Memory, imagination, loss - and where to find comfort for loss in the Bible -- Ringwood Unitarians' gathering in November 2021

The gathering opened with a roll call of the Ringwood Meeting House worshippers who were killed in military service during the First World War.  This was not an act using the memory, but an act using the imagination, and invoking emotion.

Then, in the light of the COP 26 climate emergency conference of the nations, the president of the day (Lucy) offered a deeper perspective on the relationship between imagination, emotion and memory.  She considered the future, reminding us all that the climate emergency is ‘only’ about accelerating the extinction of the human species and not about the end of life as we know it on Earth, nor even about the destruction of the planet itself. That event will come much later, and will be caused by the explosion of the Sun.

In imagining the future explosive death of the Sun, which will obliterate the Earth, we may experience the emotion of sorrow for loss as we imagine the ending, ending of our personal era, and indeed the whole Earth.  We respond like this because we have experienced loss in our own lives; our sorrow is based on our personal memory of previous loss.  But of course this is hugely ironic as, when that future destruction of the Earth occurs, there will long since have ceased to be any humans, so there will be no sense of loss.

Lucy then looked to the Bible for thoughts that might assist us when we are experiencing loss.  The loss, the overwhelming loss, featuring in the Christian consciousness is the loss of the personage of the poet and teacher Yeshua who is also known as Jesus.  Early followers of Jesus had imagined and eagerly awaited a new everlasting era with Jesus recognisably holding sway over the entire course of human events, and they must have been devastated in the face of losing him.  Thus it was suggested that the New Testament is, in essence, an anthology attempting to help successive generations of disciples come to terms with the loss of Jesus, and helping them to remember him.

She said: “As Christianity crystallised, very early on Jesus became seen as supernatural.  Then Jesus could not be equated with other humans and the loss of Jesus could not then be equated with the loss of other humans.  In the form that the New Testament finally took, the reader is almost throughout the compilation being encouraged to seek their comfort in their faith in Jesus as the Risen Christ.  And it’s quite hard work to read the New Testament in any other than the traditional way.  So, if as Unitarians we do not accept the traditional views of the supernatural nature of Jesus, then it can be hard to find much help in the New Testament for our everyday and oh so ordinary experience of loss.”

So it was to the Old Testament that Lucy turned.  The OT focuses on Jewish life and traditions before the emergence of Jesus, so the loss themes in the OT are those experienced as a community by Jewish people throughout the centuries. In it, perhaps the most basic loss, the most continuously noted loss, is the loss of the homeland and its sacred spaces and places.  So this loss, and other calamities that befell individuals and kingly Jewish states, are more akin to social and personal problems of today, and may speak to us with more relevance.  The inspiration we may get from the OT comes from the record of the Jewish struggle to understand how they came to be exiled and oppressed, with a basic loss of control over their lives, and how to retrieve the situation.  

The OT books of the prophets and the wisdom books help us by supplying a range of different responses to loss and sorrow.  The prophetic books include a sense, described by mystics as having been given by God, that loss will be washed away by God, no demands made.  To illustrate this there was a reading from Isaiah (Isaiah 44:21-26 (New English Bible)).  This was a radical approach when it was experienced and recorded by the Arameans/Hebrews/Jews, as it denotes a loving God, a merciful God.  A God who did not need the ritual human or animal sacrifice of older belief systems. 

In contrast with the prophetic books, the wisdom books of the OT rely less on an interventionist God to help through loss, and more on a human, personal, internal change of attitude in the face of loss.  An example was the second reading was from the book of Ecclesiastes (edited from Ecclesiastes by A World Religions Bible (page 282)).  The teacher and poet Jesus would have been living and working against the backdrop of these and other Jewish scriptures.

Lucy reflected: “We each deal with loss on perhaps a daily basis — loss of people, loss of opportunity, loss of resources, loss of self-esteem, loss of memory, loss even of basic forms of trust.  With a Unitarian heritage coming from the Christian culture, we may be able to find insights, from examining certain Bible passages and letting our imaginations roam freely, that will help us to cope with loss.  The culture and governance systems of our land are steeped in traditions and systems coming out of Christianity.  So we might imagine we no longer need the Christian sources, now that our society has mainstreamed ideas from Christianity, in particular in relation to justice, and support for those least able to cope with life’s demands.  But a German academic, Dr Isolde Karle, once said at a conference:

“The Christian cultural memory cannot be taken for granted. It is completely imaginable that one day the story of the Good Samaritan will no longer be known or understood.  Solidarity with the powerless, deliberate care of the marginalised, of the sick and of people in need are not self-evident.”"

