New starts and transformation in the New Year – what the old and new stories said to Unitarians in Ringwood January 2025

Key to this gathering was the theme, running through it all: that all our attempts to describe — whether we are describing our daily domestic living, or the inner landscape, typically categorised as our ‘religion’ — all our attempts to describe, can only ever be metaphor for what is real, for what is truly occurring or existing.

Some features of our gatherings do not change, such as the singing of some hymns or listening to recorded music; such as the time set aside for lighting tea-light candles either in silence or saying as we do so a few words about what we are currently holding in our hearts and minds.  And we also have some minutes where instead of talking about the divine — about what ‘divine’ might be or mean, about our inherited narratives about the divine, about what our predecessors have taught about the divine, about how a sense of the divine might affect our living — we actually spend some minutes trying to align ourselves with the divine principle (which we are unapologetic in naming as ‘God’).  The word we use for this personal, private attempt to align ourself with the divine is ‘prayer’.

And so this gathering started with our usual lighting of the candle in the chalice, followed by a period of introspection and reflection.  This is our private inner time to remind ourself what is our ultimate concern, and to pause and reflect on how we have recently lived up to that. ‘This is what the holy asks of you; that you act justly, that you love tenderly, and that you walk humbly in its presence’. (Bible, book of Micah, Chapter 6 verse 8).

In the introduction by the president for the day, she reminded us that New Year is a time for new starts and transformation, and that, traditionally, people like to mark new starts with rituals.  

“Today we are looking at new starts and transformation, and see what those who have gone before us in our culture can say to us about those.  But, importantly, as we reflect, over the next few days, on what we hear today, let us see what we ourselves can see in the old and the new stories we are about to hear.”

After the opening hymn, the first reading was from the Bible, book of Mark, Chapter 1 verses 4-11, describing the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist, which turns out to be a new start for Jesus, and the start of his ministry.

It is interesting that two of the Gospel books in the Bible say nothing about the birth of Jesus, and they start instead with the baptism of Jesus — as if for those two authors everything before the baptism was of no consequence.

The second reading was from a contemporary Unitarian Minister,  Cathal Courtney, from his book Towards Beloved Community (2007, Lindsey Press).  In this reading, Cathal attempts to describe a completely unexpected revelatory moment of unitive experience, which happened to him once while he was on a bus in Dublin, on a wet weekday afternoon.

‘I felt my own life meant nothing in isolation from my fellows.....I look back on that experience and believe it to have been an encounter with heaven, an encounter with the selfless, poetic blessing at the heart of human living. Whatever despair I now feel in relation to my life is held in paradoxical balance to that beautiful experience. We are all the belovèds.’

When it came to the reflection on the two readings, the president acknowledged the significant influence of the teaching that she had heard and accepted from Adyashanti, regarding this Bible story.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adyashanti

She started by suggesting that John the Baptist is a wild man of sorts, operating outside the bounds of society and culture. 

“So, thinking, as we are, in metaphor: John the Baptist represents the mode of our being that is in a different dimension to what everyday living and customs expect of us. 

“And again being metaphorical, we can view the baptism that John conducts as being one of forgiveness and release from old burdens and mis-steps.  Stepping into the water, all a person’s old stuff washes away and a new person emerges.  The water is like a doorway to a new future.  And there is John the Baptist, right on the threshold, helping people through that boundary between one life and the next. The repentance that John the Baptist speaks of is surely that internal turning that can take you right to the edge, take you to those moments where you feel suddenly struck by something strange and compelling that awakens the spirit within you. 

“And with Jesus being baptized by this wild man, it is a metaphor for a new beginning for Jesus outside the bounds of conventional society and religion.  At the moment he raises his head the spirit, the breath, descends into him and he feels God describing him as ‘belovèd’.  This descent of the spirit reorientates Jesus’ whole life, gives his life a new direction.  From that instant, Jesus’ life will never be what it was before.  His life will become what we read about in the Bible stories.  In just this same way, there are moments when you say yes to the mystery, when you peer into that dark place, when you realize that you are not what you thought you were — you are not your beliefs, not your ideas, not the constrained role that society has placed on you. You are something other — in fact, you are more other than you can imagine.  

