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Wild Goose Publications - Tom Gordon

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384 pages

English

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A year of daily reflections. When our time is limited, a short reflection can be as much as we can manage. When life is complex and difficult, a simple idea may be all we need. When each day is about making sense of what's happening to us, a reflective sound bite might help us through. Tom Gordon's reflections are simple and direct, but from his experience and wisdom he offers deep insights for the 'very life of life' we are living today.

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Philosophie et théologie

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Publié par	Wild Goose Publications
Date de parution	15 août 2018
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781849526135
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

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This is the age of the ‘sound bite’, the short and memorable one-liner or clever idea from politicians, celebrities and pundits. No longer, we are told, can people cope with complex ideas, lengthy speeches or complicated sermons. In our reflections on what gives life meaning, it is no different. We might wish people spent more time looking more deeply at issues, but the reality is that we look for what is easy to absorb and understand.
In Look Well to This Day , published previously, Tom Gordon offered what proved to be a useful resource as people faced the joys and sorrows, challenges and decisions of each day. In The Very Life of Life , he returns to this approach, offering a second year of daily reflections. When our time is limited, a short reflection can be as much as we can manage. When life is complex and difficult, a simple idea may be all we need. When each day is about making sense of what’s happening to us, a reflective sound bite might help us through. Tom Gordon’s reflections are simple and direct, but from his experience and wisdom he offers deep insights for the ‘very life of life’ we are living today.
Tom Gordon is a former hospice chaplain, a storyteller, a member of the Iona Community and the author of several books.
www.ionabooks.com
The Very Life of Life
A second year of daily reflections
Tom Gordon