Lucy suggested that we live in times when common standards of integrity and moral behaviour are being shunted out the door and the public expectation of what counts as acceptable behaviour is in danger of being re-normalized to a new low.  And worse: there seems to be no visible, widespread public outrage at how our representatives are behaving, and no recognition of the danger that we risk, if we do not return to ‘word being bond’, general trustworthiness, and the courage to maintain and insist on truth.

Under these circumstances the possibility exists that anything or everything can be lost, even the Christian cultural memory.  So it is surely important to us who inherit the culture to keep alive the compassionate standpoint of the Jewish poet, teacher and leader Jesus, and all who followed after him, even if we no longer hold the beliefs in a supernatural Jesus that drove most of those followers on?

At the end of our gathering, after the readings, and hymns, and lighting of candles, and contemplation in silence, this was our witness, the closing words we all said while muted on Zoom:

"We are aware, and we affirm that we do not find our peace

in the certainty of what we confess,

but in wonder of what befalls us and what we are given;

that we do not find our destination in indifference and greed,

but in vigilance and in connection with all that lives;

that our existence is not fulfilled by who we are and what we possess,

but by what is infinitely greater than we can contain.”

Extract from 2006 Confession of Faith of the Dutch Remonstrant Church

A personal view of Maundy Thursday

Bear in mind that this post, like all the posts on this blog, has been supplied by one of the Ringwood Unitarians – and not necessarily always the same one.  It should not be assumed that any other Ringwood Unitarian, or any Unitarian from anywhere, thinks or feels the same as this. Or that the rest of our Ringwood group are even interested in this train of thought.  That’s the beauty of any Unitarian community – we worship and we connect, but we don’t expect each other to think about the same things or to think or feel in the same way.

It’s Maundy Thursday today.  That’s the name the Christians gave to this day when a significant event for them took place, during the Jewish festival of the Passover.  Christians commemorate that on this day Jesus of Galilee gave the mandate (the Maundy) to his followers and students to carry on his work and to love each other as he had loved them.

The teacher Jesus and his friends had gone to Jerusalem for the Passover festival, for the celebratory worship of the just and merciful God.  At the Passover, Jews commemorate that God allowed their ancestors, the Israelite slaves in Egypt, to escape the horrors inflicted that night on their unresponsive and cruel slave masters, the Egyptians.  The horrors the Egyptians experienced was the overnight death of every first-born.  With the Israelites following the instruction to mark their covenant with God on the doorways of their dwellings, God did God's part of the covenant by passing over the houses of the Israelites, without inflicting death.

It is the festival that recognises that God, or Life, will act kindly towards people who act in accordance with the edicts that God, or Life, demands.  This recognition is portable from Judaism right through all the faiths, right across the spectrum of faiths, even to an oriental belief system that shies a long way away from the Jewish idea of a “personal God”, by which I mean Taoism.  Passover, or pesach, is a festival for all those who have had a good experience of their faith.

So Jesus and his friends and family sat down to eat their evening meal, to quietly await the arrival of the next day, the commemoration of the day when Israelites woke up to find that God’s word had been carried out – and the Egyptians were shocked and frightened to find their first-borns had died – and the Israelites now had to get out of Egypt very quickly.

And during that evening meal, Jesus seemed to be very sure that his time was coming to an end.  Perhaps he too was shocked and frightened; or perhaps he thought that within a day or two it would be his followers who would be shocked and frightened.  You see, he had been in Jerusalem since the previous Sunday and he was aware that all sorts of people had all sorts of expectations of him that he would not necessarily fulfil.

Some people had been truly offended to the core by some of the teachings he had given, and wanted him to renounce some of the things he had said about his relationship to God.  Others wanted him to lead a zealous and possibly armed rebellion against the Roman occupying forces.  A few others seemed to think he was bigging up his part as a wise man with a following, at the cost of wasting money that could better have been spent on supporting the poor.  Jesus got the vibes.  He knew the show-down was coming.