“Going back to the narrative, our metaphor can continue with looking at what the descent of spirit signifies: it signifies the sensation when you say yes to your true nature.  But first you have to say yes to the unknown. You have to know that you do not know who you are. You have to know that you do not know what God is. You have to enter into that place where you know that you do not know what life is.

“If water is the symbol for purification and the spiritual dimension, then spirit is the symbol for transformation. So when we open ourselves to spirit, we are opening to transformation: we are not going to be the same person that began the journey and we are not going to see ourselves in the same way ever again. Think about Cathal’s testimony:  everything that happens in his life now he holds in paradoxical balance to that beautiful experience.  As he said: ‘We are all the belovèds.’

“Just a moment, a split second of true availability is all it takes. That is where spirit gains its entry, and that moment is the moment of awakening. That is what happened to Cathal, on the bus in Dublin.

“That is what happens to Jesus, right there in the River Jordan when he is baptized by John and the heavens part. He awakens, and from that point on he preaches repentance — turning around and looking within at the spirit that is the radiant vitality of being.  Repentance means having a change of heart. That awakening is the beginning of his new life, the beginning of his mission. He gathers together his band of twelve students, and he goes out to heal the sick and to preach repentance.  So like John the Baptist, Jesus himself is also now out of the conventions of society, not conforming to what society expects.

“Now, most people do not embrace this kind of insecurity, and the few that do usually do not enter into the unknown within themselves until and unless some traumatic event shakes them so much that they begin to lose hold of their world view.  Most people though, as soon as things return to normal, retreat into their prior belief systems and old comfort zones. But Jesus, in seeking baptism by John, is aiming beyond the world and the old comforts, beyond the confines of the religious structures of his time. He is seeking out someone who could help connect him with the mystery: the mystery that is found in the wild spaces, on the unknown paths that nobody walks, in a place inside that you must go alone or not at all.

“May we each find our own new way to reinterpret these stories and to use them in our lives.”

Re-orientating towards abundance – Unitarians in Ringwood muse on letting go of scarcity 15 September 2024

The challenge set before us today was to look behind our thought processes and see whether we are generally operating with a mindset of scarcity.  The mindset of scarcity lies at the heart of many fears to do with survival, and is a root cause of animosity, xenophobia and conflict, even war.  For, if we believe we only have just about enough to get by, we guard our resources jealously and are reluctant to share them with others.  We begin to make judgments about whom we are prepared to share with, and put up barriers to protect our resources from others who mean less to us than those we view as our own — in other words, we begin to ‘other’ certain people.  This is where tribalism begins.

The first reading in today’s gathering was from the book Seeking Paradise by Stephen Lingwood.  Having suggested that alienation from the Earth, our bodies, our neighbours, and the source of life itself, are all, in essence, the same problem, Stephen highlighted that early Christian teaching was that evil can only be resisted by becoming deeply attuned to the divine presence within and all around.  As an example, we then heard some ecstatic poetry written by Ephrem the Syrian (c. 306-373 CE).

The second reading was from the Bible Book of Mark chapter 8.  This is the story of Jesus feeding a large crowd with a very small amount of food, for the second time, and Jesus’ frustration afterwards with his students, who didn’t seem to understand what had just happened and what they were supposed to learn from it.

While we were chewing these readings over we had some hymns and songs about giving thanks, the harvest, rejoicing in the truth, counting our blessings etc and then we heard the president for the day present thoughts on the two readings.

Pointing out that we need to understand what abundance is and how we can enjoy abundance in a world affected by climate overheat and biodiversity crash, and the population flows that will naturally follow, she said, 

“Abundance is not defined by having more stuff........nor is it about being able to access more and more data, information, music and moving images at the click of a carbon-expensive button.......Abundance is about connection.  Connection between people, certainly, but also connection with our environment, connection with what makes and gives life...... A greater sense of connection comes first and foremost from stronger communal living........We need to re-orientate ourselves, so that a sense of abundance becomes the whole context of our lives, the grounding on which we then go about the other more usual activities.”

