded healers.”

Shame says, because I am flawed I am unacceptable. Grace says, because I am flawed I am cherished. Anonymous

Shame is the lie someone told you about yourself. Anais Nin

You feel the shame, humiliation, and anger at being just another victim of prejudice, and at the same time, there’s the nagging worry that maybe… you’re just no good. Nina Simone

Even the President of the United States sometimes has to stand naked. Bob Dylan

I decided that the single most subversive, revolutionary thing I could do was to show up for my life and not be ashamed. Anne Lamott

Leaving The Chain Gang – love overcomes legalism

Growing up, I learned a lot about legalism. Our family were members of the Plymouth Brethren, a dissenting fundamentalist sect which spelled hard-line in capital letters. Whatever the reasons and blessings which might have come from this group’s formation a century or so before, these seemed to have been long lost by the time I grew up within its stifling confines in the 1960’s. This was a time of change and revolution in society, which made the members even more guarded about change or dissent within their own ranks. A strong streak of Victorian morality ran through it all, ironic really, because that was never the most moral or upright of times. The legalism I experienced was based on fundamentalist bible teaching which extended to include dress code, hair length, wearing of hats for women, unacceptable social activities including cinema, entertainment and so on. I remember my Dad, (no shrinking violet himself), being yelled at on the steps of the meeting hall by a five-foot nothing member with a Yorkshire accent, holding an attaché case containing a bible big enough to kill a cat. My Dad he said, was unfit to be a member or a father because of the shortness of my sister’s skirt and his unwillingness to be corrected in allowing this. Whatever the man thought he was doing, to me as a kid, it seemed very aggressive and deeply personal.

Compliance with the rules meant inclusion and acceptance within the sect. Non-compliance could mean being ostracised (as happened to one widower who remarried too soon to an outsider), or in serious cases lead to exclusion and being asked to leave the “assembly,” as groups referred to themselves. This usually meant attending a different meeting in another town that was deemed less strict, there being a hierarchy of strictness – open, closed or exclusive – impermeable strata between which there was no communication or association. Like the Soviet and East German states of the time, most members were good at spotting modernisers, reformers or heretics and skilled at reinforcing the ideology. Underpinning it all was the overpowering fear of going to hell when you died, spelled out in graphic terms on a weekly basis. As a child this was scary stuff and very easily shackles you onto the chain gang. Looking back, it is also amazing how a group of christian people could still manage to slip meanness, gossip, cruelty and pride underneath the radar of their strict code of conduct. I never did become a member, in spite of the pressure, but when I left home I discovered that I could leave the meeting, the people and their beliefs, but they did not leave me. I was still shackled and left with a narrow, mean-spirited picture of God along with a whole range of unhealthy religion-based fears and anxieties. Maybe that’s what I’m still really recovering from.

Legalism is an attempt to gain favour with God or impress people by doing certain things or avoiding others. It might seem to be a means to become a better person and a marker of progress but it goes sour and turns into pride and self-righteousness the moment we think we’ve attained it. Jesus hated legalism and had more conflicts with the legalists of his day than any other group. Usually these were the religious leaders. He often seemed to seek conflict as he challenged them openly, deliberately flouted their rules and refused to comply with many of their required but unnecessary behaviours. His challenge ultimately led them to kill him. Jesus objection to them was that their rule-based living not only utterly distorted the image of God, but it placed emphasis on the outside or external things rather than what was going on inside our hearts which could not be fixed so easily. He illustrated this by calling some legalists of his time whitewashed tombs – clean and bright on the outside but dead and putrefying inside. Constantly he met, touched and ate with the people regarded as immoral and unclean by the legalists, because these were the people who were ready to hear what he had to say. Flawed and broken, spat out by the religious system, they were in exactly the right place to be able to receive him.