So he spent some time that evening over the meal reflecting back to his followers what it was that he stood for, and asking them to remember his words always – by tying them inextricably with the bread and wine of the meal on this Passover festival, which he knew they would celebrate year after year, so they would have no excuse to forget them.

And in my reading of it, the message of Jesus was this.  We are in a covenant with God – which was an old Jewish message.  We are in a relationship, said Jesus, a relationship we cannot own or control – it’s a connection we can enter.  We are loved into being, we are all sustained by love throughout our lives, and we are received in love at our ending.  Jesus lived as if it were both task and gift to strive to echo that love, right up until his life's end. 

The kingdom of God, said Jesus, – this relationship – the way to lasting life lived true to our best selves – lies within, and it is accessible to all.  But to find that kingdom, to enter into that ultimate relationship with the just and loving God, you have to be prepared to let go of yourself and act in all humility.  As though you and your wants and desires were all just by-the-bye, scarcely relevant at all.  Jesus demonstrated that he thought everyone, including the most acclaimed ones amongst us, need to see ourselves as fit for the most unpleasant and menial jobs; like taking off the sandals and washing the dusty, smelly feet of our companions after a day on the Galilean plains; like taking without comment an unwarranted slap across the face; like carrying the load of someone who chose to press us into service against our plans and expectations – and not just the mile they demand of us, but an extra mile too.

My message, said Jesus, is that we have to try to mirror God – who is in all people, including the most disadvantaged and disregarded, the ones cast out by the establishment, and the ones who self-injure by getting knotted up in their pain and difficulty.  The kingdom really is there to be experienced, but you have to work very hard to put yourself last, to put yourself gracefully out of everyone else’s way, and to be prepared – despite your fear – to relinquish your own comfort and control over what is happening to you.  Look, said Jesus, what I mean is we have to give up our own safety and comfort even if, and while, doing that may lead us to the most painful and bitter end.  Right when it hurts most, right when we don’t think we can go on, we have to stand quietly in trust, and surrender ourselves in all humility to Life, to God – both in God's/Life's direct presence as we feel it, and as we feel it coming to us through other people.  You have to love the very people who cause you grief and pain because God/Life is in them too: because that’s the only way to be fully human.

I can’t imagine the power of the inspiration Jesus had experienced.  But I can see what a strong man he was.  What serenity and peace and fulfilment he found in his love for God and others.  How disregarding he was of himself.  And, though at the end even Jesus felt abandoned, I can see that that didn’t prevent him from offering himself to God.  What a model.

So this Maundy Thursday I celebrate the life and message of the teacher Jesus with some flatbread and a glass of wine as my evening meal.

Easter Day 2020 – All shall be well

On the first day of the Jewish week after Passover, the first day it was permitted to move around after the festival, the women in the life of Yeshua went to retrieve and dress his body. 

But the body of Yeshua, the latest messenger of the justice and compassion of God, had gone missing. 

That sparked a whole new life for the story of Yeshua and — indisputably — launched and continues to launch new, clean, ‘begin again’ lives for countless millions ever since, to the present day. 

For myself, I find resonance with more oblique references to the mystery that is life; the notion of avatars (the material appearance or incarnation of a deity on earth) cannot engage me. 

A brilliant summing up was made by one of our group this past week: 

"I think there has always been a tension between the incarnate Word of social justice and lived truth, and the infinite well of being and possibility we live and move in.  I think doctrines like the Trinity are about bridging that experience without reducing one to the other or denying any part of it."

So, on the day celebrated by western Christianity as Easter Day, a model that means more to me, a model that makes me thrum like a plucked guitar string, is the model of the Hindu goddess Kali, wife of the god Shiva, and goddess of destruction and birth.  Known as the “dark mother”, Kali — a symbol only — symbolises the beginning and ending of being.  Sometimes depicted in her ferocious pose wearing a garland of skulls, she is said to devour karma — the endless ‘Groundhog Day’ cycle of death and rebirth conditioned by our careless, clumsy and stumbling actions — freeing us from its hold.

There is a beautiful devotional chant to Kali:

"Many names has our world Mother

Many dresses and many appearances.

