08 November 2024

November 2024 gathering for reverence – The Illusion of Anthropocentrism – #Unitarians in Ringwood

Come along in the safety of Zoom on Sunday 17th November just before 11 a.m. to test the experience we will make for you, and see if anything we say has any resonance for you.  You can spend some quiet, private time revering what is most important to you, and joining with others in hearing some music and lighting candles for matters of the heart.

This month we are looking at the liminal season of autumn and thinking about our place in the world and in relation to the world.  The theme is 'The Illusion of Anthropocentrism.'

We often revisit old wisdoms in our gatherings, mostly from our classical Unitarian roots (which often involves looking at the Bible from our current, real-life perspectives).


Sunday 17th November on Zoom, arriving in time for the start at 11.00 a.m.

Email to lucyunbox.ringwood@btinternet.com for the Zoom link.


An unidentifiable animal cell has been humanised with face, arms and legs.  The left arm is extended and in its left hand it is holding a microscope, pointing back at itself.  It is making a V for Victory sign with its right hand, and is smiling.  The caption is CELLFIE spelled C  E  L  L  F  I  E











23 October 2024

'Metaphor and Christianity' – #Unitarians associated with Ringwood gather in October 2024

In explaining why she had taken the topic ‘Metaphor’ as the topic for the gathering, our president for the day said, “When I was young I was chatting with my devout Church of England mother about Christianity.  ‘Well,’ my mother replied, ‘it's all metaphor, isn't it.’  There was no question mark at the end of her sentence.  This was a clear statement.  We were fairly open with each other about our respective religious beliefs, but for some reason we never followed up this snippet of conversation.  As the years have gone by I have often wondered about what she said, especially as now I seriously agree with her.”


The candle in our chalice was lit with these words, by Adyashanti :  "There’s only one guarantee that Jesus gave: if you can receive and awaken and embody what he is speaking about, then your life will never be the same again. Then you will realize that you’re already living in the Kin-dom of Heaven."


And then we were given a clear sense of what this fellowship in Ringwood is all about, using some words adapted from Stephen Lingwood :


"This is our delight:  We are in search.

We are in search of a coherent, whole set of stories, symbols, languages, and practices; that, taken together, offer a way of life.  A way of life that diagnoses a problem in the human condition  and offers a solution.

In other words, we are in search of something that gives coherence and meaning to human life.  We are in search of faith, a faith that could be experienced as good news.  We are trying to speak of paradise."



the dark emptiness of outer space is punctuated by the image of the Earth, blue but with the white swirls of weather systems also visible



As this was a Zoom gathering, the hymns were able to be taken from a range of engaging video clips available publicly on YouTube.  Here are the links:


Lead Me, Guide Me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLpB-dE2DHM

Words and music by Doris M. Akers

Performed by Dr. Velma Willis and the Gospel Pioneer Reunion


Stand By Me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v24qf16zP58

Words and music by Rev. Charles A. Tindley

Performed by Wyeth Duncan


There’s a spirit of love in this place

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN7SEpcpkgg

Words and music by Mark A. Miller

Performed by Pine United Methodist Church, San Francisco CA


How like a Gentle Spirit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_0UGz1Ts-w

Words (1987) by C. Eric Lincoln

Music (1941) by Alfred Morton Smith

Performed by Rev. Bill Bloom 


We’ll understand it better by and by

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLzLJXETn0A

Words and music by Rev. Charles A. Tindley

Performed by Phillip Carter


There was also a poem made freely available online by the author:

Roger Robinson — Portable Paradise, read by the author.

https://poetryarchive.org/poem/a-portable-paradise/



Dr. Velma Willis and the Gospel Pioneer Reunion singing their hearts out while (mostly) seated in a modern church building


The readings were firstly from the Bible, book of Mark chapter 7 verses 26-30 (in the translation version by Andy Gaus), and secondly, from the book by Howard Thurman Jesus and the Disinherited.


The readings both dealt with the incident, in the narrative about Jesus, in which Jesus is approached by a woman with different ancestral origins — from the region we would now name Syria.  Jesus initially declines to help her poorly child, but after an exchange with the woman, changes his mind.


