Reflection #117 (11th January 2026 at Essex Church / Kensington Unitarians)
‘We live and learn’ – that’s how the saying goes – but do we? Do we always, inevitably, learn as we live? Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s entirely guaranteed… it seems to be perfectly possible for us poor humans to bumble our way through life in a fairly unreflective and oblivious manner, and miss a lot of the lessons that come our way. But by the very fact you’re here this morning, I guess that you aspire to lifelong learning – not primarily the sort that you might pick up by going to evening classes or the U3A – but the learning that comes by being open, attentive, and curious in the face of whatever new, potentially challenging, experiences life brings our way.
I came across a blog post by Adeola Odubajo exploring the phrase ‘we live and learn’. She says: ‘Life doesn’t come with a syllabus. There are no structured semesters, no final exams, and no degree at the end. Yet, life is the most complex, enriching, and brutally honest school we’ll ever attend. Every experience — whether triumphant or tragic — becomes a life lesson. The phrase “We live and learn” captures this beautifully. It’s simple, almost cliché, but behind those few words lies a profound philosophy that defines the essence of human growth. It suggests that mistakes, missteps, and even mundane moments all carry lessons. It’s a reminder that perfection is not the goal — progress is. Living is not just existing. It’s engaging with the world, making choices, taking risks, falling down, and getting back up. And in doing all this, we learn — not just about the world, but about ourselves. Every success teaches us what works. Every failure teaches us what doesn’t. Both are essential. To live and to learn means embracing failure not as a setback, but as a crucial step forward. It’s understanding that you may fall, but you’re not meant to stay down.’
Words from Adeola Odubajo, Now, she said ‘life doesn’t come with a syllabus’, but several of my friends often speak of the spiritual notion that each of us humans has our own particular ‘curriculum’ to tackle during our time here on earth – a phrase I associate with our own Sarah and Michaela especially – and that idea can be a helpful way of framing the various ups and downs we face in the course of our lives. Whenever we encounter a bump, or get knocked back, whenever we find ourselves engaged with something or someone we find challenging, we can ask ‘what is the lesson for me here?’ As Padraig O’Tuama said, we may learn most from situations we did not choose.
But we can’t take it for granted that we will learn from our life experiences. Learning doesn’t happen automatically; we need to work at it, and we mustn’t be complacent. When we say, ‘we live and learn’, it’s often provoked by being confronted with a new way of seeing things, it’s an acknowledgement of something we didn’t know before. Or it can be an acknowledgement that we’ve taken a wrong turning (and we won’t do it again). Sometimes it’s just a general reflection on our perspective changing as we get older. John Shea, a Jesuit theologian, made this wise observation: ‘It is harder to learn from life than you think. Life is a series of fragmented activities. We need to pay attention in order to learn from life. For there is more going on than you know.’
I know many of us in the congregation do make an active effort to engage with the world in such a way that we are exposed to new ideas, new ways of seeing things, perspectives that will open up new understanding of ourselves and what is possible for us in our time here on earth (as individuals, as a community, as a species). For example, we make a point of engaging in meaningful conversation with people in different age brackets (that’s one of the very good things about being part of a church community), or we read testimonies from people with very different life experiences to our own (and in fact we’re going to hear more about that in next week’s service). Perhaps we also have spiritual practices – prayer, meditation – to hone our attention and awareness. All this helps prevent us from getting too fixed and stuck in our ways.
Despite our best efforts, though, in life we sometimes find ourselves butting our head up against the same issues – making the same mistakes – again and again. We seem to be stuck in a loop, or a rut, hopelessly drawn back into the same old familiar patterns. Falling down the same hole. I wonder, how many of you are familiar with the poem by Portia Nelson, ‘Autobiography in Five Short Chapters’? A dear friend introduced me to this at summer school over twenty-five years ago and I had a very strong reaction to it at first hearing – it was too close to the bone – I felt ‘called out’ by it – all these years later I have warmed to it somewhat… which feels like part of my own process of living and learning. I recognise its truth.