I want to let you know my desire:

At the last moment of my life take me in your lap." 

And this chant, or prayer can be found here:

https://www.discogs.com/Robert-Gass-Chant-Spirit-In-Sound-The-Best-Of-World-Chant/release/6133461

So on this day of new beginnings, what my Unitarianism tells me is that God has already encompassed or dealt with the dread consequences of our mis-steps; and Hinduism, Judaism and Christianity are merely three different ways of saying the same thing:  that in the end, “All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.” ― Julian of Norwich

Liberation for all in a time of enforced confinement - a Seder meal online and why we celebrate this Jewish festival #Unitarians

In 2012 I heard a talk by Dan Mark Cohn-Sherbok, a rabbi of Reform Judaism and Jewish theologian, who once had a congregation to tend, but who is now Professor Emeritus of Judaism at the University of Wales.  On the occasion I heard him, he was speaking about his book, The Palestinian State: A Jewish Justification, publ. Impress Books. ISBN 978-1-907-60529-1.

What follows owes a very great deal to Professor Cohn-Sherbok, and what he said that day.

(Associated link:  https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/non-religious-virtual-seder-new-unity-passover-tickets-101876290728   )

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There is a narrative for this period of the year that informs both Jewish and Christian thought processes, and it is recorded in the Christian Bible, in the book of Exodus, coming to a climax in chapter 12.

The enslaved Jewish people, the children of Israel, known then as the Hebrews, were rescued from their oppressors of Egypt, by God.

It happened like this.  The Hebrews were to slaughter a lamb for their evening meal and mark the doorposts of their houses with the blood of the lamb.  All of the lamb was to be eaten, and eaten quickly, with all leftovers to be burned in the fire.  They were to eat “fast food” with the lamb: unleavened bread, not waiting for the sourdough to rise; bitter herbs for flavour, but otherwise nothing fancy to be cooked.  For they were on the eve of travelling, of making their escape.  They were in haste, and were to be in their travelling clothes as they ate.

During the night, God punished the oppressors by killing the first born offspring of all their families and all their cattle — only families where the doorposts had been marked were spared.  God passed over those doors; this was God’s Passover.

And during the night, while the Egyptians were in the midst of the chaos and grief of what had happened, they ejected the Hebrews, who got out of Egypt quickly before the Egyptians could change their minds.

This is the story of the Passover, and the meal associated with it is known as the Seder. And the command was given and received, that this feast of the Passover shall be celebrated every year and by all generations of Jews, ever more.

And the journey undertaken to escape is known as the Exodus.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Jewish theology of liberation is that the message of God is that there is to be relief of oppression for all.  It is a statement of hope, too: a steadfast belief that there will be God’s justice for all.

This is the meaning of the Passover celebration.

So Jewish thought, and those who inherit their thinking from Jewish thinking, must be sensitive to oppression wherever it occurs.

And linked to the Exodus is God’s Kingdom, the realm of God, which cannot be installed without justice and elimination of social misery.  This is a human responsibility and is not a metaphor; this is not a command to fulfil a personal, tranquil, internal state, but rather a responsibility to satisfy the outward, practical conditions of freedom and justice for all humans alive.

Moreover, the Passover is not an isolated event in the narrative of the Jews.  Many Jewish prophets called the Jews to treat all people as equal, Jews and non-Jews alike.  The God of the Jews, the one God, has a track record of requiring the freedom of all, and of justice for all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was to celebrate the feast of the Passover that Jesus left Galilee for Jerusalem, around the year we call 33 CE.  On the first day of the week (Sunday), he arrived in Jerusalem, for the seven day period of contemplation, and the daily eating of unleavened bread, as described in Exodus Chp 12 vv 14-20.  No work was to be done.  A quiet time was to be had by all.  And then the feast of the Passover would be celebrated and the Seder meal eaten, on the seventh day, the Saturday, the Sabbath.

The arrival of Jesus is described in the Christian Bible and celebrated by Christians as Palm Sunday.  Jesus is said to have arrived in Jerusalem astride a donkey.  He will then have embarked on a period of domestic quiet in the company of his family and followers.

