Community Carols at the Meeting House 2014

As a Unitarian I am delighted that yesterday the Meeting House committee in Ringwood held a community carols session co-sponsored by the Unitarians in Ringwood.  We had carols marking Christmas and other festivals, some more familiar than others.  The words weren’t necessarily quite what people expected, and some were very taken by that.  And the children loved it.

In Great Britain our history is a fusion of many people’s histories, and our faiths are fusions of many different faiths.   Christmas is a festival set against a Jewish cultural background, brought to these islands by Romans and grafted onto the original pre-Christian earth-spirit beliefs.

In these islands it was a pre-Christian practice to hold a festival in the middle of winter to mark the turning of the year, the lengthening of the days, and hope for the future; called Solstice.  It is Solstice today, and people gathered at Stonehenge to see the rising sun at the start of the new solar year.  Near the Solstice, pre-Christian people here celebrated their ancestors in a festival called Yule.  We still talk of Yule logs, though today these tend to be chocolate cakes rather than a smouldering log on the fire.

And brought to Britain from the Middle East, there is a Jewish miracle story from 2000 BCE of an oil-lamp, low on oil, burning continuously for eight days on no more than a drop of oil in the besieged temple of Jerusalem, though it should have gone out long before.  Coming in the dead of winter, Hanukkah celebrates the triumph of light over darkness, of purity over contamination, of spirituality over materialism.  Jewish people the world over have just celebrated Hanukkah on 16 December.

And of course some of the later Romans to arrive here told of the Jewish baby whose mother was turned away from the inn and who laid him in a manger: the baby who as an adult went on to teach that we are loved into being, we are supported throughout our lives by love, and at our ending we are received in love.  Jesus’ good news was that each of us and all of us are loved, and we must pass that love on.  The birth of the baby Jesus is what we celebrate at Christmas.

So all these festivals, and others such as Diwali from Hinduism and Eid from Islam, which also sometimes fall in winter,  are what have fused into our British cultural celebration at this time of year. 

December meeting

Our December worship took the form of readings about Advent and Christmas, and how these festivals can be seen from a Unitarian perspective – as preparation and waiting for a growing light, which may or may not be named Christ depending on one’s theology, to break through the darkness.  We had some moving music and periods of silence.  We also included our usual ritual of sharing light, bread, water, and earth/air elements.  We always do this wordlessly because people attach different yet heartfelt meanings to the ritual, and we respect each other’s private relationship with the divine.

We also lit candles as part of expressing those joys and concerns dear to us, so to help our reconciliation with the events of our lives.

We were moved by a prayer we have come across from the World Community for Christian Meditation in the UK : part of which is adapted below:

May this group be a true spiritual home for the seeker, a friend for the lonely, a companion for the confused.  In the silence of this room may all the suffering, violence and confusion of the world encounter the power that will console, renew and uplift the human spirit.

May this silence be a power to open the hearts of people to the vision of God, and so to each other, in love and peace, justice and human dignity.  May the beauty of the Divine Life fill this group and the hearts of all who pray here with joyful hope.

May all who come here, weighed down by the problems of humanity, leave giving thanks for the wonder of human life and whatever lies beyond it.

Study Course on Spiritual Health starting in January

Join us, starting early in January on an open course of exploration titled “Twelve Steps to Spiritual Health”.  Over twelve weeks we are going to work our way through the book by David Usher, as shown on the "books" tab on this website.  The course will take the form of individual book study supported by group discussion.  We’ll meet as a group at the Ringwood Meeting House and History Centre, Meeting House Lane, on Wednesday lunchtimes.

The course does not assume you hold any formal belief system or religious affiliation, although it does draw inspiration from a wide range of world faiths.

The author of the book, David Usher, is a Unitarian minister who after some years serving UK congregations is now serving in the USA.  David has said that spiritual life is about being fully alive, and his book is a practical manual for anyone seeking life measured by quality and intensity, not quantity.

If you are interested, you should be willing to be led out of your familiar comfort zone at some point, in order to become open to life’s possibilities and to become able to withstand its disappointments.

You will need to buy your own copy of the book and to pay the usual admission to the Meeting House for each one of the group meetings you are able to come to.  Although it is encouraged, you might not have to commit to the full twelve week course.

For further details and to register an interest in the course, telephone Lucy on 07899 730181 (answerphone available).

 

 

November meeting

Last Sunday the theme of the Unitarian worship in Ringwood was in tune with the commemorative mood sweeping the nation at this time – it was taking time, taking our time to reflect.  A quiet service with candles.

