Dr Macnab
Thoughts for the Week
Sunday 19th February, 2012 - Dr Francis Macnab
Is there anything to live for? Is anything worth pursuing apart from money, love, and caring for one’s own family? If so, what could it be? Talk of “something to live for” has a faintly religious flavor, but many people who are not at all religious have an uneasy feeling that they may be missing out on something basic that would give their lives a significance it now lacks.
What can we live for?
We can live an ethical life.
Most people have only the vaguest idea of what it might be to lead an ethical life.
- Peter Singer
The commitment to a more ethical way of living will be the first step of a gradual but far-reaching evolution in your lifestyle and in your thinking about your place in the world.
- Peter Singer
Pause a moment: consider what you have in material wealth.
What you do in your activities
and what you are, in your spirit.
All these are important, although many people devote themselves only to the first two categories.
- Mardi Horowitz
We are just a great machine for looking backwards and we foster the delusion that this will make us ready for the future. But what if the future is totally different from all of the past?
- Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Believe that a further shore
Is reachable from here,
Believe in miracles and cures and healing wells.
- Seamus Heaney
Sunday 12th February, 2012 - Dr Francis Macnab
For many people, ‘faith’ and ‘belief’ are just two words for the same thing. But they are not the same... We can BELIEVE something to be true without it making much difference to us, but we place our FAITH in something that is vital for the way we live.
-from "the Future of Faith" - H. Cox
In the centre of a square in Lisboa there is a cypress tree. Its branches, instead of pointing up to the sky, have been trained to grow outwards, horizontally, so that they form a gigantic, impenetrable, very low umbrella with a diameter of twenty metres...the branches are supported by metal props, arranged in circles around the massive trunk; the tree is at least two hundred years old.
-from “Here is Where We Meet” - John Berger:
A parable. We can be like that tree. We can also be one who encourages others to come under the tree, to be one of the branches reaching out, to be one of the props, supporting the tree in different places. All of us remembering the tree which over a very long life, has been an inspiration for many.
“Not only is there in everybody a divine particle, but there is in every body a particle peculiar to them to be found nowhere else. Everyone has in the eyes of God, a specific importance in the fulfilment of which none can compete with them.”
-an encouragement, Martin Buber.
“He was indeed, something of a saint: a man who seemed to others to possess simple goodness, and what some called spiritual grandeur. Everyone who met him was impressed by his greatness and wisdom.”
-Anthony Storr
Our quest today: We search for a high sense of wellbeing: A sustained sense of wellbeing. As more people experience their strong sense of wellbeing, they carry a healing and transforming influence into the world where they live.
We are aware of a Presence within and around us.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope.
-Charles Dickens. Born 200 years ago, 7 February 1812
Sunday 5th February, 2012 - Dr Francis Macnab
May we be reminded here of our highest aspirations,
And be inspired to offer our gifts of care and service for the good of our humanity.
May we know we are not isolated beings,
But connected in mystery and miracle
To the universe
To this community
And to each other
May these connections enlarge and enrich our lives
And the lives of others.
We here seek the ways of harmony with each other,
Strength and courage in ourselves,
An enhanced quality of life
And wellbeing -
For all.
At the end of 2011, we noted the remarkable events of the last 40 years. So many comings and goings over those years. Did we make a difference to those who came? Did we enhance the goings of those who left us?
Now is the time to look forward. Time to welcome more people in their coming. Time to ensure St Michael's will be a best experience while they are here. Let this be a place where each one will find themselves saying -
“here is where we meet.”
Sunday 29th January, 2012 - Rev Peter Burnham
Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality.
-G.K Chesterton - Orthodyxy
The man who tells you truth does not exist; he is asking you not to believe him. So don’t.
-Roger Scruton - "Modern Philosophy".
There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.
-Shakespeare - "Hamlet".
Reason is our soul’s left hand, faith her right. By these we reach divinity.
-John Donne
What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: our life is the creation of our mind.
-The Dhammapada 3rd Century BCE
The desire to know is natural to good men.
-Leonardo Da Vinci
Sunday 22nd January, 2012 - Rev Dr Antony Floyd
“Superficiality is what seems to characterise our politics, media coverage and expressed cultural values best. We are in the shallows: and not just politically.
Now is the time to go deeper, much deeper. It’s time to delve into the places that supply our better values and instincts, to the practices that renew our faith traditions and ethical priorities.”
-Jim Wallis – Sojourners – December 2011
“There is no well marked road which our history will take
It turns writhes and darts with surprise unforseen
Our life is like mountains with valleys between
And spiralling paths through the mixed up ravines.”
-Professor Ross Snyder, 1974
Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God has come near …”
-Mark 1.15
“Let me create within myself a carefree tranquillity, a place for every encounter, unreserved receptivity, and unhurried disposition ... Let me answer thoughts and situations rather than words!”
- Hassan Dehqani-Tafti – one-time Bishop in Iran, in exile.
Quoted in "Living Water Thirsty Land", UCA Assembly 2008
Sunday 15th January, 2012 - Dr Debra Campbell
I can’t help thinking that if we had taken all the money we have spent on exploring outer space and used it for inner-space exploration, on knowing ourselves better, the world would be a better place.
-Bernie Siegal MD
When patients are in despair the analyst’s task can be to help them wait. This can only be done when he or she is willing to wait along with them - without hope, desire, or understanding; with nothing but faith. It is faith that makes it possible for the analyst and patient to tolerate the painful emotional experiences that are inevitably part of the analytic process, and of life.
-Contemporary psychoanalysis, in "Discover A New Faith"
Sunday 8th January, 2012 - Rev Ron Rosinsky
“One hundred years from now
It will not matter
What kind of car I drove
What kind of house I lived in,
How much I had in the bank
Nor what my clothes looked like.
One hundred years from now
It will not matter
What kind of school I attended
What kind of computer I used
How large or small my church.
But the world may be
... A little better because...
I was important in the life of a child."
-Anonymous
“Dark and cold it might be
But winter-time is not.
Now is the time
Where wrong comes up to meet us
Everywhere—
Until we take the longest stride,
That soul folk have ever taken."
-Christopher Fry
Sunday 1st January, 2012 - Dr Francis Macnab
Welcome to St Michaels -
A place of renewal and
inspiration
A place for making contact with a New Faith
for a New Year.
A place for finding a different level of
enjoyment and enrichment.
Over 3,000 people have a meaningful contact with St Michael’s. 4,000 people visit St Michael’s every year. What we do and say in St Michael's each Sunday goes out to people in 65 countries. These figures are astonishing. What really matters is how St Michael’s can enrich and enhance the life of one person.
Sunday 25th December, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
The New Faith at Christmas revisits old stories and celebrates new beginnings. It is a time for all human hearts and spirits
To open - to be comforted and healed;
To be alive with energy and hope,
It is a time to gather together in a spirit of greetings and genuine expansiveness and exuberance.
The New Faith points to a new human being, a new humanity, a new way to be the people of God.
Gather then, and sing, the welcoming hymn is in celebration we open “the gates” to let the Good Spirit (the King of Glory) flow into our lives.
Let this day be a memorable Christmas Day in the best possible way.
