Christmas gathering 15 December 2024 – an informal bring and share of matters to do with Christmas and hope

For our Christmas gathering this year we chose a less formal format.  After we had done the most important thing — switching on the heating of the Meeting House — we got our hot drinks to start with, instead of doing that at the end.

Then, settling down with our drinks and the chalice candle lit, Christmas music playing quietly in the background, in a circle we sat down to catch up and chat about what Christmas holds for us and our families.  As the session went on we gradually lit candles for issues on our minds and hearts.

We heard the pleasure in the voice of one of our number who is currently reading The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese, of which it has been said that "It is a better world for having a book in it that chronicles so many tragedies in a tone that never deviates from hope.”  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Covenant_of_Water

After a while it seemed to be the time to play Do You Hear What I Hear?, sung by Bing Crosby.  Usually played at Christmas, Do You Hear What I Hear? was written in October 1962 by Gloria Shayne and Noël Regney during the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis.  During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States and the Soviet Union confronted each other over the placement of Soviet missiles in newly Communist Cuba. Do You Hear What I Hear? was written by Shayne and Regney as a plea for peace.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloria_Shayne_Baker  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs9FPx3_Slk

Then we had an intriguing discussion about the theodical teasers — philosophical puzzles about the nature of God given the presence of evil— set out by Lance Morrow.  In 1976, Morrow became a regular writer of Time magazine's back page essay. He won the National Magazine Award for his Time essays in 1981, and was a finalist for that award in 1991 (for that essay on the subject of evil).  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lance_Morrow. The three proposals that Morrow examines together in that essay on evil were remembered today as being “That God is all goodness”, “That God is all powerful”, and “Terrible things happen to people (both good and bad)”.  If our blog reader manages to work out a world view that makes sense of these three propositions and can hold them all at once together, perhaps they could write in to us and explain — because like elders before us, we were not able to make them all work at once.

Next we had a request for the poem by Emily Dickinson Hope is the thing with feathers which we heard read out first, before hearing it also set to music by Christopher Tin   https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42889/hope-is-the-thing-with-feathers-314

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGrLL3T0ozE

Following this we began to home in on what Christmas is all about.  To challenge our thinking, we heard a reading by Unitarian Universalist Minister Richard M Woodman (1930-2020) https://www.uua.org/files/2021-06/memorial_book_slt_ga_2021.pdf  The key to Christmas as described by Woodman was new to us, yet seemed to resonate strongly with us.

We beg the pardon of anyone imposed upon, as we set out in full below the Woodman piece that we heard.  (For full apology and an edit of this blogpost for rectification purposes, please email lucyunbox.ringwood@btinternet.com) 

“It is that season of the year again. That eminently impossible yet joyously wonderful season of Christmas. “Christmas impossible?” you ask. The supreme truth and message of Christmas is indeed its seeming objective impossibility.

“We live in a world gone mad. Each hour compiles new proof of strife and tension; of crime and misery; of wars seemingly inevitable; of hunger and cold; of hate and fear. 

“The living reality of our days is not peace on earth, goodwill to all. It is, rather, strife around us and everywhere despair. Such is the world we know too well. Yet it is wise for us to remember that such also is the world our forebears knew before us. Into such a world Christmas comes — as it has come for 2000 years — and into such a world the same spirit, by different names, has come to those of other faiths.

“We who view the Christmas story from a naturalistic perspective easily read the impossible into the attendant notice of miraculous events: chorus of angels, virgin birth and the strange star.  Yet isn’t the miracle only embroidered with these tales?  The impossible event is that in times of deepest despair, visions and inspirations of hope, of peace, of love come to all.

“The real Christmas is the message and miracle that people still hope! 

It is that they still keep alive the poetry of love and peace and goodwill, even when life seems to dim all prospect of such a vision. 

“The impossibility of Christmas is that it comes. 

