Hope - Reflecting on the life and teaching of Victor Frankl in the context of Advent

Viktor Frankl (1905-1997) was an Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor, best known for his existentialist approach to psychology.  His life was profoundly shaped by his experiences in Nazi concentration camps during World War II, particularly Auschwitz, where he endured immense suffering and loss.

Before the war, Frankl had already established himself as a prominent psychiatrist, however, his life took a drastic turn when he, along with his family, was arrested by the Nazis in 1942. Frankl lost his parents, brother, and pregnant wife in the Holocaust.

During his time in the concentration camps, Frankl observed the impact of extreme suffering on individuals and he noticed that those who were able to find meaning and purpose in their lives were more likely to endure and therefore survive the harsh conditions. While those who could not find meaning or purpose tended to die much sooner.  He realized that even in the face of unimaginable suffering, individuals could maintain their human dignity by choosing their attitude toward their circumstances.

Victor Frankl's experiences in the concentration camps became the foundation for his most famous work, "Man's Search for Meaning," which was published in 1946 as well as his approach to psychology which he called logotherapy. In the book, he detailed his observations and reflections on human nature, resilience, and the quest for meaning in the midst of suffering. One of his key insights was that even in the most brutal and dehumanizing situations, individuals retained the freedom to choose their response and that this was a crucial human freedom that could never be taken away. 

In his therapeutic approach, logotherapy, Victor Frankl emphasized the importance of finding meaning in one's life. He argued that the primary human drive is not the pursuit of pleasure (as Freud proposed) or the quest for power (as Adler suggested), but rather the search for meaning. 

He believed that individuals can find meaning and purpose in life through their relationships, their creative endeavors, and by accepting the responsibilities and challenges that come their way.

Now today is the first Sunday in Advent. On this Sunday, all around the world, churches will begin their services as we did this morning by lighting the first candle of their Advent wreathe.  And the first candle of the advent wreathe is normally the Candle of Hope. 

Hope is a theme that is very much present in the season of Advent leading up to Christmas.  The Christmas Story is very much a story of hope.  In the Biblical story in Luke 2:10-11 we read that "And the angel said to the shepherds, 'Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.'"

It is a passage that expresses hope, hope that life can change, hope that life can be different. 

This theme of Hope is also found woven throughout the Christmas Carols we sing: 

In O Holy Night, we sing: 
“A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn”


As we explore the meaning of the word hope, I believe that Viktor Frankl’s experience of Aushwitz provides us with some helpful and important perspectives.  

Firstly, he spoke of “Meaning as the Source of Hope”: Victor Frankl believed that hope arises from a sense of meaning in life. When people are able to discover a sense of meaning and purpose in their lives it energises them and gives motivation and hope for the future.  

A second key to hope for Frankl, is what might be called “a Freedom to Choose Attitude”.
Central to his philosophy was the idea that even in the most challenging circumstances, individuals possess the freedom to choose their attitude. A freedom that can never be taken away. This includes how we choose to respond to suffering. By exercising this freedom-to-choose-attitude, 
hope arises when it is recognised that no-one can ever take this freedom from us.  If we can always choose how we will respond, Victor Frankl believed that the human spirit can therefore never in fact be defeated, and thus hope can be found even in the most difficult of circumstances. 

He spoke therefore of what he called ‘tragic optimism’ because from his own experience he had seen that even in the darkest moments, challenges and suffering could serve as opportunities for growth and therefore for the discovery of meaning. 

Thirdly Victor Frankl believed that meaningful connections and relationships with others play a crucial role hope. In Aushwitz he observed that the camaraderie and mutual support among prisoners fostered a sense of solidarity. The shared experiences and connections with fellow inmates helped individuals endure the hardships of the camp. The feeling of not being alone in their suffering created a sense of belonging and purpose and therefore a sense of hope.  

Lastly, Victor Frankl stressed the significance of having goals and a future-oriented outlook. Hope, in his view, is closely tied to having a positive vision for the future and actively working toward meaningful objectives. He believed that the anticipation of a fulfilling future contributes to a sense of purpose and hope in the present.

Getting back to the Advent Journey towards the Hope of Christmas, in what ways does the Jesus story invite us to become people of hope?   I wonder if part of the answer comes in one of the names that is ascribed to Jesus in the Christmas story.  In Matthew’s story, when the angel speaks to Joseph in a dream, the angel  says: “...and he will be called Immanuel which means God is with us.” Matthew 1:23. 
  
Now most Christians would understand that to mean that somehow Jesus was uniquely Divine and that in Jesus, God decided to make a 33 year visit to earth after which he got zapped back up to heaven.  But that is surely a simplistic understanding. Even the Psalmist in Psalm 139 believed that God was and is an ever present reality and that there are no God-forsaken places on earth or in the universe “Where can I flee from Your Spirit” the psalmist asks.  

Is it possible that the Advent hope in the coming of Jesus is the coming of one whose purpose was to remind us of this wonderful truth that God is always with us. And not just that God is with us, but rather there is an indestructible divine presence within each one of us. There is a son and a daughter of God in each of us that can never be destroyed or overcome.  And it is this divine presence and identity within that is the very thing that enables and strengthens us to exercise this freedom to choose attitude that Victor Frankl speaks of.  It is this Divine Presence and Identity within that is able to reach out and find meaning in relationships with others and finding solidarity in the midst of difficult and trying times.  It is this divine presence and identity within that enables us to find ultimate meaning in life and the ability to work towards a positive vision for the future. 

I close with a few quotes from Victor Frankl: 

“When a person can't find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure.” I wonder if that is the problem with much of Western Society today.  People no longer know where to find a deep sense of meaning and so they end up distracting themselves with pleasure. 

“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men [and women] who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man [person] but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.”

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” 

And it is because of this that he could also say: “Whoever was still alive had reason for hope.”

May God bless you and you consider this advent what hope means for you?  Where do you find your meaning and purpose in life. What is the source of your hope? How might we become beacons of hope for others who are in danger of losing hope?

​Beauty, Goodness & Truth
Rev. Moodie's Address at the Dublin Unitarian Church. 

The title of my address today is Beauty Goodness & Truth, although I think the more correct order should  be Goodness, Truth & Beauty. 

Today, I put Beauty first because it is probably the more accessible word, and a little less open to abuse than the words Goodness and Truth.  

And today, I would like to reflect on those words in the context of my own spiritual-pilgrimage-and-life-journey which will hopefully make me a little less of a stranger standing in front of you as I speak to you today. 

And so I begin this address in 1999 as a young 24 year old in my first year as a Minister in the Methodist Church of Southern Africa.   It was just 5 years after the first Democratic Elections of 1994. Nelson Mandela was President and there was a real sense of hope for change with the ending of Apartheid. 

As part of the Methodist Church’s program to embrace and facilitate the process of reconciliation in the country and in the church itself, they had begun placing many of their new ministers in cross cultural appointments, so we could begin to bridge the cultural divide after decades of racial segregation in the country.  

And so in my first year of ministry I was sent to Soweto the largest African Township in the country.  It was both exciting and challenging.  Exciting because it felt like I was playing my part, however small in building a new South Africa. Challenging, because I was thrown into the midst of another culture that was so different from my own, surrounded by a variety of languages that I did not speak or understand. Challenging also, because I was brought face to face with levels of poverty I had never seen before. It had always been kept somewhat at a distance. 

About two or three months in, the senior minister I was working under, assigned me to lead a Wednesday evening healing service at one of our churches deep in the township. After some beautiful and moving hymn singing, in which the congregation of about 50 people swayed and danced in true African style, Bible readings were read and a short sermon delivered myself, and opportunity was then given for people in the congregation to come forward for prayer and healing.  This was a first for me.   As I descended the pulpit, feeling a little anxious about what would happen next, pews were shuffled around, and very soon I found myself sitting in front of a row of about 20-30 people all seeking prayer. The majority of them were young mothers with little babies strapped to their backs or sitting on their knees.  And as I listened to-each-one, before praying for each of them individually, a common theme began to be expressed by almost all of them. ‘I am unemployed. We don’t have enough money at home. Please pray for me that I will be able to get a job.’

I left that service quite shaken that day. Filled with questions and a gnawing doubt.  Even while listening and praying for each of the 20-30 people who had come up for prayer I had found myself questioning how on earth my prayer would make any difference in their lives, questioning how on earth my prayer would miraculously get jobs for each of those people in a country which had one of the highest unemployment rates in the world and where the very structure of the economy was working against them.  