Sunday 18th December, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
Sometimes, the little things make all the difference.
And man spoke of his friend - “Each time I remember him, our last day together, the twinkle in his eye, I awaken again to how fragile life is, and how precious.”
-Forrest Church
Easy at first, the language of friendship,
Is, as we soon discover,
Very difficult to speak well, a tongue
With no cognates, no resemblance
To the galimatias of nursery and bedroom,
Court rhyme or shepherd’s prose,
And, unless often spoken, soon goes rusty.
-W.H. Auden
Some notes demand to be sustained
Others like tiny sparrows fly and flutter
And are gone
Yet their music lingers.
-Francis Macnab
The door to the season stands ajar.
Through it, crickets sing.
Grass ripens in the flat stones of the walk.
- Jan Zwicky
He does not see his characters talk. He sees
Them mottled, in the moodiest costumes,
Of blue and yellow, sky and sun, belted
And knotted, sashed and seamed, half pales of red
Half pales of green, appropriate habit for
The huge decorum, the manner of the time,
Part of the mottled mood of summers whole,
In which the characters speak because they want
To speak.
- Wallace Stevens
Sunday 11th December, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
Christmas comes again to remind us of the powerful energies of renewal and restoration in all of life.
“The church after the death of Jesus believed and expected the coming of the kingdom. We believe that in his ethical religious personality, the Messiah and the kingdom are come.”
“The situation may be likened to the course of the sun. Its brightness breaks forth which is still behind the mountains. The dark cloud takes colour from its rays and the conflict of light and darkness produces a play of the fantastic imagery. The sun itself is not yet visible: it is there only in the sense that the lights issues from it. As the sun behind the morning glow, so appeared the personality of Jesus of Nazareth.”
-Albert Schweitzer
The bark beetle ‘is no bigger than a grain of rice.” “This tiny insect.”
Is one of those things “that require us to revise our sense of ourselves in this world and understand our place on this earth.”
-David Mattsu
Help us to believe in ourselves -
In the very best in the human spirit.
Knowing its goodnes, its energy, its strength, its resilience.
-This Hungry Time
Sunday 4th December, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
The New Faith is the dynamic engine that brings together the personality and its surrounding culture. It is about who we are as human beings and it encourages our deep desire to be better human beings and to explore new directions, celebrate our self-worth, and enjoy the fullness of our potential and the very best that life opens to us as its gifts.
(p. 232: Discover a New Faith)
Love is an active power which breaks through the walls which separate one from the other, which makes a person overcome the sense of isolation and separateness, yet permits them to be themselves, retaining their individuality and integrity.
-Erich Fromm
How happy is he born or taught
That serveth not another's will…
... Who passions not his masters are…
… who hath his life from rumors freed…
...who entertains the harmless day
with a well-chosen book or friend
...This man is free…
Lord of himself though not of lands;
And having nothing he hath all.
-Sir Henry Wooton
“The lovers all die of betrayal and a broken heart. The non-lovers live longer. And hate everyone. Is that how it is?”
-Jeanette Winterson
“Somehow let us not waste love.”
-Iris Murdoch
“Love can enlarge both personalities and bring new life to a whole family or group - but it rarely happens without conditions.”
-Richard Chessick
“Love has always mystified us. Why is it good to some, and so frugal in its gifts to others?”
-Hungry for Love
Sunday 20th November, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
Strong personalities know life comes with many positive and numerous negative experiences. There’s a vast difference between people who have grown in self confidence and benefitted psychologically from their experiences AND those who become increasingly defensive and destructive in their responsiveness to life. Different people will show different trajectories of growth and these may change over time.
-Richard Tedeschi
Character strengths and positive adjustment often go hand in hand. Both of these require continual refurbishment, as they can quickly deteriorate. The character strengths of courage, optimism, persistence and self-regulation are coherent factors in the overall picture of health and adaptation.
-Rhonda Cornum
“No person exists apart from their living body...”
“If you are your body and your body is you, then it expresses who you are. The more alive your body is, the more you are in the world.”
“We would all like to be and feel more alive.”
-Alexander Lowen
Some people clearly have an energised expansive spirit.
“Spirit is the animating principle of human life. It comes from the word SPIRARE which means ‘breath’, and it is the root of aspire, aspiration, inspire and inspiration, Thus, spirit is the breath of life... Spirit is that which gives vivacity, energy, liveliness, courage and ardour to life.”
When one is ‘high-spirited’, one is lively, active and showing the joy of being alive and being part of something bigger than self.
-Rollo May
“One of my classmates had cerebral palsy... The only way he could write was by gripping a pencil between his toes and arching his leg over the desk. For all that, he was a funny and entertaining guy once you got used to his strained efforts at speaking...”
-Ken Robinson
“Altruism born of suffering has people more from being a survivor to being an activist to help others.”
-Pilar Hernandez-Wolfe.
Sunday 13th November, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
What can you do to make your mind more beautiful? You are born with a certain shape of mind and body. There is only a certain amount you can do to make them more beautiful. But there is very much more that you can do to make your mind more beautiful.
-Edward de Bono
The beauty of your mind should show in your conversation.
A beautiful body and a beautiful face age and grow old. A beautiful mind can become ever more beautiful - with age.
-Edward de Bono
TODAY we remember what we have been given, what we have been able to develop and achieve; and we are grateful for the actions of so many who have made it possible for us to have a beautiful mind, and to be a beautiful human being.
TODAY, we remember the people lost in our wars; people damaged in destructive homes and relationships; and the people who have spoken the soft and soothing words, the people who have helped rebuild, restore, and renew.
TODAY is a day of Remembering and Thanksgiving.
TODAY, at the end of Morning Service, you are invited and encouraged to make your quiet pilgrimage through MINGARY -
There to remember;
There, to be grateful;
There to feel the healing strengthening symbols;
There to gather new strength for life.
TODAY, we come to this sacred place - hoping.
We leave this place, knowing a pathway of healing.
And we are grateful.
TODAY
The flags of six countries of the Greater Horn of Africa are displayed, along with the Australian flag.
On this Remembrance Sunday, we remember the thousands of Africans who die every day.
We remember too, the resilience of the African people, and their deep sense of caring for each other.
Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan and Djibouti face the worst drought in 60 years. Eleven million people are at risk. Among them, there are 2.3 million children “severely malnourished.”
We remember - we have our origins in Africa. Today it has one billion people, 54 countries and over 2,000 languages.
Today we celebrate our common human bonds with the people all over Africa. Our compassion is a further bond with these nations of diversity.
Sunday 6th November, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
Everyone knows the experience - ‘What will I do? Now that this has happened, what is the best thing to do: what is the most appropriate action to take?’ When a distressing life event occurs, the primary task is to draw on our inner resources and our outer supports, to help us adapt and make some sense of it all.
“A moment of joy can offset years of suffering or emptiness.”
- Michael Eigen
“We have to discard the past
and, as one builds
floor by floor, window by window,
and the building rises,
so do we keep shedding…”
-Pablo Neruda
“Don’t think I’m going to die.
The opposite is true;
It happens I’m going to live.
To be, and to go on being.”
-Pablo Neruda
“The day comes without schedules or warning
to tell of life again and morning unexpected.