Thurman points out that this incident is an occasion for a one-to-one encounter between Jesus and someone who has been racialised, in Jesus’ mind, as different from himself.  Potentially a test of Jesus' universal love-ethic which Thurman suggests, was, "A twofold demand upon him at all times: to love those of the household of Israel who became his enemies because they regarded him as a careless perverter of the truths of God; and to love those beyond the household of Israel — the Samaritan, the Gentile, and even the Roman oppressor…….

A person must love their neighbour directly, clearly, permitting no barriers between."


~~~~


Our president for the day reflected on these readings by firstly looking at the language in play and secondly generally agreeing with Howard Thurman, that Jesus was — as we would say these days — on a learning journey of his own.


The first point reflected upon was that the Syrophoenician woman cleverly uses language to shift Jesus’ point of view.  The woman plays on the difference between the feral street dogs who are really part of the town’s waste disposal system, and pet dogs that live closely with families.


“When Jesus first replies to the Syrophoenician woman (Mark 7:27), he is repeating what he said elsewhere (Matthew 7:6):  “Do not give what is holy to dogs; and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them underfoot”.  Jesus is initially rejecting her plea on grounds that she and he have different origins, different cultures, different ways of looking at things.  


“Where he starts from, is that he doesn’t want to give the deepest teaching to those who are undeserving — either because he thinks they won’t recognize it and will throw it away, or because he thinks they aren’t ready for it.  And in any case, he is entirely taken up with helping his own people.


“The woman’s reply is clever because, whilst holding onto the dog metaphor, she pivots it, to challenge him to look at things in a new way.  I have followed where others have been before, in reading that there is linguistic evidence of this.  At this exact point in the New Testament Greek there is used a linguistic diminutive.  


“Two words are used for dogs: Jesus uses one word, the usual, hard-nosed word, used for the feral scavenger dogs.  And the woman uses another, softer word, with a subtler meaning.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AncientGreek/comments/18uxhvq/larry_hurtado_vs_joel_marcus_on_the/?rdt=63838


"If the translator closely attends to this linguistic twist, and changes the emphasis to suit, the passage can be read:


“(Mark 7:27-28)

He said to her, “First let the children eat their fill, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it out to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Sir, even the lapdogs under the table eat the children’s scraps.” 


“I think that what the woman is saying, is, “If you are going to categorise me and mine as different from you and yours, at least accept that our relationship can be more than you have declared.  We are neighbours.  Accepting we are different, we can still live closely together, like dog owners and their pets.  And in the same way, what is good for you is also good for us.  Just give us a little of it, won’t you?”


"I think Jesus is jolted by this appeal to reason, solidarity, and the love-ethic.  And so he acts to heal the child.”


And the reflection re-emphasised Thurman’s assertion that Jesus would need techniques he could use in extending his love-ethic across racialised divides.  Our president for the day repeated Thurman’s message: “The first step toward love is a common sharing of a sense of mutual worth and value.  This cannot be discovered in a vacuum or in a series of artificial or hypothetical relationships.  It has to be in a real situation, natural, free. …. What one discovers in even a single experience in which barriers have been removed may become useful in building an overall technique for loving one’s enemy.”


book cover of Howard Thurman's book "Jesus and the Disinherited".  Thurman's photograph is on the cover.


29 September 2024

Re-orientating towards abundance – Unitarians in Ringwood muse on letting go of scarcity 15 September 2024

The challenge set before us today was to look behind our thought processes and see whether we are generally operating with a mindset of scarcity.  The mindset of scarcity lies at the heart of many fears to do with survival, and is a root cause of animosity, xenophobia and conflict, even war.  For, if we believe we only have just about enough to get by, we guard our resources jealously and are reluctant to share them with others.  We begin to make judgments about whom we are prepared to share with, and put up barriers to protect our resources from others who mean less to us than those we view as our own — in other words, we begin to ‘other’ certain people.  This is where tribalism begins.

The first reading in today’s gathering was from the book Seeking Paradise by Stephen Lingwood.  Having suggested that alienation from the Earth, our bodies, our neighbours, and the source of life itself, are all, in essence, the same problem, Stephen highlighted that early Christian teaching was that evil can only be resisted by becoming deeply attuned to the divine presence within and all around.  As an example, we then heard some ecstatic poetry written by Ephrem the Syrian (c. 306-373 CE).