Bill W and the early founders of AA, also flawed and broken, were very influenced by the Oxford Group, a Christian organisation which shaped many of the basic practices of current 12 step fellowships – surrender, moral inventories, making restitution or amends, sharing stories, restoration of sanity, etc. A central plank of the Oxford Group’s approach to change their conduct were the four absolutes – moral standards of absolute honesty, absolute purity, absolute unselfishness and absolute love, guidelines to help determine whether a course of action was directed by God. Fortunately, Bill W could see that because these absolutes of conduct were impossible to attain, trying to follow them created an unhealthy legalistic framework that would only make recovering alcoholics feel like failures and more than likely serve to reinforce their drinking. All that was necessary was absolute honesty because this exposed any rule-based system and the flawed attempt to make ourselves seem good by following this or blaming others for our situation. Absolute honesty makes everything possible, because we are not pretending to be anything other than we are. No false self, no glittering image. With absolute honesty, each of the twelve steps works. This is true for all of us. Until we seek to be honest with ourselves, about ourselves, our progress is always going to be limited whether that is recovering from addiction or simply managing our lives and learning to grow and change. Ultimately it is honesty in accepting that it is an inside job which we can’t do ourselves, surrendering instead to a God who wants to restore us and work from the inside out.

When I limped back to God, many years after my childhood experiences, I found a lot of what I had learned still sitting on the mantelpiece waiting for me. However God does not have a checklist, eager to catch me out and punish me. I have had to unlearn this on a daily basis, challenge those distorted lessons about God, rules and regulations, claiming instead God’s love and grace. At the same time it’s also been necessary to start to deal with the loitering resentments I carried about those early years. The life and teachings of Jesus are always the corrective lens. It is never about winning approval or earning God’s love. I never can. But that is okay because it is freely and lavishly given, which is what grace is always about. There are many helpers along the way and light-bulb moments. Like the AA member who said that his higher power really liked him. What, God might actually like me?! And the picture of God in the story of The Shack powerfully counters so much of my childhood learning. In it God is shown to be “particularly fond” of each of us, without exception. God is love. Accepting this, and living a life of gratitude and surrender to this love, helps us at last to leave behind the chain gang of legalism.

Spiritual connection and engagement is not built on compliance, it’s the product of love, belonging, and vulnerability. Brené Brown

Your ego is a great technician. It cannot be creative. It goes in for methods and techniques and produces holy people who are rigid, consistent, mechanical, lifeless as intolerant of others as they are of themselves – violent people the very opposite of holiness and love. The type of spiritual people who, conscious of their spirituality then proceed to crucify the Messiah”. Anthony de Mello

Most of what I had been taught by Christian clergy was that I was created by God, but was bad because of something some chick did in the Garden of Eden, and that I should try really hard to be good so that God, who is an angry bastard, won’t punish me. Grace had nothing to do with it. I hadn’t learned about grace from the church. But I did learn about it from sober drunks who managed to stop drinking by giving their will over to the care of God and who then tried like hell to live a life according to spiritual principles. What the drunks taught me was that there was a power greater than myself who could be a source of restoration, and that higher power, it ends up, is not me. Nadia Bolz-Weber

The Big, The Bold, The Beautiful and The Blue – lessons in applied spirituality

I recently attended a meeting to talk about what a course in applied spirituality might look like. We were a small but disparate group – Buddhists, Christians and Atheists, people in both mental health and addiction recovery, a priest, academics, as well as shameless tailgaters like me who wanted to learn from the collective wisdom. We met in a cosy but windowless room in a dry-bar in Newcastle, watched over by an experienced and perceptive looking blue toy rabbit, which sat beside me on one of the sofas. Quite appropriate really because we spent a couple of interesting hours chasing rabbits. We talked about love, trust, connectedness and hope, all seemingly hallmarks of a spiritual life, but we struggled to define exactly what we understood by spirituality, because it’s big stuff and it meant something different to each of us. I’ve thought about it a lot since and here are a few reflections based on my own experiences and understanding.

