Prelude Melodia Africana I by Ludovico Einaudi
Opening Words by Andrew Pakula (adapted)
Come into this circle of community. Come into this sacred space.
Be not tentative. Bring your whole self!
Bring the joy that makes your heart sing.
Bring your kindness and your compassion.
Bring also your sorrow, your pain.
Bring your brokenness and your disappointments.
Spirit of love and mystery; help us to recognize the spark of the divine that resides within each of us.
May we know the joy of wholeness.
Chalice Lighting (you may wish to light a candle in your own home at this point). Words by Julie Nedin
Let this be a light of welcome, of hope and of joy.
You may have had a busy day – you are here.
You may have had a quiet day – you are here.
You may have had a difficult week – you are here.
You may have faced challenges – you are here.
You are here, bring joy or sadness.
Be calm in this moment.
May you find the power in this space to meet concerns head on,
or to feel the freedom to leave them at the door.
Bring yourself to this time of worship,
be you, with us in peace and love.
Opening Prayer
Spirit of Life and Love,
be with us as we gather for worship,
each in our own place.
Help us to feel a sense of community,
even though we are physically apart.
Help us to care for each other,
in this world in which Covid has not yet gone away,
and the clouds of war and climate change overshadow us.
May we keep in touch however we can,
and help each other, however we may.
May we be grateful for the freedoms we have
and respect the wishes of others.
May we hold in our hearts all those
who are grieving, lost, alone,
suffering in any way,
Amen
Reading from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
Then a woman said, Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.
And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the self-same well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say,
“Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits along with you at your board, remember that the other one is asleep upon your bed.
Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.
Alternative Lord’s Prayer
Spirit of Life and Love, here and everywhere,
May we be aware of your presence in our lives.
May our world be blessed.
May our daily needs be met,
And may our shortcomings be forgiven,
As we forgive those of others.
Give us the strength to resist wrong-doing,
The inspiration and guidance to do right,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
We are your hands in the world; help us to grow.
May we have compassion for all living beings,
And receive whatever life brings,
With courage and trust.
Amen
[If this service was a live one, I would invite the sharing of Candles of Joy and Concern at this point]
Reading The Guesthouse by Meylana Jelaluddin Rumi
This being human is a guesthouse
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
Some momentary awareness
Comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and attend them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
Who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture,
Still, treat each guest honourably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
Meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
Because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.
Welcome difficulty.
Learn the alchemy True Human Beings know:
The moment you accept what troubles you’ve been given,
the door opens.
Welcome difficulty as a familiar comrade.
Joke with torment brought by a Friend.
Sorrows are the rags of old clothes and jackets
that serve to cover, and then are taken off.
That undressing, and the beautiful naked body underneath,
is the sweetness that comes after grief.
Prayer by Alex Brianson
Spirit of Life, you who animate the Universe
Help us to remember the gift that is a human life.
With our consciousness and senses, we can touch, taste, see and feel
So much that is good, and alluring, and enticing.
Spirit of Life, some of us here today may be thinking of concerns more than joys,
Of loss rather than enjoyment.
For those of us, we ask for healing and restoration.
To those of us, we pledge our aid.
Just as cares arise, so shall they pass.
Just as grief pains, new joy beckons.
Spirit of Life, may we remember that life is a dance.
And may we ensure that we move to the rhythm divine.
So may it be. Amen.
Reading Snakes and Ladders by Alison Thursfield from With Heart and Mind
The board game we know originated in the ancient Indian game of Moshka-Patamu. It was devised as a metaphor for the living of life, and included ideas of virtues and vices, and of reincarnation. The Victorians then adapted it to what we have now.
To remind you: the board is made out of squares numbered 1 to 100. Bridging these squares, at random, are snakes (head up, tail down) and ladders. The counters are moved at the throw of a dice, again at random. A counter landing on a snake’s head has to slither down to the tail end, but landing at the base of a ladder it climbs to the top. In either case the journey continues onward from the new position.
One’s journey in life seems similarly random with unexpected twists. There are setbacks. Sliding down a ‘snake’ literally brings us low, but in life as in the game, we must pick ourselves up and carry on. Sometimes one is given a boost, we are uplifted. The ‘ladder’ may take us to unexpected places, new areas to explore or new fields in which to grow.
