A new beginning after COVID, with help from text messages, Isaiah and Mark — gathering of Unitarians in Ringwood 14 August 2022

What a joy it was to be together again, in the Meeting House, to be starting anew by meeting in person.  After a gap of two and a half years owing to COVID19, for us as a congregation this felt like a new beginning.  And though for each of us it will be different, we shared this new beginning.

Now, for first time blog visitors and regular readers alike, here is the periodic reminder.  We are not Bible scholars, nor do we hold that the Bible contains more or better quality wisdom than any other source.  What we say is that the Bible is where our forebears started; hence referring to the Bible can provide a shortcut to a shared understanding, as the same words and pictures have been re-interpreted in each generation, over centuries.

We say too that the practice of reading it with new eyes is something else we have inherited from our forebears.  We don’t start from “What is God saying to us through this text?” but from “What words has the author put together here and why (and what is the crucial influence of the translator)?”

And thirdly, we say that what the Bible may convey must be supported by our lived experience; and that this stance too we have inherited from our forebears.

Early Unitarian congregations and communities came out of Presbyterian congregations, Baptist congregations, Congregationalist congregations, and even Anglican ones. They were joined by individuals from many other backgrounds to boot. It wasn’t ritual, or theology, or even practical organisation that they had in common.  It was these three things:

The Bible, the drive for lived Truth, and the measures of reason and conscience as their guide.

These three taken together was what was new in their beginning.

In the early days there may in any case have been a shortage of other sources of wisdom to tap into.  The Bible may have been the only book seen and read.  It would have been natural for congregations to focus their attention on it.  

But now we face the diametrically opposed problem: there are so many sources of wisdom open to us, from cultures worldwide, that as we take each our own path of exploration, it can be a lonesome journey — and the concept of ‘an experience in common’ lies in splinters and shards.  Let’s face it, it’s hard enough to find someone to chat with about the same television programme last night  — we never watch the same things — how much more difficult is it now to have a shared ground to stand on when discussing deep matters of the spirit?

So though we value influences from all religious, philosophic, artistic, scientific, natural and just plain suburban sources, we hold that hanging onto the practice established by our forebears is a good and authentic rallying point.  Rallying — congregating — is what we are about.  We walk our own private paths between gatherings, but the whole point of a congregation is to congregate on a shared ground for mutual support.  So we tend to start from the Bible.

"We light our chalice-candle, invoking the divine light that shines in stars and suns and the bright eyes of a child. 

We light our chalice-candle to invoke the warmth that wakens the divine life in cold earth and cold hearts. 

We light our chalice-candle so we can see the divine beauty in a flower and the human beauty in courageous love

Amen"

 Spirit of Time and Place, Cliff Reed, pg. 29 (https://www.unitarian.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/2002_Spirit_Time_Place.pdf)

When we met on 14th August, our first reading was from the book of the prophet Isaiah chapter 61, verses 1 to 4.  What we heard were the words of the prophet, as recorded.

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me

    because the Lord has anointed me;

he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,

    to bind up the broken-hearted,

to proclaim liberty to the captives

    and release to the prisoners,

² to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour

    and the day of vengeance of our God,

    to comfort all who mourn,

³ to provide for those who mourn in Zion—

    to give them a garland instead of ashes,

the oil of gladness instead of mourning,

    the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.

They will be called oaks of righteousness,

    the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.

⁴ They shall build up the ancient ruins;

    they shall raise up the former devastations;

they shall repair the ruined cities,

    the devastations of many generations.

Our second reading was from the book of Mark chapter 1, verses 1 to 11.  This is the story of John the Baptizer and his baptism of Jesus, as narrated by the poet-author we know as Mark.  Depending which translation you read, the first line is,

“Beginning of the good word of Jesus the Anointed, Son of God.  

“As is written in Isaiah the prophet, 'Look, I am sending my messenger before your face, who will prepare your road, the voice of a crier in the desert...', so John came along, bathing others in the wilderness and announcing the washing of a changed heart for the forgiveness of wrongs.”

Our president for the day reflected on the two readings he had brought to our attention, as follows.

“Over the course of the past few years we have been on a journey of new beginnings as a congregation and as individuals. We meet together today, in some ways different and in others the same as when we last gathered here. 

