Music Dear friends,
It's good to be with you again for this meditation,
Helping us to find comfort in the darker days.
Let's begin by closing our eyes.
Taking one or two deep breaths.
Settling ourselves.
Stopping the endless internal chatter.
And coming to a state of rest.
Complete rest.
Letting things look after themselves for now.
Leaving the inbox to look after itself.
Don't worry,
The messages won't auto-delete.
There'll be lots of time for them later.
So just relax.
And notice that,
Separated as we are by distance,
We are together in a spirit of compassion and support.
And there's our separation by time zones.
Reminds us of the words of the old hymn,
The sun that bids us rest Is waking our brethren neath the western sky.
But although we are separated by space and time,
We are still linked together through the magic of the internet.
And although we appear to sit here in a very still state,
Isn't it amazing to think that all of us are moving at 1000 miles an hour as the earth rotates.
What a wonderful world this is.
Let's take a one minute break for reflection.
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Welcome back.
The theme of our meditation today is Comfort in Darker Days.
I don't think that needs much introduction.
As we can all see in the Northern Hemisphere,
The days are getting shorter,
The nights longer.
It's getting colder here.
Winter is on the way.
And we still have the challenge presented by Covid-19.
And as if the weather forecast wasn't challenging enough,
We can become addicted to news headlines,
Which tend to give the bad news first.
I suppose in that respect we can take comfort from the fact that the good that is being done by people is so commonplace as not to make the headlines.
That's a good thing.
But I think we can all do with a little comfort for these darker days.
Let's take another 60 second break.
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Welcome back.
There is hope in today's opening quote which comes from Asleep of Prisoners by Christopher Fry.
Dark and cold we may be,
But this is no winter now.
The frozen misery of centuries,
Breaks,
Cracks,
Begins to move.
The thunder is the thunder of the flows,
The thaw,
The flood,
The upstart spring.
Thank God our time is now,
When wrong comes up to face us everywhere.
Never to leave us till we take the longest stride of soul we humans ever took.
Affairs are now soul size.
The poem speaks about the frozen misery of centuries,
Beginning to crack and break,
And beginning to move.
And in many ways that is what's happening now.
Although there is turbulence,
It is a time for hope.
We see the upending of the status quo.
And naturally there is the discomfort that always comes from any upending.
And we ask ourselves just what was that status quo?
We have a few examples.
The unquestioned belief that there was no limit to growth.
The belief that left to its own devices,
The market would work to bring about a better life for everyone.
The failed assumption that a rising tide would lift all boats.
We see now that these ideas were mistaken.
We had an acceptance that while okay,
The rich would get richer,
All of us would have a bite of the cherry.
But we see that some people,
The ultra rich,
Getting richer with every passing minute,
While millions of people go to sleep each night without knowing what if anything they'll have to eat tomorrow.
We see the worn out ideas of white supremacy still holding sway in some places.
But these injustices are no longer going unchallenged.
The frozen misery of centuries is beginning to break and crack,
And things are beginning to move.
The coronavirus has required governments to take a more active role in society.
Bailing out businesses.
Paying employees who are unable to work because of the virus.
For decades past,
The popular idea was that the less government we had,
The better.
Now we know that we need to work together as a community.
More government is needed after all.
The coronavirus crisis has scientists around the globe working furiously to produce a vaccine.
Thousands upon thousands of people cooperating for the common good when we all face a common threat.
We have seen in recent decades a huge amount of environmental destruction.
But never before have the people of the world had such awareness of the need to do something about it.
And with just a few exceptions there is action being taken at last.
The ill treatment of black people,
Most notably in the US,
Has brought together millions of people of all colours,
Determined to bring an end to centuries of racial inequality,
Not only in the US but around the world.
And although there is still much to be done,
We have never had more equality of opportunity,
Equal pay for equal work,
And women making it into prominent roles in government and business.
And it's not only female politicians who offer us inspiration.
On October 2nd 2012,
A gunman boarded Malala's school bus in Pakistan,
Asked her name and shot her three times in the head.
Her crime,
Speaking out about education for girls.
The shooting of Malala was a watershed moment,
Propelling a teenage girl into an overnight stateswoman for equal rights.
In 2013 Time Magazine listed Malala as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
On the 10th October 2014 Malala received the Nobel Peace Prize.
And remember she was only 15 years old at the time of the shooting.
And the good news continues to work to overcome the dark.
Across the world there's growing acceptance of LGBT rights and the rights of transgender people.
In our anxiousness to do more,
We forget just how new is the idea of marriage equality.
And we take comfort from the fact that in this world of instant global communication,
There's no place for the wicked to hide.
They can't hide from the eyes of the world.