“Its coming is more than an event on the calendar. Its coming is a revitalisation of the spirit – where people still hope, still see the visions of peace, love, and fellowship. The impossible becomes plausible and life takes on a dimension richer than the obvious.   

“Come, Christmas! 

“Let us warm our spirits by its eternal light. Let us live again in the hope better than we know. Perhaps in living awhile by that faith, we can more fully be what we would be, and can erase the darkness that seems to be.”

We then heard that wonderful metaphor for the spiritual journey and the pain that accompanies the acquiring of a whole new outlook — the poem The Journey of the Magi by T. S. Eliot https://poetryarchive.org/poem/journey-magi/ was read beautifully.  It never fails to impress.

Our last music was sing-along to a Unitarian poem by Rev Edmund Sears set to the tune Noël by Arthur Sullivan, It Came Upon the Midnight Clear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Came_Upon_the_Midnight_Clear  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_U_Dzovu1XA  So many traditional Christians sing this carol year after year without knowing it comes from a minister to a dissenting congregation.

Coming to the end of our happy time together, we closed with an energetic, pulpit-style reading of Christmas Credo by Rev Cliff Reed, which sets out several points of belief in free verse (for full version see  https://www.unitarian.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/2002_Spirit_Time_Place.pdf  and scroll down to the image of page 68). We remembered the generations of Unitarians who had sat in that selfsame Meeting House since 1727 at the Christmas time of year, whom we hope might have shared Cliff Reed's viewpoint:

“I believe that there is light in darkness.

I believe there is truth in myth.

I believe that there is divinity in every birth........

“I believe we must admit that Herod is real ....... and can be defeated, that Scrooge can be healed .... that this is the meaning of Christmas.”

Advent and Christmas readings and music – #Unitarians gather again in Ringwood December 2023

As previously announced, the band of faithfuls making up the fellowship of Didymus in Ringwood gathered together for a combined Advent and Christmas service, on 10th December.

The darkness of the tradition of Advent is supposed to be a suitable preparation for the bright light and joy of Christmas, and our gathering attempted to include elements of both.

There was surprising range of recorded music.  There was Paul McCartney singing a song inspired by the Hare Krishna faith of George Harrison, “One of these Days”.  Bing Crosby sang a song by a Unitarian Universalist, Noël Regny, “Do you hear what I hear?”.  A Wiltshire church congregation allowed us to sing along with them the 1849 Unitarian hymn by Edmund Sears, “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear”.  The Unitarian Musical Society helped us out with a hymn from the purple UK Unitarian hymnbook, “Come, Sing a Song with Me”.  Lastly, Voces8 floated us away by singing a setting by Christopher Tin of a poem “Hope is the thing with feathers” by Emily Dickinson, who had a Unitarian upbringing.

We had a reading from Isaiah chapter 40 (vv 3-5, 21-24, & 28-31) with its traditional cry for Advent: 

A voice cries out:

‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,

    make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Every valley shall be lifted up,

    and every mountain and hill be made low;

the uneven ground shall become level,

    and the rough places a plain.’

Our second reading was "The Journey of the Magi" by T. S. Eliot.  

Our third reading was a personal view by Rev Arek Maleck, as published in "The Inquirer" (issue 8073 Dec 2023), regarding how Unitarians are able to celebrate Christmas even without the traditional views about Jesus.  Its main message was: “The motivations for embracing traditional lyrics, speaking of miracles, virgin birth, and God incarnate, vary.  Some may do it simply for the pleasure of familiarity.  But I'd like to think that many of us turn to them out of a realisation of the immense value of metaphor and paradox.  This appreciation allows us to immerse ourselves in the Christmas story fully — including submerging our heads in it.....Carl Gustav Jung taught that, oddly enough, the paradox is one of our most valuable spiritual possessions, while uniformity of meaning is a sign of weakness.  Hence a religion becomes inwardly impoverished when it loses or waters down its paradoxes; whereas their multiplication enriches, because only the paradox comes anywhere near to comprehending the the fullness of life.”

