Music Dear friends,
At times the light of hope goes out in almost all of us,
But it can be rekindled by remembering all our reasons for hope.
This meditation is designed to rekindle the light of hope in you and to help light your way to a positive future.
Let's begin today by spending just one minute on a breathing exercise.
This will give us a chance to let go of the worries of the day,
Let go of the work of the day and give ourselves a few moments to relax,
Quietening down our minds by just paying attention to the breath.
You know the formula.
As you breathe in,
You think to yourself,
I am aware that I am breathing in.
And the same as you breathe out,
I am aware that I am breathing out.
Let's see if for the next 60 seconds we can just pay attention to our breathing and become present.
Don't worry now if the mind wanders.
Our minds are inclined to be very busy.
Someone once described our minds as the monkey mind.
If the mind wanders,
Just go back to noticing the breath.
We don't have to feel disappointment or annoyance with ourselves,
Much less chastise ourselves,
Beat ourselves up or think of ourselves as no use or failures.
If we lose concentration,
We just begin again to concentrate on the breathing.
It's as simple as that.
A one minute pause now.
Welcome back.
The idea for this meditation comes from the well-known hymn,
Amazing Grace.
I'm sure we can all remember the words.
These are the first two verses.
Amazing Grace,
How sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost,
But now am found,
Was blind,
But now I see.
Through many dangers,
Toils and snares,
I have already come.
Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.
Amazing Grace is a Christian hymn,
Published in 1779,
With words written seven years earlier by the English poet and Anglican clergyman John Newson.
I think we can take great encouragement from the lines,
Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.
When we are faced with challenges,
Something coming up in the future,
It might be a job interview,
It might be a medical appointment,
Maybe even just a visit to the dentist.
Sometimes we anticipate the worst.
You know how it goes.
Before a meeting we are inclined to imagine someone there will be out to get us.
We wonder are we going to be held to account.
Before a medical appointment we look up Google,
We check the symptoms,
And we see all the terrible things that the symptoms might mean.
Before the dentist visit we fear we might need a filling,
If not an extraction,
Or the dreaded root canal.
This anticipation of the worst can cause us a lot of needless stress.
The dreaded event happens and the day we feared finally dawns.
We attend the meeting and everything turns out to be just fine.
We visit the doctor and we discover that this is only a minor issue,
Very easily resolved.
We visit the dentist and we discover that the doctor is not the only one.
We visit the dentist,
Sit in the chair,
And we are happy when we are told that all our teeth need is a scale and a polish.
Most of the time all our anxiety has been in vain.
We could have saved ourselves so much of this stress and worry if only we had thought of the words,
"'Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.
' Why could we not have looked back over our lives?
Noticed how few things have gone wrong when compared with all the many things that went right and the things that turned out even better than we planned.
What has happened to the virtue of hope?
Why could we not have believed that grace would lead us home?
Now this is not to say that every single event we dread is going to turn out fine.
Very occasionally,
Only very,
Very occasionally,
Something bad does happen.
But very,
Very few of the things we concern ourselves about turn out to be as bad as we had been imagining.
Of course we all dread the awful medical diagnosis,
These days the Big C,
Cancer,
Or the Big A,
Alzheimer's disease.
But we could spend all our lives worrying about how our lives might come to an end.
None of us knows,
And isn't that just as well?
How could we live with that knowledge?
Anticipation of a known for certain date for the end of our life,
The life we are used to,
Would be a pitiful way to spend a life,
Considering the fact that we can only die once.
Anticipating the worst can leave us dying a thousand deaths,
And wasting the days and the years of this good life in the meantime.
So it is helpful to remember the words of that old hymn,
A reminder that the grace which brought us safe thus far will lead us home.
Let's pause for a minute at this stage to think of the times when we lost touch with the virtue of hope.
When we lost confidence in the belief that the future will be as kind to us as the past has been.
And remembering how foolish we were to lose hope,
And how it all worked out for the best in the end.
A one minute pause.
A one minute pause.
Welcome back.
I should mention to you that you'll find it very interesting and inspiring to read the story of John Newton and the background to the hymn,
Amazing Grace.
In that life and in that hymn there is a lesson for hope for all of us.
We should hold on to hope.
We must hold on to hope.
Just think of the odds against any of us being here.
Our being here at all is proof of how things have gone well for us,
Not only in our lifetime,
But since the very beginning of time itself.
Why then should we think that our good fortune will run out?
To encourage us,
Here are some quotes about hope.
Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come,
Whispering,
It will be happier.
Alfred Lord Tennyson Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear.
If we believe that tomorrow will be better,
We can bear a hardship today.
Take that hand.
So if your light of hope ever flickers or begins to fail,
Just remember these words,
"'Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.
' And remember to light your candle of hope again,
To keep your candle of hope burning.
And now a closing prayer from the Christian tradition.
The Lord bless us and keep us.
The Lord make his face to shine upon us and be gracious to us.
The Lord lift up his countenance upon us and give us his peace.
Namaste.