But there is one aspect of the game which is rarely noted. The last few squares are free of either snakes or ladders. The last bit of the journey must be travelled on one’s own. But more than that, it may be a time of waiting because one cannot leave the ‘board’ until one throws the exact number on the dice to finish. One may throw it very soon, or it may take a long time.
We never know how many throws of the dice we have left.
Time of Stillness and Reflection by Alison Thursfield from With Heart and Mind (adapted)
How are we travelling our life’s path?
Remembering any setbacks or troubles,
can we accept such things,
pick ourselves up and carry on?
Are we aware of people around us
trying to cope with their problems?
Are we ready to turn aside like a ‘good Samaritan’
if we see another who has suffered a setback
and who needs our loving support?
Our times of joy uplift us and fill us with happiness
and we give thanks.
But can we share such times
without boasting of our good fortune?
Can we enjoy another’s happiness without envy?
Are we courageous enough to think about our end,
and contemplate how we spend the waiting time?
[silence]
May we give thanks for the gift of life,
and accept with equanimity
all that we encounter on our path.
We would trust the guidance of the indwelling Spirit at all times.
May it be so.
Musical Interlude: Melodia Africana III by Ludovico Einaudi
Address Joy and Sorrow
Joy and sorrow. There has been such lots of both around in the last few months. So I totally understand Kahlil Gibran’s Prophet, when he says, “the self-same well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears…. The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.” Because joy and sorrow are the deepest feelings that human beings can have, and I truly believe that it is not possible to experience either deeply, unless we allow ourselves to be vulnerable and open to whatever life throws our way; all its joys, all its sorrows. If we choose to numb our responses to life, because we are scared of being too sorrowful, that we won’t cope with the despair, the disappointment, the loss, the grief; we are also numbing ourselves to the possibility of feeling deep joy. And that is truly sad.
Each person’s life is a rich tapestry of joys woven around and through with sorrows. I do believe that they are inseparable, and that to feel one, you have to be open to feeling the other. Like the Prophet says, “Together they come, and when one sits along with you at your board, remember that the other one is asleep upon your bed.” Having the capacity to feel great joy and great sorrow also means that we have the capacity to love greatly. Which is surely a gift?
We are living in difficult times, both in this country, where more and more people are struggling to make ends meet and the politicians seem to be unable to communicate except by sniping at each other; and in the wider world, where the wars in the Ukraine and Gaza (to mention only the two conflicts most often in the news) grind on, with all the concomitant loss of life and hardship, and climate change is an ever present danger.
Each death diminishes our world. Each time I hear about the death of someone, whether known to me or unknown, I remember that each person was an individual, with parents, a partner, children, friends, who will grieve their passing. And I think of the words of John Donne,
“No man is an island, entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less,
as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were:
any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind,
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
Each person has left an indelible mark on the world, by the simple fact of having lived. And that is surely an occasion for joy. So many of the funerals I have conducted have been “A celebration of the life of…”. And people have laughed and cried, shed tears and shared memories. Which is how it should be. Because joy and sorrow truly are inseparable, as the Prophet says.
Alison Thursfield’s thoughtful contribution to With Heart and Mind reminds us that life is a journey full of unexpected twists, full of joys and sorrows. I am sure that most of you played snakes and ladders as children. I well remember the joy of skipping several lines of the board by “climbing” a ladder, only to be cast back down to the bottom by sliding down a snake. It is a wonderful analogy for life, as we all experience it. It is entirely possible to be full of joy at one point in the day, then full of sorrow later on.
Being a parent (or a grandparent) is to experience this mixture of joys and concerns every day. The recent birth of our third grandson was a massive occasion for joy and my heart was full. Yet I know that children (even grown up children!) are subject to various illnesses and sorrows, and each time I hear of one, I feel sorrow, wishing I could wave a magic wand and make whatever it is “all better”.
And yet, the fact that I had been open to the joy of the good news of the safe birth of my new grandson helped me to be able to cope with the sorrow I felt on behalf of my other relation. Without the one, the other would have hit me a lot harder. I do believe that if we live our lives vulnerably, at a deep level, we become more resilient to sorrow.
