November 2015 meeting for reverence

It is both an advantage and a disadvantage of being a small group that sometimes, with few participants turning up, the meetings can be quite intimate.  This allows for lots of close listening, and the freedom to spend more time developing ideas and voicing them out loud – perhaps for the first time.  But we never forget that a very small group could feel quite daunting to a first time visitor to our meetings.  Normally, though, we have enough participants to allow anyone who wishes to stay quiet to do just that.  And in any case, the various leaders of the meeting are able to adapt their prepared material to suit the people who come.

Few of us were able to be at our meeting on 8 November and that allowed close inspection and discussion of the chosen texts.  And what an eclectic mix they were: Epicurus, Tolkien, and Pratchett, all on the theme of death. The reflection was around not fearing it, whatever our ideas of what may be after it.  For once we didn't stop for coffee as people had to get off to other commitments.

We enjoy the flexibility that we build into our practice.  We are aware that in 21st century Britain the fixed and predictable format associated with more traditional faith-based gatherings may not appeal to the interior search many people are embarked upon.  We are all on a search; and in Ringwood, we Unitarians welcome insight from many sources, as we cross many boundaries and move in interlocking circles.  We expect people to have many irons in the fire, even – or perhaps, especially – when it comes to their interior explorations.  We have chosen the timing of our monthly meeting so that there is time to do something else before Sunday lunch, and would never be surprised or disappointed to hear that participants were going on to other places of worship, in other traditions, after having been with us.  Instead, what we would hope is that when people come to practise reverence with us, they contribute to our meeting by bringing the insights they have gathered from their other sources.  In a Unitarian internet forum, some years ago, it was said that some had brought to their Unitarian congregational practice a lot of insight gained from their “Twelve Steps” programme, run by Alcoholics Anonymous.  The models adopted by organised religions are different from each other, but bundled together they remain only one way of articulating the human experience.

Whatever your experience, whatever your path, if your model of how it all works, and the way you live, bring you to us in openness to other views and respect for personal lives linked in community, you will find us doing our best to welcome you.

January 2015 meeting

http://www.contemplativemind.org/practices/tree

Our January meeting for reverence and worship was led by Lucy, and focused on why the words practice and discipline keep popping up in religion.

We started out by noticing that there is no single Unitarian faith, and that every Unitarian service is an interfaith service, since – although we can never know – we can imagine that every person has a different faith.

In the light of the recent Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris, we also agreed that it is important for people of faith to practice their own belief system long enough and seriously enough that they no longer harbour the fear that another belief can insult or affect their own.  Losing fear of other beliefs is one way to work towards peace. 

After the lighting of the chalice and our normal opening ritual there were readings from Hinduism and the Jesus tradition.  The Hindu reading came from the sacred book of the Upanishads, and it was the story of Indra and Prajapati.  Indra spent one hundred and one years as a disciple of his teacher Prajapati before he gained the mystical knowledge he sought.

The second reading was by a contemporary writer explaining some of the teachings of the Christian hermits, men and women, who lived in the deserts of 5th century Egypt.  These hermits are known collectively as the Desert Fathers and Mothers and the teachings they gave were one of the inspirations for monastic life through the centuries.  These wise people have emphasised to us that it takes a very long time to fully become the human being we have the potential to become. 

So these two traditions both advise that application and repeated tries are the only way to develop and grow in a spiritual sense.  The view was offered that the words discipline and practice can more or less be interchanged, and that having a regular practice to hang onto can prevent us from becoming completely derailed when crises and shocks occur.

We spent some time in silent contemplation of the practices that have emerged for us in our personal lives, that allow us to grow in faith or spirit, and we sang some hymns in gratefulness for the project of spiritual growth and the chance to keep on trying.

We finished with the International Prayer for Peace.  The words of this prayer, adapted from the Hindu Upanishads, were used by Mother Teresa in 1981. She urged everyone of all faiths to use the peace prayer daily at noon. 

 

Lead me from death to life,

from falsehood to truth.

Lead me from despair to hope,

from fear to trust.

Lead me from hate to love,

from war to peace.

Let peace fill our heart, our world, our universe.