But somehow in that quiet week spent with his followers, it became apparent to Jesus that not all his followers were true to him and his cause; to his teachings about the way to instal God’s Kingdom on Earth; and the need for justice by way of love of, and service to, those oppressed.  Judas, it was, who had become disillusioned and who had sold Jesus out to the Jewish authorities, perhaps as a heretic.  On the Thursday of that week Jesus shared his last evening meal of unleavened bread and wine with his followers, including Judas.  In his mystical, esoteric way, Jesus endowed great meaning to the elements of the meal, and we can argue to this day about the meaning of the words attributed to Jesus, as they ate.  One thing is sure: according to the reports of the meal recorded later, Jesus was being completely congruent with the idea that the Seder meal is inextricably linked with liberation, justice, love, humanity as one, and one with God in the realm of God.

Sadly, Jesus did not get to enjoy the Saturday feast of the Passover that year.  He had already been executed by the Romans, on the Friday, as a sop to the excitable Jewish crowd, who probably knew little, actually, about Jesus; on the weak pretext that Jesus was an agitator and subversive, threatening Roman rule.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Unitarians are beginning to make a point of celebrating the ideas of oneness with God and the whole created cosmos with a Seder meal.  And at present much of the world is in an enforced quiet, contemplative time, responding to the COVID19 virus pandemic.  Not so very different from the traditional preparation for the Passover.

If you are interested in reflecting in a new way on these Judaeo-Christian narratives, and the significance of the Seder meal in relation to liberation, justice, and relieving the burdens of people marginalised by mainstream society, perhaps you might like to participate in an online Seder service, next Saturday, 11 April 2020, 5:15 pm BST, organised and provided by New Unity Unitarian congregation in London.

Have a look at the wonderfully full description of the event, which will be accessed via Eventbrite, at the link below.  The link will also allow you to register for the event.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/non-religious-virtual-seder-new-unity-passover-tickets-101876290728

Being a disciple of Yeshua, a teacher of 'oneness'

The thing about Unitarians is that we seldom stand completely in one camp.  Just as we rarely hold a vision in common about how the multiverse operates, we rarely confine ourselves to one community of faith.  Seeking guidance, help and inspiration from a wide range of human sources (experiential, emotional, artistic, historic, scientific, mystic; solo and collaborative) - and from environmental sources as we live as animals on this Earth - we also tend to wander freely between circles of influence in terms of faith teaching.

So it is a rare Unitarian who adopts a single, or even prime, teacher to guide their path.  A number of UK Unitarians are satisfied in labelling themselves Unitarian Christians, and in doing so are content to be seen as people for whom the Jewish rabbi Jesus (or Yeshua) is the prime reference.  But the practice and contemplation of Unitarian Christians is not exclusive to Yeshua - there is a wealth of guidance available under the generic “Christian” banner that has not directly come from the words or actions of Yeshua, but instead, has come in an indirect way, from the thoughts and actions of other followers of Yeshua who have gone before.

For myself, for instance, I have gained a lot from paying attention to the guidance of the Abbot Benedict, a Roman Catholic monk living in the sixth century, and the Rule for life in community which he crystallised for his monks; as well as from various contemporary commentators on Benedict.  But that feels a long way removed from the words I hear reported as coming directly from Yeshua, as written in the Bible.  I have learned from Christianity rather than directly from Yeshua; and so I do not really think of myself as a Unitarian Christian.

Now, because of my interest in Benedict, I belong to a Benedictine group, whose members alongside me are traditional Christians.  One of the books we are currently reading together is a book by Professor Rowan Williams, Being Disciples.  Unlike the rest of the group, in the reading of this book there is work for me to do, to translate terms, directed by the author at traditional Christians, into terms that seem to me to be universally applicable.  It is only by doing this that I can hold true to my Unitarian calling: I strongly feel that a teacher has been truly wise only if their teaching can be applied to all humankind, not to just a select grouping, or to a specific time.  ‘What is true everywhere, over all time’, worded also as ‘oneness of all humankind’, is crucial to me.

So I am now reading Williams’ Being Disciples with this question, this context in my mind:  Yeshua the teacher of ‘oneness’.  Because, if ‘oneness’ is the touchstone for a Unitarian, then a teacher will be helpful to the extent that they address the ‘oneness’ issue.