It was a kind of shattering experience. In that moment, I found that whatever had remained of my naïve Sunday School faith, which had already been deeply challenged by 4 years of theological study, collapsing around me.  Who or what was God? How was God at work in the world? What difference if any did my prayers make?

A few days later, I remember writing a letter to my parents.  And in that letter I expressed something of the inner struggles I was facing.  And I remember writing the following words: “I don’t know what I believe any more, but I know that I still believe in Goodness, Beauty and Truth”.

I am not exactly sure where those words came from, because at the time I had not heard of the Three Transcendentals in my Theological Studies. It was only later, that I came to read that those three words are known in Philosophy and Scholastic Theology as the Transcendentals, The Good, The True and The Beautiful. 

Some philosophers and theologians would add a few extra 'transcendentals' to the list.  Philosophically speaking, The Good the True and the Beautiful were regarded as The Transcendentals, because they were said to Transcend our ordinary experience of form in this world, and at the same time, everything in this ordinary world of form was understood to be expressions, in one way or another, of The Good, The True and The Beautiful. 

I am still not an expert in the Philosophy of the Transcendentals. But it was helpful to discover later on that those three words that I identified in 1999 as being essential to my own personal value system and faith, have a deep and venerable history in the realm of philosophy going back to the time of Plato as pointing to the essential nature of the Divine or Reality Itself. For me, it felt like I had stumbled upon those words intuitively and by accident as I had found myself flailing about as a young minister struggling to make sense of my faith, my calling and my vocation. 

Goodness, Truth and Beauty.  At the time I never tried to define those words. My engagement with them was at a more visceral and intuitive level, but they became three essential words that enabled me to continue as a Christian minister when I found myself doubting almost everything else. They became like a touchstone to me, a tool for spiritual discernment. A bit like the bread-crumbs in the story of Hans and Gretal, they became like clues with which I could begin to navigate myself back Home wherever Home was.  And as a Christian minister, as I reflected on the life of Jesus in the Gospels, in many of the stories I felt I could still discern something of the Good, the True and the Beautiful, in some stories more brightly than others, but there nonetheless. 

Before coming here to preach today, I listened to quite a number of the sermons on the Dublin Unitarian Website.  I found there a wonderful array of thought provoking reflections on a wide variety of really challenging topics, reflections on the possibility of reincarnation, reflections on the migrant crisis facing Europe and Ireland, reflections on the changing nature of sexual mores in a post-Christian society.  There was also a challenging reflection entitled “Can we trust the New Testament” in which Dr. Martin Pulbrook raised important and challenging questions about the historicity of the New Testament.  I would have to agree with him.  There are major question marks that surround the historical details of the Gospels.  

If the New Testament cannot be trusted from an historical perspective, what value if any remains in it one might ask?  My own answer to that question lies in part in those three words: Goodness, Truth and Beauty.  If there is value in the New Testament, then its value exists to the extent that it is able point us in the direction of Goodness, Truth and Beauty… Truth, not in the sense of absolute propositions and doctrines that are then proclaimed to be ‘The Infallible Truth’, but rather intimations, and archetypal stories that have the ability to inspire us to become True, Wholesome (‘Good’) and Beautiful and human beings.

I think for example of the story of Jesus and the Woman caught in adultery and Jesus’ incisive and compassionate response, “Let the one who has no sin cast the first stone”. It is a moving story because the Jesus whom it depicts embodies and and radiates a deep sense of The Good, The True and The Beautiful in contrast to the self-righteousness, the judging and condemnation of the religious Pharisees. Even if there emerged some absolute proof that Jesus never in fact existed, the Beauty, Goodness and Truth of that story would remain and would still have the ability to inspire us to become more compassionate human beings. 

Going back to 1999, a few months after that shattering experience leading that healing service, I was out shopping and found myself drawn into a Bargain Bookshop. I’m sure some of you might identify with the experience. And there in the bookshop, I found a copy of a book by the Vietnamese Zen Teacher, Thich Nhat Hahn entitled: “The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching”. Paging through it, even in the shop, I knew I had found a treasure, because almost immediately I could discern signs within it of the same Goodness, Beauty and Truth that I had could see and discern in the stories and teachings of Jesus. And as I arrived back to the Youth Centre where I was living, as I got out the car, I felt my heart expanding with a sense of joy and gratitude as I soaked in the beauty of the sky and the clouds above me. 

And so I discovered that those three words had given me a set of intuitive tools which enabled me to read and appreciate the writings and scriptures of other faiths too, The Hindu Bhagavad-Gita, and Upanishads, the Chinese Tao Te Ching which soon became a favourite and the many Buddhist writings and scriptures.  

It is something that Unitarians have known for a large part of their history, that the Scriptures of other faiths also have value to the extent that they can inspire and move us, helping us to become ever more deeply True, Wholesome (‘Good’) and Beautiful and human beings.

In Closing I offer you three quotes from Khalil Gibran that might invite us to reflect a little more deeply on each of those three words: 

On Goodness -  he writes:    In your longing for your giant self lies your goodness: and that longing is in all of you.

On Truth he writes:  “Say not, “I have found the truth,” but rather, “I have found a truth.”
Say not, “I have found the path of the soul.” Say rather, “I have met the soul walking upon my path.”
“Truth is a deep kindness that teaches us to be content in our everyday life and share with the people the same happiness.”

And on Beauty, he writes:  
Beauty is life, when life unveils her holy face.
     But you are life and you are the veil.
     Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
     But you are eternity and you are the mirror.

Step 5 We admitted to God, to Ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 

A year or two before I arrived in Northern Ireland, I received a call from an elderly congregation member from a previous church that I had ministered at. She asked if she could meet with me and to hear her confession.  

I was a bit nervous about it as I had never done such a thing before.  So I met with her at her home in a retirement village and there in her lounge over a cup of tea, she shared with me something she had done probably over 30 – 40 years before that she had never shared with anyone before.  For 30 or 40 years she had kept this as a secret.  But now, sharing the full nature of what she had done with another person, and holding what she had shared in prayer with the assurance of God’s forgiveness, it was as though a great burden had been lifted from her. 

It was a very moving experience for me, not only because it was the first time I had been asked to hear someone else’s confession, but most especially because she was someone I held in the highest regard because of her saintliness, humility, her overflowing kindness towards others, and her faithful service in the church over decades.  In that conversation it had felt like I was standing on sacred ground.  If anything, it felt as though that day, I should have been making my confession to her and not the other way around.  

I share this story with you, because Step 5 on the 12 Step Programme can indeed be seen as a kind of confession.   In Step 5 we are encouraged to admit to God, to ourselves and to another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs. 

In Step 1 we were invited to identify that one issue or struggle in our lives that we feel powerless over and that makes our lives feel unmanageable. 

In Step 2 we were invited to consider the possibility of a Higher Power. 

In Step 3 we were invited to hand over the care of our wills and our lives to that Higher Power, or God, as we understand God. 

In Step 4 we were invited to take a moral inventory of ourselves, listing as honestly as possible our virtues as well as our weaknesses. 

Today in Step 5 we are invited to admit to God, to ourselves and to another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs. 

Trevor Hudson in his book One Day at a Time suggests that Step 5 is more than just a confession.  He says it is a time for coming out of hiding, sharing our secrets, bringing the skeletons out of the cupboard, taking off our masks and finding and new freedom and peace. He says it is the invitation, to come clean, to the best of our ability. 

For Protestants this step might be for some a bit of a stumbling block, because it sounds rather like going into the Catholic confessional.  Isn’t that something that Protestants have left behind. Isn’t it enough to make my own private confession to God? 

It is important to remember that what the Protestant Reformation did was to challenge the Roman Catholic claim that to be forgiven you had to confess your sins to a priest as the representative of the church.   The Protestant Reformation however never denied that there might at some point in our lives be benefit in confessing our sins to another human being for to do so would have been to go against scripture.  The practice of confessing one’s sins to another is in fact quite Biblical. We find it in James 5:16  Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

The book of James suggests that confessing one’s sins to another person can be a good thing and can help us to find healing.  It does not specify however that such confession needs to be made to a priest or a clergy person, and neither does it say that you won’t be forgiven. But it does suggest that it can be very helpful for our healing. 

Getting back to Step 5, Trevor Hudson says that the fifth step has three parts: 

1. Firstly we must admit our wrongs to God.  He suggests that when we seek to be honest with God about our failings, it reopens the channels between us and God or The Sacred and we discover the cleansing power of Divine mercy flowing deeply into our lives.