“One of the things that has flourished over the past two years has been a book reading group, by way of daily SMS text exchanges sharing thoughts and feelings around what has been read that day. We’ve read a variety of books together, but one stands out as having been a game changer for me. Perhaps we worked up to it in some of our other reading, perhaps other books helped remove some barriers first, but this book opened doors for me in a way I can’t help but want to share.

“It was a book I had read before, but I very much felt as if I was reading it for the first time. I had had clear ideas what the book was about and opinions about the author, but this time I realised how much I had assumed, how much I had taken onboard other people’s opinions and understanding without being aware of it.  So when I stopped reading it how I thought I was ‘supposed’ to read it, it suddenly looked very different and far more interesting. It was a new beginning.

“That book was the Gospel of Mark. Did you know that it has no nativity, no virgin birth, no Trinity, no Jesus as God-Man, and that it even stops before any Resurrection? 

“Did you know it is possible to read it simply for fun like a novel, to read it as an ancient tragedy play, to read it as a philosophical dialogue, to read it as a political commentary?

“Did you know you can read it and never once find yourself in Sunday School, or being told what it means or what you have to do?  I’m suggesting trying it.  Many Unitarians have personal histories with the Gospels and the Bible in general. For some of us, those histories are painful and complicated. So the Bible can be triggering as well as inspirational, but if you can do it safely it’s worth trying.

“The readings today are an offering of a shared new beginning for anyone who’d like to take up this suggestion." 

“Right from the opening lines of Mark’s Gospel we think we know what he’s talking about, because we’ve imbibed enough through our shared culture and personal religious histories to give particular meanings to ‘good news’ and ‘Christ’.  But let's rewind — we started with the earlier section from Isaiah, which was written much earlier.

“There in Isaiah we read of a good news that has nothing to do with redemption from sin or getting into heaven.  Nothing written there about Jesus.  Instead, we meet another ‘anointed one’, another ‘Christ’, showing us that this title is far more shared and far less narrow in its application — it’s not just Jesus who is denoted 'Christ', 'anointed one'.

“If we can read this very first line of the Gospel of Mark differently — if we can, straight away, start reading a different book from the one we thought we knew — what else can be different, what else can be new?

“Your reason will interpret what you find in Mark.  Your conscience will tell you what is of value and what you can happily forget. Your drive for a lived Truth will decide if anything there nourishes your spirit or changes your practical life.

“And maybe, by holding some images and stories in common as a community we’ll have a framework for ready expression of ideas, a place to start talking and sharing our personal insights. The aim is never that we all think the same, or that we limit the places we find inspiration and wisdom, but it's this: that here at our new beginning perhaps we can learn from our forebears’ shared new beginning.

“It’s an offer, a suggestion, no time limits, no tests.  I got a lot out of re-reading Mark as it’s written and not as I thought it was. Today’s readings start us off together.  Where any of us goes from here is up to them.”

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

In the beginning was the experience of Truth — How to say “We believe….” as recognition of community

We Believe

Often we read or hear something and our first thought is “I wouldn’t say that” or “I’m not comfortable with that language”.  We pore over the words of hymns or dissect the latest sermon or blog, and all the while we draw lines and dig trenches.  Creedal Tests have been used for centuries to do the same — as if Truth were a sword to separate the Sheep from the Goats, or the wheat from the chaff. 

Pause. 

Breathe. 

Don’t ask yourself if you agree with me; just take a moment to see if you can hear what I’m saying.  No one requires you to do anything or take any stance for the moment; and when that time comes you can, and you will.  But this isn’t that time, not yet.

I believe Truth isn’t a sword: it’s that in which “we live and move and have our being” (Act 17:28, Cretica by Epimenides).  It’s not something to use to divide and hold apart; rather, it is the very thing that makes us one.  It isn’t something to use to conquer others; it is the very foundation that allows us to be free. 

EPIMENIDES OF CNOSSOS a semi-mythical 7th or 6th century BC
 Greek seer and philosopher-poet.

When I say “I believe”, I am not telling you what you ought to think, or requiring you to confirm my view.  I am sharing with you something about how I experience the world, offering a glimpse into why I say and do the things I do.  I am speaking my Truth.  That is to say, I am voicing that Truth open to all, shared by all, lived in by all but as experienced by me in all my limitations, with all my back-story, and in the language I have learned throughout my life.  