Williams suggests that being a disciple - a student of a teacher or guru - is not a set of ‘I can pick up-I can put down’ activities, but rather is a state of being; and that it requires staying in the company of the guru or teacher over long periods, even when nothing much seems to be happening.  It requires being attentive to the teacher, he says, and going with them even as they go to places you would not have chosen for yourself.  That bit is very important.

In Williams’ book we are reminded that Yeshua went to some places his contemporary followers found very uncomfortable; and that he received criticism for both his behaviour and for the company he kept.  From the ‘oneness’ standpoint, I see Yeshua deliberately taking action to challenge and break down the traditional divisions between people.  He taught, as well as showing by demonstration, that those granted power and authority over others should behave humbly and put the needs of others before their own needs: the famous foot washing (John, Chapter 13).  He broke taboos by eating and associating with people who were regarded as the dregs of Jewish society; and with despised collaborators with the Romans (e.g. tax collectors).  It is clear that Yeshua saw such exclusions as running counter to what is best in and best for humankind, and he demanded that those who followed him should set aside such barriers.  He emphasised an old teaching of non-exclusion in Judaism: that the very ingredient left on the side is the key element in the whole affair. (Psalm 118, quoted by Yeshua in Matthew, Chapter 21; Mark, Chapter 12; Luke, Chapter 20).

Yet - demonstrating to me his humanity - Yeshua was not himself perfectly consistent in living his message (and knew it: “Why do you call me good?  Only one is good, and that is God.” (Matthew, Chapter 19; Mark, Chapter 10; Luke, Chapter 18)).  He was challenged to reach out beyond his Jewish cultural habits: to a Roman soldier who sought healing for a member of his household (Matthew, Chapter 8), and to a Samarian woman at a well, whom at first Yeshua seemed reluctant to include (Matthew, Chapter 15).  Yeshua was stretched on both these occasions, but he passed the test of his own message - when the chips were down - by treating these others as he treated his own.

So Yeshua was looking for ‘oneness’ between all sorts of people.  And if we choose to use his teachings and example as our guide, we must work to break down barriers between people, and treat the last as first, even at the cost of placing ourselves in situations not designed for our own comfort.

~~~~~

But Yeshua’s teaching is not limited to ‘oneness’ of human society.  As a mystic, his teaching extends to relationships with God.

Prof Williams suggests that: “…The relationship of Jesus to the Father is not episodic.  Jesus does not receive an occasional bit of instruction from the Father; his relationship is sustained, eternal and unbroken.”

My own reading is that Yeshua is attentive to the divine reality in a continual way; an unending ‘oneness’ subsisting between him and what brought him into being and sustained him.  And then he extends that: he extends the ‘oneness’ between God and himself, to a ‘oneness’ starting with God and including himself then extending to his disciples: “I am the vine and you are the branches.” (John, Chapter 15).  “My Father, who gave them to me, is greater than all; and no one is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.  I and my Father are one.” (John Chapter 10).  “Truly, I say to you, he that receives whomsoever I send receives me; and he that receives me receives him that sent me.” (John Chapter 13). “No man knows who the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him.” (Luke, Chapter 10).

It seems that Yeshua sees this experience of ‘oneness’ with truth and reality as both possible and essential, for anyone who wishes to follow the same path: “The Kingdom lies within you.” (Luke, Chapter 17). “Rejoice because your names are written in heaven.” (Luke, Chapter 10). 

And Yeshua uses the idea of God as Father, rather than Judge, to indicate the familial intimacy and connectedness that we should feel with God.  So Yeshua, the breaker of barriers between people, is encouraging his followers to see a continuum, not a separation, between their worldly being and the creative power, or will, that brings them into being.

And perhaps the most famous of all the teachings of Yeshua is this: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.  This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like unto it: thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”  (Deuteronomy, Chapter 6 and Leviticus Chapter 19, quoted together by Yeshua in Matthew, Chapter 22; Mark, Chapter 12; Luke, Chapter 10).

As Williams has it: “…so we in our discipleship [of Jesus] are summoned to gaze into the mystery of that infinite love and to seek to do that same eternal will: to ‘act’ that same action, on earth as it is in heaven, as the Lord’s Prayer puts it.”