 

She explained that her understanding of the Bible reading was that Jesus was teaching exactly about this act of re-orientation towards a mindset of abundance:

“Traditional churches use the miracle stories about Jesus as evidence or proof that Jesus is actually God.  Unitarians have the luxury of skipping that entirely, treating it as not a matter of interest.  Unitarians can look at what is actually going on in the story.

“When Jesus rebukes his students he is frustrated with them.  They are not paying attention to what he’s trying to teach them at that moment.  Jesus and his friends live as Jews under the yoke of Rome and under the religious authorities intent on appeasing Rome.  The Jewish people live under a socio-economic and political yoke that makes it hard to find the still, quiet, clarity at heart that Jesus is entirely orientated towards and teaching about.  Jesus calls it the kingdom of God.

“In the boat he is trying to warn them about the insidious nature of the power of the religious authorities and of the king who is a vassal of the Roman imperial oppressors. But his students aren’t listening. 

“It’s not even that the students are distracted by trying to think through and understand the miracle that Jesus has just performed.  It’s rather that all they are worrying about is that they only have in their possession a single loaf of bread.  They are in a mindset of scarcity.  Scarcity is once again worrying them, and putting everything else out of their minds.

 

“Jesus can see they haven’t absorbed the teaching about the miracles of the feeding of the many. The four thousand people that had gathered to listen to Jesus seemed to be in a state of scarcity.  And there was only a little bit of food to be found between the students, and this food was presented to Jesus.  ‘Hey, Jesus, here’s the problem!’

“Before doing anything with the food, Jesus blessed it.  He gave thanks.  By doing this he brought to attention what wonder and a marvel it was to have this food at all.  Then he broke the food up.  He split it into even smaller pieces, and gave it away.  He told others to give it away too, to share it with everyone.  It was distributed widely.  And somehow, in seeing it as a gift, a wonder, a measure of abundance, and giving it away, it actually became an abundance.  

“And this was the second time Jesus had done this.  So Jesus is disappointed and cross that having done this — and not just once but twice — his students now on the boat still haven’t understood.  Those closest to him, those who claim allegiance to him and his teaching about living in the kingdom, are not even listening to him.

“He rebukes them, but even now he doesn’t explain it for them.  He leaves it for them to work out for themselves;  and so it is left for us to work out for ourselves, as well.  

“I think the story about the rebuke by Jesus holds this message :  Look, you live in paradise, a place of abundance.  You think you have almost nothing, just enough to maybe get by, and you worry about the future.  Whereas with gratefulness and wonder and thanksgiving and sharing you have everything you need, and much much more than you need.  All it takes is a re-orientation.  All it takes is a mindset of abundance.”

 

PrideTide celebrated by #Unitarians in Ringwood 16 June 2024

 

This gathering had all the usual elements one might imagine of something that looks remarkably like a church service:  

– an initial phase of self-critique, unknotting and letting go; 

– an activity (singing a hymn) to draw everyone together; 

– a period of prayer, allowing the recognition of the littleness of humanity when placed against the vista of the cosmos; 

– a couple of contrasting readings to stretch the intellect, and perhaps to open doors to new landscapes; 

– atmospheric musical interludes to allow us to make sense beyond words of what we were hearing; 

– a reflection by the leader on the two readings, leading to a suggestion for future action;

– a period of active listening in which those matters weighing heavily or joyfully upon us could be declared and shared;

– prayer of self-dedication, helping us to listening for what is being asked of us in the day ahead and more generally;

– more group activity in reciting together some favoured words, and singing another hymn; and

– some closing words.

So that’s that, then. What remains to be said?  Well, how about what was actually said?

This gathering was celebrating PrideTide, the month of June specifically and the summer months in general, when, widely, queer people celebrate who they are and what life means to them.  

For some, Pride means celebrating their survival in a hostile environment, perhaps against the odds.  For others, it might feel freer and more joyful, a chance to truly express who they are.  The support of families and allies can be acknowledged, too.  The period of Pride is also a time when perhaps everyone, queer or not, can recognise the contribution of queer perspectives to every field of life.