Expanding that idea, it is a beautiful thing to be able to say: “We believe…”.  It is an acknowledgement of a shared experience, a shared language, and shared hopes.  It is never the fruit of a simple debate over concepts and words: it is, at heart, a recognition of community rather than a tool for forging it.  The words of a Creed can inspire the conversation, the prayer, and the actions that bring about the “We believe …” moment, but they themselves neither create it nor constitute it. 

The Apostolic Creed, one of the most widely used and oldest of the creedal statements in Christianity, has to be understood in the context of a shared community, a shared set of stories and rituals, a shared experience of life.  It was spoken believer to believer, and is deeply embedded in the ritual of Baptism — where the dialogue isn’t one of Gatekeeper to Supplicant but, rather, the excited back and forth between friends or new partners.  The “Do you..” and “I do ..” is not one of uncertainty but of already knowing the answer and delighting in hearing it out loud.  Think of the wedding ceremony where each partner is asked if they take the other: there is no uncertainty at this point, and yet the saying of it out loud is still so much more than formality: it is a joyful expression of their relationship to each other and the community around them. 

The excitement of retrieving the football - which will
 become a shared story, a shared experience of life

The Apostolic Creed is not the Creedal Test that has rightfully been recognised in terms of power dynamics and control.  It is not accompanied by the cudgel of “say this, think that, or else”.  It is the joyful celebration of a shared experience of the divine, in a community of shared stories, shared rituals, shared prayer, and shared hopes.  This Creed is a shape not arrived at by carving into, or by cutting away, according to a precise, planned view of the end result, but rather a shape grown organically according to the nature of the living material and the conditions over time it finds itself in.  It is a shape that shows its history in every twist and knot, but is always growing, never knowing what the future will bring for it — yet unafraid because growth is not deviation from a plan, it is not failure, it is the success of ongoing life and vitality.

knotted, gnarled, organic growth - this is an apple tree
 but it may as well be a creed from the 4th century CE

“We believe …” can be beautiful, it can be joyful, and I think — if we are honest with ourselves — it is something we all long for.  Though we may all fall into the pride of wanting to push our views and our expressions on others, and though we have all seen too clearly how easily Creedal Tests have been used to exert influence and put pressure on individuals and groups, our longing is not for the set of words.  The shared experience of the Divine, the communal life of shared stories and prayer, the excited back and forth of connecting with others at the profoundest level: that is what we thirst for.

We long to be one, not by giving up our personhood, not by rejecting the quality of individuality, not by capitulating to the will of others, but by embracing the community, by shared living in Truth.  I haven’t lost hope for that “We believe…” moment, that Creed ‘in spirit and in truth’ (John 4:23) and I believe the surest start towards it is acknowledging the culture and the stories that have shaped me and which I already share with others.  Despite the name that the tale is more commonly known by, there were two sons in the tale of the Forgiving Father (Luke 15: 11-32): together we can write an ending where no one is left sat outside.

Religion isn't a provisional truth for scrutiny by a group

This is, as usual for this blog, a personal view, which should not be taken to represent the views in the round of the group of people meeting under the Unitarian banner in Ringwood.

Recently I have been interested to read What Should Citizens Believe?: Exploring the issues of truth, reason & society, by Henry Tam ISBN-13: 978-1548183103 and ISBN-10: 1548183105 published in association with Citizen Network in 2018.

The aim of the book is to share a range of ideas that can help us to test the legitimacy of our beliefs. It was written in the shadow of the hashtag #fakenews and is a very helpful study by this respected academic at Birkbeck College, University of London who is also Director of the Forum of Youth Participation & Democracy, University of Cambridge.

I have also had my interest engaged by the series of programmes currently being screened by the BBC, about a group of people holding a range of different stances on faith, undertaking a pilgrimage to Istabul, along The Sultan’s Trail.