It is always a surprise, life I mean,
never what I anticipate, and seldom what I ask.”
-James Kavanaugh
“We all stand on the edge of life, each moment
comprising that edge, before us is only possibility,
this means the future is open.”
-Rollo May
Sunday 30th October, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
The first movement of the symphony is only one part of the whole. If you miss the finale, you miss the full impact of the music. If you read a chapter of a book, or a few chapters, you may miss the golden thread that runs through the story giving it its coherence and its meaning.
"Recognise and rejoice in the Unity of all Being, stand in awe and wonder at the glory of all that is, bring about as much consciousness, love, solidarity, creativity, sensitivity and goodness as we possibly can."
-Michael Lerner
We are likely to become tangled in the fragments of daily life. If we stay with the parts we may miss the view of the whole.
"The more we succeed in quieting the mind, the more receptive it becomes to the unity of all being."
-Michael Lerner
"You need to understand that human beings are fully integrated into mind /body/psychological/spiritual/communal totality. If each of us is all these interacting dimensions, ...then when we get sick, every aspect of us needs healing."
-Michael Learner
Sunday 23rd October, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
Some words from “THE BOOK OF RACHEL” - Leslie Cannold
“As I moved towards the window, Judah called my name again; more insistent this time, ‘Rachel!’
I looked out, then down, and into my beloved’s upturned face, its features lost to darkness, but for the crescent of his smile.’
(p. 117)
Love:
Rachel to her father: Why, Papa? What led you to change your mind?
My father ... Taking his time to formulate his answer, ‘Because everyone wishes to try their hand at love, Rachel ... Why should you be any different.’
Anticipation:
‘I was awake before first light the next day. I sat on my mat and waited for the first streaks of light, intimations really to colour the sky. Lips moving soundlessly, I spoke to my lost sister about my excitement, my hopes for the coming adventure. I described the lightening that seemed to crackle and race beneath my skin...”
(p. 142)
Golgotha:
‘Golgotha was the place where, on a crossbar nailed to the beheaded stump on an olive tree, the Romans hung my brother naked and left him to writhe in the sun. Above his head a crude sign declared his crime in Hebrew, Greek and Latin.’
(p. 287)
Afterwards:
‘I saw him! Maryann announced to the circle of hostile faces...I saw my beloved in a dream.’ ‘...God rolled the stone away...he healed my beloved...’
(p. 307)
‘The journey was at an end. Although for me, of course, it was just the start.’
(p. 310)
And afterwards:
“I understand you now, mama, just as you said I would...”
(p. 322)
Sunday 16th October, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
“Remember then: there is only one time that is important - Now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power.”
-Leo Tolstroy
Old time’s
Gone time;
New time’s come.
Old fears still lurk behind the tombstones,
Of this new season.
-John Barrie Morley
Might we choose to make
This time a waking-up event
A moment of world empowerment?
To pledge, in private, to be more aware
More playful, more tolerant, more loving
Awake to our unsuspected powers, more amazing.
-Ben Okri
We have the capacity to “look forward” to a time yet to come; and we can “look back” to a time which once was. We can imagine and invent, and we can forget and deny. Such is our life in the passing of time.
“We go towards something that is not yet, and we come from something that is no more. We are what we are by what we came from.”
-Paul Tillich
Anxiety and depression, fear and hope, “once upon a time,” and the celebration of a particular time - are all part of our experience of time.
Sunday 9th October, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
“No matter where we are in our life span, or where we sit on the various ladders of life, we are all part of a great ongoing pathway of discovery. The New Faith is a conversation about what is of ultimate importance in this whole process.”
-Discover a New Faith
“We all need stories to break open our hearts and reconnect with the mystery of life.”
-Laura Sirrim
“I bring a message from life.”
-The Cat in a Therapy Group
“The New Faith is about being liberated from hate and hostility...from our entangled neuroses. The New Faith points in several directions to set us free to be better human beings.”
-Discover a New Faith
“At various points theology and therapy join to reflect on the “givens” of life; what is of immediate concern, and what is of ultimate importance; an appreciation of the astonishing experiences of life; and the expansive pathways of our growth and transformation.”
-Dacher Keltner
We see many examples of religion and theological beliefs becoming major ingredients in mental disturbances and personality disorders. We will search for new ways whereby theology and therapy will become partners in redefining mental health, and how they will contribute to an enhanced mental health.
“Religion brings a new zest, which adds itself like a gift.”
-William James
“Beneath the surface of life...there are unsuspected deep and great spiritual forces that condition and control our lives.”
-Evelyn Underhill
“Spiritual growth involves finding a community of support with others who share similar values and perspectives.”
-T.G. Planter
Sunday 2nd October, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
Large sections of the population don’t want to hear about theology, because they have never heard about it. Or the glimpse they get of theology at weddings and funerals confirms that belief that it has nothing to say to them, so they do not listen.
We have theology in one “box”; and our “situation” spread out in front of us (not in a box), the question is - does theology have anything to say to our “situation”? Often we hold onto some remnants of a “theology” we once assumed to be the only theology, and we try to impose it on our new and different situations.
Theology is about what concerns us deeply, expansively, ultimately. If you are ill or “out of sorts”, or exploding emotionally, you must be deeply concerned about something. What happens if we discover a kind of theology that speaks therapeutically (ie, restoratively) to that deep concern of ours? What form will that theology take?
“Faith in the New Testament is the state of being grasped by something of deep significance - a restorative power in the mind.”
Paul Tillich
Virgil spoke to Dante;
And now what ails you? Why do you lag?
Dante replied;
As flowers droop and pucker in the night
Turn up to the returning sun and spread
Their petals wide on his new warmth and light -
Just so, my wilted spirits rose again
And such a heart surged through my veins
That I was born anew...
St Michael's Day: Sunday 25th September, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
St Michael’s is a unique place in all of Melbourne.
St Michael’s is one of Melbourne’s distinctive architectural treasures. Its exterior is a landmark in the City of Melbourne. Its interior affects everyone. Its windows, its tapestry, its various appointments attract people from around the world as well as from places across Australia.
St Michael’s reflects its biblical legend - an advocate of the prevention of violence, destruction and waste - and the promotion of growth, wellbeing and wholeness.
St Michael’s encourages all who come within its walls, to explore the possibilities of a relevant, meaningful Faith for this 21st Century; for people searching for a purpose and passion in their lives; for the consolations and courage they need to meet the conflicts and stresses that are so prevalent in modern society.
St Michael’s points to the possibilities of a new sense of wellbeing, and how each person can have a part in building a better world.
Today, St Michael’s shows its concern for Planet Earth, for people and their communities, for the animals - “all creatures great and small.” Here the prevention of violence, destruction and waste is a significant concerns for our everyday.
“Animals become our friends, we become their friends, when they look back at us and we are confronted by the mystery of the Other which is at the root also of our own being. Non-humans are not as clever as we are in human terms, but neither are we as clever as they are in their terms.”
-Stephen Clark, Professor of Philosophy, Liverpool
Sunday 18th September, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
The New Faith fully reflects the most necessary direction our humanity needs to take to ensure the survival of the planet and its people. The pointing finger in the New Faith points beyond us to the best and the beautiful, to what is positive and possible.