The personal contribution of the president for the day was as follows.

“Not everyone finds this season a season of cheer and goodwill.  If you are finding it difficult preparing for Christmas this year, you are not the only one. This can be for all kinds of reasons.

May we know that we fill a particular hole in the fabric of the universe, and that we are known, better than we know ourselves.

A way of thinking about Christmas is as a time of hope.

If one is not a traditional Christian, or feeling no connection to Jesus at all, then hope for what?

Hope for change — things can’t go on as they are

Hope for company — for the security and warmth that being with others can bring

Hope for peace — for rest from troubles

Hope for clarity and order — that there is some sense to be made of this life

In short, hope for renewal.

The reason the story has stuck so well is that most people love the idea of a new baby.

Many can’t help smiling about such news — seeing a new baby as a sign of the possibility of a fresh start.  This chimes neatly with hope for renewal.

This season is not necessarily the season of gold and red and green.  There are many reasons why our mood might be coloured midnight blue. Yet the candles of Christmas remind us that goodness overcomes darkness, and that hope is stronger than despair. 

It is said that it is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.  But just as no one curses our darkness for us, no one can light a light for us. This is something we need to do for ourselves.  As Nick Bains says, self-pity can become an idol, making it all too easy to not hear the whispered language of newness, freedom and vocation.

This season of the potential for abundance is the time to be gentle with ourselves and each other.

If we allow it to, and by the breaking in of grace, what happens at Christmas allows us to believe that opposites can be reconciled.  That change will come.  That there is a peace that can be found, that there are people who will love us, that there can be a new beginning.

All this comes announced and reflected in the painful, messy, disregarded birth of a human babe, born in discomfort, but full of innocence and potential.  In the darkness, but surrounded by light.”

Turning the page on a rotten 2020 - what can Unitarians in Ringwood say?

 “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Oh! Unitarians can have pedantic conversations about the meaning of words, how we label ourselves (and others) individually and corporately, which literary and scientific scripts hold most for us personally, our direction of travel based on the paths we assert that we have already  travelled.  And we can make the mistake of airing in the broadcast medium of social media what instead should be addressed in quiet, contemplative dialogue with trusted friends in small groups.  But 'that which connects and that which divides are the same', as may be found engraved on certain old stone bridges in the wilder places in the UK; and we in Ringwood are hopeful for the future.

What do we most want to be and say as we turn this calendar page?  What is the best we can offer, at the moment, from our standpoint as Unitarians in Ringwood?

The Unitarian movement is a nonconforming movement deriving from the historic Church in the British Isles.  Nonconforming because it will not allow itself to be squeezed into a mould of anyone’s making, not by anyone who is fully participating in it, nor by anyone who is standing outside it.  It has attempted at various points in the past, and is yet attempting, to rediscover the Bible and Christianity as if found again with the innocence of fresh eyes.  Attempting to offer non-creedal universality and open reading of our shared cultural language and past.  Feeding into the dialogue, of the past with the present, the universality born of pluralism with insights from all sources hallowed by humanity, no matter how they become labelled.

In Ringwood we are attempting to sustain and grow a committed community, recognising where we each are at present, honouring our travels so far, and seeking a better world, right here and now, interiorly and exteriorly.  And locally.  For despite our online presence and the wide airing it gives us, what we most cherish are our person-to-person encounters in our local setting.

It seems to us in Ringwood that we are a community of faith, if faith is, as Stephen Lingwood says, “a search for a coherent set of stories, symbols, languages and practices that, taken together, offer a way of life that diagnoses a problem in human life and offers a solution......hope, community, vision.”

It seems to us that there is a peace there to be found, if only we look in the right way.

It seems to us that the world is beautiful, good and overflowing with the love and grace of the mystery that we obliquely refer to using the words God, All That Is, and many and various other insufficient labelling systems.

It seems to us that there is an essential relatedness and flow to existence.

It seems to us that human experience is essentially the twinned movements of response and listening in the context of existence.