This post brings the two engagements together, and sets them both against direct personal experience.

~~~~~~~~~

Dr Henry Tam brings this to me:

“Objectivity in discourse is only possible if people follow the principle of cooperative enquiry, which demands that … an assertion [be] judged with reference to the extent to which informed participants, deliberating under conditions of thoughtful and un-coerced exchanges, would concur.  Any provisional consensus reached by one group of individuals must in turn be open to possible revisions subject to examinations carried out with input from other groups.  The ultimate strength of any truth claim rests with the likelihood of that claim surviving the critical deliberations of ever-expanding circles of enquirers.”

Many in the Unitarian movement, to which I align myself, might agree that this mode of enquiry is something to be aimed at, though we might also agree that, in practice, little of this cooperative enquiry is being undertaken in our movement at present. 

Nonetheless, the reason there is a Unitarian denomination at all is that certain people among Church congregations throughout the centuries have not accepted dogma, as presented from the pulpit or lectern, without critique and scrutiny against the dictates of conscience.  Secretly or openly, assertions have then been tested in group discourse.  Schisms and re-groupings have then followed; and periodically, successive re-groupings have occurred, in the light of subsequent new discourse and scrutiny.

Whether we consider the present state of the Unitarian movement in UK as burgeoning or diminishing, the movement continues to encompass a healthy degree of the testing of ideas, and tends to reject superstition and modes of ritual that do not in some way focus the minds and hearts of the participants.  Ambitious and optimistic UK Unitarians would hope that our way of being a movement should also aim at rejecting arbitrary hierarchies and exclusionary habits or principles; but few would claim we have attained to that way of being, yet.

So, Unitarians are people who base their lives of spirit and faith in ideas that have been tested with others.  Then the participatory events we engage in, as congregations and groups, aim to make safe spaces for personal worship or spiritual growth, founded on inclusive, common denominators, that have been felt to adhere to broadly acceptable modes.

In short (in rather old-fashioned and very broad-brush language), it might be said that the religion of Unitarians is God-given but passed through the lens of human - and humanist - filters.  It is openly recognised that it is the people who make the Unitarian mode of religion, as experienced in groups, what it is.

So I do understand, and take part in, group critique in the determination of a provisional truth.

~~~~~~~~~

Watching the television programme Pilgrimage: the road to Istanbul, I sat bolt upright when a self-declared atheist pilgrim, in talking to the adherent of a world faith, made reference to “the imaginary people you believe in,” or some wording very similar to that.

I get so bored with misrepresentations and false assumptions and narratives about religion.

I can see that, for some people, religion is defined in terms of, “Are you Christian?  Muslim?  Jewish?  Hindu?  Sikh?” but those labels for me are merely cultural backdrops.  Every age of humankind on every continent has had its wisdom teachers, seers, seemingly miraculous characters, mystics, and more recently in relative terms, its own scriptures.  Gaps in knowledge have ever, always, been backfilled in the human imagination by the good old catch all, “It must have been God / the gods.”  Yes there are distinctions to be made between these labels to do with religion and faith, but they all fall in the same category: all these faiths’ ways of looking at things are cultural stage settings.  And that is all.

If religion were football, equivalent labels would do nothing more than say which team a person plays for.  The labels “Yeovil Town FC”, “AFC Bournemouth”, “MUFC”, “my school’s first team” etc convey nothing of the essence of what it is like to play football: what it is to learn the tools and techniques in theory, to keep personally fit, to train as a group together; what it is to feel the pre-match butterflies, to walk out onto the pitch on a rainy day, the tumble of being tackled, the pain of defeat and the joys of victory.

Football is not everyone’s game and not everyone will have developed the wealth of connotations behind the word ”football” that spring instantly to mind for others.  And that’s ok.

Well: religion is not everyone’s game and not everyone will have developed the wealth of connotations behind the word “religion” that spring instantly to mind for others.  And that’s ok too.

But when I heard what I heard on the television programme, what I first noticed was this: whilst it would not normally be considered good manners to casually say to a footballer, “the pointless exercises of competence you take part in, against other teams, every weekend,” the atheist did not instinctively feel it to be bad manners to say “the imaginary people you believe in”.

Dwelling on this for a moment, I then noticed that the words used said even more about the bad-mannered atheist.  The turn of phrase used revealed that the word “religion” had not been unpacked by the atheist, despite the fact that they were due to take part in a programme, a staged commitment, that was deliberately constructed, and planned well in advance, to explore what faith and belief, of all kinds, might be.  I was struck by how disengaged, ill-prepared, or perhaps lazy, the atheist was showing themself to be.