~~~~~

So it seems to me that Yeshua is - among other things - a teacher of ‘oneness’: a ‘oneness’ stretching from the source of the multiverse, through the laws governing evolutionary environmental existence and human society (“heaven and earth”), through the compassion wisdom of the spiritual guides and the prosaic nature of ordinary life, to concrete expression in the most outcast, ignored and helpless of our kind and of animal kind.  Yeshua’s teaching infers a demand for an attentive recognition of the integrated web of relationship and interdependence, and this as part of an unending search for what is best in and best for humankind.

And again from Prof Williams, regarding what the actions and teachings of Yeshua can be used towards as we live today: “…what it’s all finally about is enabling you to do some very ordinary things a little bit better, in a way that is suffused by eternal love taking up residence in the heart…..what the disciple learns: how to be a place in the world where the act of God can come alive.”

Hosting the Southern #Unitarian Association gathering on 1 June in the New Forest

Last Saturday, 1 June 2019, we were delighted to host the quarterly gathering of the Southern Unitarian Association.  At Burley Village Hall, nearby in the New Forest, we held a worship service and a drumming workshop for people who came from far and wide to be with us.  

The service was a flower communion, and it started with a Jewish anthem calling people to praise.  Everyone brought themselves to the circle of worship with a flower, which early on in the service was placed in a vase on the centre table.  We had words of gathering from Rev Andy Pakula and lit the Unitarian chalice candle while singing to a recorded chant by David Kent.  Our scripture for the day was from the Isha Upanishad v 1-6, speaking of the fullness of reality, the nearness of the ultimate reality, and the unity of reality.

We were reminded that our heritage as Unitarians means that we recognise there is no single, complete, entire, correct way to God.  The variety of the flowers in the centre was used as a metaphor for that.  And the meditation on the Names, shown elsewhere on this blog, was read aloud.

After some minutes of silence to listen to what was in our hearts, we had some readings.  The first was a piece by Rowan Williams on the need for stability, combined with the gifts of many different talents, if a church is to do the work of God.  The second was a poem (translator unknown) by Rainer Maria Rilke, suggesting the words God speaks to each of us as we are made.  We heard the song “Love, Serve and Remember” written and sung by John Astin, which is based on eastern teachings. (For more on John Astin and his associates see http://www.integrativearts.com )

We were invited to discuss with the person next to us our personal style of activism in the world, using the parable “Six Monks” (see here https://www.patheos.com/blogs/fieldnotesonliving/2019/04/29/the-six-monks/  )

Then we turned our minds to what the Southern Unitarian Association is - an association of congregations. So the SUA is nothing if there are no congregations.  We heard, responded to and reflected on the hopes, wishes and dreams for the SUA listed by those who were at the preceding SUA gathering.  And we were challenged by the following questions:

Why do we keep coming here?

Why do we keep going to our congregation’s gatherings

 and services?

Is it because we hope?

Is it because we get satisfaction? - if so, how and why

Is it because we get purpose?

Is it because we get clarity and order? - if so how and why

Is it a running away?

Is it a running towards?

Why do we keep coming?

Think about these questions yourself

Take them back to your congregations

Ask the same questions there

Only by sharing openly these big questions will we properly connect at a deeper level with each other

Only by sharing openly these big questions will we develop

 our congregations.

The worship closed with a meditation by Rev Tony McNeile, after which everyone collected a flower - a different flower - from the vase in the centre to take away with them.  We finished with a hymn from the green hymn book “Our Kindred Fellowships”.

Between the service and the drumming workshop there was a Climate Emergency lunch, all vegetable based, which was much enjoyed by all, whether or not they had previously eaten much vegan food.  Some of the food had been bought in from a vegan cafe in Christchurch https://www.goodintentionscafe.co.uk   There was also the opportunity to take a quiz online to assess one’s personal carbon footprint  https://footprint.wwf.org.uk/#/

The drumming workshop was led by Heike from Southbourne, and it fully lived up to its promise.  Getting absorbed in the rhythm, we found we really did stop using our thinking minds and instead went back to being creative in some unexpected ways.  Most enjoyable and thoroughly recommended. https://www.heikedrumshare.com

People felt they needed to express their appreciation for the day, so a collection was taken for the Ringwood Foodbank.