Wisdom and Difficult Decisions — Lent, Ukraine, COVID19 and a cable passing through the eye of a needle #Unitarians in Ringwood 12 March 2023

No that's not a typo in the title.  Only some versions of the Bible have (in the book of Matthew, chapter 19 v 24) a camel passing through the eye of a needle.  At least one version has a cable passing through the eye of a needle.  It's worth researching different versions.  Jubilee Bible 2000, Matthew 19:24 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew 19:24&version=JUB  

It’s just worth noting that the reports on this blog run the risk of misrepresenting what it feels like at one of our gatherings.  There’s not just a wordy ‘sermon’ by the president for the day.  But in order to feel the experience — of the prayer words, the mutual silences, the recorded music (dramatic incidental music as well as hymns), the heartfelt expressions of joys and concerns as we mark the movements in our lives with careful listening to each other as well as with candles — you have to be there.

It’s just that the bits that most lend themselves to a written record are the readings and the reflection on the readings by the president for the day. 

We are part of a tradition that used to centre aspirations for spiritual and societal development exclusively on the narratives inherited from the Christian Bible.  Friends of ours in sibling Unitarian congregations and broader networks may not look so much to those roots; but we in Ringwood have chosen to have a look at them as often as we can.  We are not traditional Christians, but culturally we feel more at home with wisdom from Christianity than we do with wisdom from other faiths.  We feel our tradition provides a homing ground, and something we can point at that holds us together.  So when we meet as a group we gravitate to stories from Christianity to help us with our lives, even if personally, individually, none of us necessarily goes to Christian writings as our first resort for inspiration. 

This month we were reminded that this is the Christian season of Lent, that it’s a year since Russia started the war on Ukraine, and three years since the first lockdown in UK as a result of COVID19.

During Lent we remember that the teacher Jesus is depicted as being strenuously tempted, during a long period in the wilderness out of contact with society and all the usual nourishments of home. The story of Jesus has it that he passes every test, by making decisions that put reverence and humility at the heart of his spiritual practice. He sets aside his own ‘will to power’ for the sake of ‘will to mutuality’ — in the story, Jesus is seeking a mutual relationship with the Creator. 

Regarding the failed, despicable, vanity project of invading Ukraine, aimed at satisfying the greed for continued power, largely on the part of one man, we remain shocked and dismayed as the war staggers on.  The temptation of the ‘will to power’ is there for everyone.  But let us remember that not all lunges for power are so obvious, lest we imagine that we ourselves are above them. 

On 26 March 2020, three years ago, the UK went into the first lockdown of the COVID19 pandemic. There are direct comparisons that can be drawn between Jesus’ time in the wilderness and our nation’s confinement, in which we too, all of us, were subject to temptation. We know only too well the stories of those who were unable to contain themselves, to restrain themselves to act in mutuality. The pandemic was a time when people were being asked to make important and difficult decisions, with scant information. A time when wisdom was called for, and was sometimes in short supply. 

Lent is associated with renunciation, self-discipline, resisting temptation.  It’s sort-of a ‘No pain? No gain!’ period in the calendar.  It’s a time when we get to know ourselves better by finding out just how hard it is to choose a way through when, in reality, there’s no one to police our choices but ourselves.

So our president for the day brought to our attention those times when personally we are facing really tough decisions, when we are trying to decide which path to take, whether we really know ourselves at all, and what sources of advice there might be available to us as we agonise over what to do.

With this as a backdrop there were two readings.  The first was about the rich young man who asks Jesus for advice about the next step he must take to assure his pathway to the kingdom of heaven. And the second was simply a hotchpotch of snippets from the Christian Bible regarding taking decisions, or sources of advice. It thus included words from Proverbs, Sirach, Matthew, James and Paul.

We heard the following from our president for the day.

In the first reading, the middle class, nouveau riche, or aristocratic and moneyed, young man is yet mature enough to see that a committed, personal, spiritual practice is essential for an authentic aspiration to find the kingdom of heaven. And he sees that here’s a teacher who has attracted many people. So the young man thinks Jesus might provide the key he has been looking for, over and above the faithful practice he already commits to. 

But instead of getting an answer he can handle, the young man is told to look at his outward context — there is no mention of principles, philosophies or of his inner landscape. ‘Sell all your possessions, give the money away to those who are in want of the basics, and that act of giving will generate in you lasting riches — and then come along and live with me; live like I do.’ 

The young man feels bereft and in a quandary. His preconceived complacency around the next piece of advice, his next stage of learning, has been both pinpointed and stripped from him. He is torn by the choice placed before him. He has been told he lacks only one thing. This thing. This giving away of his comfort based on worldly possessions. This shedding of his self-image as a man of consequence, in exchange for a strengthened mutuality with those who hadn’t the basics. 