The atheist thought they understood the word “religion” because they already had in mind an idea of what it is, and what the doctrines of some of the world faiths are.  The atheist was treating “religion” as those ideas that Dr Tam was talking about.  I surmised that it was as if the atheist — with a certain amount of justification, I would agree — were speaking from the platform that no ever-expanding circle of enquirers in the 21st century world would be likely, in un-coerced exchanges, to concur that human persons rise from the dead or take night-time journeys in the heavens (whatever they may be) to become special categories of person with the power to intercede or intervene.  That no ever-expanding circle of enquirers would be likely, in un-coerced exchanges, to concur that there are special rituals which guarantee a secure and safe or even happy life.  That no ever-expanding circle of enquirers would be likely, in un-coerced exchanges, to concur that one group of people have got a privileged way of doing things that will stand the test of all time and be borne out in the end (whatever that might be) to have uniquely worked out how life should be lived.

I am putting words into a person’s mouth, of course.  But I do — I get so bored with misrepresentations and false assumptions and narratives that seem to be common currency, about religion.

Religion isn’t about “what it seems logical or plausible or satisfying to believe or support”; nor is it about group concurrence on provisional truth.

Religion is not a matter of reasoning; and it most emphatically is not a matter of choice.

The semantics of the word give it away: it has its roots in Latin, meaning “that which binds”  (cf “ligature”).

Religion is the stuff that ties you.  That ties you together within yourself.  That ties you to your place in the multiverse.

It’s the stuff you can’t evade.

It’s what you find in yourself when something hard, painful or uncomfortable looks you right in the eye without flinching or drawing back, and in a voice that cannot be unheard, demands of you, “Are you telling the truth?”

It’s what you find in yourself when you are hurting, are nearly broken, can’t find the way back and don’t even know how to try; when you are burning up with shame; or when you are shivering and stone cold in loneliness; and something looks you right in the eye without flinching or drawing back, and in a voice of infinite gentleness that cannot be shied away from, says, “You are seen and known; and you are loved.” 

It’s not always seen in such sudden epiphanies; binding and tying can be gentle, subtle, sneaking-up-on-you processes; but the effect is the same: religion is what cannot be evaded and it is not a choice. 

Religion is not about “imaginary friends.”  It’s about what is experienced: what ties, what challenges.  What wrecks complacency and what re-orders confusions.  What steps in as an unimagined, unexpected disruption that cannot be grasped or comprehended, and transforms, despite all frantic attempts to remain in control.

Religion is not about “making life better” or “making more sense of life” or “making me feel a better person”.  It’s about what won’t be denied.  Religion is a demand.  I recognise that it’s a demand that only a minority of people feel; but that’s alright.  Religion isn't about group concurrence on provisional truth.

The human world would not be what it is without religion.  That doesn’t mean everyone has to experience it.  The human world would not be what it is without science, technology, fine art, music, sport, poetry, even the intricacies of civil administration; and no one says that everyone has to experience, or want to be involved with, any or all of those things, either.   Nonetheless, a writer cannot help but write.  A musician cannot help but make music.  A dancer must dance. Those who are struck by religion must obey the call.

If you don’t experience religion, don’t expect to stand on common ground with those who do:  because, for those who experience religion, no proof is necessary; for those who do not experience religion, no proof is possible.

Waiting through events you hadn't planned and didn't want - truth in the material - Ringwood #Unitarians in December 2019

We gathered last on 8 December.  As part of our usual practice, we enjoyed one of the Chalice Meditations by David Kent - “Do What Most Kindles Love in You”

https://www.misterdavidkent.com/the-chalice-meditations

And we sang a couple of hymns from the green hymn book, one of which is very traditional this time of year: “Joy to the World”

We shared flame, bread and water together as we made the gathered circle of those present.  And as usual, we spent seven minutes in silent meditation.

When we gather, the practice together seems the most important bit to me, though other participants may not feel that as much as I do.  But even to me, when reporting afterwards, the wordy bits assume a greater weight, because they are so much more easily transmitted.  So for your interest, here is a report of the wordy bits of the gathering.

The theme brought together some thoughts about the period of waiting that many faiths are in, during this part of the year.

And the idea that God is come to earth, is in Earth, which is the absolute hallmark of Christianity, as well as being a known idea in Earth Spirit faiths.

How do people who are not traditional Christians tune in to the idea that materiality is a source of truth, when we have set aside the doctrines taught about Jesus being God the Son?