2. Secondly, we must admit our wrongs to ourselves.  He says this means looking at our moral inventory again and acknowledging ‘This is who I am’.  There are no excuses for what I have done. I am not going to blame my upbringing, my genes or my circumstances. I am willing to take full responsibility for them.  Trevor suggests that when we are willing to face ourselves honestly in this way, we open the way for positive change to take place in our lives.

3. Thirdly, we must admit our wrongs to one other human being.  Trevor suggests that this is the scary part of the fifth step. It is a very difficult thing to be this honest with another human being. We would much rather remain in hiding, and have our secrets go to the grave with us, chain up the ghosts of the past and keep our masks firmly in place, than come clean in the presence of another human being.

Trevor Hudson writes that he knows the resistance to doing this. He says that he put off doing the 5th Step for several years, coming up with a whole host of reasons not to. 

Bit he says we avoid this part of Step 5 to our own detriment. He suggests that there are a whole host of enormous spiritual and emotional benefits when we do so.  And so he lists for major benefits that come to us when we admit our wrongs to God, ourselves and to another human being: 

1. Firstly we receive a stronger self-worth.  We seldom feel good about ourselves when we do wrong. Often we carry a huge burden of guilt and shame and which makes it hard for us to respect ourselves.  But coming clean requires bravery and courage and when we do brave and courageous things, helps us to feel better about ourselves. 

2. Secondly we receive a release from guilt.  Nearly all of us carry some kind of guilt around with us. And some people tell us we should not feel guilty about our deeds of selfishness, anger and prejudice, but Trevor Hudson says he couldn’t disagree more.  Guilt shows that we have at least some moral awareness of what is right and wrong. It is like a moral alarm bell.  The question is whether we will allow our guilt to motivate us to become better persons.   But naming honestly and confessing our moral failures can open us to receiving forgiveness which helps us to be released from the burden of guilt.

3.  Thirdly, we receive the gift of a deepening of our relationships. When we keep our shameful deeds hidden, and end up wearing masks of pretence, we end up cutting ourselves off from others preventing deep and honest relationships. Coming clean helps break the awful sense of isolation we feel as it opens us to experiencing a deeper connection with others. 

4. Lastly, it invites us into genuine spirituality. Trevor Hudson says that a common criticism thrown at religious people is that they are not sincere. The word usually used is hypocrite.  And if truth be told it is not always an unfair criticism. Too often in the church we give the impression of being better people than we are. Church attendance can very easily become part of presenting a polished version of ourselves to the world, when below the surface we know that all is not quite as it seems.

But when we come clean, Trevor suggests that it is precisely where we have most deeply failed that we experience most deeply a sense of God, grace and love in our lives.  It also enables us to be a little less condemning of others. When we can more freely admit our own faults, we become less defensive helping us to live with a freer spirit and a lighter heart.  

Those people in life that are easiest to get on with are not those who are perfect in every way. In fact they are often the most difficult to get on with. One has a constant feeling of being judged.  On the contrary, those who are easiest to get on with are those who are freely able to admit their own faults and don’t try to pretend to be better than they are. 

I found the story of a young man who with the help of his sponsor was able to take this step. Even though his sponsor was someone he had grown to trust, it still took an enormous courage to confess to him the exact nature of his wrongs.  Afterwards he felt quite exhausted but he knew something had changed. And in the weeks ahead he realised what a life-changing experience Step 5 had been for him.  For the first time in a long time, he could look at people and smile, and be happy when people looked happy to see him, instead of feeling burdened by the baggage he had been carrying. 

I end with a few quotes from Scripture - 

James 5:16  So confess your sins to one another. Pray for one another so that you might be healed. The prayer of a godly person is powerful. Things happen because of it.

Psalm 32:3-5 When I kept silent,
    my bones wasted away
    through my groaning all day long.
 
Then I acknowledged my sin to you
    and did not cover up my iniquity.
And you forgave
    the guilt of my sin.

Don Ward – Rather than admit a mistake, nations have gone to war, families have separated, and good people have sacrificed everything dear to them. Admitting that you were wrong is just another way of saying that you are wiser today than yesterday. 

​He Ain’t Heavy - Remembrance Sunday Reflection 

In 1917, the year before the ending of World War 1, a certain Father Edward Flanagan founded an orphanage for boys in Omaha, Nebraska, called Boys Town.  They now operate all over the world. 

In around 1918 the story goes that, the founder of Boy’s Town, Father Edward Flanagan, saw a boy named Reuben Granger, carrying another boy, Howard Loomis, up a flight of stairs at the orphanage. Howard Loomis had polio and wore leg braces, and so needed assistance in making his way up the stairs. The story goes that Fr. Flanagan asked Reuben Granger if carrying little Howard was hard. To which the young Reuben replied, “He ain’t heavy, Father, he’s m’ brother.”  

The Boys Town website tells how following that incident, the phrase, ‘He Aint Heavy, He’s my brother’ was adopted as the motto of Boys’ Town.  And in time a statue was erected at the entrance of the original Boys’ Town orphanage in Omaha, depicting the scene of young Reuben Granger carrying Howard Loomis with the words inscribed below:  “He aint heavy, he’s my brother”. 

In the early 1960’s a short film was made about Boys’ Town, which had grown, and by that time had orphanages all around America and even in other parts of the world.  The film featured the statue with the motto: He Aint Heavy, He’s My Brother.  When the songwriters, Bobby Scott and Bob Russell saw the film and heard the phrase, they were inspired to write the song.  At the time one of the songs writers, Bob Russell was dying of cancer while he was writing the song, which adds to the poignancy of the lyrics, because he died without ever really knowing just how popular the song would become and what an impact it would make on so many people. 

It was in the late 1960’s that the guitarist for the band ‘The Hollies’, Tony Hicks, first heard what is described as a very poor demo recording of the song. Despite the poor quality of the demo, there was something in the song that took hold of him and he saw the potential in it.  And so it was that in 1969, the song became a number 1 hit for the Hollies all around the world. 

It is a heart warming song of brotherly or sisterly love, that in a very moving way, expresses some deeply religious sentiments reminding us of one of the central Christian themes of sacrificial love.  It contains some beautiful and moving phrases:  

“But I'm strong
Strong enough to carry him
He ain't heavy, he's my brother…”

“...So on we go
His welfare is my concern...”    (It’s a phrase that reminds us of Cain’s answer to God when God asks him the whereabouts of his murdered brother Abel, and he retorts back to to God, “Am I my brother’s keeper”.)

The song continues… 
“No burden is he to bear
We'll get there
For I know
He would not encumber me
He ain't heavy, he's my brother.”

The song then goes on to express a wider message of love: 

“….If I'm laden at all
I'm laden with sadness
That everyone's heart
Isn't filled with the gladness
Of love for one another

It's a long, long road
From which there is no return
While we're on the way to there
Why not share?
And the load
Doesn't weigh me down at all
He ain't heavy, he's my brother”

The words of the song, also feel especially pertinent on Remembrance Sunday as we remember the heroic way servicemen and women have in moving and sacrificial ways acted out the meaning of the song.  A few months ago I found in the following story on the internet: 

It is entitled: Friends in Peace and in War

Though Jim was just a little older than Phillip and often assumed the role of leader, they did everything together. They even went to high school and University together. After University they signed up for military service ending up being sent to Germany together where they fought side by side in one of history’s ugliest wars.

One sweltering day during a fierce battle, amid heavy gunfire, bombing, and close-quarters combat, they were given the command to retreat.

As the men were running back, Jim noticed that Phillip had not returned with the others. Panic gripped his heart. Jim knew if Phillip was not back in another minute or two, then he wouldn’t make it.

Jim begged the lieutenant to let him go after his friend, but the officer forbade the request, saying it would be suicide. Risking his own life, Jim disobeyed and went after Phillip.  His heart pounding, he ran into the gunfire, calling out for Phillip.   A short time later, his platoon saw him hobbling across the field carrying a limp body in his arms.

Jim’s lieutenant upbraided him, shouting that it was a foolish waste of time and an outrageous risk “Your friend is dead’’ he added, “and there was nothing you could do.’

“No sir, you’re wrong,” Jim replied. “I got there just in time.  Before he died, his last words were “I knew you would come.”

It is a moving story, but one that doesn’t always end that way.  In the church that I grew up in, our ministers son, when conscripted into the Army, served as a paratrooper. When caught in Battle on the border with Angola, his friend was shot and fell on the battlefield. Although it was against the rules, Raymond turned back to help his friend and he himself was shot and killed. It was devastating for his family and for the whole church community. 

There are many stories of amazing heroicism on the battlefield where soldiers have indeed paid the ultimate sacrifice. 

