Wouldn’t it be good if we could be so wise that our lives were completely tranquil - that nothing could disturb our thoughts at all. That our spirits were so calm that we really felt at one with God - or at one with the slow rhythm of the stars - or at one with the unruffled surface of a moonlit lake?
Life for most of us only has moments of calmness - moments of peace - and often they come only if we find time to make space for them.
Such tranquil moments can be found if only we can find the tranquil place where we can tune our thoughts into peacefulness - the mountain top for me, the garden fo Marijke, walking the dog for my brother, for some it may be studying a famous painting, listening to a particular piece of music or creating in craft. All these places have to be sought for, made time for.
Our faith, our religion seeks to lead us to such states of tranquility - through prayer, through reading scriptures, through contemplation. But how much time do we have even for our religion? Even our religion sometimes cannot reach into the spirit and soothe it.
But what is the value of life if we cannot find those moments of tranquility - those moments of peace? We are challenged because life in our age and our time has lost the old rhythms of the day and the seasons.
In days long since gone, people laboured while there was daylight and rested while it was dark. The autumn really was a time for gathering in the harvest and the winter for resting and waiting. Now though, when the darkness comes we switch on the light and keep on going. There is no autumn and no restful winter. They are seasons of inconvenience - making us cold and making us travel and shop in the dark.
But yet, those seasons are still there. The waxing and waning of the moon is still going on. The sun’s steady movement across the earth is still there. Its rhythm has not changed. A minute of time is still a minute of time - it is just that we are too often trying to push too much into that minute.
If anyone is to live peacefully on the endlessly running machine that is now life, they must do something positive about it - because the machine will not stop. We cannot stop the world and get off. Neither do we want to get off. To get off the machine is to lose touch with life - to sink into some sea that is not tranquil - into some silence that is not peaceful - that does not restore the soul.
Somehow everyone has to ride the machine called life - even when it goes too fast - but they have to have within them that old slow rhythm of time - the touch of the spirit touching eternity and the sense of God.
We have to be able to live in the relentlessly fast restless world and yet be close within the loving hold that is peace. We have to be permanently connected to a force that is the gentle universal sway of the spiritual life.
There needs to be a process of healing to restore the inner being that is the spirit of ourselves.
Many look for a cure to life by escaping to another part of the machine - to places of forgetfulness - the binge drinking pubs, retail therapy, lonely bottles of sherry, the relief of drugs and stimulants. But they do not find it. The world comes back harder and faster than it was before.
Where can the feeling be found that will take us back to the peaceful serenity of the strong spirit?
And the answer of course is where we left it - maybe a long time ago - and maybe in places where we never looked or were never allowed to look.
This last week I have been spending some time at work with the Bolton Interfaith Council. We invited a group called the Thinkers Forum to give a presentation - and this is where the idea of healing came from.
The Thinkers Forum are a Muslim group of ‘young intellectuals’ and they are saying that community relations can only improve if we all get to know one another and build up friendships - and that is a healing process. They said that respect for one another is a cornerstone in all religions - including Islam - if Islam is practised as it was first taught.
I heard a similar message at a dinner given by the Islamic Society in Manchester.
It is a different message to that given through the press of fundamentalist groups. But what could be more fundamental than the practice of religion based on peace between people?
When I looked in my version of the Bible - I had remembered there was a story about Jesus healing a man by the water pool at Bethsaida. This man had waited there for thirty eight years for a miracle healing that would make him walk again. It said that once every year an angel and came down and stirred up the waters of the pool and all those who went into the water were cured of their ailments.
Jesus heals the man without need of angel or water - which set himself greater than the angels.
The fascinating thing about the Bible stories is that there are so many different levels of meaning in them - they are cleverly written - that is why you keep reading - ‘those that have eyes to see let them see and those that have ears to hear, let them hear’
That is why Christianity is such a broad church - you can almost read into it what you want to see - Unitarians are free to do this - others are not always able to.
But in my thumbing through looking for this story, I really noticed just how many stories there are about healing.
And I noticed that never once does Jesus say, ‘Arise, your leg is better’ or ‘Your leprosy is cured’.
Always it is : ‘You are made whole’, or ‘Your wrongs are forgiven’, or ‘Go in peace and do no more wrong’.
Healing is a process of being made whole spiritually as well as physically.
In one Gospel Jesus sends out his disciples to heal the sick and later on sends out another seventy of his followers. What they are instructed to do is to bring peace to the households they visit.
If they cannot make the peace - they are told to move on - not to stay and argue.
I realise from reading these accounts that the way to find peace for ourselves is actually to make peace with others.
Everyone of us has the power to heal - power to heal the spirit of a person.
It is being able to be the peacemaker in ordinary lives. It is not joining an argument but bringing peace to it.
It is being able to say soothing words rather than condemning a weakness or a folly.
It is being understanding of another's weakness instead of judging them against our own standards.
It is about listening to their story and not trying to jump in with your own.
‘When you tell a tale we all rummage in our own trunk for our own story’ wrote Noel Coward
It is about getting off the ladder that is the pecking order of social status and being happy at the bottom - congratulating the achievements of others - ‘finding joy in their joy’, as the Buddhists say.
It is having no deight in standing above others.
It is about being modest and not boastful. It is about treating everyone equally.
Healing can be by touch but it is also by attitude. It is about feeling the power of God within - the power that loves life and honours all people and has hope for all people.
By being a healer towards others then we ourselves become whole. We find that the attitude we have towards others is also healing ourselves- it makes us whole in spirit ourselves and it makes our own lives richer and more fulfilling.
People who have peace in their spirits - who can heal the spirits of others develop an inner strength that helps them face all the calamities of this uncertain world - and their spirit is rarely broken.
Their lives are tranquil - and they know the meaning of God - more than any teaching can give. They love life and they love the world for they live in peace.
Amen
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