Windsor Street Days

Part VI

Chapter 1 OUTGROWN

Outgrown

I looked up the definition of “outgrown”. It is a wonderful word. A narrower disposition might conclude, “Oh, this is awful. He-she-they have lost their faith.”

On the contrary, I have outgrown the coat I have been wearing for the last 30, 40 even 70 years. I need a new coat that fits. A coat that is pleasant to wear. A coat that enables the air to circulate freely within my clothing. The old coat is still good and can be washed and then gently placed back in the wardrobe within its cover, and can be used by others. To outgrow something is not to abrogate. I need a vehicle that is suited to the terrain that I am currently negotiating. I have outgrown the old vehicle. The old vehicle is fine but is not suited to my present purposes. I still like that vehicle. I have many fond memories of that vehicle, so let us not talk of losing faith. Rather, I have moved along”.

Faithlessness

That is not good.

A mother’s advice to her son:

You need to find ‘A’ faith and a reason. Then you find peace.

HRH Princess Alice of Greece and Denmark to her son HRH Prince Philip the Duke of Edinburgh when the Princess Royal took up residence at Buckingham Palace in her last years in the late 1960s. (1885-1969).

I have outgrown Christianity. I reject all the monotheistic religions. I therefore fly in the face of billions. Well, so be it. I find Faith in NATURE. In wide open spaces or the tiniest corners, I find Space. And in space, I find a shimmering presence.

As a child and a young man, I could never visualise the biblical LORD GOD ALMIGHTY in human form. Whenever I tried, I could only envisage a moving; a shimmering presence. I could not see this Shimmering if I looked directly, I could only see this shimmering from the edge of my eye. Like we do when we try to look at some constellations. We can see them indirectly, but if we turn our heads slightly and refocus, suddenly we can see the Constellation in all its beauty, but only out of the corner of our eye.

In the 1990s fundamentalist Christianity demanded I see God in human form. I did. But it was my creation. I didn’t realise this at the time.

But how peculiar. I realised last month as the old year drew to its close, that in thinking of and loving Nature, unbeknownst to me the self-created image had disappeared and suddenly the Shimmering is here.

I look at my writing and see how often I mention “Shimmering” and now understand that this has been a very, very long journey of approaching 30 years. I can trace it back to around 1997 living in Leckhampton and having the house - my beautiful home at that time - to myself again and, oh so, slowly coming out through the other side. Fourteen years in Liverpool still lay five years ahead of me.

What a journey. The difficulties, the disasters, and the damage, but tempered also with high moments, even higher moments.

Thus, my life’s pattern is natural and normal.

Friends come, friends go. Or, we just simply move along life’s timeline. All of us experience this.

Then we meet a fellow traveller. There is a meeting of the minds, a natural understanding, and a desire to live as best we can, coping with age and gradual infirmity, adjusting to it, and realising that we’re doing rather well!

Yes. A faith.

Yea. A reason.

Yes. A purpose.

How do I define my faith?

Well, in the context of Nature, of the Universe, of The Higher. It is this.

My style of faith is having the confidence and assurance that what I cannot see or perceive, is nevertheless very present. It is the assurance that this is guaranteed. It is the realisation that this confidence encompasses my whole being, my conscious and unconscious awareness.

In Nature life is guaranteed. We have this same guarantee. We have perennial, annual and singular.

This different style of faith releases me from the restrictive practices of organised religion. Instead, I am free to live in the moment. I use the past only to check my compass bearing moving forward. In navigation, I steer accurately by taking back bearings. I steer my car by watching ahead, and my mirrors give me my back bearings. How strange, to drive a vehicle with the mirrors covered or closed. Suddenly I instinctively drive more slowly. I’m less sure of progress.

Those who work the Land in all manner of ways understand this beyond measure. Nature is the predominant factor. Nature and space combined give us an entirely different prism. We have freedom.

There are wonderful nature programs on the BBC. We have a series of programs called Winterwatch, Springwatch and these place cameras that run 24-7 and we see the most remarkable film of nature in all its glory, all its sophistication, all its supremacy. An episode of Winterwatch concentrated on the beaks and tongues of various birds. It was incredible. We looked at the 3-meter blue tuna fish that are all around the British Isles, and the sophisticated central heating system within their bodies that are more sophisticated than ours and which enables them to produce body heat in extreme cold, the result being that they can travel at up to 55 mph and are therefore very efficient hunters in freezing conditions as well as being able to use their speed to escape when they are being hunted.

We all outgrow things. Each stage of growth marks development.

To out grow is not an admonishment at all.

Here, in this observation is a meeting of like minds…

“The work on the website is becoming more and more essential, in my opinion. For faithlessness and the expression “having grown out”, you found a perfect description. A coat, a car, yes, we don’t have to throw our former thinking away, but we can enrich these with expanded and extended perspectives. The narrow-minded have always existed and will always exist. We must not allow these people to hinder us. What matters is that we live our individual lives. I say: “No one lives for me and no one dies for me”.

”

— RS de Januar 2025