But lest we too easily romanticize the heroicism of war it is important to remember that there is nothing romantic about war.  People’s lives are shattered and sometimes die in the most tragic and awful ways. Siegfried Sassoon was an English poet and novelist, who served in the First World War. Having been sent out to France to fight on the Western Front and was shocked by his experiences there. In the course of the war his own brother was killed while serving in France. Influenced by another poet also serving on the Western Front, in order to process what he was experiencing he was encouraged to write poems that expressed honestly what he was experiencing. 

And so he began to write in a more realistic way about the things he saw and experienced in France.   I came across the following poem, called ‘The Hero’ that expresses the starkness of his experience: 

"Jack fell as he'd have wished," the Mother said,
And folded up the letter that she'd read.
"The Colonel writes so nicely." Something broke
In the tired voice that quavered to a choke.
She half looked up. "We mothers are so proud
Of our dead soldiers." Then her face was bowed.

Quietly the Brother Officer went out.
He'd told the poor old dear some gallant lies
That she would nourish all her days, no doubt.
For while he coughed and mumbled, her weak eyes
Had shone with gentle triumph, brimmed with joy,
Because he'd been so brave, her glorious boy.

He thought how "Jack," cold-footed, useless swine,
Had panicked down the trench that night the mine
Went up at Wicked Corner; how he'd tried
To get sent home; and how, at last, he died,
Blown to small bits. And no one seemed to care
Except that lonely woman with white hair.

It makes me think of a quote I heard from someone just this week from Abraham Lincoln  who himself would have been very familiar with the devastation that war can bring. The quote comes from a heart broken by knowledge of the 100’s of thousands of lives lost in the American Civil war, many of whom were sent into battle by himself. He says:   

“There’s no honourable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending”. 

And so while we honour the true heroicism of so many who have fought in times of war, we might also lament also at the very existence of war, lamenting with the song writers as they write: 

“….If I'm laden at all
I'm laden with sadness
That everyone's heart
Isn't filled with the gladness
Of love for one another

It's a long, long road
From which there is no return
While we're on the way to there
Why not share?
And the load
Doesn't weigh me down at all
He ain't heavy, he's my brother”

Facing Ourselves - One Day at a Time - 12 Steps to Sanity (For Everyone) 
Step 4 – We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves

“Let us test and examine our ways and return to the Eternal.” Lamentations 3:40

Trevor Hudson describes having breakfast one morning with a friend who was a recovering alcoholic. Over eggs and bacon they talked about his tough drinking days.  He shared how when he went to work, he would always take a bottle of brandy with him and, whenever he could, he would sneak the bottle from his desk drawer and take a quick sip.  However, he would always leave the brown wrapping paper on the bottle. Intrigued by this detail, Trevor asked whether this was because he wanted to hide what he was drinking from his colleagues. ‘Not really’ came the reply, ‘I left the paper on because I didn’t want to see what I was drinking myself.’

This answer illustrates very powerfully the deep struggle that all of us have in being honest with ourselves. We often don’t like to see ourselves as we really are. It can often be quite unflattering.  It is much more satisfying to concentrate on the sins, shortcomings and character defects of those around us, in part because it deflects attention from our own flaws and also temporarily makes us feel a little more righteous in our ability to identify wrong from right, (as long as we don’t have to do it too close to home.)

Like Trevor's friend we often prefer to live under brown paper wrapping, and often that brown paper wrapping consists of our criticisms of others. 

Step four in the 12 step program confronts this tendency to avoid facing ourselves as it invites us to make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves and in doing so it invites us to face ourselves as honestly as we can. 

In many ways, Step 4 is a revisiting of Step 1, but this time inviting us to go even deeper.  Step 1 was an invitation to identify that 1 thing in our lives that constantly gets on top of us and that leaves us feeling like our lives are unmanageable.  Step 4 invites us to dig a little deeper and to begin to be honest about the rest of our lives too. 

Step 4 is also a deepening of our decision made in Step 3. Step 3 invited us to turn our lives and our wills over to the care of God as we understand God.  Step 4 invites us to be more detailed in exactly what it is we are turning over to the care of God. 

There is a paradox here too.  Turning over our lives and our wills over to the care of God, as we understand God, sounds like a passive surrender. But Step 4 suggests that this process of turning our wills over to the care of God, is paradoxically a process by which we begin to take more responsibility for ourselves as we make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. 

Again, building on last weeks reflection, unless we believe that God is utterly Good, utterly Loving and utterly Trustworthy, and has our best interests at heart, making a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves is going to be  extremely difficult. If we live in fear of God’s wrath and anger, then we are going to continue to try and hide behind whatever brown paper wrapping we can, or, as in the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis, we are going to try and hide behind whatever fig leaves we can find.  You can only be honest with someone that you feel you can trust and if you don’t trust in God’s immeasurable and boundless love for you, you are never going to be able to make an honest, fearless and searching moral inventory of yourself. Our picture of God has everything to do with how well we are going to progress along this path.  None of us can journey into the depths of our own darkness without the assurance that we are loved and valued beyond measure. As Jeremiah 31:3 says: I have loved you with an everlasting love. 

But what does it mean to take a moral inventory? 

Trevor Hudson gives a helpful illustration. He says that anyone who has ever been involved in a business will know the importance of making an inventory.  A business that does not know what stock it has to sell, or what machinery and assets it has and in what condition those assets are in will soon be in trouble.  It won’t be able to meet the needs of its customers, and there could be damaged stock and assets taking up valuable space and detracting from the ability for that business to grow and flourish.  It won’t be long before that business closes its doors. 

By analogy, if each of us is to grow and flourish as human beings this will be aided by taking an accurate inventory that reflects all the facts about our available stock, assets and resources. 

But Trevor Hudson also sounds a note of caution.  He notes that because the 4th Step describes this personal check-up as a ‘moral’ one, it would seem to suggest that when we make an inventory of our lives, that we should carefully look at the ways we have done wrong.  But he suggests that if we are going to take an accurate moral inventory of ourselves we will also need to list our moral strengths.  

Just as a business takes an inventory to know the state of it’s stock and assets, both negative and positive, so in making our own personal moral inventory, it is not just our moral wrongs and other character flaws that need to be faced and listed, but should also include our assets, those positive qualities in our lives that we can celebrate and affirm. These might be our ability to do certain things well, or character traits that bring out the best in us and enrich the lives of people around us.  He suggests that unless we are willing to name both our vices and our virtues, we will not end up with an accurate and balanced assessment of ourselves. 

But Step 4 suggests that strict honesty with ourselves is crucial if we want to experience deep inner change. 

He suggests that those who are winning the battle against destructive addictions and compulsions or self-defeating behaviour are not necessarily those who seem very religious, who know their Bible well of who can recite all the 12 Steps. Rather they are more likely to be those who are trying simply to be as honest as they can be with themselves. 

Step 4 suggests that making a moral inventory needs to be both searching and fearless. On the one hand we need to search out all the facts of our lives. On the other hand it must be fearless because facing ourselves with total honesty can often be really scary. We fear in the process that we might somehow be annihilated and so we sometimes try to avoid the ordeal by sayings things like ‘Why go digging up all these things from the past? Let sleeping dogs lie.’ 

But as any competent psychologist will tell you, those things in ourselves that we can’t face, don’t go away, they simply hide in the shadows and continue to haunt us in in hidden ways, bubbling up to the surface in when we least expect them to and in ways that we can’t always control. As it is often said, the only way out is through.  Avoiding being honest with ourselves will simply create new sets of problems. 

In making a fearless and searching moral inventory of ourselves, Trevor Hudson suggests examining 5 areas of our lives as outlined in the AA’s Big Book: 
1. Our resentments – Who are the people I resent?  What did they do or say to hurt me?  Was there anything I said that might have caused them to react the way they did?

2. Our fears – What have been the fears that have dominated my life since childhood? Why was I afraid in these ways? What am I fearful of at the moment?  Can we turn these fears over the care of a Higher Power?

3. Our sexual lives – When and how did I harm another person in this way?  How do I respond when my requests for intimacy are denied? Do I see others as objects to be used for my own gratification? Have I ever used sex as a weapon or a punishment?

4. Our financial affairs – Am I extravagant? Or am I greedy and tight fisted? Am I irresponsible with money? Do I live beyond my means? Am I honest and fair in my financial dealings with others?

5. Our social relationships – Do I insist on getting my own way and try to dominate those around me? Do I seek to control others with my hurt feelings by developing a sense of persecution or withdrawing into a sulky silence? Am I willing to contribute to the well-being of others or am I just a taker?  Equally, do I give in too easily to others, giving away my own power too easily and then end up seething with anger on the inside while living behind a smiling mask of pretence?