Didymus is a group gathering in the name of religious faith and spirituality, so this gathering in PrideTide looked at queer theology — how queer perspectives can shed new insights on our inheritance (which is the bundle of stories regarding Jesus, and how those stories can shape our daily living).

So how about the readings?  Well, the first was from the Gospel of Thomas (verses 22 and 106) in which Jesus says, When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter the Kingdom.

The second reading was from a book by a priest in the Episcopalian Church (an Anglican Church based in the USA), Rev Elizabeth Edman. Title: Queer Virtue. Edman suggests that Jesus breaks down simplistic dualisms all the time, which resonates very strongly with queer people, who have had to do the same thing in their own lives, simply to make a space in which they can live.  And that looking at the stories in Christianity from a queer perspective may cascade a whole new set of insights, about those Christian stories, that in the end would help everyone claiming a life within Christianity to act more aligned with the espoused spirit of the faith.

And when it came to reflecting on those readings, the president of the day included a review of recent statistics from England and Wales regarding hate crime against queer people, and reports about global campaigning against oppression of queer people, from the campaigning group All Out.

She said, “It’s always worth looking at statistics and reports like these.  We are so lucky in western Europe, where many countries have legislated for marriages of same-sex partners, that we can imagine that the fight has been won.  But it hasn’t. Not even here.  Not even in legal terms.  Equal marriage in UK does not extend to marriage for non-binary people.  The law specifies marriage as a contract between a man and a woman; between two men; or between two women.  At present, as I understand it, unless they perjure themselves and say they are something that they are not — unless they shoehorn themselves into one binary category or other as defined by the law — non-binary people in the UK cannot marry anyone at all. They have to pretend to be something they are not.”

Our president looked for ways that queer theology can help us in our lives of faith, and three examples she came up with all boiled down to helping us become more open than we currently are, and more humble.

She reminded us that there are ways and ways of welcoming people.  We can do it patronisingly, implicitly demanding that new people from minority groups conform to our existing ways before 'welcoming' them in; or we can recognise that our inherited way of worshipping, of thinking and talking about God and spirituality, is derived from white, male, middle class, colonial, intellectual and analytical thinking and judging and speaking, that stretches continuously back, way beyond the eighteenth century, in England and the broader UK.  And that we should be braver and invite new people in, not to help them, but to help us.  To help us see our failings and help us break down our narrow-minded ways, and the assumed hierarchies that lie buried behind our behaviour.  She suggested that there can be no hierarchies when it comes to children of God.

For ongoing action, she asked us to use this PrideTide to take a good hard look at ourselves, and humbly see how much we contribute to continuing problems today — and also to celebrate with queer communities everywhere !

Revisiting an old but constantly renewing form of worship gathering – Unitarians in Ringwood experiment with Iona liturgy

We were delighted to welcome Angelica from the Chapel in the Garden (the Unitarian Church in Bridport https://thechapelinthegarden.com/services/  ) as our president for the day.

Angelica chose to structure the event around the liturgy for Morning Prayer used worldwide by those connected with the Iona Community.  The full words are available for purchase here Iona Books  and an example of how it can be participated in by people world wide is available here (a daily YouTube broadcast) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NCiw2S6fss

(  What is the Iona Community?  )

A regional Unitarian Minister remarked recently that accessing the beating heart of any community of faith – and in fact any attempt at spiritual progress –  must begin with contrition.  And so it was interesting that we found ourselves invited,

“Trusting in God’s forgiveness, 

Let us in silence confess our failings

And acknowledge our part in the pain of the world…..”

Further, this acknowledgement involved turning, not inwards, not to a priest, not to an altar, but to one another, to confess our failings in turning away from God, our wounding of our own lives, and our wounding of the lives of others, and the world.

We were invited to see God’s goodness at the heart of humanity planted more deeply than all that is wrong.