October meeting

Our October meeting supported the intent for all UK Unitarian congregations to hold a service for peace on or near the 3rd Sunday in October, as an interfaith service.

We also noted that the "Hunger for Justice" campaign led by Christian Aid is being marked on the third weekend in October this year.  UK Unitarians sponsor Christian Aid as our strategic partner for delivery of aid towards justice.

 

 

 

Peace and justice were seen as being inextricable, peace not even being possible unless first there is justice.  We had a reading from the old Chinese tradition of Taoism, suggesting that personal and disciplined acts of peace within each life are necessary for peace to become a reality for nations.  We had a reading from the Jesus tradition where Jesus said that before you can have peace you must have justice, and that justice hurts, and breaks both things and assumptions, and stirs things up.  How working for peace will break relationships that we might not want broken, and how it will cost us personally if we get serious in our search for peace.  There is nothing easy about it and we are in danger of turning away from the task.

Our prayers were taken from the Pagan, Anglican, Hindu and Jewish traditions.  And we heard a vivid poem about how the clearing up really gets done after a war – and after the media circus has left town.  We heard and joined in with some wonderful pre-recorded hymns sung by the Unitarian Music Society, and discussed the deeply thoughtful lyrics.

We lit candles for our own concerns about peace.  We meditated on our own confusion about how our own actions can really make a difference, and what we can do if we want peace but the person we are dealing with just doesn’t want peace but revels in discord and power struggles.

Of course, we found no simple answers; but we each went away feeling the time together had been precious.

September meeting

Our September meeting was led by Lucy and it recognised the general anxiety, doubt and uncertainty of the times.  Some words to help us through such times were taken from two sources - the New Testament of the Bible and an ancient Chinese tale.  Both of these challenged us to change our perceptions of what is happening to us and around us and so to open our minds to the opportunities and freedoms we do actually already have.

We contrasted our own uncertainties with how we react to and feel about people whose beliefs deal only in certainties.  We found we may not be dissimilar after all.  We lit many candles of intent remembering issues and people that matter deeply to us and we also shared the humour on some fridge magnets !  The music we listened to reflected the joy of living, and how when we work towards fellowship we will find that humans are their own masters and will not have to look beyond their own experience and insight for guidance.

 

Happy and creative holidays 2014

In these summer months, some are in a position to be able to take a break from their usual routine and even go to a different place, for rest, refreshment and recuperation.  We call these breaks “holidays” and this could be spelt “whole-days” for they are a valuable tool in making us whole again.

The gift of becoming whole again after a period of being worn out, of splintering, alienation, tension, stress, and even injury has traditionally been seen as coming from the gods, and there is something in us as humans that feels grateful and even wants to say “thank you” for it.  Even for people to whom the words “god” or “gods” seem meaningless there often remains this sense of gratefulness, though it may be difficult to know to where it could be directed.  Let us just note that this floating gratefulness, which we all sense from time to time, is part of the mystery of being human, and that the word “mystery” originally meant “those things that it is impossible to speak of”.

For those people who can in some way associate a meaning with the word “god” it comes as no surprise to feel “mystery”.  For many people, the word “god” is merely a reverential synonym for the word “mystery”, and they use it to refer to the ultimate mystery, the whatever it is that is the absolute fabric or rule that arches over all the gaps in our knowledge, experience and sensation of living in the universe.

As we muse on the opportunity to take a break, and what it might mean to be grateful for that, let us also remember those who cannot get away from their usual routine.  Especially those for whom the usual routine means violence, oppression, incarceration, violation, lack of shelter, instability, disease, starvation, thirst.

May we in our gratefulness remain open to the humane task of helping where we can, for no other reasons firstly that we are able to do so and secondly that doing so seems very often to be creative and in fulfilment of who we as humans are.

August Meeting

The August worship meeting of Didymus (Ringwood Unitarians) was on Sunday 10 August.  Darren led the meeting.

The theme was the need to engage with environmental issues as this Earth is particularly us and we it.

Unitarian theology

There is nothing definitive, nothing formal, nothing official that can describe or encapsulate the mental models that Unitarians use to describe our world.  But there have been some good efforts at trying.

One of our favourite bloggers, whose blog you can link to at the bottom of this website, is Stephen Lingwood, and his latest version of what ties Unitarians together whilst setting us apart from non-religious types, is his blog entry of 17 July 2014, extracted below - cheekily, without his permission.

"Unitarianism is a theological tradition with commitments. This list could be improved, or put in different ways, but we really are committed to the following theological points:

1. There is a spiritual dimension to reality - though this should be understood as an existential claim rather than a metaphysical one. In other words there is a deeper, fuller, better, more mysterious, more alive way to live - and this is what the religions have been wrestling with for thousands of years.