Trevor Hudson writes: When I did this for the first time many years ago, I can remember listing things like ‘not telling the whole truth’, ‘always wanting to be in the right’, ‘withdrawing from loved ones when things don’t go my way’, and a host of other self-centred and controlling behaviours. It was not easy to write these things down in black and white, but once I had done so, I felt as if I had been set free. 

I close with a few pertinent verses of Scripture: 

1 John 1:8 If we say we have no sin (failings, shortcomings), we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 

John 8:32 You will know the truth and the truth will set you free. 

Psalm 139:23-24  Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.  See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.  

Making a Decision - One Day at a Time, 12 Steps to Sanity (for Everyone) - Step 3 - Brian Moodie

​Trevor Hudson tells the story of a little boy who was drawing a picture with intense concentration. His mother asked him: What are you drawing? 
‘I’m drawing a picture of God!’ The little boy said. 
With a concerned look on her face, the mother replied, ‘But you can’t draw a picture of God. No-one knows what God looks like.’
Without looking up, the boy carried on drawing and answered confidently, ‘Well they will when I’ve finished drawing the picture.’

trevor goes on to ask: Have you ever stopped to think honestly about your picture of God? Is your picture or understanding of God Something or Someone that instils trust within you?  Or does your understanding of God instil anxiety and fear in you?

It is a pertinent question, especially as we come to Step 3 on the 12 Step Program, which invites us to make a decision to turn our will and our lives over the care of God as we understand God. 

In week 1 the first step invited us to be honest about our weaknesses, compulsions and self-defeating behaviour that undermines our lives and our relationships that make our lives feel unmanageable. 

In week 2 the second step invited us to consider the possibility that there is a Higher Power that can help to bring greater balance and harmony to our lives.  

Step 3 takes that a step further, inviting us to make a decision to turn our wills and our lives over to the care of God, as we understand God. To begin to open ourselves up to the resources of a Higher Power.

It is a reminder that it is not enough to entertain the possibility that there is a Higher Power that can assist us in bringing us to wholeness, one actually needs to make a decision to avail of the resources of that Higher Power, in the words of Step 3, by turning our will over to the care of God, as we understand God. 

And it is here that our understanding of God can either become a help or a hindrance.  If we have  a negative understanding of God that leave us in fear and anxiety, if we have a view of God that is less that Infinite Goodness and Infinite Love, and therefore less than Trustworthy, we are never going to be able to truly surrender our wills over to God, never truly open ourselves up to allowing the Divine or the Sacred to transform us from the inside.  We will always hold this God at arms length. 

About 13 years ago, I was working at a Theological College in Johannesburg and attending one of the large Methodist Churches in the area.  A lay pastor at the church asked to come and see me.  She had recently run an experiential retreat over a weekend for members of the church who wished to grow in their spiritual life. As she spoke to me, she was clearly extremely distressed.  As part of the retreat on the Saturday evening or Sunday morning there had been an opportunity for participants to consider surrendering their lives to God in a deeper way. (It’s not the kind of thing that is often done in the NSPCI). But the distressing part of the exercise for her was that the majority of participants did not feel they could participate.  As she questioned why they couldn’t participate in this experiential act of surrendering, it became apparent that they held views of God that left them feeling a deep sense of fear and anxiety.  The couldn’t bring themselves to surrender themselves to God, because deep down they didn’t trust God. They didn’t believe that God had their best interests at heart and so their instinctive reaction was to hold God at arms length. 
For the lay pastor leading the retreat, this came as quite a shock, because for her it should have been self-evident that God is infinitely loving and therefore infinitely trustworthy.  It was a shock to discover that this was not the case for many Christians. 

I touched on this last week in Step 2.  In my own experience I have come to realise that you will never be able to surrender to something or someone that you don’t trust.   And the beauty of Step 3 is that it invites each of us to revisit our understanding of God, or the Divine and to cast out from that understanding everything that is negative or unhelpful to our growth and blossoming as human beings.  If the picture of God you inherited leaves you feeling anxious and afraid, as is the case for many Protestant and Catholic Christians, then Step 3 invites us to come to a new understanding of God that is life-giving, life-enhancing and positive, conducive to human growth and fourishing. 

I believe it invites us to come to a new understanding of God as Goodness and Love Itself for unless you have come to believe that God is utterly Good, utterly Loving and utterly Trustworthy you will never truly be able to turn over your will to the care of God, in which case it may be better to find a conception of the Divine or the Sacred that does instil trust within you.  

And some in the 12 Step Program have done just that.  I have seen that one person chooses to substitute the word Love with a capital L in place of the word God in which can Step 3 reads as follows:  We made a decision to turn our wills over to the care of Love.  If you have a negative and harsh picture of God one can immediately feel the difference in that statement.  

Others might choose to substitute the word God with the word Wisdom with a capital W.   We made a decision to turn our wills over to the care of Wisdom. 

I saw on the internet that one person has re-interpreted the 12 step program through the lens of the ancient Chinese concept of the Tao as expressed in the little book of Chinese wisdom called the Tao Te Ching.  In Taoism, the Tao is understood to be the subtle and mysterious wisdom that is constantly being expressed in natural flow of life.  When you resist the Tao, or the natural wisdom flowing through life you suffer.  When you seek to live in harmony with the subtle wisdom of the flow of life you begin to live within that harmonious flow and life becomes more balanced. 

For others, the word God might even be substituted with the phrase Higher Self, in which case Step 3 becomes an invitation to turn over the care of our small ego driven will with it’s petty concerns and compulsions, to the care of our Higher Self, the belief that there is a Divine essence within each of us that is truly wise and truly loving (connected with the Divine) and which can direct and guide us to wholeness if we are open to it. 

However we understand God in this Step, the important thing is that we need to believe is that there is something higher, wiser and more wholesome than our current ego-driven self that can assist us and inspire us and instil confidence within us that life can be different and that we can become more balanced and wholesome people. And one of the key words in Step 3 is the word decision. We made a decision…  we made a decision to surrender ourselves, perhaps others might say to open ourselves to Something or Someone Higher than ourselves as we are currently living. 

Making a decision sounds all very evangelical, like when a travelling evangelist invites everyone to make a commitment to Jesus as their personal Lord and Saviour.  I don’t want to belittle that experience because for some it is indeed life changing. 

But turning one’s will over the care of God as we understand God (or a Higher Power) might simply be the daily commitment to seek a wisdom that is higher than our own.  It may mean simply that facing a challenge or a difficult situation and recognising that we don’t know enough on our own to know how to navigate our way through it, and in our hearts and minds to hand it over to a Wisdom or a Love that is higher and greater than our own.  It may simply be recognizing that often there is something Bigger going on than our small selves are able to understand or control and to take the risk of trusting that there is a Higher Wisdom that will somehow take care of things if we let it.  It may simply be a little prayer that says: I hand this situation over to God, or to Wisdom (with a capital W), or I hand this situation over to Love, with a capital L, or perhaps, I ask my Higher Self to help me navigate through it. 

For Trevor in his Book One Day at a Time, he describes his own experience at the age of 16 of giving himself over to God. He says it was a profoundly significant moment for him even though he did not see flashing lights, hear voices or feel goose bumps, but from that moment he knew that his life had begun to take on a different trajectory as his centre of gravity had begun to change.  It was not that everything fell immediately into place, but rather that a life-long journey had begun towards an  ever increasing balance, harmony and wholeness because in that moment, the person and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth became a primary reference point in the way he lived his life and the choices he began to make. 

What might Step 3 mean for each one of us?  What might it mean for you to hand over your will and your life to the care of God as you have come to understand God? Or to Open yourself to a Higher Power or a Greater Wisdom, or whatever it is in your life that instills within you a greater sense of trust and confidence and that might enable you to flourish. 

Hope For Change - One Day At a Time - 12 Steps to Sanity (for Everyone) - Step 2

Trevor Hudson writes that some time before he wrote the book One Day at a Time, he sat with a middle aged man who had come to him to speak about a problem that was slowly destroying his life. It had already cost him his marriage and left him estranged from his children and left him filled with a deep sense of shame and guilt.  He had repeatedly failed to overcome this struggle leaving him in the darkness of extreme despair. As he finished telling his story, the man looked straight at Trevor and asked: “Do you really believe that anything or anyone can help me to change?”

Trevor Hudson says that this question often comes to the surface when we begin to face up to those weaknesses and self-defeating tendencies that are getting the better of us.  

