So here we are at the final section of the
poem, the last few facts of life which we will consider together. Living with a
poem as we have done for the last few days can be really enriching and I would
encourage you to stay with it for a little while longer and maybe even to
discover some more poems you can do this with.
The
Facts of Life by
Pádraig Ó Tuama
That you were born
and you will die.
That you will sometimes love enough
and sometimes not.
That you will lie
if only to yourself.
That you will get tired.
That you will learn most from the situations you
did not choose.
That there will be some things that move you more
than you can say.
That you will live
that you must be loved.
That you will avoid questions most urgently
in need of your attention.
That you began as the fusion of a sperm and
an egg of two people who once were strangers and may well still be.
That life isn’t fair.
That life is sometimes good
and sometimes even better than good.
That life is often not so good.
That life is real
and if you can survive it, well,
survive it well
with love
and art
and meaning given
where meaning’s scarce.
That you will learn to live with regret.
That you will learn to live with respect.
That the structures that constrict you
may not be permanently constraining.
That you will probably be ok.
That you must accept change
before you die
but you will die anyway.
So you might as well live
and you might as well love.
You might as well love.
You might as well love.
That you will learn to live with regret.
That you will learn to live with respect.
Regret is not a proactive thing. It sits in
disappointment, sorrow, even remorse. It merely wishes things were different
without acting to cause a difference, to change things. However, repentance is
different. Repentance is an admission of doing something wrong, it is a turning
away from sin and turning back to God.
Like many people in society I am divorced, my
marriage broke down in 1999. Myself, my wife at the time and my children all
felt the ramifications of that. Do I regret it? Absolutely not because if it were not for
that relationship I would not have the two wonderful and amazing children that
I do. Do I repent of the things which caused that situation? Yes of course I do
but I have received God’s forgiveness and moved on but it remains part of my
story, part of who I am part of that wonderful novel which I am writing with
God – the book of Peter! We will all feel regret, I never believe people who
say they have no regrets because I am sure there are things in our past, in our
story so far that we wish we had not done or had not said or maybe had done and
had said. But we must not let these things drag us back or down, we learn to
live with them, learn from them and move on.
Respect is a feeling of deep admiration for
someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements,
or it can be a due regard for the feelings, wishes, or rights of others. It is
key to a society which functions well and ensures that all people are given the
value which they are created for. Unfortunately that is something which does
not always occur and sadly the very place where it should, the church, is often
the last place it does. Rather than respect differences we criticize them and
refuse to engage with the people who hold these different beliefs properly. I
applaud the Archbishop of Canterbury when he talks of good disagreement about a
range of issues including women bishops and sexuality but for this to happen
there must be respect. It seems that many of us still need to learn how live
with respect.
That the structures that constrict you
may not be permanently constraining.
Libby Lane, Bishop of Stockport, Alison White
Bishop of Hull and Rachel Treweek, Bishop of Gloucester. You wait millennia for
women Bishops and then three turn up at once. If ever there was an illustration
that the structures which constrict us may not be permanently constraining then
this is it. For many, women in particular, it must have felt permanently
constraining but many faithful men and women did not give up and continued to
push for gender equality in the church. We are beginning to get it. For many
however it did not come soon enough and they did not live long enough to see
it. Other things may be constricting us, financial constraints, family
circumstances, ill health. They may not be permanently constraining but they
may be. There were many structures trying to constrict Jesus, the Jewish
religious leaders of the time being the main one. But Jesus refused to be
constrained by them, he followed the path he believed god wanted him to and
would not be diverted or hindered in doing so. He didn’t just complain or
protest he lived the life he believed was right even though it got him into all
sorts of trouble and there is something very powerful about that. About simply
being, about being authentically who God created us to be whatever the
constraints. Of course the structures of Jesus time tried to constrict him by
killing him. But even that wasn’t permanent – Jesus continued to be who he was,
the Son of God who could not be contained even by death. And neither can we, the
structures that constrict us may not be permanently constraining.
That you will probably be ok.
“Everything will be okay in the end. If it's
not okay, it's not the end.” ― John
Lennon after Fernando
Sabino, a Brazilian writer.
I really love that quote, there is something
very simple, very beautiful and very profound about that statement. It is
similar to the 14th Century Julian of Norwich, an anchoress—a woman
who set herself apart for God and lived isolated in a cell she received visions
and wrote ”Revelations of Divine Love” and one of her famous quotes is “But all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of
thing shall be well.' It isn’t meant to be some platitude, some vague
promise of pie in the sky when we die but both quotes are a recognition of the
key facts which we have returned to time and time again this week:
·
In Jesus God knows what it is like to be human
·
God loves us and remains with us always
This is why is will be ok, this is why all
manner of things will be well. Jesus does not go through everything he did just
to leave us floundering in the end. It will be ok.
That you must accept change
before you die
but you will die anyway.
The United States standard railroad gauge
(distance between rails) is four feet, eight-and-one-half inches. Why such an
odd number? Because that's the way they built them in England, and American
railroads were built by British expatriates.
Why did the English adopt that particular
gauge? Because the people who built the pre-railroad tramways used that gauge.
They in turn were locked into that gauge
because the people who built tramways used the same standards and tools they
had used for building wagons, which were set on a gauge of four feet,
eight-and-one-half inches.
"Why were wagons built to that scale?
Because with any other size, the wheels did not match the old wheel ruts on the
roads.
"So who built these old rutted roads?
"The first long-distance highways in
Europe were built by Imperial Rome for the benefit of their legions. The roads
have been in use ever since. The ruts were first made by Roman war chariots.
Four feet, eight-and-one-half inches was the width a chariot needed to be to
accommodate the rear ends of two war horses." So the United States railway
system is based upon the width of a horse’s backside. Maybe "that's the
way it's always been" isn't the great excuse some people believe it to
be.
We are all changing whether we like it or and
if we stop changing we die, whether as individuals, society or the church. Some
change is good some is not so good but it must, indeed will happen whether we
want it to or not. Better to be part of that change for good than sit back and
let it die or change for the worse.
Oh but we will die anyway, we are born, we
grow and change and we die – the very first fact we began with on Monday. It is
the way of things.
So you might as well live
and you might as well love.
You might as well love.
You might as well love.
So we might as well live, if being born and
dying are the ultimate facts of life we might as well live, we might as well
make the absolute most of the time between these two points. To enjoy life to
the full, to make the most positive impact on the world around us. To change
things for the better. And maybe loving is the best way to do that, it is after
all exactly what Jesus did. He loved, he loved everyone. He didn’t just talk
love he acted love. All that he did was motivated by the love he felt. One of
the problems with society has always been the desire for power, we think that
by having power we can be better, our lives will be better and more worthwhile,
we can do the things we want and change the things we want to the way we think
they should be. But power is a limited commodity. The more of it I have the
less of it you will have. Jesus gave up power and loved instead because love is
an unlimited commodity.
When my first child was born, my daughter
Rebekah in 1996 I remember seeing her very clearly for the first time and,
amidst the shock and fear just loving her, loving her so much and over days and
weeks that love just growing and growing. When I was waiting for the arrival of
my second child I remember being worried, worried about whether I would love
him as much or at all, where would this love come from? I didn’t need to worry,
I loved him in just the same way because love is an unlimited commodity. There
is no end to it, there can be as much as we want, need and more. If we live
with love then there is no end to what we can do, feel, be and change. By
loving God, loving others and loving ourselves we are not only fulfilling the
great commandment of Jesus but being who God created us to be, being
authentically Peter, or Jane or Sue or Sam or Geoff. Being us. and so we might as well love, we might as
well love, we might as well love.
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