We need to say our ‘goodbye’ to the negatives of an Old Faith, and be fully open to greet the positives of a New Faith for today.
We are born with the intelligence to grasp and shape the pathways of our growth.
We look for goodness to be stronger than our readiness to succumb to a lesser humanity.
If we accept that we are “made in the image of God”, we had better check on what part of God and what is the image.”
(All the above: Themes for “Discover a New Faith.”)
Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime.
Therefore we must be saved by hope.
Nothing true of beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate sense of history.
Therefore we must be saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however victorious, can be accomplished alone.
Therefore we must be saved by love.
- Reinhold Niebuhr
God changed his appearance every second.
Blessed is the ‘man’ who can recognise him
In all his disguises.
- Nikos Kazantazakis
And God said: "I shall be there whom I there shall be."
- Exodus 3.14
Sunday 11th September, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
I sing the eternal song of the universe -
my solo ballad in a cosmic symphony
in which we are each required voices.
Its rhythm thrums within my heart,
it echoes in the pulsing of my blood;
the electric hum of its vibration,
its timbre, tone and harmony
is the musical movement of my soul.
- L.L. Schneider
Mandala, Holy circle,
let your pattern hold me still
in total emptiness of self
drawn into the sacred centre
to seek the power there of love,
of justice, forgiveness, truth.
Help me bring myself in silence
to the blessed fire at the centre
to listen to the hissing fire-wind-
the Great Spirit whispering truth.
- L.L. Schneider
“They are strong who conquer others, they are mighty who conquer themselves.”
- The Good Book: A.C. Grayling
“To do better, you have to want to do better.”
- Edward deBono
“If you do not know how to disagree you will never have a beautiful mind. This is the critical operation. If you get this wrong then your mind will be ugly even if it is effective.”
Remember - there are those who disagree because they do not know any other way of exploring a subject.
- Edward deBono
“She decided I needed laughter, every day
was waiting in my office with a joke,
selected specially, just right for me -
not rude, or stale, or obvious. Not easy either.
- U.A. Fanthorpe
Sunday 4th September, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
Earthbound, I watch the darting swallows,
In shivering reeds the wind is caught.
Bright water bears way the mind’s
Unraveling of restless thought.
-Gwen Harwood
“We drag
Expensive ghosts through
Memory’s unmade bed.”
-Paul Hoover
“We can so easily slip back from what we have struggled to attain, abruptly, into a life we never wanted."
-R.M. Rilke
“Even against the greatest of odds, there is something in the human spirit - a magic blend of skill, faith and valor - that can lift men from certain defeat to incredible victory.:
-Walter Lord. World War II memorial in Washington, D.C.
“None of us can help the things life has done to us. They’re done before we realize it. And once they’re done, they make you do other things until at last everything comes between you and what you’d like to be…”
-Mary in O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night.
Often as we are involved in healing and a new era in life, we are involved in a spiritual struggle about matters of deepest significance for oneself and for others. These struggles have sometimes been associated with profound growth.
-Psychologist, Kenneth Pargament
Sunday 28st August, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
“Fear stops me from being the person I could be.”
“Some people seem to have no fear. They are full-on living life full-on. I would give a lot to be like that.”
“Why can’t I be like my cat?”
Often fear is a stop sign that warns ‘danger ahead.’ But maybe the sign needs to be decoded.
“I fear rejection.”
“I fear what other people will say.”
“I fear I won’t be able to cope.”
“Fear can be a positive experience if it occurs at the right times in the correct dose.”
-Harriet Lerner
“All my life I have been trying to test my real potential. But that has meant knowing how to handle my ‘underground anxieties,’ and how to regather my strengths.”
“We need not let anxiety silence our authentic voices, or stop us from acting with compassion or courage. In today’s world, no challenge is more important than that.”
-Harriet Learner
Sunday 21st August, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
“What must I do to tame you? Asked the little prince. ‘You must be very patient,’ replied the fox.”
-Antoine de Saint Exupery
“And out of so many seeds, (innumerable deeds,) will come a new humanity.”
-Ben Okri
“I believe that the One World which is emerging can come into existence only only if a NEW ‘MAN’ comes into being.”
-Erich Fromm
“Uncover what you long for, and you will discover who you are.”
-Phil Cousineau
Love creates new blood vessels. Anger and anxiety constrict the ones we already have.
"Kindness, or the lack of it, has been getting a lot of press lately.”
-Adam Phillips
“This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart, is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.:
-Dalai Lama
“Over a dinner one night, my friend said, ‘Isn’t it amazing that when we do things from our hearts, we actually produce a chemical thats good for the heart?’”
-David Hamilton
“Some of us are profoundly ambivalent about kindness. We love it, and we fear it.”
-Adam Phillips
Sunday 14th August, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
The right word restores faith in “everything.”
The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a strange, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is a as good as dead a snuffed our candle.
-Albert Einstein
“Faith starts with awe.”
-Harvey Cox
“When Christianity became swollen with an elaborate code of prescribed beliefs...policed by a hierarchy, the meaning of “faith” was warped beyond all recognition.”
-Harvey Cox
What then is the real energy of faith?
Faith is a healing word. Unfortunately we are often driven into more words, and not one is a healing word.
“I ask only kind words from you.”
-Tagore
Sunday 7th August, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
We need a New Faith -
Faith in ourselves
Faith in some designated people
Faith in the future
Faith in the goodness of humanity
Faith in the process of healing and hope.
I want to take the beliefs and themes of faith and translate into a practical realistic faith that will affect the way we live in the world.
“Many (people) are creating new ways of understanding, and relating to, “God” in an attempt to make sense of their lives, the world, and the nagging notion of something that has created and sustained it all.”
-Nigel Leaves
“We see ourselves as being on an open-ended journey...a journey in faith and hope, in which there is always something new to learn, a mind-set to be expanded, a perception of things to be stretched, a deeper wisdom to be discerned.”
-Archbishop Peter Carnley
“There is a major difference between FAITH and BELIEF. “we can BELIEVE something to be true without making much difference to us, but we place our FAITH only in something that is vital to the way we live.”
“Creeds are chisters of beliefs. But the history of Christianity is not a history of creeds. It is the story of people of faith.”
-Harvey Cox, professor of divinity (retired),Harvard University.
“We have entered a new age, we have crossed the threshold of a new era. This has brought with it the chance to start over.”
-Robert Funk, founder of the International
-Scholars of the Jesus Seminar.
Sunday 31st July, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
“Human strengths are frequently born in encounters with life difficulties. Strength is often fired in the crucible of adversity.”
- Carol Ryff
Look at us, the men of the world -
What psychology will be important for us, lest we settle for the well-sworn clichés of previous generations even though they no longer fit this exciting age that continues to stretch the boundaries of thought.
And look at the woman of the world -
Often full of zest in their younger years, but older years take their double toll.
There is a psychology for our older years. Perhaps we need a theology of ageing - a theology that gives life a new meaning, an overhaul of thought, mood and behaviour.
“The river of time carries us all away. All we have is the moment.”