I’ll share it with you now.
‘Autobiography in Five Short Chapters’ by Portia Nelson
I
I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk I fall in. I am lost … I am helpless. It isn’t my fault. It takes me forever to find a way out.
II
I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don’t see it. I fall in again. I can’t believe I am in the same place but, it isn’t my fault. It still takes a long time to get out.
III
I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it is there. I still fall in … it’s a habit. my eyes are open I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately.
IV
I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it.
V
I walk down another street.
‘Autobiography in Five Short Chapters’ by Portia Nelson – written back in 1977. Hopefully hearing that wasn’t as ouchy for you as it was for me, all those years ago, but also hopefully it will have had some resonance. I reckon we all have these key issues and patterns of behaviour we wrestle with over the course of a lifetime. Progress can be slow. Maybe we start out with no awareness of the problem. Then, perhaps through our own self-reflection, perhaps with the help of trusted others who can shed light on our situation and offer alternative perspectives, we can begin to see more clearly. It might take longer still to turn that awareness into a change in our behaviour or our circumstances. Eventually – there’s hope – learning can bring transformation.
But we only ‘live and learn’ if we take the raw material of our life experience and look at it honestly and – lovingly, compassionately – engage with the reality of it. The good, the bad, the mundane, the marvellous. Owning it. The whole mess of it. It’s not fun to acknowledge our mistakes. Sometimes it’s tempting to try and brush them off, pretend they didn’t happen, cook up some justification, blame others, avoid looking at our own stuff, what’s our responsibility, where we’ve fallen short. Or we might be tempted in the other direction, to self-recrimination, seeing ourselves as an irredeemable wrong’un, taking it all on ourselves, and assuming it’s inevitable that we’ll keep falling down the same hole forever, that there’s no hope of change.
It’s not just about learning from our mistakes though, and dwelling on the tough stuff. For some of us it’s just as hard to own our triumphs, our achievements, our growth. But it’s equally important to notice and learn from the things that went well. In our prayers each week we offer up ‘our beauty and our brokenness’; we need to hold both tenderly. These are the lessons hinted at by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: ‘Eventually we learn to laugh when we drop the glass and it shatters all over the floor’/‘What freedom then. We can listen to the sound of our own voice without cringing. Can dance in front of anyone.’
Hazrat Inayat Khan once said: ‘The real learning is unlearning all that one has learned.’ And it’s true that sometimes – particularly in our early years – we can learn lessons which we’ll spend the rest of our lives trying to unlearn. We might have drawn the wrong conclusions or misinterpreted our early life experiences; we might have been misinformed or led astray by others; we might be in denial about the impact of all this. Sometimes in the aftermath of neglect or trauma we learn lessons which might serve to protect us in the short term but which inhibit our full human flourishing in the long term. Unlearning such lessons – liberating ourselves from this burden – requires a great deal of courage, and appropriate support, and even so it can still be the work of a lifetime.
So what have we learned (about living and learning (and unlearning))? Perhaps to realise and remember there will always be more to learn. The task is never done. And in order to keep on learning it kind-of helps to be dissatisfied! To keep wondering, questioning, even returning to the same questions, and going round again, deeper each time, as Parker J Palmer said. We need to remain open, attentive, curious – and honest – our whole life long, reflecting on both our best and our worst moments. And to face our life’s ‘curriculum’ with all the courage and self-compassion we can muster.
I want to close with a very short prayer-poem from Deb Cannon. It’s written in the first person but perhaps you can take the message and inwardly make it your own.
I have made mistakes and some I have even learned from. I am wiser today than I was yesterday and hopefully tomorrow I will be even better informed. May I speak from my learning and not from my habit. If I speak from my habit, may I interrupt my words to start again. And if I don’t know, may I be silent and listen.
May it be so, for the greater good of all. Amen.
Reflection by Jane Blackall