Maybe your weaknesses have not yet got you to the brink of despair yet? Maybe for many of us its just a case of hobbling along.  But there are many who, having repeatedly tried to get on top of their problem and failed, have been brought to the brink of despair and left wondering: Is there anything or anyone that can help me to change?

Trevor Hudson says that the second step in the 12 Step Program can begin to shine a light into this darkness as it boldly declares that there is a solution – a solution that can empower us to deal creatively with our weaknesses; a solution that can help us to live with a new sense of freedom, joy and sanity. 

The second step reads as follows: We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 

Trevor Hudson paraphrases it as follows: There is a Higher Power available to each of one of us that can help us to live more freely and fully. 

One of the criticisms of the 12 step program by more evangelical and fundamentalist Christians is that it makes use of the phrase Higher Power.  Most people would indeed understand this phrase to mean God. But the beauty and the helpfulness of this phrase is that it offers some flexibility in how different people might understand the concept of God.  For some who do the 12 step program, the word might not actually mean God for them.  For some their Higher Power might be the recovery group itself. For others it might mean the power of the universe, (which I would suggest is simply another contemporary, non-religious way of referring to God as a wisdom or power greater than ourselves.)

For some people, traditional God language has been sullied and discredited by painful and traumatic experiences of Church. For others, traditional Christian ways of speaking about God may just not resonate with them. And so for such people, referring to a Higher Power rather than to God in a traditional sense enables them to reap the benefits of the 12 Step Program and to draw strength from a Power greater than their small ego driven selves. 

The phrase Higher Power can be helpful in a number of ways. As Einstein is often quoted as saying: “You can’t fix a problem with the same thinking that got you into the problem in the first place.”  It is going to require a new way of thinking.  And so speaking of relying on a Higher Power to help restore one to sanity, implicitly suggests that one is going to be required to draw on Higher Thoughts than the thoughts that have been creating the problem in the first place. 

Secondly the phrase Higher Power invites us to consider the possibility that we are not completely isolated individuals left to struggle through life on our own. There are greater resources available to us than we have previously realised.  And for those who interpret the phrase from a religious perspective, whether Christian or non-Christian, the phrase reminds us that there are unseen spiritual resources that we can draw on to find strength in life. 

Trevor Hudson suggests that in this day an age, when people tend to refer to God in very familiar and superficial ways, using the phrase Higher Power can be a helpful corrective to our tendency to fashion God into some kind of manageable deity that we can control whenever we want to. It is also a helpful corrective to the superficial way in which we imagine God to be just like a magnified version of a human being somewhere above the sky.

Personally I understand God not as a big human being projected onto the sky, but rather as the Wisdom and Intelligence of Life itself. God is not a being amongst many other beings, not even the Supreme Being amongst many other lesser beings, but rather God is Being-Itself and all individual beings are simply partakers of the One, Who is Wisdom, Intelligence and Being itself.   And so Trevor Hudson suggests that the term Higher Power helps to preserve the mystery of the Divine inviting us to consider that there are unseen spiritual resources available to us if we can begin to take the step of faith to believe and trust in a Higher Power. 

The phrase Higher Power is in fact quite biblical if you ask me.  One of the Names of God in the Old Testament is El Elyon – which is often translated as “The Most High”.  It is Jesus who suggests that the Most High is also Most Loving.  In suggesting this, Jesus was essentially suggesting that this Higher Power is in its essence infinitely Good and there for it is a Power that is for us a not against us.  

This is important because many people carry very negative pictures of God with them. They see God as being vengeful, vindictive and punishing.  And if this is your picture of God then you will probably want to keep God at a distance. Such a God is certainly not Something or Someone that one could feel any real trust towards.  

Like Jesus, The Second Step on the Twelve Step Program also  suggests that the Higher Power that many of us call God, is essentially good, and has the ability to restore us to sanity and change us for the better.  We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 

Reflecting on that word Sanity, Trevor Hudson writes that usually the word insanity conjures up images of Jack Nicholson playing the part of a mental patient in ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’.  We may have problems and weaknesses we may think to ourselves, but we are certainly not insane. 

But the essence of the word Sanity describes a state in which we think and behave in balanced, healthy and life-giving ways.  

The word Insanity on the other hand describes when we think and behave in ways that are not balanced and healthy and when we constantly make choices that undermine our own well-being.  And so insanity is when we live in continually repeated destructive patterns of thought and behaviour in spite of the problems it may cause us. 

And so Trevor Hudson writes that this definition of insanity takes it outside of the world of padded cells and white-coated doctors and puts it right back into the middle of ordinary life. It invites us to call to mind all the self-defeating things that we keep thinking or doing that spoil our lives and our relationships.  And so Trevor lists some of the more ordinary insanity that many of us engage in on a daily basis: 

    • Blaming everyone and everything else for our problems
    • Trying desperately to control those around us to get them to do what we want
    • Giving our loved ones the silent treatment when we are angry with them
    • Constant procrastination, putting off important things that need to be done
    • harbouring hate and thoughts of revenge over things that have been done or said to us
    • blowing up angrily when things haven’t gone our way
    • talking incessantly and seldom taking the time to listen to what others are saying
    • gambling obsessively to the detriment of caring for our families
    • taking on more and more commitments at work even when we are already over-committed. 
    • Buying things that we do not really need and which place our lives under increasing financial pressure. (The list could go on...)

Do you recognise inklings of some of the insane behaviour that all of us can engage in?  Patterns of thinking and behaving that leave us living in unhealthy and unbalanced ways. Any  counterproductive and self-destructive or self-sabotaging behaviour has a  degree of insanity to it.  The truth is all of us live with varying degrees of insanity because all of us have counterproductive tendencies and none of us lives a completely healthy and balanced life.  (It could be said that humanity is living through a collective insanity as we destroy the planet and yet want to continue to live as though nothing is happening).

Getting back to the level of the personal, what are some of your subtle tendencies towards insane living! It is easier to see it in others isn’t it. 

The Second Step invites us to entertain the possibility that there is a Power (or a Wisdom) beyond our small ego driven selves that can restore us to sanity, that can help us to live more balanced and less self-destructive lives.  There is a Higher Power that wishes to help us live more balanced and harmonious lives and to be less self-defeating.  The Big Question is: “Are we willing to believe this?” Are you willing to believe that there is a Higher Power that has your deepest and best interests at heart?  Can you believe that there is a Wisdom that is Higher than the level of Wisdom you and I are currently living in? 

The Second Step in the 12 Step program tells us that whatever our self-defeating behaviour or thinking is, there is hope for change. And it begins with a step of faith… We came to believe there is a Power greater than ourselves that could help restore us to Sanity.  Hope for change… 

I Close with two verses from Mark 9:23-24
Jesus replied, “Why do you say ‘if you can’? Anything is possible for someone who believes!”

​​The Courage to Change

Trevor Hudson writes that there is one subject that we tend to avoid. Strangely he says it is not the subject of sex, or money or politics or death, or even religion.  Rather it is the topic of our weaknesses.  We are seldom prepared to discuss this aspect of our lives honestly he says, not even with out loved ones or close friends.

He goes on to say that there are a number of reasons for this.  Firstly society tends to think negatively of people we consider to be weak willed, weak kneed or weak minded.  Society regards them as the losers, the ones who are usually defeated, the unfortunates who lack what it takes to succeed, and we do not want to be thought of in that way. 

Another reason is that from an early age we are taught we have to be strong, especially for those who are males. He says the message is clear: The successful are those who are in control, who have it all together. Even if we are not on top of things it becomes important to pretend that we are. And so we are continually trying to look stronger or smarter or more successful than we really are. We cannot mention our weaknesses too loudly. 

A third reason that we don’t talk about our weaknesses, is quite simply that often we are quite blind to our own weaknesses. We see the weaknesses in others quickly and clearly but we don’t always notice them in ourselves, or we deny them or try to rationalise them away. Trevor Hudson says that the truth is that we have a remarkable capacity for self delusion and denial.  He says when we are confronted about our failures we say something like ‘I don’t know what came over me. I just wasn’t myself.’ in order to distance ourselves from whatever it was.  Quite frankly he says, what comes over us are our weaknesses, whatever they may be. 

And if one could go back in time to our more primitive ancestors living in caves and fighting sabre toothed tigers and defending themselves against other marauding tribes, one of the root causes for not admitting our weaknesses is pure survival.  The fear is that if we admit to our weaknesses we fear that might not survive, that someone will take advantage of us and we might be in some way annihilated. 