2. Revelation is not sealed: the fullest truth about the nature of our lives and the universe has not once and for ever been revealed and codified at any point in the past. Instead we are part of our continuous process of seeking ever deeper, bigger and more complex understandings of this truth. We are part of a historical process of discovery.

3. The spiritual reality is imminently and fully present in the here and now. We do not look to the past for evidence of revelation or to the future for a time of fulfilment and completion. Neither should our attention be on the afterlife or some other place. Religion drives us deeper and deeper into this reality, not an escape from it.

4. Related to this is the affirmation that fundamentally reality, the universe, life is good. There is pain and tragedy, but ultimately "it was good" - it is good.

5. The human being (the human "soul" if you like) is a source and locus of spiritual reality. We are intimately involved in this: "the Highest dwells within us.... As there is no screen or ceiling between our heads and the infinite heavens, so there is no bar or wall in the soul where we, the effect, cease, and God, the cause, begins." Emerson.

6. We are One - we are deeply intertwined with one another in an "interdependent web of all existence" or an "inescapable network of mutuality" (ML King). This may be point 5 above just described in a different way. The fundamental truth of our existence is that we are not separate but deeply connected with all that is.

7. Human beings have sacred inherent worth and value. For this sacredness not to be trampled human beings must be free. Therefore relations between people should be based on free consent and not coercion.

8. Related to this is the realisation that the human race is one. We have more in common than divides us. There is not one particular people who are superior. There is a foundational equality for all people.

9. We live in an non-optimal world where the oneness and equality of all is frustrated by various systems and forces. It is a moral obligation to seek to put this right and commit to justice. Or, to put it another way, love and spirituality cannot be separated. "You cannot love God without loving your sister." Religion must lead us to a greater compassion, and any religion that does not increase our capacity for compassion is a false religion.

10. Community is necessary. We cannot live out these truths in isolation, but must enter into the discipline of community-making to live out this calling in the world.

11. We are ultimately hopeful about this universe. Not immediately, "not without dust and heat" but eventually there is a reason for hope. "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well." "

July 2014 meeting

The July worship meeting of Didymus (Ringwood Unitarians) was on Sunday 13 July.  Darren led the meeting and took the theme 'No Bystanders'.

Life happens whatever the choices we make.  And the greatest danger to the ethical life is thinking that we can 'sit this one out.'

We can choose to do nothing; we can have good reasons to do nothing; we may even be right to do nothing; but we are never not involved because of that.

 

Prove it to me

Unitarians are, by nature, people who examine evidence, lines of logic, myths, legends and argument.  They tend to lend greater weight to the evidence of their own lives and experience than to hypotheses handed to them by others.

In the Christian story we notice that the disciple called Thomas was sceptical about the claims of others: the claims that Jesus had been resurrected, and had been seen walking and talking to those who followed him.  "When I can put my finger in the wounds on his hands, feet and side," Thomas is supposed to have said, "then I'll believe."  Doubting Thomas, he became dubbed, and the name has stuck. Well, Unitarians are perhaps the Doubting Thomases of religion.  "Show me how what you are saying matches my experience," Unitarians say.

So it comes as no surprise that the Unitarian congregation of Ringwood, at some point in the 19th century, renamed their Meeting House as "St Thomas' Chapel".  It did revert, and by the time the Unitarians sold it off, it was once again simply the "Meeting House".

Now Unitarians once again use the Meeting House in Ringwood for their worship, and this year to mark the feast day of Thomas on 3 July we presented the Meeting House with a floral arrangement specially commissioned from the Ringwood Floral Decoration Society.  We are grateful to them, and also to Rivendell Designs Photography (also from Ringwood) for the photos on this post.

Being frightened by difference

Unitarians, with people the world over who take a liberal, inclusive, generous view of religious faith and belief, look back and remember Jan Hus on 6 July.  Jan Hus was born around 1369 and he was a  Czech priest, philosopher, reformer and master at Charles University in Prague. After John Wycliffe, the theorist of ecclesiastical Reformation, Hus is considered the first Church reformer, as he lived before Luther, Calvin and Zwingli.

Jan Hus was tortured and executed in 1415 because, as a priest in the Roman Catholic Church, one of the things he did wrong was to offer his congregants both bread and wine, known as “communion in both kinds”.  This mattered to the authorities because in doing so he disobeyed their rules – and they felt that their power and their communities were threatened by his actions.

