|
One of the consequences of being regular service taker is that you become aware of the need to be constantly on the lookout for new sources of material for readings, or to provide inspiration for the address. When I go into a bookshop I immediately head for the Mind/Body/Spirit section. I flick through the books, and if I can see 2 or 3 readings that show promise, I’ll buy it. There is a constant supply of new spiritual-type books on the market, so my book shelf is feeling the strain. I do intend to use the books as a source of my own reading. I notice, however, that I always seem to end up with books with one or two pages well used and marked while the rest of the book retains its pristine state; just as it was when it left the shop. This year I decided to be more consistent, and resolved that every day I would make time to read from one of the many books sitting on the bookshelf; I would read, then put into practice, the recommendation for that day. Doing this would transform me into a model of serenity and calmness and it would have the added benefit of providing me with ample material for addresses guaranteed to keep the congregation enthralled with profound spiritual insight. I had a wide choice of books available: A return to Love (Marianne Williamson), The impossible will take a little while, and then this one, Simple Abundance, by Sarah Ban Breathnach. This was first published in 1995 and was the New York Times best seller for two years. It has a reading for every day so it seemed a good choice. The reading for 2nd January promises me that if I follow the advice, in a year I will be ‘living the most creative, joyous, and fulfilling life I can imagine’. It also reminds me that I have 365 bright mornings and starlit evenings to look forward to: ‘A simple abundant year ahead waiting to be savored’. As with most New Year resolutions, the first few days were fine but I gradually fell by the wayside. This is not unexpected. It is due in part to my lazy nature, but I also realise that I find these books are alright to dip into now and again but as a source of regular spiritual guidance they are simply ‘too sweet and nice’. Reading them every day is like living on a diet of really luscious cream cakes. The theory sounds great but very few of us can get beyond three cream cakes! Like our daily diet, too much sugar and sweetness simply doesn’t do the job of providing sustaining nourishment; these types of readings only work when they are reserved as an occasional treat. It would be wonderful if these books could actually do what they claim on the cover. But they never do, because what they encourage us to aspire to is not reality. The life they describe is like Michael Jackson’s Never, Never Land; it is a creation of the imagination. Life is not all sweetness and light, nor is it all doom and gloom; it is and always will be a mixture of light and shadow of good and bad. When life is good we tend to forget spiritual practices. Think of your own experience: take a few minutes to remember a time when you were really happy; bring the feeling of joy to your mind. When you remember a time of real happiness, I bet that none of you remembered feeling that you were unable to cope with all that happiness. When we feel exceptionally happy we feel in love with the entire world; problems don’t exist and we are confident that we know all the answers. We feel in tune with life and the Universe and utterly invincible. When times are good we cope just fine; we don’t need tips from a feel good books. We probably don’t even remember to express gratitude for our happiness. When we hit the rough patches of life, some of the advice offered in this book is simplistic, unrealistic and often downright useless. In one reading she speaks of the effects of the recession and the consequences of unemployment. She writes: ‘It is easy to surrender to an emotional depression when a financial one occurs. It’s easy to be pessimistic about tomorrow when today seems so bleak.’ She goes on: ‘Now is the time for us to discover the secrets of the stars, to sail to an uncharted land, to open up a new heaven where our spirits can soar. But first we’ll have to make changes, lasting changes. We’re going to learn to become optimists.’ Optimism, she assures us can be learned. ‘Start today with a little experiment. Smile at everyone you meet, expect something good to happen and a simple abundant world awaits’. Try selling that advice to the 400,000 people who are unemployed in Ireland, to someone unable to pay the mortgage, and facing the possibility of losing their home. Another feature of this type of book is that it encourages us towards too much introspection. The whole emphasis of the book in on me, how I feel, how I should be feeling, how I need to make time to care for myself, create my own style, convince myself of how beautiful and wonderful that I am. If I had the persistence to follow the daily readings, at the end of the year I may have a more ordered house, my wardrobe may have improved, there may be more scented candles in my home, but I know that I would certainly not have achieved any