The young man is a devout Jew, engaged in a robust spiritual practice. He presumably has had access to all the usual sources of advice — the Hebrew Bible, the learned men of the day (the Pharisees), the poetry and folk wisdom of the land he lives in, and the voice he hears when he is quiet enough inside. Apparently none of those sources of advice have shocked him in the way that that simple advice from Jesus shocks him.  It is as if the idea Jesus gives him was completely new to him. Yet it resonates sufficiently within him that he is unable to dismiss it. Had he known it was not for him, he could have dismissed it at once.  But he doesn’t dismiss it.  He can’t.  He hadn’t registered this idea before, and yet, now he hears it, it sounds a bell inside him. Something about this advice registers with him as true; he doesn't like it, but he can’t turn away from it. Oh! the agony. 

We are not told what he chooses to do. This story isn’t about answers.

And with that ‘unanswering’ ringing in our ears, pretty much all of what we heard afterwards was a series of questions:

Do we make decisions in a vacuum? 

What is there around about us that we could use, to help us make these sort of difficult decisions? 

What sources of advice do we have? 

Which sources can we trust? 

Quakers talk about “the leadings of God” — where are these to be found, or heard? In the natural world? In traditional narratives and writings? In face to face discussions with trusted counsellors, friends, advisers, sages? In the still small voice encountered after long inner struggle or hours of quietude? 

When there is a decision before us that is agonizing, what weight can we give to advice? Does the answer simply have to come, in the end, from inside?

Is conscience the leadings or promptings of what lies outside time and space and human imagination, or do we build it for ourselves, different in every age, based on habit and culture? A socially-constructed code of behaviour?

Or even more drastically, is conscience a genetic trick set up by our selfish DNA to exploit every opportunity towards survival? Ethics and morals nowhere in sight? 

How do we know the will of God? How would we recognise it, if it were revealed to us? How do we know the truth? How do we know God? How do we know the will of God? How do we know the nature of God?    [Spoiler: We don’t! ]

So when we are presented with advice in the face of a decision, how do we decide which advice is true? How do we decide whether advice received is relevant or useful or misleading? 

The Bible is full of advice about decisions, and their contexts.  Which angles out of all the angles offered in it might we dwell upon, as we face hard decisions? 

Setting down the Bible again, does it all come down to experience? Have we lived a life where, through chance, things went well for us after taking advice from groups of people we knew? Was something in a book we read, which we decided to act upon, instrumental in our success? Or did luck come into it when we trusted our own judgment alone?  Or have we had the other experience, of taking wise advice and making ostensibly sound judgments, and nonetheless finding life bitter and treacherous?

Why don’t I sell all my possessions and give the money to the poor? 

Holding anger and letting it go — Unitarians in Ringwood gathering for reverence 11 September 2022

On Thursday 8 September 2022, Queen Elizabeth II died.

On Sunday 11 September 2022, we gathered in that light of that event, but also recognising that 21 years had passed since the bombing of the Twin Towers in New York.

These were both events that drew many people closer together, in recognition of the many more things that we hold in common, as compared to the smaller number of things that separate us.

Thus it was good to meet.  To pray, and sing, and keep silence together, as well as to hear readings and some thoughts on them.

Unitarians are never shy of using scissors and paste on texts, to make them relevant and useful.  Both the readings were compilations, firstly from the book of Ecclesiasticus (also known as Sirach after its author, Jesus ben Sirach) (2:12-18, 3:26-31, 4:2-10) and secondly from the books of Mark (3:1-5) and Luke (18:9-14), in the Christian Bible (Roman Catholic version).

The Sirach reading evidenced the Graeco-Jewish wisdom tradition in the centuries BCE, in which the people of the region we now know as Israel/Palestine would have been soaked.  Sirach enjoined the wise to keep the law, with humble and prepared hearts; to pay attention to those in poverty; to support the needy; to be courteous to the destitute; to give alms; "Save the oppressed from the hand of the oppressor, and do not be mean-spirited in your judgments."

We remembered that Jesus of Nazareth came after this time, during a period in which Rome was an oppressive and brutal overlord.  That second Jesus would have known the sort of texts exemplified by those of Jesus ben Sirach, and so would have the people who heard him speak.

The second reading brought to our attention the anger that Jesus of Nazareth felt when he saw hard-hearted people showing reluctance to restore someone's health and well-being on the Sabbath day.  And that his instruction regarding prayer and standing aright with God went far beyond the sort of advice given centuries before, by ben Sirach.  In the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, Jesus of Nazareth criticised the very people who thought they were living and praying in the best way, according to all the old texts.

Our president for the day gave us her reflections on the readings.

"The course of this winter is looking quite bleak for people in UK, with households and small businesses quite frightened by the prospects of rising fuel costs.

There's an unimaginable catastrophe pending, owing to the re-setting of the climate and its weather systems into a highly energetic state, by our continued abuse of the planet through our use of fossil fuels.  People in Pakistan are the latest to suffer with the extreme and widespread floods, but we will go down like dominoes, one land mass after another, and all eventually be affected  — even those nations that are currently in denial.

