Why #Unitarians meeting in Ringwood include ritual in our gatherings

“I have come to feel that [rituals] have another purpose — to end, for a time, our sense of human alienation from nature and from each other…….Rituals have the power to reset the terms of our universe until we find ourselves suddenly and truly at home.”

Margot Adler, Drawing Down the Moon

“Any ritual is an opportunity for transformation.  To do ritual, you must be willing to be transformed in some way.  That inner willingness is what makes the ritual come alive and have power.  If you aren’t willing to be changed by the ritual, don’t do it.”

Starhawk, Truth or Dare

To that last quote, we would add: if you aren't willing to be changed by the ritual, you are not, in fact, doing the ritual (no matter if it looks as though you are).

January 2017 meeting for reverence speaks about grace #unitarians

Once again we remembered absent friends going through a difficult set of circumstances. 

The service theme was “Making space for grace.”

The president for the day had chosen poetry for the set pieces for the meeting.  Having come across a poet by the name of Leopard at the Spirit Festival last summer, the president's first reading was a poem from Leopard’s publication Leaves for the Trees.

The second reading was a longer poem called Sometimes a Wild God by Tom Hirons.

We carried out our usual silent sharing of four elements, passing them round the circle of those present so that each person had touched and held each element, and connected with the others by doing so.  After that the elements were placed on the table at our centre, next to our Unitarian chalice.
 

The elements today were bread, water, incense and flame (a candle).  The water had been brought deliberately from Glastonbury.

We always include this ritual and it is always slow and silent, which allows each person present to interpret, revere and sanctify the ritual in a private way, aligned with their own current faith and beliefs.

Hard won personal struggles over the years have convinced us that a sure way to divide people from each other is to try to insist that particular rituals and sensations must hold a particular  meaning (with the tacit and sinister sub-text of “or else you don’t belong”).   We have found that, without words, together we can carry out an activity that holds a different meaning for each of us, and those meanings can change over time.  What holds us together is the unified carrying out of the ritual.  Just like going to a wedding or a funeral: everyone at those ceremonies takes away with them something different, but they all know that they were there, at the same event.

So although you may see references to Unitarians as “creedless faith groups”, this is inaccurate.  We each have our own creed.  But emphatically, we do not wish or expect that the person next to us in our worship holds to the same faith or belief as we do.  It is enough that they show up and join in, however that makes sense to them.

This is because we consider life to be more than humdrum.  We have glimpsed different perspectives, perhaps in rare and expanded moments; perspectives that lead us to hunt for the spiritual refreshment we know exists, if only we can find the way to it.  The refreshment that brings calm unearned; or an unexpected detachment, like pearls on silk, during the bruising torrents of uncontrollable life; or which – paradoxically – demands not a “giving up” and asking for help, but a “giving up of self” meaning the need for help diffuses into the abyss, the dance.  The abyss, the dance, the voice that can be heard by everyone, says Gandhi: “Every one who wills can hear the Voice.  It is within every one.  But like everything else, it requires pre­vious and definite preparation.”

Our heritage is the Christian tradition and so we use the Christian label for this spiritual refreshment, that is to say: “grace”.  And so as part of our meeting for reverence we reflected on making opportunities in our lives for grace to break in undeserved and unearned; and also on our unhelpful tendency to behave so as to keep grace out.

March 2016 meeting for reverence

On Sunday our meeting for reverence was led by a visitor – the Unitarian District Minister for London and the South East of England, Rev Martin Whitell.  Martin had already conducted two Unitarian weddings at the Ringwood Meeting House but this was the first time he had come to lead our regular meeting for reverence.

He took as his theme “The Sounds of Silence.”

Our gathering followed our usual format, starting with a simple ritual.  Our silent ritual can be interpreted in a variety of ways, since we each place meaning on it privately.  For instance, one interpretation might be that it honours the four fundamental elements fire, earth, water, air.  Another interpretation might see the same ritual as reminding us of “light of spirit or soul connecting us”, “bread of life given for us”, “water of life moving through us”, “breath of life inspiring us”.  But there are as many different meanings as there are people taking part, because as Unitarians we do not impose doctrine (religious theory or explanations) on anyone.

Included in the meeting were a mixture of readings, silence and music, both for listening to and for joining in with.  There was “Songs without Words” (Op 38 no 6) by Felix Mendelssohn.  There was also a piece performed by the Dunblane Cathedral handbell ringers.  Two hymns from the most recent Unitarian hymnbook were sung and then Martin reflected on the role of quietness in our finding our way in life.  The Simon and Garfunkel song “Sounds of Silence” gave more food for thought.  The texts of the hymns and readings explored the religious experience of realising in quiet times things that are not easy to put into words but that underpin life choices and changes.

Also as usual, we lit candles as we shared our current joys and concerns.  This part of the meeting sometimes has many words out loud, and sometimes almost none at all.  Yet it is always one of the most moving parts of our time together.

These are some of the words that were used during our meeting:

We listen too much to the telephone and we listen too little to nature.  The wind is one of my sounds.  A lonely sound, perhaps, but soothing….

As a matter of fact, one of the greatest sounds of them all — and to me it is a sound — is utter, complete silence. 

André Kostelanetz (1901–1980) Russian conductor

And the people bowed and prayed

To the neon god they made

And the sign flashed out its warning

In the words that it was forming

And the sign said “The words of the prophets

Are written on subway walls

And tenement halls

And whispered in the sounds of silence.”

© 1964 Words by Paul Simon

True silence is the rest of the mind;

it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body – nourishment and refreshment. 

William Penn (1644–1718)

  

You can hear the footsteps of God

when silence reigns in the mind. 

Sri Sathya Sai Baba (1926–2011)

Indian guru and philanthropist

Let us be silent,

that we may hear the whispers of the gods.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) Transcendentalist

December meeting

Our December worship took the form of readings about Advent and Christmas, and how these festivals can be seen from a Unitarian perspective – as preparation and waiting for a growing light, which may or may not be named Christ depending on one’s theology, to break through the darkness.  We had some moving music and periods of silence.  We also included our usual ritual of sharing light, bread, water, and earth/air elements.  We always do this wordlessly because people attach different yet heartfelt meanings to the ritual, and we respect each other’s private relationship with the divine.

We also lit candles as part of expressing those joys and concerns dear to us, so to help our reconciliation with the events of our lives.

We were moved by a prayer we have come across from the World Community for Christian Meditation in the UK : part of which is adapted below:

May this group be a true spiritual home for the seeker, a friend for the lonely, a companion for the confused.  In the silence of this room may all the suffering, violence and confusion of the world encounter the power that will console, renew and uplift the human spirit.

May this silence be a power to open the hearts of people to the vision of God, and so to each other, in love and peace, justice and human dignity.  May the beauty of the Divine Life fill this group and the hearts of all who pray here with joyful hope.

May all who come here, weighed down by the problems of humanity, leave giving thanks for the wonder of human life and whatever lies beyond it.