sort or lasting happiness. I know this because I know life is far more complex than this book portrays. If the book has any value it is for tedious days, days when we are a bit bored, when we are drifting rather than engaging in life with a sense of purpose. Some of the readings may provide the push needed to get up and begin to appreciate our existence, and then we may go on to make a contribution to society. These books have proliferated on the book shelves because, in truth, none of them addresses the human condition in any meaningful way. The Hindu tradition says that there are four levels in the development of the human soul. This self obsessed, ego based lifestyle according to the Hindu tradition is regarded as falling into the level of late childhood. Reality is more than living in a tidy, colour-coordinated environment, it is messy and troublesome and sometimes there is no quick fix available; sometimes there is no solution; we just have to adjust to life as it is. We are all familiar with the story of Job in the Jewish Scriptures. The book of Job says, ‘Human beings are born to trouble just as sparks fly upwards’. Now there is a phrase that has the ring of truth. We may rail against life, condemn it as being unfair; events in our life may cause us to question our most deeply held religious beliefs; at the end of the day nothing changes and we continue to suffer. This is the human condition, we were never intended to live a life of super abundance and tranquillity dressed in rose coloured glasses. There will be times when we find it impossible to meet the day with exuberance. There are times when, like Job, all we can do is to wallow in our misery. Job sat on a pile of ashes and scraped the sores on his body. We may not quite resort to literally sitting on a heap of ash but we all have our own equivalent cocoon of misery. Sometimes we comfort ourselves by picking over old wounds. This is human nature; it is difficult to let go of the things that have hurt us. We may think we have forgotten the hurt, that (to use the modern expression) we have ‘moved on’, then, for some reason, the memory returns and, without warning, we find ourselves right back on the ash heap picking at the wound again. Few if any of the modern books on spirituality are honest enough to say that this is the nature of life. The only choice humans have is whether to accept it and make the best of it or spend our short life in misery. Brendan Behan’s mother said, ‘You may as well sing grief as cry it’. The book of Job also reminds us of the value of friendship. Three friends came to comfort Job. The words of Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, which were intended to provide comfort, had, in fact, the opposite effect: hence we have the expression ‘Job’s comforter’. Their words did not provide comfort; their real value was that came to Job and they sat with him in silence for seven days and nights. Humans need each other; we need one another to share and laugh with and to celebrate the good times, to support each other in difficult times, to share with one another the entire spectrum of the amazing experience of life. We may not be able to fix the problem; we may not have the right advice, but simply to be there and say nothing may work miracles. The Book of Job tells of the problems in life. The Book of Ecclesiastes, also from the Jewish Scriptures, gives more insight into the nature of life. It tells us that nothing lasts forever; that sorrow and joys will pass. ‘To everything there is a seasons and a time for every matter under heaven a time to be born, and a time to die a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted a time to kill, and a time to heal a time to break down and a time to build up a time to weep and a time to laugh’. Books that tell us that life can be transformed by tinkering with external petty details are not being truthful. If they did manage to change their readers, what a lot of bores they would be! A book that promises us happiness in a year’s time is not being realistic and is setting the reader out for disappointment. Real life is far more complex than these books portray; life is a blend of light and darkness, and we shouldn’t try to judge too hastily which is the light and which is the dark. As our story unfolds, we may notice that the colours seem to change; what at first seemed bright may darken, and what appeared to be the brightest colour suddenly has a dark undertone. The religious traditions can all provide us with guidance on how we can weave the light and the dark together to weave our own wonderful, very individual work of art. A work of art containing only the pale pastel colours lacks depth; a work of art containing only dark colours is depressing. If we are skilful, we can blend the dark and the light to get the best value from each colour. I must remind myself to be careful how I spend my money in bookshops, a new title that tops the New York Times best selling list may be just a very short lived phenomenon, I may already have the well tried and tested classic waiting neglected on the shelf.
Rev.Bridget Spain. |