Wholeness is not the same as fullness - emptiness is also needed for becoming - Ringwood Unitarians gathering in August 2021

Still not ready to meet face to face in the prevailing pandemic conditions, in August 2021 we gathered once again on Zoom.  We started our meeting by holding silence, so that we could each do the equivalent of (silently) reciting our personal creed.

The theme of meeting for reverence was ‘wholeness’ in contrast with human brokenness, and it pivoted around some words by the American author Oriah Mountain Dreamer: “When we surrender, when we do not fight with life when she calls upon us, we are lifted, and the strength to do what needs to be done finds us, because we have remembered that we can choose to serve the only cause that matters: life herself.”

We heard readings from Taoism (from the Tao Teh Ching, contrasting emptiness and busy-ness), and Christianity (a story from the Desert Fathers and Mothers on becoming whole enough to see to the heart of things).  We heard that the Buddha’s original message seems to have been cast in positive form – as common sense would expect, his teaching was a call to the ‘more’ of life, not to the ending of it, and certainly not a call to run away from an imperfect world.

We had some prayers and meditations including a meditation by Richard S. Gilbert on a comment by Dåg Hammarskjold regarding our chalice of being (how each day we receive, we carry, we give back).  The reflection had also included an insight on the importance of space and silence if we are to be truly whole, rather than just ‘full’ or occupied.  One participant said, “It made me think of the constellations in the sky.  We think of them as pictures drawn in the stars and yet there is more darkness than light to them.  It is on the space between the stars that we see the shapes form.”

In the self-contained way that has to be used during online gatherings, we sang two hymns from our green hymn books, which focused on the Life that makes all things new and the ‘human becoming’ in oneness and sharing.  After our candles of joys and concerns which turned out to be focused on the darker side of living, it was good to watch a YouTube video in which many sorts of different animals greeted their human companions with what can only be described as hugs.