- Bill Clinton
So much depends
Upon
A red wheel
Barrow
Glazed with rain
Water
Beside the white
Chickens.
- William Caros Williams
“We do not have to accept the world as it is; we continually create it.”
- Martin Buber
“You’ve got to find your own song to sing.”
- Irvin Yalom
“Presume not that I am the thing I was.”
- Shakespeare: Henry IV
Sunday 24th July, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
World Refugee Day is an important opportunity to remind us about the obgoing plight of millions of refugees around the world.
- Robert Alan, American Writer, artist, Social Activist
I speak for those children who cannot speak for themselves, children who have absolutely nothing but their courage and their smiles, their wits and their dreams.
- Audrey Hepburn
Though much is taken, much chides; and much though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved heaven and earth: that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will -
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
- Tennyson
To all survivors out there, I want them to know that we are stronger and more resilient than we ever knew. We survived, that should be enough but it isn't. We must work hard to become whole again, to fillour soul with love and inspiration, to live the life that was intended for us before it was disrupted by war and horrors, and help rebuild a world that is better than the one we had just left.
- Loung Ung, Cambodian-American Human Rights Activist
We are all part of a human family and we should be about doing what all good families do - caring for our less fortunate brothers and sisters.
- Dan O'Neill, Founder, Mercy Corps
While eery refugee's stroy is different and their anguish personal, they all share a common thread of uncommon courage - the courage not only to survive, but to persevere and rebuild their shattered lives.
- Antonia Guterre, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, 1978-1985
"I dream of a cursed day
And I am afraid
...I dream of a burnt out sun
And I am aching
I dream the dream of the poor
And I am hungary,
And cold,
And then I bless the day,
And turn down
Into an offering.
For I shall light the sun's fire again
With the spark
Of my soul."
- Elie Wiesel
"The more I am spent, ill, broken pitcher, by so much more am I an artist. This green shoot opening up from the roots of the old felled trunk."
- Adele Tucker
Sunday 17th July, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
“How to promote human strengths - emotional strengths - is the challenge of everyone from infancy to old age. We are constantly challenged. How will we respond will reflect our emotional maturity and vitality.”
“It doesn't matter much why people help each other, as long as they do. Does it matter that they do with an eye to self-gain, or they didn't ever stop to think why they do it."
Perhaps genuine altruism shows greater emotional growth and balance, so why not teach more people the ways of altruism? It could be as important as our pursuit of personal happiness. But - then - one might enhance the other.”
-Nancy Eisenberg
“Search for wisdom. You shall drink from an inexhaustible well for the health of your soul.
-Epicurus, 341-270 BC
“The ability to withstand the tension of feeling both positive and negative emotions may be an important human strength.”
-J. T. Larsen
“To live everyday as if it has been stolen from death, that is how I would like to live...to feel the joy of life...to say I am alive. I am wonderful, I am. I am. That is what I aspire to.:
-The Dog Speaks His Wistom, Garth Stein
Sunday 10th July, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
“To understand people, we must understand their unique ways of construing their worlds. People’s behavior, their problem, and attempted solutions are understandable when their global and situational meanings and their contexts are understood.”
-Crystal Park
“If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay home.”
-James Michener
“For many, a concern with the sacred or transcendent goes to the heart of what it means to be human.”
-Thomas Plante
“The conscious mind gives us one way of making sense of our environment. But the unconscious mind gives us, more supple ways.”
-David Brooks
Sunday 3rd July, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
After all, these are serious things we have to talk about. We can’t settle them in a minute.
-From Dr Zhivago
“Religion goes from one spiritual function to the other to find a home, and is either rejected or swallowed by them.:
-Paul Tillich
“Embedded in the most dry and technical concerns, we sometimes uncover an eruption of light that can break through the smothering darkness. In our lives, in our sacred writings, and in the inner most chambers of our souls we can uncover the sparks of light, warmth and hope.”
-Bradley Artson
“Deprive me of bread, if you want,
deprive me of air, but
Don’t deprive me of your laughter.”
-Pablo Neruda
“Religion opens up the depth of our spiritual life which is usually covered by the dust of our daily life and the noise of our secular world."
-Paul Tillich
“And a man doesn’t have time
To have time for everything
He doesn't have seasons enough to have
A season for everything.”
-Mehuda Amichai
And so he sits back and waits -
For it all to happen!
-U.A. Fanthorpe
Sunday 26th June, 2011 - Rev Peter Burnham
Wisdom comes from the experience of living. To travel the road of wisdom requires knowledge of ourselves and others - in love and hatred, in joy and sorrow, in victory and defeat. To experience life, and to learn its truth - this is wisdom.
“What is the price of experience? Do men buy it for a song? Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is brought with the price of all that a man hath, his house, his wife, his children.”
-William Blake
“The era that heeds wholesome admonition will lodge among the wise.”
-Proverbs 15.31
“Knowledge comes but wisdom lingers.”
-Alfred Lord Tennyson
“Knowledge can be communicated, but wisdom cannot. A man can find it, he can live it, he can be filled and sustained by it, but he cannot utter or teach it.”
-Hermann Hesse
“Who is a wise man? He who learns of all men.”
-The Talmud
“Blessed is the man who finds wisdom, the man who gains understanding, for she is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold. She is more precious than rubies; nothing you can desire can compare with her.”
-Proverbs 3:13-15
Sunday 19th June, 2011 - Dr Eileen Ray
We give thanks for the blessing of winter:
Season to cherish the heart
To make warmth and quiet for the heart
To make soups and broths for the heart
To cook for the heart and read for the heart
To curl up softly and nestle with the heart
To sleep deeply and gently at one with the heart
To dream with the heart
To spend time with the heart
A long, long time of peace with the heart
We give thanks for the blessing of winter
Season to cherish the heart.
-Winter Blessing Leunig, M The Prayer Tree 1991 North Blackburn, Vic., Collins Dove
Greening
One tree is not a forest
but one tree can make a forest
therefore take time
give yourself space
that your spirit
may green
and flourish.
Winter -
Nature's alpha and omega -
the womb of all our Springs
the goal of all our Autumns:
in you life ends
in you life begins.
Winter -
Season of hidden mystery -
of death that leads to life
sleep that leads to reawakening
reflection that leads to action.
Winter -
Season of paradox -
of warming cold
singing slilence
enlightening darkness
fulfilling emptiness
of joy hidden in pain
of hope in despair
of buried identity
and enlightening mystery.
Winter -
Sign of soul's dark night -
yet your
buried aloneness
but preludes
God's dawning,
the ever-vibrant
ever-greening
Spring
of the
Spirit.
-Winter Wallace, W Singing the Circle Book 3 Broken Bread, Broken Chains? 1990 Methodist Church of NZ, Christchurch.
Sunday 12th June, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
“Nearly everyone has wronged another. Who amongst us has not longed for forgiveness/ Nearly everyone has suffered the bitter injustice of wrong doing. Who has not struggled to forgive…Personal and national credos anchor themselves in tales of unfairness and the glories of retaliation. Oceans of blood and mountains of bones are their testament”
-C. L. Griswold
“Three thousand years after the oracle of Delphi proclaimed, ‘know thy self,’ we are still trying to discover ourselves.”