www.ionabooks.com
Copyright © 2018 Tom Gordon
First published 2018
Wild Goose Publications 21 Carlton Court, Glasgow G5 9JP, UK www.ionabooks.com Wild Goose Publications is the publishing division of the Iona Community. Scottish Charity No. SC003794. Limited Company Reg. No. SC096243.
PDF: ISBN 978-1-84952-612-8 ePub: ISBN 978-1-84952-613-5 Mobi for Kindle: 978-1-84952-614-2
Cover photograph © Mary Gordon
All rights reserved. Apart from reasonable personal use on the purchaser’s own system and related devices, no part of this document or file(s) may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Non-commercial use: The material in this book may be used non-commercially for worship and group work without written permission from the publisher. Please make full acknowledgement of the source and where appropriate report usage to the CLA or other copyright organisation.
Commercial use: For any commercial use of this material, permission in writing must be obtained in advance from Wild Goose Publications at the above address.
Tom Gordon has asserted his right in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
Dedication
To my friends in Chalmers Memorial Church, Port Seton, who have given me more than they will ever know.
Contents
Preface
Cover design and title
The Very Life of Life
Notes, acknowledgements and permissions
Index – by subject
Wild Goose Publications is part of the Iona Community
Preface
When Look Well to This Day was published in 2014, I had no intention of writing a second volume of daily reflections. That task had been completed and I could now move on to something else. But the feedback I got from people who told me they were using my book on a daily basis made me think again. What I had put into people’s hands was obviously useful: as part of their daily devotions; as a thought to reflect on at the start or end of the day; as a resource for illustrative material for talks and sermons; to be used alongside Bible readings, or even, as one man told me, instead of reading the Bible. I know homes where Look Well to This Day sits on coffee tables and at bedsides, on kitchen tables and even on a toilet windowsill. One lady showed me her personal, well-thumbed copy, which she carries around in her cavernous handbag, to be dipped into from time to time as the mood takes her. So I have been encouraged to make available more accessible, bite-sized chunks of reflective material. The result is what you have in your hands. And, however you use it, or wherever you keep it, I hope it continues to be of use to you as you reflect on your own daily journey of life.
My most important testing ground for this has been among my friends in Chalmers Memorial Church in Port Seton where I live, and to whom this book is humbly and appreciatively dedicated. I have been a member of this congregation for sixteen years, and these wonderful people have done much to restore my faith in the Church and the worshipping and serving community. They have been unfailingly warm, supportive and encouraging. In their search for faith and truth, they offer each other openness and understanding. In the strengthening of their fellowship, they continue to be an exemplar of commitment and service. As they have pulled together in times of crisis and sorrow, challenge and rejoicing, they have been more than could be expected of a Church of Scotland congregation. I have laughed and cried with them. They are a very special group of people. It would be invidious to name names, but they know who they are, and I say thank you to them all.
My thanks, also, to the many groups who, in recent years, have invited me to read my stories and reflections when they meet together. We’ve had a lot of fun, and a few tears too. But it has been a privilege to read some of what I’ve written and share my thoughts with a wider audience.
I am grateful, too, for the encouragement I’ve experienced from other writers in the Scottish Arts Club Writers’ Group, and for the permissions I’ve received from people and organisations which allow me to include their material in this book. Their graciousness and support does them great credit.
Once more, I pay tribute to Sandra Kramer and her colleagues at Wild Goose Publications, for their patience with me and tolerance of my foibles. They have been the epitome of professionalism and dedication.
I leave the most important thanks to the end, as I take the opportunity to say a huge thank you to my family. My children and their partners are a delight, and I love them all deeply. To my two grandsons – both of whom pop up in this book from time to time – I say that I hope I can still be ‘acceptable’ (find that story in the pages that follow …) or perhaps even a little better than that from time to time.
And to my wife, Mary, I say this … you are the most special person to me in the whole world. You have immense talent and ability, and I’m delighted that others can see what I have known for many, many years. What you give to me and do for me is immeasurable. I hope what I give you in return works half as well.
Cover design and title
My grateful thanks go to my wife, Mary Gordon, for the photograph for the cover of this book.
The book’s title comes from the same Sanskrit poem which gave us Look Well to This Day , the full text of which is:
Look to this day, for it is life, the very life of life. In its brief course lie all the realities and truths of existence the joy of growth, the splendour of action, the glory of power. For yesterday is but a memory and tomorrow is only a vision. But today well lived makes every yesterday a memory of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well, therefore, to this day.
January 1 – First
‘... the more imperative the need not to take the first step without considering the last.’ Karl von Clauswitz , On War
The train line from Fort William to Mallaig in the north-west of Scotland is arguably one of the most beautiful in the world. Nowadays the train is driven by a steam engine for some of its journeys, and the carriages are packed for a wonderful trip through glens and around lochs, and, of course, across the curved viaduct at Glenfinnan made famous in the Harry Potter movies.
In times past, there’s been an observation car on the back of the train. The best views could be had by sitting in the observation car and looking backwards. Not for the aficionados of train travel being up-front with the driver, or sitting in a compartment with the scenery flashing by too quickly. But, instead, they were relaxing, looking back the way, seeing the scenery slowly fall into place and taking a more leisurely view of where they had come from.
On the first day of the year we start a new journey. There will be new things to see, new people with whom to travel, new stations along the way, new experiences to absorb. You can’t always be the driver. You’ll go where you go, and what will happen will happen. And, as with most of our journeys of life, things will often flash by too quickly. So why not sit at the back of the train for a while as it’s moving off and ponder where you’ve come from. There’s no better time to do that than at the start of a new year.
Don’t take the next step without considering the last one. It might help you enjoy the journey all the better.
January 2 – Resolutions
‘It may almost be a question whether such wisdom as many of us have in our mature years has not come from the dying out of the power of temptation, rather than as the results of thought and resolution.’ Anthony Trollope , The Small House at Allington
Whatever I know about human nature, I know this ... you will be reading today’s thought having failed to keep the new year resolutions you made only 48 or 24 hours ago. It’s tough to keep promises to change this or that part of our lives. I hope you can keep some of the resolutions you’ve made. But, more than that, I hope you cope with your sense of failure when resolutions have been broken so quickly.
However, it’s worth considering that Anthony Trollope may be right. By thought and resolution – in other words, by our decision-making and choices – we may not be able to change what needs changing. We are not, and cannot be, in control of everything. Perhaps the wisdom we have in our mature years comes from adjusting to the changes that happen despite our best efforts – whether from the dying of the power of temptation or anything else.
Lord Thomas Macaulay, the 19 th -century politician, desc