#Unitarians look at Roman legend and Norse tradition to consider the moral imperative regarding conflicting demands

On 9 June a smaller group than usual met at Ringwood Meeting House, for what turned out to be, nevertheless, a heartfelt gathering.

Our hymns for the day were “Morning Has Broken” and “Joy to the World” - a rousing hymn to end on and we decided that it is too good to be kept for Christmas!

After opening words from Rev David Usher we lit the chalice candle to words by Greg Ward, notably including , "Though each of us carries forth in this world a small flame, we know that the ability of that light to brighten the world depends upon the many others who learn to walk with it in their hearts.”

Our two readings were intriguingly diverse.  The first was from Northern Tradition for the Solitary Practitioner by Krasskova & Kaldera, and it spoke of the concept of wergild.  At first glance this may look a little like the Roman Catholic idea of restitutions.  But wergild rests not on the idea of justice but of balance. The distinction is that for justice there is a person in the right and a person in the wrong and the latter has to pay the former in order to be made right again, but the idea of balance does not begin with one being in the right and the other in the wrong.  Wergild assumes that in the world, where there are conflicts of interest, some will come off better than others; and if one has come off better there is a moral duty to be aware of that and to find a way to recompense those who came off worse. The Roman Catholic restitutions concept is a making of amends; the wergild concept aims at preventing one conflict leading to another and another and another, ad infinitum.

By Hermitage Museum - http://www.arthermitage.org/Baldassare-Peruzzi/Androcles-and-the-Lion.html, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34591039

The second reading, which was our children’s story, was the legend of Androcles and the Lion, as told by Aesop.  Androcles the runaway slave is brave enough to pull a thorn from a lion’s paw, saving the lion from painful suffering and, perhaps, death through infection; and is later saved from the punishment of death in the Roman arena, because the lion he faces there turns out to be the same lion, who refuses to kill him.

After the readings we participated in our usual circle ritual, where we each offer up in our own minds, according to our personal beliefs.

We had then the opportunity

• to name what we had been grateful for in the past month;
• to spend time reflecting on our recent or past actions for the purposes of general or personal reconciliation, in silence or out loud as desired;
• to sit in stillness for our usual period of seven minutes for meditation or contemplation; and
• to offer prayers for others, including the lighting of candles.

After a musical interlude and some reflections on the theme highlighted by the two readings, our closing words were by Rev Andy Pakula.