November 2015 meeting for reverence

It is both an advantage and a disadvantage of being a small group that sometimes, with few participants turning up, the meetings can be quite intimate.  This allows for lots of close listening, and the freedom to spend more time developing ideas and voicing them out loud – perhaps for the first time.  But we never forget that a very small group could feel quite daunting to a first time visitor to our meetings.  Normally, though, we have enough participants to allow anyone who wishes to stay quiet to do just that.  And in any case, the various leaders of the meeting are able to adapt their prepared material to suit the people who come.

Few of us were able to be at our meeting on 8 November and that allowed close inspection and discussion of the chosen texts.  And what an eclectic mix they were: Epicurus, Tolkien, and Pratchett, all on the theme of death. The reflection was around not fearing it, whatever our ideas of what may be after it.  For once we didn't stop for coffee as people had to get off to other commitments.

We enjoy the flexibility that we build into our practice.  We are aware that in 21st century Britain the fixed and predictable format associated with more traditional faith-based gatherings may not appeal to the interior search many people are embarked upon.  We are all on a search; and in Ringwood, we Unitarians welcome insight from many sources, as we cross many boundaries and move in interlocking circles.  We expect people to have many irons in the fire, even – or perhaps, especially – when it comes to their interior explorations.  We have chosen the timing of our monthly meeting so that there is time to do something else before Sunday lunch, and would never be surprised or disappointed to hear that participants were going on to other places of worship, in other traditions, after having been with us.  Instead, what we would hope is that when people come to practise reverence with us, they contribute to our meeting by bringing the insights they have gathered from their other sources.  In a Unitarian internet forum, some years ago, it was said that some had brought to their Unitarian congregational practice a lot of insight gained from their “Twelve Steps” programme, run by Alcoholics Anonymous.  The models adopted by organised religions are different from each other, but bundled together they remain only one way of articulating the human experience.

Whatever your experience, whatever your path, if your model of how it all works, and the way you live, bring you to us in openness to other views and respect for personal lives linked in community, you will find us doing our best to welcome you.