My favourite sociologist, Brené Brown, has some interesting things to say about joy, and about the differences between happiness and joy. She explains that “Happiness is attached to external situations and events and seems to ebb and flow as those circumstances come and go. Joy seems to be constantly tethered to our hearts by spirit and gratitude. But our actual experiences of joy – these intense feelings of deep spiritual connection and pleasure – seize us in a very vulnerable way…. In addition to creating happiness in our lives, I’ve learned that we need to cultivate the spiritual practices that lead to joyfulness, especially gratitude.”
Yet she also warns that the vulnerability of allowing ourselves to feel joy can also lead to great fear of loss. She calls this “foreboding joy”. Which happens when we feel immensely joyful about something and then immediately imagine something bad happening. She gives the example of standing over her daughter, watching her sleep, “feeling totally engulfed in gratitude, then being ripped out of that joy and gratitude by images of something bad happening to her.” This comes from being afraid to lose what we love the most, having no guarantees that loss will not happen.
She says, “We think not being grateful and not feeling joy will make it hurt less. We think if we can beat vulnerability to the punch by imaging loss, we’ll suffer less. We’re wrong. There is one guarantee: If we’re not practicing gratitude and allowing ourselves to know joy, we are missing out on the two things that will actually sustain us during the inevitable hard times.”
The trick of gratitude, I have found, is sacred living – weaving moments of attention into our lives, so that we are aware of all the lovely things happening around us. As I have said before, through sacred living, we will come to realise that God’s grace is everywhere. Sacred living is about living with a new level of awareness. It is about going through our days paying attention to what is happening at each passing moment. It is about noticing the presence of the divine, the numinous, everywhere: in the natural world, in other people, in ourselves and in our experiences. Sacred living is about rediscovering our sense of wonder, and living our lives in response to that. Sacred living is about truly appreciating what we have. Being grateful for it.
At the end of each day, before I go to bed, I record at least three “small pleasures” I have experienced during the day (and sometimes, HUGE ones). I have found that this practice has exponentially increased my general level of happiness. Even when I’ve had a fairly rubbish day, I can still be grateful for having got through it… And on less good days, I sometimes read back through old ‘small pleasures’ to remind myself how very lucky and blessed I am.
So we need both joy and gratitude to enable us to navigate the inevitable times of sorrow that are part of every human life. If we go through life, constantly expecting the worst, we will not be less unhappy if and when it happens. But we will surely have fewer resources to cope with it. And that is sad.
The advice given by the great Sufi poet, Rumi, in his wonderful poem The Guesthouse, can help us here. When I first came across it, some years ago, it puzzled me enormously. Why on earth should I “welcome difficulty”? But I have discovered that if we are to live our lives fully, feeling every emotion, every joy, every sorrow, we will be incomparably richer thereby.
I will finish by sharing the wise words of the late Penny Quest, of Cheltenham & Gloucester Unitarians:
Each new morning two choices are open to every one of us:
The choice to live that day in the joyfulness of Love,
Or in the darkness of Fear.
Each new day, as the sun rises,
We have another opportunity to make that choice.
The symbolism of the sunrise is the removal of shadow
And the return of Light.
Each new morning we have another chance
To rid ourselves of the burdens, sorrows and fears of the past,
To rejoice in the joy of the present,
And to look forward to a future of fulfilment
On every level of our being.
Each sunrise is a fresh opportunity to release fear,
To choose a different life-path,
To commit ourselves to joyful, light living,
To trust in ourselves and in the Universe,
To trust in the forces of Nature and in Mother Earth,
To trust God, the Creator, the all-That-Is.
May it be so, for all of us. Amen
Closing Words
Spirit of Life and Love,
Our time together is drawing to a close.
May we learn to cultivate gratitude,
embrace joy, so that we are more able
to be resilient when sorrow comes,
which it inevitably will, part of life’s rich pattern.
May we share the love we feel,
may we look out for each other,
sharing our joys and our sorrows,
and may we keep up our hearts,
being grateful for the many blessings in our lives,
now and in the days to come, Amen
Postlude Stella del Mattino by Ludovico Einaudi