Events

 Sunday 7th September
10am Queens Road Unitarian Free Church, Urmston
 

11.30am on Zoom ID 841 9082 8195 no password required.

Exploring clues that are present to us in life. How by paying attention we can learn to follow them and that will offer guidance as we navigate the labyrinth of life.

Sources of inspiration include Miss Marple and other detectives. Theseus, the labyrinth and the Minotaur, the thread, synchronicty, Rainer Maria Rilke, Wislawa Szymborska, William Stafford and a whole host of seemingly ordinary folk.

All are most welcome...Come as you are, exactly as you are...but do not expect to leave in exactly the same condition...

The following is an extract from the service...

In many ways this is how I see life these days. So many possibilities are going on all around us. Some good, others not so good. So many joys, tragedies, triumphs, failures, frustrations, crises, endless possibilities good and bad. Life offers itself to us, but so often we close ourselves off from it. One thing I have noticed is that as I have allowed life itself to guide me I have become more open I am to life itself and the more connected I have felt, the more aware I have become of experiencing meaning and making meaning filled decisions. As I have done so I experienced a greater sense of belonging to myself, those people I share my life with and this world in which we all live and breathe and share our being.

The more I have lived this way the more I have noticed the meaningful coincidences in life. Some say this is how it is meant to be, I am not wholly convinced of this, I prefer to see it as this how it could be if I allow myself to follow the rhythm of life. If I do I notice the so called coincidences, the synchronicities of life. If I follow the thread, If I follow the “clew”, If I follow the clues everyway. All I have to do is pay attention.

To follow the clues is to truly live the questions and thus therefore one day hopefully live our way into the answers. This requires us to pay attention, to pay attention to everyone and then relate it our own experiences, like Miss Marple did. To find the answers she paid attention to life, to other people and to her own intuition. She lived her way into the answers by merely paying attention. She followed the clues, the thread.

I was paying attention on Thursday morning sitting in meditationI heard the language of the heart touch me deeply as people spoke and yet at the same time I could hear clearly all the sounds of life outside. I could hear the traffic, I could hear the birds singing and I could hear the wind, and as I did the words shared penetrated me more deeply. As I listened I found the clues and began to live my way in answers. And what is the answer you might ask? Well, the answer is to pay attention, pay attention to everything. In so doing you will begin to live your way into the answers. All you have to do is pay attention to clues, to follow the thread.

This brings to mind a favourite poem By William Stafford “The Way It Is”. It is about the thread that runs through life, that will guide us home if we follow the Mythos of Theseus and always hold on to it.

“The Way It Is” by William Stafford

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.