-Paul Valent
“All of us need resilience to steer through the everyday adversities that befall us. Life is rich in stress and hassles, but if you’re resilient - you will not let the daily tribulations of life interfere with your productivity and well-being.”
-Karen Reivich
Many people get stuck in their development. Have they stopped growing? Some find “environmental conditions constrain them from realising their full potential.”
“The physical and social aspects of environments are often closely intertwined and can jointly affect individuals well-being.”
-Daniel Stokols
Exposed to different environments, a person can become satisfied about life, or they can become part of new growth - the evaluation of their mind and personality can become their most important reality.
Sunday 5th June, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
“I have the sense of a presence, strong, and at the same time soothing, which hovers over me. Sometimes it seems to enwrap me with sustaining arms.”
-(from William James)
“The master said, ‘To do one’s best with humility and sincerity: that is what it is to be a superior man. The superior man is distressed by his want of abiity. He is not distressed by being unknown. What the superior man seeks is in himself. What the inferior man seeks is in others.”
-A.C. Grayling
Do you believe those words - faith, hope and love? Can you embrace them in your life? Sometimes those words - faith, hope and love - do more than comfort; they heal. Sometimes those words - faith, hope and love - do more than ‘sound good’; they change us.
“If we ask the question… ‘what is human life’s chief concern?’ One of the answers we should receive would be: ‘It is happiness.’ How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness, is in fact for most ‘men’ at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure.”
-William James
Time and time and time without end life bends us, twists us, knots us, stretches us … but out of our pains, our agonies, our heartaches, we smap back and go on.
-Tommy, The Puppet Man.
Sunday 29th May, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
Gustav Mahler - from his childhood was apparently tied to an astonishing destiny.
He died on the 18th of May 1911 - 100 years ago and his music still captivates millions around the world.
Mikkail Gorbacher in his memoirs, wrote -
“In like there is always conflict and contradiction, but without these- there is no life. Mahler was able to capture that aspect of the human situation.”
One morning in Octber 2007, commuters in Toronto were astonished to see “Gustav Mahler” graffiti on the sideway walls. One web-reporter demanded “Who is the mystery Mahler among us?”
So over 35 years of Mahler study, “what have I learned? … that dignity survives defeat”… that “striving in all”… “the impossible takes just a little bit longer…”that every child stands a chance.” (Norman Lebrecht)
“To be truely with him one felt fully alive and awake”
- David Schecter.
“What is more mortifying than to feel that you have missed the plum for want of courage to shake the tree.”
- Logan Pearsall Smith
“And again he thought the thought we already know: Human life occurs only once...”
-Milan Kundera
“The Moving Finger writes, and having writ, Moves on.”
-In Oman Khayyam
Sunday 22nd May, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
This year marks 100 years since Gustav Mahler's death. He was the most controversial composer. Some as they leave his symphonies throw their hands up saying, "Is that music!". Others like a New York teacher who spoke after the catastrophe of the Twin Towers said, "Mahler's music particularly, can bring me such a deep sense of the human connection that makes it possible to bear the unbearable."
"If one's spiritual life is clear and sound, then every other level-mental, emotional, physical-falls into place." -Kylie Kwong
"Every time we choose life over non-life and move deeper into the ongoing discovery of who we are, we bring new life to ourselves and our culture."
"Heroes are not only people who grow and change and take their journey, they are also agents of change." - Carol Pearson
May we all become carriers of goodness
When we feel hate, may we rediscover tolerance
When we see distress , may we re-find the spirit of compassion When we hear of sadness, may we speak words of comfort
When our lives are empty, may we re-find the energy of faith.
A Palestinian doctor lost his three young daughters in an Israeli tank attack. But this doctor refuses to let hate fill his soul "I think the world is drowning in hate, and hate is a toxin that affects all aspects of life", he said. (The Age Good Weekend, May 14, 2011.)
"A new heaven" is the emergence of a transformed state of human consciousness, and a ‘new earth' is its reflection in the physical realm".
"If the structures of the human mind remain unchanged, we will always end up re-creating fundamentally the same world, the same evils, the same dysfunction".
- Eckhart Tolle.
Some people do not REALIZE who they are. "Without that realization, who you are does not shine forth into the world... you are like an apparently poor person who does not know he has a bank account with $100 million in it, and so his wealth remains an unexpressed potential."
- Eckhart Tolle
Sunday May 15th, 2011-Dr Francis Macnab
Gustav Mahler - What a gift he gave to the world...It was the gift of music.
A week after President Kennedy was assassinated, Mahler's Second Symphony was played. At the funeral of Robert Kennedy the Adagietto from the Fifth Symphony was played. It was also the soundtrack for the film "Death in Venice." Mahler saw that his music had the potential for a "world-shaking effect."
Mahler: "Hoping to find a precious word early tomorrow."
- Quote from S. Feder
"I am thirstier for life than ever."
"Man's task in life is to give birth to himself."
- Erich Fromm
"Epiphanies of life are transformational experiences for the one experiencing them; after these...turning points, a person will never be quite the same again."
- Norman Denzin
"Sometimes I would almost rather have people take away years of my life then take away a moment."
- Pearl Buck
"The great virtue in life is real courage, that knows how to face facts, and live beyond them."
- D.H Lawrence
"The more a person is able to direct their life consciously, the more they can use time for constructive benefits."
- Rollo May
Sunday May 8th, 2011-Dr Francis Macnab
Mahler. Composer of some of the greatest classical music. He experienced many life traumas. Walked on high mountains, knew the depths of despair. Died 100 years ago - May 18, 1911, at the age of 51.
He was born on 7th July 1860.
The events of his early life could have easily have led to a sad, enclosed life. Instead, he found a way to live an expansive life.
He was second in a family of 14 children. Ten members of his family would die before he was 30 years of age. Six had died before he was 15.
His parents were far from happy. His own marriage to Almo was loaded with anxiety. And his treasured older daughter died at the age of five.
One loss. Followed by many losses.
It is notable that Mahler also mourned the death of the very core of humanity. "An old era was giving way to a new one." Mahler found a way to control his sadness and to contain the anxiety of death and the fear of his own mortality. (See "Footprints": F. Macnab)
How will we live - after our loss, after our many losses? How will we be "cheerful" again? How will we feel at peace with ourselves.
"If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life."
- Kahlil Gibram
"We cannon put off living until we are ready."
- Jose' Ortegay Gasset
"When the darkness comes, I know that it will pass."
- James Kavanaugh
"Life is this moment."
Sunday May 1st, 2011-Dr Francis Macnab
"I am thirstier than ever for life."
"All his life he was a God-seeker - a wrestler after truth."
"He wanted to grasp life in all its heights and depths."
"Every time Mahler conducted, it was a invocation to the God of creation."
"He was one of the world's greatest existential composers."
"God is dead."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
"The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious... he to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed out candle."
- Albert Einstein
"Humanity is being given an invitation to explore the wondrous possibilities of tomorrow's God and the world that this new God can create."