The second reading was from the Bible Book of Mark chapter 8.  This is the story of Jesus feeding a large crowd with a very small amount of food, for the second time, and Jesus’ frustration afterwards with his students, who didn’t seem to understand what had just happened and what they were supposed to learn from it.


While we were chewing these readings over we had some hymns and songs about giving thanks, the harvest, rejoicing in the truth, counting our blessings etc and then we heard the president for the day present thoughts on the two readings.


Pointing out that we need to understand what abundance is and how we can enjoy abundance in a world affected by climate overheat and biodiversity crash, and the population flows that will naturally follow, she said, 


“Abundance is not defined by having more stuff........nor is it about being able to access more and more data, information, music and moving images at the click of a carbon-expensive button.......Abundance is about connection.  Connection between people, certainly, but also connection with our environment, connection with what makes and gives life...... A greater sense of connection comes first and foremost from stronger communal living........We need to re-orientate ourselves, so that a sense of abundance becomes the whole context of our lives, the grounding on which we then go about the other more usual activities.”

 

Looking through translucent leaves in autumn, which are mainly still green but now tinged with an intense russet red colour.  The veins of the leaves are very prominent.


She explained that her understanding of the Bible reading was that Jesus was teaching exactly about this act of re-orientation towards a mindset of abundance:


“Traditional churches use the miracle stories about Jesus as evidence or proof that Jesus is actually God.  Unitarians have the luxury of skipping that entirely, treating it as not a matter of interest.  Unitarians can look at what is actually going on in the story.


“When Jesus rebukes his students he is frustrated with them.  They are not paying attention to what he’s trying to teach them at that moment.  Jesus and his friends live as Jews under the yoke of Rome and under the religious authorities intent on appeasing Rome.  The Jewish people live under a socio-economic and political yoke that makes it hard to find the still, quiet, clarity at heart that Jesus is entirely orientated towards and teaching about.  Jesus calls it the kingdom of God.


“In the boat he is trying to warn them about the insidious nature of the power of the religious authorities and of the king who is a vassal of the Roman imperial oppressors. But his students aren’t listening. 


“It’s not even that the students are distracted by trying to think through and understand the miracle that Jesus has just performed.  It’s rather that all they are worrying about is that they only have in their possession a single loaf of bread.  They are in a mindset of scarcity.  Scarcity is once again worrying them, and putting everything else out of their minds.

 

Looking across the tips of ripe wheat in a field, with a strong blue sky behind, not a cloud in sight.


“Jesus can see they haven’t absorbed the teaching about the miracles of the feeding of the many. The four thousand people that had gathered to listen to Jesus seemed to be in a state of scarcity.  And there was only a little bit of food to be found between the students, and this food was presented to Jesus.  ‘Hey, Jesus, here’s the problem!’


“Before doing anything with the food, Jesus blessed it.  He gave thanks.  By doing this he brought to attention what wonder and a marvel it was to have this food at all.  Then he broke the food up.  He split it into even smaller pieces, and gave it away.  He told others to give it away too, to share it with everyone.  It was distributed widely.  And somehow, in seeing it as a gift, a wonder, a measure of abundance, and giving it away, it actually became an abundance.  


“And this was the second time Jesus had done this.  So Jesus is disappointed and cross that having done this — and not just once but twice — his students now on the boat still haven’t understood.  Those closest to him, those who claim allegiance to him and his teaching about living in the kingdom, are not even listening to him.


“He rebukes them, but even now he doesn’t explain it for them.  He leaves it for them to work out for themselves;  and so it is left for us to work out for ourselves, as well.  


“I think the story about the rebuke by Jesus holds this message :  Look, you live in paradise, a place of abundance.  You think you have almost nothing, just enough to maybe get by, and you worry about the future.  Whereas with gratefulness and wonder and thanksgiving and sharing you have everything you need, and much much more than you need.  All it takes is a re-orientation.  All it takes is a mindset of abundance.”


pastoral scene of a wide slow-flowing river winding its way through green pastures, surrounded by hedges and trees