The flame of ritual is re-lit for #Unitarians in Ringwood at Easter 2023

Like an empty cross

Stands the lone cold wick.

Like a cold bare tomb

The fire’s grate.

The flame recalled, in hope no doubt,

Rising from the ashes of the light snuffed out.

(Words for lighting the candle in the chalice)

Last Sunday, Easter Sunday, we included physical ritual in our gathering for the first time since the COVID19 pandemic, and it’s a sign that we in Ringwood are at last throwing off the mental shackles associated with the pandemic, and getting back to how we were before it all started.

In a reflective and meditative service, we built on our overall approach to the Gospel — and, in particular, the book attributed to Mark — as ‘shared story’ for personal reflection.  In this service, the ‘shared story’ vehicle for the reflection and meditation was not a Bible reading, but instead a version of the 'Stations of the Cross' meditation, used for hundreds of years in various Christian traditions. 

There were only a few words offered as content, those being the words used at lighting the candle in the chalice, and the words used as the response for the prayer at each station.

Leader: "With compassion we gaze on thy story.

Response: "Because in it we see something of the world."

Rather than being a wordy service, there was much time for personal quiet.  Participants were invited to picture the moment at each station, and let our reflection go where it will.  Recorded chants from the Taizé-style of worship were also played during the ritual.  Traditionally, inside a church building the Stations of the Cross would be carried out by walking to a series of physical locations in the church.  But with all our participants seated in a circle, our president for the day decided to mark each of the fourteen stations by passing a candle round the full circle, hand to hand.

"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 this 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 that it looks like you are).

Stations of the Cross (source: Wikipedia, adapted)

The Stations of the Cross or the Way of the Cross, also known as the Way of Sorrows or the Via Crucis, refers to a series of images depicting Jesus on the day of his crucifixion, and accompanying prayers. 

The Stations of the Cross ritual has existed in one form or another for at least five hundred years.  The earliest use of the word "stations", as applied to the accustomed halting-places along the Via Sacra at Jerusalem, occurs in the narrative of an English pilgrim, William Wey, who visited the Holy Land in the mid-15th century and described pilgrims following the footsteps of Jesus to Golgotha. It has become one of the most popular devotions and the stations can be found in many Western Christian churches, including those in the Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican, and Methodist traditions.

Out of the fourteen traditional Stations of the Cross, only eight have a clear scriptural foundation.  To provide a version of this devotion more closely aligned with the biblical accounts, Pope John Paul II introduced a new form of devotion, called the Scriptural Way of the Cross, on Good Friday 1991. 

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.”

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.

June meeting

The Unitarian meeting in Ringwood on 8 June was centred on the theme "one world".  We heard readings from the Bible (Genesis Chp1) and from Wordsworth.  There were some lovely prayers seeking lessons from the Earth for our daily living.  We mused on the smallness of the Earth in space as we listened to music from "The Blue Planet" and we sang hymns that reflected the interconnectedness of humans and the Earth.  We welcomed a new participant and we marked the passing of one of our number who was with us as recently as our May meeting.  There was a calm still feeling to the service which had lots of silence and time for meditation.

Unitarians do it together

So: a bit more about the way faith is dealt with by Unitarians might be useful before you go any further.  Have a look at the other blogs at the bottom of this blog to see what sort of things Unitarians are saying at the moment.  Then at the link you can download