Jan Hus had read the Bible for himself and had noticed that, at the Last Supper, celebrating the Jewish Passover, Jesus had invited his followers both to take and eat the seder bread and to take and drink the wine, and to continue to do that in his name until he returned in glory.  At Mass, therefore, Jan Hus fed his congregants both bread and wine, in defiance of the Catholic instruction of the time, which was that only the priests should drink the wine at the Mass.

Such things may seem trivial to us but – as Dean Jonathan Swift pointed out in his satire about the big-endians and the small-endians, who fought over which end of a boiled egg should be broken into with a spoon – every culture has its blind spots and taboos, over which the most terrible wars can be fought.  Optional approaches, that come to be seen as “right” or “wrong,” are often bound up in our own sense of who we are and who we include in our tribe.

In remembering Jan Hus and the ultimate price he paid for thinking for himself about religion, and making his stand in witness to what he believed to be right, let us look at ourselves a bit more closely.  What are the arbitrary habits and assumptions that we hold so dear, that are so much part of ourselves and our identity, that we feel frightened when someone does them differently?  How realistic is our fright?  How likely is it, that what is being done will damage our identity or the conditions under which we live our lives?  And how do we express our fear?  Finally, how do we behave towards the person who is doing things differently?

Are you a Ringwood Unitarian without knowing it?

There are Unitarians in Ringwood.  It's just that they don't yet call themselves Unitarians because they don't know the name "Unitarian".  Are you one of these?

The thing about being a Unitarian is that there is no rule about what a Unitarian is.  Some say it's about hope, some say it's about systems of belief, some say it's about how you live.  Some say it's about freedom, reason and tolerance.  Some say it's about how you do a radically 21st century way of faith.  The national support team for Unitarians says it could be described as "nurturing faith, embracing life, celebrating difference".  All would agree that being a Unitarian is about exploring fundamental and searching questions, and not about preaching answers.  Unitarians also agree that the ultimate authority for anyone has to be their living, challenging, perplexing conscience, no matter what any other person says.  Behind all of this is the traditional Unitarian insistence on the oneness of God or the God idea, from which we get our name.  We set great store by any wisdom framework that points towards that oneness, without worrying about where that wisdom comes from.

Unitarians insist on the central call to love and typically care about right relationships such as

• equal rights and the ending of oppression
• being in touch with the Earth and its growing creatures and living lightly on the planet
• being in touch with how we have got to where we are now and what that means for our shared future
• being in balance in our inner life
• being human together and supporting strong communities

and about doing more than thinking about right relationships - Unitarians typically care about getting down and working for it, working for that better world now.

June meeting

The Unitarian meeting in Ringwood on 8 June was centred on the theme "one world".  We heard readings from the Bible (Genesis Chp1) and from Wordsworth.  There were some lovely prayers seeking lessons from the Earth for our daily living.  We mused on the smallness of the Earth in space as we listened to music from "The Blue Planet" and we sang hymns that reflected the interconnectedness of humans and the Earth.  We welcomed a new participant and we marked the passing of one of our number who was with us as recently as our May meeting.  There was a calm still feeling to the service which had lots of silence and time for meditation.

The discipline in being a Unitarian

Oneness is ultimate for many Unitarians.  Oneness of everything, including of ourselves within the oneness of everything that there is.

Oneness means no discontinuities, no barriers, no compartments – through and through a clearness that remains, however it is looked at.  That is the meaning of the word “integrity”.  And these ideas are closely linked with the words “true to” and “authentic”.

There is no creed, no statement of belief, that must be adopted by all Unitarians.  But  we still demand statements of belief.  Unitarians typically think that though there is not one creed for all, each must have a creed.  Many Unitarians would say that although there is not one faith for all, for each person there is a prescription, written into the universe, that must be found and then lived.

The only, small, matter of variance between us and people of other faith communities is where we allow ourselves to look for our discoveries and revelations.  We look in a broader range of places than one set of writings, beyond one human realm of activity, indeed we look beyond a human-centric focus.  We allow our exploration to range across the whole of the oneness we are able to perceive.

This is not an easy "pick and mix" approach to faith.  It is not saying that one can believe or do what one likes.  It demands instead a rigorous use of reason and conscience.  And a personal discipline to stick to what has been revealed and discovered, no matter the cost.

May 2014 meeting

Our May meeting took place at the very start of Christian Aid Week.  The two readings that were chosen reflected a theme that is common to both ancient religion and modern science – the interdependency of humankind and the survival need to give mutual aid.  The first reading was from Isaiah 58 and the second was derived from material available on the world wide web on the influence of Peter Kropotkin.  Despite considerable difference in language of the two readings, both perspectives asserted it to be a truth that health, well-being, and the satisfaction of a meaningful place in the world are bound up in helping each other and seeking justice through breaking down of oppression and social barriers.

