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.”

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.

What happened at the Blue Christmas #Unitarian service at Ringwood for those who have a heavy heart at Christmastide

The Blue Christmas service on 16 December was a departure for both Ringwood town and the Unitarians who meet in Ringwood.

Prior to the event the people we asked thought that holding a service for those for whom Christmas is a hard time was a very good idea.  And so it turned out.  People came to the service who had not been to one of the regular monthly services, and among them were people who - it turns out - are suffering under some considerable strain at present.

The service began with a quiet time in which, in general terms, we were reminded the sorts of reasons why Christmas can be a painful season.  And then the narrative of the Christmas story was unfolded, interspersed with musical interludes.

Each of the readings had been chosen to be an unconventional perspective on the stages of the nativity.  A poem Bethlehem by Frances Thompson gave the perspective of the innkeeper’s wife, focused on caring for the young mother in the face of a very male world.  T. S. Eliot’s speculative poem, from the view from one of the wise men (The Journey of the Magi) suggested that death as well as birth was intrinsic to Christmas.

Unitarians are not certain about Jesus in the way that other churches are, and so space was left for participants to consider their own view of Jesus.  But the message of hope for renewal, signified by the birth of this baby, and indeed every human baby, and the possibility that Christmas is about reconciliation of difficulties, were explored.

Having cleared our minds we were invited to some minutes of silence, in the trust that in the silence the messages we most needed to hear would be born in us.

In amongst the more unusual pieces of Christmas music that we heard, we did sing one traditional carol: It came upon the midnight clear whose lyrics were written by Edmund Sears in 1849, who was pastor to the Unitarian Church in Wayland, Massachusetts at the time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Came_Upon_the_Midnight_Clear

We closed with an unusual piece of music for a Christmas service, which was a song by Paul McCartney, which includes the hopeful lines:  “One of these days, when my feet are on the ground, I’m gonna look around and see, See what’s right, see what’s there, And breathe fresh air ever after.  It’s there, it’s round, it’s to be found, by you, by me: It’s all we ever wanted to be.”