There were three Bible readings, set out in the Revised Common Lectionary for the fourth Sunday of Easter (21 April 2024)

– Acts 4:5-12


– 1 John 3:16-24

– John 10:11-18

Two readings were dealing with the ever whirling question about who Jesus was – who he said he was, who his disciples said he was.  And the third dealt with what a suitable response to Jesus is.  You will not be surprised to hear that we are advised to love one another and to abide in the instructions that he gave.

We were also adventurous enough to sing along with some worship songs new to us, and there was space and time for us to light candles and name what was in our hearts and minds that day.

Everyone felt able to participate in this service, which was refreshingly short by our standards, allowing plenty of time after the formal proceedings to talk further about what we had experienced, and to get to know each other a little better. 

Ethics or inspiration – which facet of Christianity most matters to you? #Unitarians in Ringwood online on St Patrick's Day 2024

On the day traditionally associated with St Patrick of Ireland, we met online.  We had several hymns from a variety of sources, a music video from the musical Godspell, and a pop song from the band Eurythmics.  And instead of seven minutes of silence, which we carry out when meeting face to face, we were led into meditational prayer using a prayer poem by John McQuiston.

Our president for the day had chosen to focus on the style of Christianity associated with Patrick, contrasting it with the style of Christianity associated with St Benedict.  Patrick’s mission was to import the wholly new faith into a Celtic culture rich in Paganism and imaginative nature-based styles and habits.  On the other hand, Benedict was in an already Roman Christian setting and was attempting to get back to basics, so as to live like the first disciples of Jesus.  Benedict’s mission was influenced by hermits and their aim of stripping away anything getting in the way between humans and their creator.  Two remarkably different contexts.

And so we had a reading from the Rule for monastic living written by Benedict; and a contemporary piece from John O’Donohue in Anam Cara, showing the Celtic imaginative associations between breath and spirit.  We also prayed part of a traditional Irish prayer attributed to Patrick, known both as Saint Patrick's Breastplate and The Deer’s Cry.

~~~~~~

As our president suggested, Benedict introduced a detailed, rules-based way of living a simple Christian life in a tight knit community already familiar with Christian scripture and doctrine.  Surely, we heard, Patrick had to imagine a wilder, free-flowing way of being Christian, in order to have any influence in Irish society.

No conclusion was drawn in respect of the comparison, and the question – left for us to ponder afterwards – was whether personally we gravitate to a more rules-based way of living our lives of faith, or whether we tend towards a more mystical sense of spirit.

Just to muddy the waters still further, our president also read a short piece from a spiritual teacher from Zen Buddhism who has also made a long study of the narratives of the life of Jesus.  This teacher suggests that the stories of Jesus can be read as a metaphor for the spiritual journey of every soul, and has drawn his own conclusions about Jesus’ message:

“Jesus, brought up and living as a Jew, had, I think, a profound understanding that — if you weren’t really careful — that the religion itself, instead of connecting one to the radiance of being, connecting one to that spiritual mystery, actually becomes a barrier to it. 

As soon as we get too hung up with the rites and the rituals, and the norms and the ‘Thou shalts’ and the ‘Thou shalt nots’, then all of those things keep us on the surface level of consciousness.

They may have a usefulness.  Mostly the usefulness of the exterior parts of religion is to modulate ego human behaviour, to have a good moral sense.  To move in the world, in time in space, from a healthy sense of ethics  is a very positive thing.  It helps to control the deeper and more dark elements of the ego.  So they do provide a very important function.

But religion’s roots are in eternity.  As soon as religion forgets about its roots — forgets that its primary function and role is to convey to awaken within you the experience of the sublime — when religion forgets that, when it forgets that it’s not primarily about its ethical function, it ceases to be reverence and becomes a power structure.

The first function of religion is to connect you with the mystery of life, with the mystery of existence.  That’s why Jesus was so critical of the religion of his time — because he saw that not only was it not connecting people to the mystery, but it was actually an active participant in veiling the mystery of existence; in covering over the kingdom of heaven.”

Resurrecting Jesus by Adyashanti

https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Resurrecting_Jesus.html?id=MToKnwEACAAJ&redir_esc=y