The first reading was from The Picts and the Martyrs by Arthur Ransome, and the second from Sailing the Worldly Winds by Vajragupta.  From that book there was an anecdote about a Zen Buddhist master caught in the sort of travel delay we have all become accustomed to, and how she did not let that daily nuisance define her, or even affect her practice in any way, whereas her student who was also caught up in it, was - like most of us would be - quite bothered by it.

The Picts and the Martyrs were waiting.  They were waiting for the adventures they had planned, and had wanted.  But the whole book is about the unwanted adventures that they had to pass through: about some worrying times, before they got to do the things they wanted to.  This is a book about waiting, and dealing with mess, and learning; all while you are waiting.

Similarly the Zen Buddhist student was waiting, and worrying.  And he, too, was learning while he waited - he was learning by watching his master.

This time of year is a time of waiting.  People are waiting for a variety of events and sensations. 

Waiting for the longest night, the turning of the year, the returning of the sun.  

Waiting for the commemoration of the unluxurious birth of perhaps the most important Jewish teacher of all time; and, by extension, the commemoration of the wonder of the births of all human babies. 

Waiting to gather together with family and friends.  

Waiting for the giving and receiving of gifts.  

Waiting for a sense that we are accepted and wanted, within the web of the universe.  

Waiting for a heartfelt recollection of a sense of purpose in our lives - what we should do, in order to feel worthwhile in ourselves.  

Waiting for merriment and the jollity of - for once - acceptable excess.

It seems to be a time of waiting for something material, something in the flesh.  Something that, like the Picts and Martyrs and the Buddhist student, we did really want, while in fact other stuff we don’t want is going on all around us.

It also seems to be about a different category of stuff: stuff that we don’t do all the time, throughout the year.  These aren’t just lights on our houses - these are CHRISTMAS lights.  These aren’t just parties - these are CHRISTMAS parties.

As such, these things that we do this time of year are set apart, considered special; or to use churchy jargon, they are sacred, hallowed.

Some people are uncomfortable with the word “sacred”, but it seems to me that it is humans, and not God, that decide whether things are sacred or not.  Things that are sacred to humans can be called sacraments.  That word, “sacrament”, has different meanings depending on the church, but sacraments are generally, in some way, visible symbols of the reality of God.

I find I’m in tune with Eastern Orthodox Christianity on this point.  According to Orthodox thinking, God touches humankind through material means such as water, wine, bread, oil, incense, candles, altars, icons, etc. “Etcetera” means AND THE REST, in other words, everything.

How God does this is a mystery. On a broad level, the sacraments, aka mysteries, are an affirmation of the goodness of created matter, and are an emphatic declaration of what that matter was originally created to be. The unsullied God-given goodness of all new born children, and the hope of their continued innocence, and the slaughter of an entire generation of innocents by the corrupted fear and greed of the oh-so-human King Herod, is seen by some Unitarians as the most relevant element of the Christmas story.

The mysteries are an affirmation of the goodness of created matter.

But then, if God touches humankind through all material means, then it is not just the CHRISTMAS things and CHRISTMAS events that affirm the goodness of created matter.  ALL things and ALL events carry the same message and the same weight.  So the adventures that the Picts and Martyrs had before the start of the holidays that they really wanted, were actually just as important as the holidays they were waiting for.  The simple sitting in the sunshine on a suitcase waiting for a bus was just as important as the bus arriving and getting to the airport (late).

So, while it is entirely right and appropriate to enjoy the traditional winter festivities, once they are over we could remember that actually they are no more important than the ordinary other things we do, and we could aim to keep the same inner enjoyment going all year long.  

The purpose we seek is to live better within our own skins, by being connected with others in constructive ways.  It’s not the winter festivities which we are waiting for that will do this for us.  To live better within our own skins, we need to not be looking forward all the time.  We need to see what we are learning in every situation, as we go along.  Dorothea by necessity learned how to cook.  The Buddhist student learned to worry less, and to not even wait.

We need to be content sitting in this and other dark times of the year.  We need to look at it differently.  We need to look at where we are, differently.

We might perhaps choose to look differently at the ordinary, daily activities we get involved with.  Perhaps we could choose to see “flowers”, where once we saw “weeds”; we might see “another chance to express connectedness with someone”, where once we saw “yet another phone call to be made”; and we might be more like the Buddhist teacher sitting on her suitcase: remember - where her student was agitated, impatient, irritated and worried, the teacher was not even waiting.  She was touching the truth of the universe in the materiality of the enjoyable sunshine.