It seems to us that what unites humans is that we cannot be divided.  We live and breathe in the same world that is, at heart, community, for better and for worse.

It seems to us that we are often blinded by words we hold onto, and imprisoned by ways of thinking and doing, which we have got used to; but if we listen and are ready to answer the call, however we understand the voice, then there is a way forward.

In that light, and given that as well as being the changeover of the year this is also Christmastide, you might imagine that it would seem to us to be right for us to present a message of good cheer.  Angels, music, shepherds, baby in a manger who turned out to have a saving message.  But actually, we don’t feel moved to anodyne words at present.  We are too restless for that; too much struck by discomfort.

As we stand at the deepest point of a multi-dimensional, national turning point:

• COVID19
• a new relationship with the European Union and potentially new relationships between the nations of the United Kingdom
• the rapidly growing societal inequality and the inadequacy of our economic system
• the emerging recognition of our slowness to dismantle discrimination in all its forms
• and — over and above all these — the climate emergency and largescale extinction events;

it seems to us that some traditional wisdom from biblical scripture has much to say to us.

Some of us are reading a book by Nick Baines* this Christmas season, and following his lead, we are paying attention to the prophetic voices of Amos and Isaiah across the centuries.

Amos spoke to a complacent people in about the middle of the eighth century BCE.  It was a time of great prosperity and apparent security.  But Amos saw that prosperity was limited to the wealthy, and that it fed on injustice and on oppression of the poor.  The report Amos brings from God is this:

“I hate, I spurn your pilgrim-feasts;

I will not delight in your sacred ceremonies.

Spare me the sounds of your songs;

I cannot endure the music of your lutes.

Let justice roll on like a river

and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”  

Amos, Chapter 5 vv 21-24 

These words seem to us to resonate with our personal disquiet about the general state of the land in which we live today, and what needs to be done about it.

Moreover, we are also aware that many around us today are beyond being consoled.  What can we possibly say that would bring comfort and joy to the bereaved, the destitute, the unwell, the frightened, the lost, for whom 2020 has brought personal catastrophe?

MELANCHOLY by Albert György

It seems to us that the only thing we can say is that, in the words of Nick Baines, "We will stay there with you even when there is nothing more to say and nothing we can say or do will resolve your predicament."

* Freedom is Coming: From Advent to Epiphany with the prophet Isaiah, Nick Baines 2019

A #Unitarian prayer for Christmastide and the new year, recycled from 1944

From “A Service for Christmas Day” in Orders of Worship - for use in Unitarian and Free Christian congregations

The Lindsey Press, 1944

(language updated)

O You who have mercifully led us through the busy year, enriching our lives with countless gifts; give us at this Christmastide the grace which was in Jesus the anointed, of Nazareth.

Let the spirit of the little child, as it knocks today at the human heart, enter our life and bless it.  Let duty become touched with delight, and justice be forgotten in love.  May every selfish thought be driven from our minds.  Let our ears hear the cry of the needy, and our hearts be stirred to sympathy for the lonely and neglected.  

Give our hands strength, not to do great things, but rather to do small things graciously.  Heal the wounds of misunderstanding, jealousy, or regret, and let the gentler breath of the Christmas spirit touch our lives, as the cold of winter is touched by the milder air of spring.  As the old year ends and the new year begins, grant us peace with the world and peace in our own hearts, that those we love and those we can help may have sweet joy and rest.  Amen.

Ringwood acknowledges difficulties in the glitter of Christmas - Blue Christmas service led by #Unitarians

The idea of the Blue Christmas service is to acknowledge the darkness, and let it be dark.  We do not pretend that we can suddenly, magically, make it light. So we just let it be dark.  And see if we can sit with that, for a while.

We started by acknowledging some of the reasons for Christmas not necessarily being a fun and jolly time.  It might bring painful memories.  It might force us into situations we wouldn’t have chosen for ourselves.  Events elsewhere in our lives, to do with health, work, or relationships, might mean we are struggling.  And it’s always worse if everyone around us seems to be having a wonderfully time.