Yes our communication systems mean that we hear all the bad news and that causes us anxiety and pain.
But there was always bad news,
But it was hidden and because we didn't know about it,
We didn't know we needed to take any action.
As the opening poem encourages us,
Thank God our time is now when wrong comes up to face us everywhere.
So we must try not to allow ourselves to be discouraged by the storm clouds that we see.
Remembering the words of the old poem De Siderata,
Written a hundred years ago,
It talked about how the world is full of trickery and it still is.
But the poem goes on,
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is.
Many persons strive for high ideals and everywhere life is full of heroism.
We need to watch out for and support the many heroes working to get us through to brighter days.
Let's take another 60 second break.
Welcome back.
And speaking of brighter days,
Let's have some thoughts about the weather in the darker days ahead of us.
For many years something in me died when we passed the longest day of the year.
I love the long days,
Especially the longest day.
I can think of evenings spent in Hoth,
A village about 10 miles north of Dublin city centre,
On the 21st of June,
Hanging out there on the pier at almost midnight,
Waiting to see the moment when the sky would finally turn dark.
I never had the patience to wait until the sky would actually be dark.
So you can see why something in me used to die with the thought that each day following the 21st of June would be shorter,
Until we finally got to the 21st of December and I could look forward again.
Then,
One morning,
A little miracle of nature occurred which I think will encourage us to see hope in the darker days of winter.
I was sitting looking out the window early one morning before it began to get bright.
The moon was visible in the sky above the roof of a house across the road.
In the same view there was a bright object,
Most likely Jupiter.
As I sat there,
I noticed the moon and Jupiter sinking ever so slowly,
Dropping towards the roof of the house opposite,
And finally setting over the roof.
For the very first time I became aware of the orientation of our house and really witnessed the rotation of the Earth.
Looking out this front window,
Which more or less faces west,
I realised that even though I appeared to be sitting still,
Just like you are now,
I was falling backwards at the rate of 1000 miles an hour as the Earth turns.
That's why I could see the moon and Jupiter setting over the house opposite.
That experience on just one morning has changed my attitude towards the darker days.
You'd never be up early enough to see this in the summer.
Well,
Maybe some of you that are early risers might,
But not me.
And the very same factor of the Earth's rotation was brought home to me only a few weeks ago as I sat in the very same chair,
Another celestial display.
This time the display was not caused by the moon setting,
But by the sun rising.
It was a clear morning and the sun was rising in the east,
In other words behind me.
And as the sun rose,
It was possible to see the light of the sun hitting the roof of the house across the road.
I took my eyes off the situation for a few minutes and when I looked back again I noticed that the light of the sun was making its way down inch by inch down the white wall of the house opposite.
This slow but sure lighting up of the white wall was something you just had to watch.
It was fascinating and another reminder that these darker mornings have a magic all of their own.
And of course there are the more predictable everyday benefits of the darker days.
Sitting at a warm fire,
Holding a warm drink in our hands,
Settling into a warm bed,
And not forgetting wrapping up well and getting out into the cold.
The air is good for us and it shouldn't be something that we only take in when the weather is warm.
Linda Acheson McGurk has published a book entitled There's No Such Thing as Bad Weather.
The subtitle is A Scandinavian Mom's Secrets for Raising Healthy,
Resilient and Confident Kids.
Linda reminds us that it's never a question of bad weather but just one of unsuitable clothing.
Her daughter protests,
Do we have to go outside?
It's cold.
We've all heard the same.
But the mother exercises her powers of persuasion and the children of course love it once they get out.
A reviewer describes this book as a perfect antidote to the hyper-vigilant,
Extra-electrified,
Standardized,
Tested,
House-arrested,
Twenty-fourth century childhood.
Now I'm sorry to have to admit that I am a fair weather worker myself,
But I will make a resolution in these dark days to make use of the magic that each season has to offer and to get out day by day regardless of the weather.
And I hope everyone listening to this might do the same.
And to watch out for the changing miracles of nature,
Season by season.
As we are told,
It's really not a matter of bad weather,
Only that we can be too lazy and that we dislike getting out of our summer clothes.
We have time for another break,
Sixty seconds.
Welcome back.
Our closing thought today comes from Gary Zhukov.
We cannot stop the winter or the summer from coming.
We cannot stop the spring or the fall or make them other than they are.
They are gifts from the universe that we cannot refuse.
But we can choose what we will contribute to life when each arrives.
The message for today is simple.
We cannot be discouraged by darkness of any kind.
Covid,
News headlines,
Even if they can be sensationalist at times.
They can be sensationalist,
They can be grim.
But we have the gift of today.
Today is reality.
All of us can make the best of what we have at any given time.
All of us can do something today to make our corner of the world a little brighter.
Namaste.