- Neale Donald Walsch
Easter Sunday April 24th, 2011-Dr Francis Macnab
Today we celebrate Easter Day
We also commemorate ANZAC Day
Easter day. In the face of widespread pain and suffering in the world, and the huge numbers who had died in wars and earthquakes and tsunamis -
TODAY
We celebrate the possibilities and the realities of new beginnings. A resurrection of the human spirit.
After a death, a trauma, a war, a catastrophe, all eyes will turn to the time of healing and consolation, and then to the forward roads that lead to coping, a new beginning, the discovery of resources, and the reality of life's best priorities and best values.
In the smaller segments of human existence, we repeat destructive behaviors, regress to killing and maiming. But in the larger long term scheme of things we affirm human evolution towards the preservation of life, the affirmations of life and the collaborations of life.
Reflections and Comments
Easter is a time of celebration.
It is a time of awakening to new possibilities.
It is a celebration of life, the Gift of life, the wonder of life
this unrepeatable life
this life to be lived once
this life to be lived fully and well.
Easter is a time of laughter
as our kids search for Easter Eggs
as they talk of the Easter "Bunny"
as they see how life can be a life of growth and good fun.
Easter is a time of leaving past traumas and grief
and walking into a new future
finding new meaning
being part of new relationships
creating new stories.
Palm Sunday April 17th, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
Many emotions flood around us, and in and our of us, everyday. The vital task is to focus on those emotions that confirm our turning into a satisfying pathway, or that key drawing us towards a good - even better - future pathway.
"Emotions shape our thoughts, motivations, and behaviors from morning till night, everyday of our lives."
-Sara Algoe
Many people are "masterfully adaptive creatures who are able to transform adverse circumstances into opportunities for personal growth, lasting happiness and quality of life even in the face of pain and suffering. For some, life is often elevated to the sublime precisely under these conditions that might be expected to produce the most pain and misery."
-R.A. Emmons
People who become participants in positive emotions begin to see life differently, and are more likely to be resilient. Being parcipants in just THREE emotions could give us all a new lease on life.
Palm Sunday is how to remind us of those three emotions.
Emotions are very important to us and our own objective experience. Emotions also have an impact on others. And any one person can become part of the group emotion and can help to generate such emotion.
Sunday April 10th, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
One thing is certain: we all run into adversities of one size or
another. We all need to be resilient. That means we need the
capacity to endure the adversity, cope with it, and get on with
living the best life we can - aiming to "bounce back" and thrive
wherever we can.
Resilience is not something only for our body. It is just as essentially something in the human spirit.
Most of us have never learned, in any
Specific way, how to be resilient.
And most of us are unclear about what
Is meant by the human spirit - and
How to activate it.
Sunday April 3rd, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
Resilience and the Human Spirit
How resilient are you? Most people consider themselves to be fairly resilient. But the reality is that most of us aren't emotionally or psychologically prepared to handle the specific difficulty or distress that comes our way.
Some will say, the human spirit is at the centre of a person's resilience. Are we born with it? Do we come how discover it?
We know resilient people. They bounce back after a crisis or a stress. Others are drained out one day, and are back and ready the next. How do they do it? What happened if they DON'T do it?
Many keep referring to the huge catastrophe of September 11. How do people get over an event like that? Now we might hear some refer to March 11 (2011): an earthquake, a tsunami, a nuclear crisis. What is it in the human spirit that gives some people the "strength" to start anew - having lost everything.
"It is by mutual support of one another that we can best deal with the pain of the many burdensome aspects of human existence..."
-Lloyd Geering
"Flesh must face through fated time
from birth to death, both unwilled,
but spirit may climb counter wise
from a death, in faith freely chosen,
to resurrection, re-beginning.'
-W.H Audur
Sunday March 27th, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
In the Minefield of our emotions, there is an important question:
Faced with the same event, why do some people thrive, and others are indifferent, impaired,
or confused?
And the second question is:
Given most people enjoy the experience of thriving, how can we increase the possibilities of
people - thriving?
A third question is:
Do we know WHEN we are thriving?
What are the indicators?
Studies show that people who are high on optimism and hope, are more likely to find they experience positive growth in response to stress. No one will underestimate the distress some people go through. But as they cope, they see that there is hope that some transformation is possible in the most difficult and horrifying situations.
Research shows that people with strong social responses and a hopeful optimistic perspective are likely to grow and thrive following highly stressful events.
"Stress can be a catalyst for physical change, advancing one's physical state towards disease."
- Elissa Epel et. al, Yale
"Stress arousal can lead to advanced health by toughening up the stress response systems and thus conditioning the body to be resistant to future stressors."
- Elissa Epel
Thriving might mean many things -
The capacity to feel good in coping with stress,
The focus on one's own needs for the fruit the
active involvement in educating others.
At Easter, the churches give considerable emphasis to suffering. But Faith is about the energy of coping. It is about the goal of ‘triumph' emerging from the experience we call "THRIVING."
Sunday March 20th, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
The content of a person's emotional life strongly influences their judgments of the quality of that life.
Uncontrollable stress foreshadows poor health.
Some people adapt well and quickly to stressful situations. Others have prolonged difficulty.
"It isn't WHAT we worry about that makes us ill;
But the WAYS in which we worry."
Study after study tells us how we articulate our anger, distress or sadness will predict which illness we are most likely to get."
-Darian Leader
Hearts that have lost their freshness, yearn
In secret for these days gone by
When all the ill was yet to learn, -
I was so young when thou went by.
Fallen, - ah me!
-James Michael
"Half-heartedness doesn't reach
Into majesty. You set out
To find God, but then you keep
Stopping for long periods
At mean-spirited roadhouses."
-Rumi (6, 1207)
We might wonder why religion tends to fall silent when it comes to coping with stress. Could it be a more active, more intelligent influence?
Sunday March 13th, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
"Teach me the gladness
That my brain must know,
Such harmonies madness
From my lips would flow
The world should listen then - as I am listening now."
-P.B. Shelly
I can't forgive myself.
I will never forgive them for what they did.
"To suffer woes which hope things infinite;
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night..."
-P.B. Shelly
- Is it possible?
"The world's great age begins anew,
The golden years return,...
Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam,
Like wrecks of a dissolving dream."
-P.B. Shelly
"Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguished health
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!"
-P.B. Shelly
Swift as a spirit hastening to his task
Of glory and of good, the sun sprang forth
Rejoicing in his splendor.
-P.B. Shelly
Does life provide us with all that is necessary, or do we need to look underneath the experiences and gifts of life - to a sense of God, to a belief in God or to a concept of God?
"Is the concept of God dead or is the experience to which the concept points, and the supreme VALUE it expresses, dead?"
-Evich Fromm
To forgive you have to master two most recently evolved skills of homo sapiens.
Sunday March 6th, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
There is a Chinese proverb -
If you are patient in one moment or anger - you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.
"Emotion is important because everybody has an abundance of it. The triumph is to use it, temper it, transmute it."
-John Wayne
"We complain and complain, but we have lived and seen the blossom - apple, pear, cherry, plum, almond blossom - in the sun, and the best among us cannot pretend they deserve or could contrive - anything better."
-J.B. Priestley
"We direct to your minds that peace is not merely the absence of war, but the constant effort to maintain harmonious existence between all peoples, from individual to individual, and between humans and other beings of the planet."