Alcoholics Anonymous and other twelve step programmes see the importance of practical or applied spirituality. The foreword to “Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions” written by Bill W, says that “AA’s Twelve Steps are a group of principles, spiritual in their nature, which, if practised as a way of life can expel the obsession to drink and enable the sufferer to become happily and usefully whole”. These spiritual principles are far removed from religious practice and are based around non-material realities or experiences which can underpin everyday living. Jesus constantly talked about spiritual principles and the inner life. He condemned the many religious practices of his day and especially those people in authority who used religion for their own ends of power, pleasure (status, worthiness, looking the part, etc) or security.

Perhaps the most radical of the teachings of Jesus are found in the Sermon on the Mount. Here Jesus outlined his bold manifesto for a new way of living, underpinned by a reality beyond the material world of self-interest and self gain. The topsy-turvy world of Jesus runs utterly counter to the world we live in and into which we have all been programmed or indoctrinated, all of our lives. This material world view tells us that to be rich we need to accumulate and look after ourselves, making security, pleasure and power important guiding principles of living. Not so, said Jesus. True spiritual living is always about letting go; it’s subtraction and not addition. In the spiritual pathway he introduces, the first shall be last, those who mourn shall be blessed, it is better to give than to receive, suffering is the way to greatness, forgive and we shall be forgiven. Or as 12 steppers often say, to keep it you’ve got to give it away, and you surrender in order to gain. These spiritual principles or ways of living are counter-intuitive, part of the Golden Thread, which Christians and people in 12 step recovery have in common.

Accepting this counter-intuitive, topsy-turvy world of Jesus is challenging. It is just so radical. The part of me that longs for social justice, that has a bias towards the poor and which wants to protect and care for the vulnerable, rejoices and cheers from the stands when I read the Sermon on the Mount. Yes! God is on the side of the broken and the destitute. But whatever my intentions, actually living it out is a whole lot harder, because I am so caught up with a material way of thinking and operating. Do I really believe that the love and care of God will be sufficient if I do begin to let go? My thoughts and actions are unerringly and largely unconsciously linked to the old mindset of power, pleasure or security (usually disguised as apparently self-less and benevolent intentions). In the account of his wilderness temptation, Jesus spotted and vehemently rejected these ways of behaving as a short cut to glory. Recognition, surrender and letting go does not come naturally to me or I suspect, to most of us. People with alcohol or drug problems get backed into a corner where they can do no other – the rest of us can be equally bankrupt but manage to retain a veneer of being okay and continue to run our lives without truly following this new spiritual pathway. And ironically, religion is particularly susceptible to the old way of thinking and behaving. In Christianity this is most visibly seen in the way churches and people in them function. Obvious really, because we all continue to carry these old patterns of thought and behaviour into everything we do.

It is for this reason that we must consciously seek to renew our minds and practice living in the new way. It is a daily activity but a lifetime project. Those in 12 Step Recovery talk a lot about working their programme, but many of us Christians sit back hoping that with the help of some prayer and devotional readings the Spirit will change us. But following Jesus is not a passive activity like a moving corridor at an airport onto which we step, waiting to be delivered at the other end without any participation ourselves. We have to play our part and co-operate with God in changing us. Because I have a blind spot and don’t recognise my tendency to slip back to the material way of thinking, along with its cosy and easy preferences, I need to consciously act in a counter-intuitive way by practicing forgiveness, gratitude, kindness, trust, giving away, etc, on a daily basis to counter the way I’ve always done it. God does the work in us but we must be willing, humble and active participants.

The Sermon on the Mount is not just a beautiful dream. My experience and that of countless others who seek to embrace these upside-down principles is that as we follow this spiritual pathway we find a contentedness and joy which the old one we were taught to operate by couldn’t provide. We can never get enough power, pleasure or security to make us any more than fleetingly happy, we just can’t. But boy did we try. Counter-intuitively, surrender and the rejection of these as guiding principles for living allows us to become happier and more fulfilled than we ever were previously. Less really does become more. Okay, we mess up often and lose our way, which usually teaches us far more than when things go well, but, as they say, it’s about progress not perfection. Ask the blue rabbit, I think he knew that all the time.

