Article in Stretton Focus, May 2014
In my line of descent, we don’t have a coat of arms with a Latin inscription. But if we did I would like the translation of the Latin to be – Love Life: Believe in Yourself and Hope in God.
Life is the most amazing gift that Creation gives to everything that is alive. Humans have developed this gift to become self-consciously aware, and so to realise how precious it is. If you love life, you will want to fulfil its potential and enjoy its possibilities. You will therefore show concern for and treat with respect, everything which fosters that potential and creates those possibilities.
Loving life will present you with the challenge that Kipling expressed in a poem to his son, urging him to live life to the full and “fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds’ worth of distance run.”
To do this effectively, you will need to believe in yourself. Nobody knows yourself like you do. Only you can find the motivation to do what needs to be done. Knowing yourself, who you are and how you relate to others, is the fundamental task that faces all people. But it’s a task that is fraught with all kinds of dangers!
There are expectations of other people; and the pressures of your culture and religion wanting you to conform. There are those hidden persuaders within, which have been called ‘the seven deadly sins’ (greed, lust, envy etc) and there is always the possibility of self-deception, which can get you into an awful mess. Life can get very complicated! The solution is to be in touch with some concept of a ‘better self ’. This will act as a guide, and serve as a magnet to draw out all that is best in you.
Hoping in God is another possibility which will direct you to the same end, and give you the inner resources to get there. Not the kind of God that religions claim to know a lot about, and usually describe in supernatural terms: I don’t mean a Divine Being who lives in some remote heaven or Valhalla or paradise or wherever it is.
The word ‘God’ is best understood as our word for some mysterious, infinite reality, which underlies, interconnects and empowers all things: and yet can be thought of as greater than the sum of the constituent parts: a Oneness holding all things together, and so holding you at the same time.
Donald Horsfield