So there was a space for people to recognise what is troubling them, and to begin to let it go, before we moved onto the Christmas story.

We heard the traditional story again, but stripped of all its glitz, and re-humanised.  We started with a stripped down version of John, Chapter 1, in a translation not from traditional Church authorities, but by an independent translator, Andy Gaus, in The Unvarnished Gospels.  The story continued via two poems: Bethlehem, by Frances Thompson, and The Journey of the Magi by T.S. Eliot.  The first tells the story of the birth of Jesus from the point of view of the innkeeper’s wife.  The second tells the story of the travels of the Wise Men, in a retrospective by one of them, many years later.

We considered what Christmas might signify to people for whom Jesus is not the traditional Messiah or Saviour worshipped by other Churches.  We heard it suggested, through some words by Rowan Williams, that "perhaps it’s not guidance about how to greet everything with spiritual joy and excitement that we need.  Perhaps it’s more like guidance on how to preserve our motivation when the going gets tough and all we feel like doing is lying down and sleeping."

There were thoughts on hope, and renewal, and the divine as appearing in the innocence of every child.  In particular, in the words of Rev Cliff Reed:

“I believe that we must seek the heart of Christmas - 

its joyous love, its star-lit mystery, its peaceful

pleasures.  Find these and we find its power.

I believe this power can redeem us - open the

heart’s doors to divine innocence.”

Echoing Frances Thompson, we remembered that, whether we are feeling strong and at peace at the moment or not, it is within our power to give a blessing, in our own fashion.  And so there were prayers, including Psalm 30, and prayer poems, that made space for us to do that, as we sat together.

The readings, poems and prayers were interspersed with Christmas music not heard quite so often, and certainly not in the supermarkets: Vigilate by Byrd; God With Us Proclamation by John Tavener; Coventry Carol (a traditional carol about the slaughter of the innocents); and we also sang a very Unitarian hymn: It Came Upon the Midnight Clear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Came_Upon_the_Midnight_Clear.  And not a Christmas song, but a song of hope: we finished with a Paul McCartney track, One of These Days.

Waiting through events you hadn't planned and didn't want - truth in the material - Ringwood #Unitarians in December 2019

We gathered last on 8 December.  As part of our usual practice, we enjoyed one of the Chalice Meditations by David Kent - “Do What Most Kindles Love in You”

https://www.misterdavidkent.com/the-chalice-meditations

And we sang a couple of hymns from the green hymn book, one of which is very traditional this time of year: “Joy to the World”

We shared flame, bread and water together as we made the gathered circle of those present.  And as usual, we spent seven minutes in silent meditation.

When we gather, the practice together seems the most important bit to me, though other participants may not feel that as much as I do.  But even to me, when reporting afterwards, the wordy bits assume a greater weight, because they are so much more easily transmitted.  So for your interest, here is a report of the wordy bits of the gathering.

The theme brought together some thoughts about the period of waiting that many faiths are in, during this part of the year.

And the idea that God is come to earth, is in Earth, which is the absolute hallmark of Christianity, as well as being a known idea in Earth Spirit faiths.

How do people who are not traditional Christians tune in to the idea that materiality is a source of truth, when we have set aside the doctrines taught about Jesus being God the Son?

The first reading was from The Picts and the Martyrs by Arthur Ransome, and the second from Sailing the Worldly Winds by Vajragupta.  From that book there was an anecdote about a Zen Buddhist master caught in the sort of travel delay we have all become accustomed to, and how she did not let that daily nuisance define her, or even affect her practice in any way, whereas her student who was also caught up in it, was - like most of us would be - quite bothered by it.

The Picts and the Martyrs were waiting.  They were waiting for the adventures they had planned, and had wanted.  But the whole book is about the unwanted adventures that they had to pass through: about some worrying times, before they got to do the things they wanted to.  This is a book about waiting, and dealing with mess, and learning; all while you are waiting.

