What is it to value?

It is an impossible thing to see that we are valuable. There is no reason for it. There is no proof of it. It just is.

We are not ordinarily valuable. There is nothing more valuable than yourselves. Yet we need not be proud or big-headed because we are no more valuable than anything else.

We have nothing to prove. There can be no clothes, no possesions, no speech, no cleverness, no qualifications, no actions, no memories, no future, no friends who can prove you are valuable. It just is, all by itself.

Watching an Xmas present of U2s 18 videos - a band I have followed on and off since 1986 - it has brought me to remember the reason for their brilliance, the inspiration they have brought to me again and again, that beauty and an open heart in life are real possibilities. One of Bonos greatest moments, and also one of his most personal, the final song and video "You can't always make it on your own" is a sign post to the world of what life can mean if you take it on seriously.

In one take with no editing Bono delievers the song to his recently departed father, and expression of a once in a lifetime loss, in a once in a lifetime performance. Those few minutes capturing the heart of a persons life, the minute details of a precious reality, normally un-noticed in the vast world we inhabit, but here amplified to reach a billion people. It is an extraordinary event.

Is not every moment in our lives as unique and precious as those in which we remember the loss of our own father? is not every moment a once in a lifetime thing? Even if it is a moment of spectacular ordinariness and unremarkable plainness, it is the last such moment in our whole life. The past is gone forever with no turning back, and the future has yet to happen, we have only this moment as it is spreading in all directions throughout present space and filled with cool air as though emerging from the stormy rains of the past, only this moment as it is glinting in bright colours like a newly hatched butterfly, on this moment the first and last in our life.

The moment in which we stand is like ourselves. It is the most valuable thing we have.

I used to struggle to reveal my heart from the abuse and stagnation of a world that seemed to me to put other things above the human. "Human Resources" a term which typified the way the world has learned to value the productivity of humans above them themselves - as though there were other creatures out there more valuable for which our time could be dished up for consumption. I rebelled against this world and with that rebellion came distaste and rejection of it. But it opened my heart, that led to the 9 years I have recently spoke of, and within them learning the teachings of Mahayana Buddhism.

Is not the valuable self, at home and at peace within its valuable moment completely unaffected by any abuse or surround? If my last moments on this planet are wretched ones, will I spoil those moments in despair or hatred? or will I value them, as I do myself, and ensure they do not go un-noticed and unlived? A distant Dutch ancestor died cursing his captors on the execution block - is not our death too important a time to waste in curses? We die every moment and are reborn, there is never a time to waste in curses.

This I must remember, at the risk of embalming it in a tomb of words, that no matter what circumstances I am in, I must never doubt my own value and the value of that moment, so that I am up to the challenge of facing it and living it. It is not that I have anything especial to do, nothing especial to prove, and no memories or certificates to take home with me afterwards, it is just enough to value myself and my presence in this once in a lifetime experience of being here now - that beats all the emotions, feelings, memories that any event may serve me up, it was enough to face it and value it.

Really U2 are saints, prophets of our time, connecting us with God and love - never has the time been that they have not been an inspiration.