“Discovering who you really are is only possible when you stop aiming for it. When you turn your back and walk away, embracing instead a life of compassion, love, and even suffering and death, then and only then can you discover your true identity. It is like the magical door in many a children’s story; you can only find it when you stop looking.” Paula Gooder

“The Church too is a group of sinful, confused, anguished people constantly tempted by the powers of lust and greed and always entangled in rivalry and competition.” Henri Nouwen

“Spirituality is a mixed-up, topsy-turvy, helter-skelter godliness that turns our lives into an upside-down toboggan ride of unexpected turns, surprise bumps and bone shattering crashes … a life ruined by a Jesus who loves us right into his arms.” Mike Yaconelli

“Think about how others feel. Practice being kind to others. For those who want to take the advanced course, practice kindness anonymously. Do something caring or compassionate for someone without ever telling anyone.” Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

Nothing’s Perfect

I spent a long time thinking about starting this blog. Not procrastinating, just thinking. But the longer I’ve thought about it, the harder it’s been to get started, because whilst I have had plenty of ideas for content, my planning about how it will develop has lacked a coherent shape or sense of direction. I was also waiting for a name that would say it all, preferably one that was witty and clever too. It didn’t come.

And then I remembered. Nothing’s perfect. So, note to self, acknowledge that this isn’t going to be perfect or that I’ll know where it’s going to lead. And accept it. Because this is going to be about the journey rather than the destination or the outcome of it all. Which is appropriate really because the blog has arisen because of things that have happened on my spiritual journey and in particular the collision of two worlds – Christianity and 12 step recovery, the result of which is still sprinkling me with liberal quantities of stardust and for which I will be forever grateful.

It shouldn’t have been a collision really, because they share the same DNA, the founders of AA basing their programme on most of the key beliefs of the 19^th century evangelical Oxford Group, which in turn was influenced by celebrated Christian thinkers such as John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards. Through Bill W and Dr Bob, their understanding helped to shine a light into the nature of addiction and provide a way of living substance free. Because the beauty and the strength of 12 step fellowships is not just that they help people to get clean and sober but that they offer a way of living that works for everyone, addict or not, because it deals with the rubbish in our lives that many of us would prefer to bury deep in our internal landfills. So amazingly, 12 Step Recovery can now shine a light into the lives of individual Christians and the church community, providing a way of living that is honest, open and accountable, stripping Christianity back to the basic teachings of Jesus, whilst helping to shed the trappings of organisational self-preservation along the way.

This blog will explore the common themes, stories and narratives that 12 step spirituality has to teach Christians and what Christian teaching, or at least the way of Jesus has to share with those in recovery. This is the Golden Thread, the truth within the teachings of Jesus which offers to set us free and transform us. Because both of these ways of living are about transformation. About leaving behind the old ways of living, which didn’t work and which brought us unhappiness and pain, entering into a new way of living, a journey which enables us to grow into the people we were truly meant to be.

Recently I was privileged to attend an exhibition in Newcastle’s Anglican Cathedral held by Artists in Recovery. This was not a display of well-meaning artwork as a sort of therapy which helped addicts to get well. It was high quality, skilled and deeply moving artwork produced by people in recovery who were well, and their wellness allowed them to be the creative people they were always meant to be. Their recovery not only allows them to become those people but weaves into the creative processes the pain and struggle of their lives, adding to the depth, intensity and beauty of their work. This is part of what I believe Jesus talks about when he says that he came to give us life in all its fullness. Many, many times I’ve heard people in recovery say they didn’t think life could be this good. Abundant life. That is what is on offer. It’s what Christianity is about too, but so often it can get lost in the line of duty, going to church, contributing, doing your best, earning merit, being okay (even if you’re not), keeping the show on the road. Its not empty and its not without value but all too often its not abundant living and its not what the way of Jesus taught. So join me on this journey of discovery and growth, contribute to it too by sharing your stories and experiences. And see how the Golden Thread can transform our lives.

“Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” Leonard Cohen

“When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I am trusting and suspicious. I am honest and I still play games. Aristotle said I am a rational animal; I say I am an angel with an incredible capacity for beer.” Brennan Manning