But the truth is that sometimes our attempts to deny our weaknesses to ourselves and others in order to look strong begins to backfire on us.  There comes a point when living in denial of our weaknesses becomes counterproductive as those covered up weaknesses begin to undermine our wellbeing and our life shared with others. 

Trevor Hudson writes that the good news is that we can live beyond our weaknesses, But before we can begin to experience this, there is one pre-condition: We first have to admit our weaknesses. And this is the wisdom of the first Step in the 12 step Program.

Step 1. We admitted we were powerless over some area of our lives.  That our lives had become unmanageable.

It is the humble admission of having a weakness. 

  Trevor Hudson says it is Wisdom that comes straight from the pages of the Bible and can be summarised like this:  The first Step towards change involves a courageous admission of our weaknesses.  And when we are unable to take this first step we cut ourselves off from experiencing the power to change from the inside.  How can you change if you deny that there is a problem or a need to change. 

What are the weaknesses that we struggle with that can undermine our lives and make our lives feel unmanageable: 

Firstly, there is the weakness of the will.  Having the sense of wanting to do something, but somehow not being able to muster up the will-power to actually do it. 

Secondly there is the weakness of our addictive or compulsive behaviour. This is behaviour that can often provide short-term pleasure or comfort but that undermines our long term well being and can sabotage our ability to achieve long term goals and happiness. 

Thirdly there is the weakness of habitual wrong-doing.  Deep down says Trevor we all know the difference between right and wrong, and between that which leads to wholeness and that which doesn’t, but often our habitual energies lead us away from the good, and habits can be very hard to change. 

Fourthly, there is the weakness of our negative thoughts and feelings, perhaps a continual sense of worry, an overwhelming anxiety, a deep feeling of worthlessness or fear or anger and aggression. And many of these feelings are connected with often forgotten traumas big and small from our childhood. Trevor Hudson says that one of the most damaging of all our feelings is resentment and the sense that we are owed something.  

The Apostle Paul who on the road to Damascus came to see more clearly his own weaknesses expresses some of these dimensions of our human weaknesses when he writes of himself in the book of Romans:    I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do…. I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 

What happens when we fail to admit our weaknesses? 

On the one hand, Trevor Hudson says we find ourselves living a lie. We hide behind masks of competence and self-sufficiency and we pretend we are ok. We become actors in the drama of our lives playing roles that are far removed from who we really are on the inside.  And in consequence people around us begin to feel like we have put up a barrier so that others can’t reach us or get close to us.  And this in turn leads us to feeling isolated from any real and meaningful openness and contact with people. Always pretending we have it together makes for very lonely living. 

Secondly, as already suggested, not admitting our weaknesses can make them even more destructive, especially when they become hidden secrets.  Those in the recovery movement remind us that we are as sick as our secrets and so unacknowledged weaknesses have a scary way of gradually taking over our lives, robbing us of our joy, our freedom and our peace of mind. 

And so the 12 step program reminds us that admitting the reality of our weaknesses is the first and most important step on the journey towards change. Without it there can be little or no progress. 

Admitting our weaknesses paradoxically takes enormous courage, honesty, humility and strength. Admitting our weaknesses is also not a once off event.  We may be aware of one weakness that we are willing to admit today, but in a few years time we may slowly become aware of other weaknesses that we have not yet seen and not yet been able to acknowledge. 

Trevor Hudson says that if we wish to overcome our weaknesses, or even just to learn to live in a more wholesome and balanced way with our weaknesses then naming our weakness is a powerful act, and in doing so he suggests trying to be as specific as we can be.  Naming our weaknesses brings our hidden struggles our into the open and can begin to connect us with others who struggle in a similar way. Writing them in a diary or a journal and getting them onto paper can help us to see them more clearly. 

And when we do so, Trevor Hudson says that we begin to discover one of the greatest secrets of the spiritual journey – that in our weakness often lies our greatest strength. Because in admitting our weaknesses it can open us to finding help, help from others and most especially it can open us up to Divine Resources. It can open us up to a power greater than our small ego driven selves and open us to Divine Resources that God has placed deep within us.   

This was the Apostle Paul’s discovery, who Trevor Hudson describes as a recovering sinner.  Paul writes in 2 Cor 12:10 “If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness… for when I am weak, then I am strong”. 

If admitting your weakness might be too difficult, an easier place to start might simply be admitting you need a change. Admitting that in some area of your life things are not as you would want them to be.  “I need to change such and such, because currently what I am doing is no longer working for me”.

What area of your life is no longer working for you…? What area of your life is beginning to undermine your well-being?  Can you name it? Can you admit that it is not working? 

Change cannot happen until we admit that something needs to change… and one of the quickest ways is to name exactly what it is that needs changing. 

I close with song lyrics from a contemporary Australian singer called Sia - 

[Verse 1]
World, I want to leave you better
I want my life to matter
I am afraid I have no purpose here
I watch the news on TV
Abandon myself daily
I am afraid to let you see the real me

[Pre-Chorus]
Rain, it falls, rain, it falls
Pouring on me
And the rain, it falls, rain, it falls
Sowing the seeds of love and hope, love and hope
We don't have to stay, stuck in the weeds

[Chorus]
Have I the courage to change?
Have I the courage to change?
Have I the courage to change today? (Oh)

One Day at a Time – 12 steps to Sanity (For Everyone) – Week 1 – Intro

Over the next 13 weeks or so I am going to be embarking on a new preaching series called “One Day At A Time – 12 steps for everyone” based on a book by Trevor Hudson. 

The book is interestingly a reflection on the 12 step program which has traditionally been associated with Alcoholic Anonymous.  But Trevor Hudson believes that the principles of the 12 step program have wider application and they are something that everyone can in fact benefit from. 

He writes that the book was written especially for those who worry too much, who struggle with some form of compulsive behaviour, for those who battle with increasing levels of stress and tension, for those who sabotage their relationships with destructive patterns of behaviour; those who feel trapped by feelings of guilt, regret and self-condemnation and those who may go to church on a regular basis but feel like their faith has become empty and stagnant. 

Trevor Hudson writes that if we struggle with some of these issues then there is Good News! There is available to all of us as human beings a Power greater than ourselves (one could say a power greater than our small ego driven selves) that can help us to change at an inward place; that can set us free from life-spoiling habits and which can help us to grow into better people; that can help to heal relationships, that can equip us to make a creative difference where we live and work. It is a Power he says that can help us to know the living presence of God in our lives. 

In Trevor Hudson’s introduction to the book he writes: 

“You may be wondering how I, an non-alcoholic, came across the Twelve Step programme?”

He goes on to describe how over the years, as he, even as a minister, preacher and pastor, has struggled with the need to change many areas of his life. 

He writes how when he was younger he struggled with an addiction to gambling in the area of horse-racing.  He says 25 years of marriage had also brought him the subtle depths of his own self-centredness. Moments of extreme tiredness have exposed compulsive tendencies to overwork and overcommit, and his children especially have taught him over the years to lighten up and to learn to enjoy life a bit.  These struggles of the years had caused much heartache and pain and struggle for him. 

He writes that some of his friends happen to be recovering alcoholics and he would often get together to talk about the struggles and joys of their lives. Whenever he spoke about his own compulsions and character defects they would point him towards the 12 Step Programme. One day one of these friends told him bluntly “Trevor, just work the Twelve Steps”. And thus he began to do so and has continued to do so ever since then on a day by day basis.  It was in this way he came to discover the power and value of the Twelve Step programme and the benefits it can have for everyone. 

Over the years, he says that he came to see the value of the steps in helping to keep his life of track and how much they have enriched his own life.  They have given him a way of dealing with his tendency towards compulsive behaviour providing him with a practical tool kit for spiritual growth and healing. 

But he says the results in his own life should not be surprising because the Twelve Step Program has over many decades helped millions of people all around the world, helping people to find a new peace of mind, a new found freedom and the joy of serving others. They have provided a solid and realistic plan for personal and spiritual growth.  

What are the Twelve Steps and how did they originate? 

The people largely responsible for formulating the 12 steps were Bill Wilson and Bob Smith who were founding members of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1938. And so this year should be if I am not mistaken the 85th anniversary of the founding of the AA. 

The principles listed in the Twelve Steps were principles which Bill and Bob had seen were effective in their own experience and that of other alcoholics and especially from his reading of Jesus Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-8.  

To state them briefly, and  in a way that is more widely applicable than they way they are formulated in AA, they are as follows: 

Step 1. We admitted we were powerless over some area of our lives.  That our lives had become unmanageable.