We looked forward, to working with other churches in Ringwood in the coming week, as part of the Christian Aid Week campaign to deal with the impact and aftermath of war in South Sudan and Colombia.  And also, to giving thanks in joint worship on 18 May in Poulner Baptist Chapel.

The invitation was extended to all the participants to choose readings for future meetings.  We also agreed that we now have a working core to our congregation and discussed our next initiative for growth, which is likely to take a different, drop-in format, early on Saturday mornings. 

Unitarians learn to listen in Ringwood

What do we do in our meetings?  Well, we carry out some simple sharing rituals, in which we share silence, candle lighting, and passing small items from hand to hand, and most often, a small amount of food too.  These are all to represent our interconnected nature and may hold extra, private meanings for participants, depending on their personal faith.

We also share the leadership of the meetings.  We make this easy by having a simple but fixed format, which includes space for private contemplation (which may be used for prayer or meditation), listening to music or singing a couple of Unitarian hymns, and most importantly, two readings.  We think of listening to the readings as lectio divina, which means "sacred reading".

Often, lectio divina is a solitary activity, but it can be used very successfully in a small group.  The listening silence that emerges becomes very prayerful, and trust and strong bonds between the participants develop.

Traditionally, the reading activity focuses on scripture.  Scripture is a word whose meaning has changed.  When Paul was writing in the early days of the Common Era, it used to mean anything written down, but more recently the word `scripture` has come to mean the venerated texts from religious writers of various faiths.  Traditional Christians would most often use the Bible, augmented by writings by saints or early Christian mystics.  But as Unitarians we are not constrained by that and a wide range of texts can be used.  Scientific writings can be as important to us as poetry and traditional writings, from whichever faith system has drawn our attention.

As everyone is given the opportunity to select the texts to be read, this arrangement also has the benefit that we can hear the texts and subjects that hold meaning for everyone individually in the group.  So if you are looking for a spiritual community that is interested in your own path and your own belief system, give us a try.  In return, we will give you a good listening to.

April 2014 Meeting

The April worship meeting of Didymus (Ringwood Unitarians) was on Sunday 13 April (Palm Sunday for western Christians).

Our meeting was linked with imminent Jewish festival of the Passover, which occurs in what western Christians call Holy Week, the week leading up to Easter.  It was to celebrate the Passover that Jesus went to Jerusalem, commemorated on Palm Sunday.  The Passover marks the pivotal event for the Jews, in which God granted them freedom from slavery to the Egyptians.  This freedom came with the specific instruction that it was given in order that they could make study of the law, i.e. the life of the spirit, a defining focus of their lives.

In our meeting we read texts from the prayer book, and combined Taizé-style chant with periods of silence, as well as sharing bread and water.  The Passover was a violent affair involving animal sacrifice and death of many Egyptians in the face of protection and release of the Israelites, and we reflected on it as both hope and dread.  And we also considered the value of sharing it with others even if the outcomes can't be changed.

Unitarians support fast to highlight British hunger

There is a growing national campaign to highlight and challenge the hunger that some are having to cope with in today's Britain.  At least one Unitarian in our new group has decided to support this action by fasting on 4 April, as suggested by the END HUNGER FAST campaign.

To understand what this is about and what it is trying to achieve - or even to take part - go to www.endhungerfast.co.uk

Here's the ecumenical version of the prayer for 4 April, by the Bishop of Gloucester, the Right Revd Michael Perham:

God of mercy and of plenty,
your son Jesus fasted in the wilderness
and shared food with the people in a desert place:
give us courage to resist the injustices around us,
the will to end the hunger that shames our society
and a share in your vision for a new world
where all shall have a place at the table of the feast.

Amen.

"Didymus" March Meeting 2014

The March worship meeting of Didymus (Ringwood Unitarians) was on Sunday 9 March.  We had readings and contemplation around the topic, "What is truth?", with reference to the death sentences placed upon Jesus of Nazareth and Socrates by their peers, who apparently found the truth described by each of them too much to bear.

The ruling culture dominating the lives of these two great souls both felt the truth exposed by them, and feared it.

"Didymus" February 2014 Meeting

The Unitarian cause includes a challenge: the challenge to find – and live up to – what we are capable of believing, rather than what someone else says we should believe.

Although this may look like we have a choice about what we believe, if acted on properly, it’s not.

Happy New Direction !

New Year’s resolutions are all about new starts, and taking control of your life, your own life.  What does this coming year hold out to you and what are you going to do about it?  If your New Year resolution involves a bold new step in a life of spiritual exploration, why not come and find us?