Similarly the Zen Buddhist student was waiting, and worrying.  And he, too, was learning while he waited - he was learning by watching his master.

This time of year is a time of waiting.  People are waiting for a variety of events and sensations. 

Waiting for the longest night, the turning of the year, the returning of the sun.  

Waiting for the commemoration of the unluxurious birth of perhaps the most important Jewish teacher of all time; and, by extension, the commemoration of the wonder of the births of all human babies. 

Waiting to gather together with family and friends.  

Waiting for the giving and receiving of gifts.  

Waiting for a sense that we are accepted and wanted, within the web of the universe.  

Waiting for a heartfelt recollection of a sense of purpose in our lives - what we should do, in order to feel worthwhile in ourselves.  

Waiting for merriment and the jollity of - for once - acceptable excess.

It seems to be a time of waiting for something material, something in the flesh.  Something that, like the Picts and Martyrs and the Buddhist student, we did really want, while in fact other stuff we don’t want is going on all around us.

It also seems to be about a different category of stuff: stuff that we don’t do all the time, throughout the year.  These aren’t just lights on our houses - these are CHRISTMAS lights.  These aren’t just parties - these are CHRISTMAS parties.

As such, these things that we do this time of year are set apart, considered special; or to use churchy jargon, they are sacred, hallowed.

Some people are uncomfortable with the word “sacred”, but it seems to me that it is humans, and not God, that decide whether things are sacred or not.  Things that are sacred to humans can be called sacraments.  That word, “sacrament”, has different meanings depending on the church, but sacraments are generally, in some way, visible symbols of the reality of God.

I find I’m in tune with Eastern Orthodox Christianity on this point.  According to Orthodox thinking, God touches humankind through material means such as water, wine, bread, oil, incense, candles, altars, icons, etc. “Etcetera” means AND THE REST, in other words, everything.

How God does this is a mystery. On a broad level, the sacraments, aka mysteries, are an affirmation of the goodness of created matter, and are an emphatic declaration of what that matter was originally created to be. The unsullied God-given goodness of all new born children, and the hope of their continued innocence, and the slaughter of an entire generation of innocents by the corrupted fear and greed of the oh-so-human King Herod, is seen by some Unitarians as the most relevant element of the Christmas story.

The mysteries are an affirmation of the goodness of created matter.

But then, if God touches humankind through all material means, then it is not just the CHRISTMAS things and CHRISTMAS events that affirm the goodness of created matter.  ALL things and ALL events carry the same message and the same weight.  So the adventures that the Picts and Martyrs had before the start of the holidays that they really wanted, were actually just as important as the holidays they were waiting for.  The simple sitting in the sunshine on a suitcase waiting for a bus was just as important as the bus arriving and getting to the airport (late).

So, while it is entirely right and appropriate to enjoy the traditional winter festivities, once they are over we could remember that actually they are no more important than the ordinary other things we do, and we could aim to keep the same inner enjoyment going all year long.  

The purpose we seek is to live better within our own skins, by being connected with others in constructive ways.  It’s not the winter festivities which we are waiting for that will do this for us.  To live better within our own skins, we need to not be looking forward all the time.  We need to see what we are learning in every situation, as we go along.  Dorothea by necessity learned how to cook.  The Buddhist student learned to worry less, and to not even wait.

We need to be content sitting in this and other dark times of the year.  We need to look at it differently.  We need to look at where we are, differently.

We might perhaps choose to look differently at the ordinary, daily activities we get involved with.  Perhaps we could choose to see “flowers”, where once we saw “weeds”; we might see “another chance to express connectedness with someone”, where once we saw “yet another phone call to be made”; and we might be more like the Buddhist teacher sitting on her suitcase: remember - where her student was agitated, impatient, irritated and worried, the teacher was not even waiting.  She was touching the truth of the universe in the materiality of the enjoyable sunshine.