For some that might be alcohol, for others it might be compulsive eating, or overwork, or shopping or an uncontrollable temper, or perhaps  an uncontrollable anxiety, or inability to keep one’s office neat and tidy, a crippling sense of perfectionism, addiction to social media or to the constant approval of others… the list could go on. 

What area of your life do you perhaps feel powerless over, that sometimes feels unmanageable and that undermines your well being and the well being of those around you?

Step 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Step 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over the the care of God, as we understood God. (Non-Subscribing)
Step 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Step 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs.
Step 6. We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Step 7. Humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings
Step 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Step 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Step 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Step 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out.
Step 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others struggling with compulsive and destructive behaviour, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Trevor Hudson makes a few interesting observation that all of the steps in some way or another  resonate deeply with the spirit and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth and many themes in the New Testament. 

Steps 1-3 invite us to give up our natural tendency to want to be in total control – to be managing directors – and instead to let God be God in our lives…. To recognise that there is a greater Wisdom and Intelligence at work in life. 

Steps 4 5 and 10 call us to constantly examine our lives and to admit our wrongs. 

Steps 6-7 prompt us to let God (a Higher Power) a Wisdom Greater than ourselves change us from the inside out. 

Steps 8-9 encourage us to mend our broken relationships wherever we can. 

Step 11 encourages us to engage in practices that will enable us to deepen our openness with the Greater Wisdom and Intelligence of Life that we call God. 
Step 12 challenges us to share the hope and help we have gained with others. 

Trevor Hudson also points out that the 12 steps are not just a set of rules but a way of life… Not something that one does once and then ticks off the list, but a program to live by every day for the rest of ones life. As the AA’s Big Book says:  The spiritual Life is not a theory. We have to live it”

And so over the next 12-13 weeks as we explore the 12 Step Program firstly it will give us an insight into a program that has helped to transform the lives of millions of people over the past 85 years. Secondly, it will be an opportunity for us to reflect more deeply on our own lives and give us a set of tools that will hopefully enable us to live lives of greater sanity in a world that can sometimes feel a little insane. 

I close with a quote from 2 quotes from Scripture that seem to sum up the invitation of the 12 Step Programme: 

Jeremiah 33:6      “Behold, I will bring ...health and healing, and I will heal them; and I will reveal to them an abundance of peace and truth.”

Zechariah 9:12     “Return to your fortress, you prisoners of hope; even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you.”

SERMON TEXT - TURN TURN TURN 

In 1959 Pete Seeger wrote the song "Turn! Turn! Turn!", also known as or subtitled "To Everything There Is a Season".  It has been sung by numerous people and groups including  Judy Collins, The Seekers, Nina Simone, Dolly Parton, Chris de Burgh and most famously the Byrds in 1965 who actually made it into a hit. 

To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time for every purpose, under heaven

A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep

In fact it is difficult to actually say Pete Seeger wrote it… It would be a little more accurate to say  that he co-wrote it with King Solomon or an anonymous Jewish Wisdom teacher, depending on which scholars you consult regarding the authorship of the book of Ecclesiastes. Traditionally it was said to be King Solomon, but many scholars would say that the language and content of the book would suggest a much later date of authorship.  Whether one takes King Solomon or an unknown wisdom preacher to be the author of Ecclesiastes, it could be said that the song holds the distinction of being the number 1 hit with the oldest lyrics in the world as well as a musical collaboration spanning between 2100 and 3100 years. 

Pete Seeger himself openly admits that, apart from the tune which he wrote himself, he only really wrote 7 words of the lyrics one of which was the word turn, which he used repeatedly and then the final 6 words of the song: “I swear it’s not too late”. All the rest of the words come entirely from the book of Ecclesiastes chapter 3:1-8. 

Like all Biblical passages, the lines from Ecclesiastes could be open to myriad interpretations especially when viewed against the rest of the book, but Peter Seeger's contribution to the song turned the words of Ecclesiastes into a plea for world peace with the closing line: "a time for peace, I swear it's not too late." 

As I have already said, the book of Ecclesiastes is traditionally attributed to King Solomon although many scholars would not take that literally.  But in a symbolic sense it is significant that the book was was attributed to him.  He epitomises the wealthy and well-to-do. In 1 King 10 it is said that he received 25 tons of gold every year.  In addition King Solomon is said to have received revenues from merchants and traders from all the Arabian kings and governors of the territories as well as receiving wealth from those who came to listen to his words of wisdom. The Biblical writer summarises the splendour of his wealth by saying that King Solomon was greater in riches than all the other kings of the earth. 

And yet, one of the refrains in the book of Ecclesiastes are the words meaningless, meaningless, meaningless. Some would translate them as ephemeral ephemeral  ephemeral. It is a symbolic reminder that like Solomon, you can have all the wealth in the world and yet still not know the true meaning of your existence. You can have all the wealth in the world and still feel like life is empty, ephemeral and meaningless.  

It is a reminder at harvest that temporal things, food and drink, bread, produce are vital for our existence and yet… they cannot satisfy our deeper hunger. Jesus summarised it in these words: Man cannot live by bread alone!  We all need a deeper purpose and a deeper meaning than simply satisfying our bodily needs and desires. Food and clothing and shelter may be important and necessary, but they are not enough. 

Without discovering some deeper more eternal reality, the Turning of the seasons and the endless repeated cycles of life can very quickly begin to seem meaningless and ephemeral.  

And so while we celebrate with thanksgiving the produce that can feed and sustain our bodies, we look for food and a sustenance that would feed our deeper hunger for things of an eternal nature… things that do not rot or waste or rust away in a few days to paraphrase the words of Jesus. 

Jesus in John’s Gospel is portrayed as urging us to seek the Bread that is from Heaven a bread that will help to satisfy a deeper hunger. 

In a world that is constantly changing, and turning, Turn Turn Turn, Jesus, and all the great mystics of the world invite us to discover that which is eternal and unchanging.

Meister Eckart, a German mystic and pastor from before the time of the Reformation (who got himself into trouble with the Roman Catholic Church at the time) taught that there is a divine essence within each of us, a light in the soul that is uncreated and indestructible, unconditioned, universal, deathless, a divine core of our personalities which cannot be separated from God, an essence within the soul that lies at the very centre of consciousness.  He taught that this divine essence is in every person and can and should be discovered so that it’s presence and it’s sparkling light can be brought forth as a reality in daily life.  He also taught that this discovery of our spiritual or divine essence within each of us is life’s real and higher goal. As Eknath Easwaran puts in his book Original Goodness, our supreme purpose in life is not to make a fortune, nor to pursue pleasure, not to write our name in history, but to discover this divine spark, or the seed of the divine that is in our hearts.  

And when we realise this goal, we discover simultaneously that the divinity within ourselves is one and the same in all – in all individuals, in all creatures, and in all of life, and having discovered this Divine Essence within which Jesus called the Kingdom of God and Buddhists call the Buddha Nature, in bringing it forth into the world we begin to become part of the solution and the healing of the world, rather than being part of the problem. It enables us to move beyond our  greed, fear and anxiety enabling us to bring forth the fruits of love of wisdom, courage and compassion in the world. 

Turn Turn Turn, there is a season for everything under heaven, a time for peace, I swear it is not too late.  There is an urgency for not just in making peace with each other in this world, but also in making peace with the earth and learning to care for our Mother earth who sustains us with food and produce, learning to live not as greedy exploiters of the earth for our own private pots of wealth but to become people whose lives are dedicated to the healing of the world. It won’t be solved by technology alone, but as humanity begins to tap into the Divine essence within as as we begin to bring that forth into the world. 

Meister Eckart said that pear seeds grow into pear trees, apple seeds grow into apple trees, and God seeds grow into God. And that is our destiny to grow into the Divine beings God has created us to be. How do we make these seeds grow. How do we become farmers of the spirit watering the divine seed within, nurturing the light within us and in others that sparkles and shines… 

1. Firstly, some form of regular daily meditation, that will help us every day even for a few moments to turn inwards.   Eknath Easwaran suggests taking a beautiful passage of scripture or a prayer like the Prayer of St Francis of Assisi and memorising it and then saying it prayerfully and slowly every morning or every evening.  This can nurture the seed of Divine love and peace within our hearts. 

2. Secondly by engaging in acts of love and kindness and generosity… even the smallest acts of love, and generosity open the heart and enable the divine seed within to sparkle and shine and in doing so brings beauty and healing into the world.

And so on this Harvest Sunday, at the turning of the seasons, and in thanksgiving for all that sustains our physical bodies, we are invited to become farmers of the spirit,  watering and nurturing the divine seed within that we may bring forth and abundant harvest of love, kindness and healing in the world. Amen.