-Sioux Elder
Remember: One word can poison the soul. One word can be a gateway to hope. One word can provide rage. But one word can soften the hardest heart.
-Michael Eigen
"Happiness is vital to our mental health and physical well-being. Happiness affects the way we see and respond to the world."
-From Paul Bailey
Sunday February 27th, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
Do you feel the invisible wave of impulses forming a new era as it rises from silence?
Do you hear the call of a new tomorrow as it echoes in twilight?
Even if you do not notice it, nor are conscious of it - the core of who you are, grasps these signs and does not let them go.
-Keiko Takahashi
I wanted to infuse the Bark with a sense of passion...I wanted more humanity in what we were doing...
"My objective is to get a sense for myself of what we're doing well, what we can improve, where we should put our resources, (and when I know that) there will be people who care and there will be people who can be proud to be here."
-James Wolfensohn
Sooner or later, the discerning person realises they must deal with their mistakes, and move on. Some fell intensely guilty having made a mistake, and some feel guilty about how they dealt with their mistakes. But when it comes to moving on - that requires a decision and more than a decision. And there is the persisting question - will we move on, stay put, or keep moving back? There are more than 50 ways to move on. But me effective way is enough!
There was that law of life, so cruel and so just, that we must grow or else pay more for remaining the same.
-Norman Mailer
The profoundly significant thing is this - as a person grown, they make no noise as they grow.
-A German Proverb
Sunday February 20th, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
One of the recurring challenges that sits in front of everyone is to grasp the essential reality, and make ‘something' of it, to adapt, change even a little, and grow in our personality and in our approach to life.
The outer world requires that we make some necessary adaptations in our inner world.
-Carl Jung
Somehow I cannot resist engaging in an ongoing series of challenges ... at my age, I should take it easier and spend more time...playing the cello...but it is difficult to change the habits of a lifetime.
-James D Wolfensohn
Time has too much credit...It is not a great healer. Sometimes it does not heal at all. And sometimes when it seems to, no healing has been necessary.
-Dianne Ivy Compton-Burnett
Since changes are going on anyway, the great thing is to learn enough about them so that we will be able to lay hold of them and turn them in the direction of our desires.
-John Dewey
Mozart's music, like the teeming drama of the Bible and like good crisis theology, gives us permission to live. With an ear open...one can be young and become old, one can work and rest, be content and sad: in short, one can live.
-Karl Barth, quoted by John Updike
Mozart - what he translated into music was real life in all its discord.
-Karl Barth
Sunday February 13th, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
Each year at this time, we hold up our hopes and aspirations for another year. Here are the programs we intend to provide. Here are the plans and the possibilities. And we celebrate that we are here. And that we can have some part in the programs and be pleased that we can be enhanced by the possibilities.
The New era is already here:
Here the new times begins anew.
The new era happens every day,
Every day is a new world.
-Ben Okri
"This earth is our brief home. Let's put the human house in order. Let's tend the wold garden of humanity. It's time we turned our formidable powers of heart and mind to humanity's solvable problems."
-Ben Okri
May the Great Mystery that we call God keep alive in each one of us the search for a Faith that is real
a Faith that helps us to live happier lives
a faith that gives us a fuller meaning to life and the events of life;
Bring us to know the goodness that flows from the heart of the universe, and may we be expanded in heart and soul by that goodness. This is our prayer.
-Francis Macnab
Sunday February 6th, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
"We are quite confident that a person Jesus of Nazareth once existed."
"There is little doubt that he used pithy sayings to speak about God's domain."
"That he was a charismatic healer;
"That he was executed by the Romans around 30 C.E"
"We are not certain that Jesus deliberately formed a group of disciples, but it is clear that followers - including women - gathered around him."
We live by our stories...that help us make sense out of a complex universe of meaning mixed with nonsense.
(All of the above - Dr Robert Funk, Founder of the Jesus Seminar)
Sunday January 30, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
"If we were to ask the question: ‘What is human life's chief concern?' One of the answers we should receive would be : ‘It is happiness.' How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness, is in fact for the most people at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure."
-William James: The Varieties of Religious Experience
"Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into over darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: ‘You are accepted...accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know."
In that moment, "everything is transformed."
-Paul Tillich: The Shaking of the Foundations
May you be blessed with good friends.
May you learn to be a good friend to yourself.
May you be able to journey to that place in your
Soul where there is great love, warmth,
Feeling and forgiveness.
May this change you."
-John O'Donohue
"When people feel threatened and anxious they become more rigid, and when in doubt they tend to become dogmatic; and then they lose their own vitality."
-Rollo May, psychologist
"Fear is never a good counselor, and victory over fear is the first spiritual duty of man."
-Nicholas Berdyaer, Russian existentialist writer
Sunday January 23, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
Though there are times when we prefer to stay put in our own corner, we know how our lives are enlarged when we see - and become part of - the bigger picture.
Everything in the world was really beautiful, everything but our own thoughts and actions when we lose sight of the higher aims of existence and our dignity as human beings."
-Anton Chekhov. C 1900
A larger mood? Try some joy!
"What is the single, best word to describe the pleasure of a great Bolognese sauce? Rich. That richness. It's an easy, irresistible, almost childish pleasure: the ground meat dissolved into a dark blood-red sauce until they are one and the same; ... a slurpy goodness; the oily Bolognese hanging onto the slippery pasta; a guaranteed joy - in a world that's just ruled it out."
-(Guardian 26 November, 2008)
Ill fares the land, to hast'ning ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay;
Princes and Lords may flourish, or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
but a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied.
-Oliver Goldsmith, 1770
My life, my whole life...every minute of it is no longer meaningless as it was before, but has a positive meaning of goodness with which I have the power to invest it.
-Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy, 1875
Sunday January 16, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
"Beautiful triumphs."
-Shostakovich used these words to sum up the triumphant theme of his Eighth Symphony.
"This is the music, propped open before me:
Immense Unfinished Symphony of life,
Its intervals, blunt naturals and fugues,
Its resolutions, syncopations, shakes,
Scored for players."
-U.A. Fanthorpe
"We are the players.
Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is."
-Erich Fromm
"Yet I will fear no evil: not even here. Nor even now.
For surely beyond the great facade my life is being lived?
Lived, loved and filled with gaiety and ardour...
And surely (and almost now) it will happen, and tell me
That now I must write...
reach, find and know...
That in all this hungry time...have
Mysteriously, esctatically , been led."
-Henry Reed
Sunday January 9, 2011 - Dr Francis Macnab
Anyway
People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered.
Love them anyway..
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable
|Be honest and frank anyway.
People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for some underdogs anyway.
What you spent years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.
People really need help but may attack you if you help them.
Help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you've got.
ANYWAY.
-Karl Menninger
"Life is good."
-Michael J Fox. (The Michael K. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research is dedicated to the development of better treatments, and ultimately a cure for Parkinson's disease.)
"‘You're not a failure,' she told him one day. ‘You're like an un-detonated shell with its devastating power intact. You're an explosion still waiting to be heard.' In all his life no one had spoken to him like that."
-Andreï Makine
To see "Thoughts for the Week" from 2010 please click here.