We see people pulling up the barricades against other people who are simply enterprising people trying to make new lives for themselves.  Fear or dislike of the person viewed as 'other' is rife.

We see the effects of pay systems that have traditionally relied on artificially cheap labour now rippling through the whole of the economy.  Even our lawyers now cannot make ends meet, meaning there is a loss of legal aid for those victims who had thought that our justice system would see them right.

We see our loved ones being nursed by people who are made to feel unwelcome through their skin colour, and we hear of medics at all levels being faced with constant stress, and at risk of catching COVID again and again and again.  COVID is by no means over.

We see the loss of honesty and transparency converted into a breakdown of trust between the electorate and those who have offered themselves as representatives.

Not all of us may feel directly affected, at present, by all or indeed any of these.  But sooner or later, we will be, whether directly or indirectly.  And already, those of us feeling untouched ourselves may be seeing the difficulties facing our families and friends; and we may rail at the injustices they face.

We need to do that — we need to rail against injustice — because society cannot afford for everyone to not look at how our country works, ‘under the bonnet’.  Those who can need to be part of tackling root causes; or if not tackling root causes then those who can must be part of the action that locally relieves pain and struggle.  If we don’t then who is there who will come and save society?"

She went on to suggest that we need to notice the gap between how the two authors 'Jesus' gave advice, advice which in both cases was aimed at making community life better.

"Our first reading from Jesus ben Sirach shows that the Hebrew Bible contained layer upon layer of wisdom and advice on how to behave in community together.  This advice went into some detail and encouraged minute examination of circumstances, in order to decide exactly what to do. Men (in particular) made a real study of these texts, and one can imagine the style of advice in those books suffusing the whole public space and flavouring the dealings between people.  All with the aim of trying to make life better.  Nonetheless, in this world of community and layers of wisdom, many people were neglected and abused.  

Jesus of Nazareth lived later, in a turbulent, brutal, oppressive and restive time.  He by turns (1) got angry about it and (2) did something else quite remarkable: he learned how to achieve peace within himself in the face of his anger.  This is a lesson we could all do with learning.

In Mark, we heard how Jesus was angry with those concerned about the finer points of Sabbath behaviour while a fellow was suffering in front of them.  And in Luke, we heard him dismiss the educated, genteel way of praying.  In essence, Jesus said: “Don’t be complacent and taken up with yourself like the Pharisee, the lettered man striving in his silent prayer to follow the details of the Law.  Life’s too short and change is so crucial.  Cut instead to the chase.  Recognise your fundamental woundedness and incompleteness.  We are all wounded and incomplete. Pray by confessing that, simply and single-pointedly: keep that focus, like the tax collector.  Ask to receive the healing mercy that is there for you. Then from that focus, love your enemies, people just like you.  Pray for those who persecute you.” "

Our president suggested that Jesus' way of praying was a way of getting back to wholeness, or, if you like, getting into wholeness.  Remarking that Jesus was unconventional in his use of metaphors to reveal something of God, she listed some other metaphors she has come across or found useful: 

~ Source

~ Eternal Realm

~ Life

~ Underlying Order

~ The Great Unfolding

~ Overall Dance

~ The Silent Whisper

~ Truth

~ Field of being

And then she said:

"But also this: Complete Entirety. 

Everything all together is God

God is everything all together

All that there is

Complete Entirety

Complete Entirety means 'all of us together, all that we live in together, all that underpins the universe that we live in together, and all that lies beyond those underpinnings, all together and more than we can imagine'; all of that together can be pointed at by the word ‘God’.

That places us all in the same essential spot, the same spot as each other.  Much though we would all like to distance ourselves from some people, there can, in essence, be no ‘othering’ between us.

Each of us taken as a person is an incompleteness  —  we are the universe experiencing the woundedness of incompleteness. 

Erazim Kohák (1933-2020), a philosopher has said: "Our pains and woes are not so much removed from us as we are reconciled to them as we suddenly see them as if from under the perspective of the whole.” (A)

So what Jesus’ instruction about prayer turns into is this:

“Pray like this:

Lord have mercy on me, someone who misses the mark by the very nature of my humanity, my essential woundedness

Lord have mercy.

And have mercy also on all my fellows, on every other human, being in the same essential spot as I am

Lord, have mercy.”

Jesus’ way of praying is a way of bringing interior peace, even in the face of exterior suffering."

The gathering closed with recent words by Rev Philip Waldron, currently Minister with Unitarians in Merseyside, who said:

“It is time to work on our fragmented inner world; if we don’t our external world will be broken, fractured and in pain.  When our inner world is unbroken, our external world is healing for those we meet, and in our presence, we become a blessing to those who travel with us on our journey.”

(A)  Erazim Kohák (1933-2020) The Embers and the Stars, University of Chicago Press, 1987, pp. 42-46, via 'Caute' blog

Turning the page on a rotten 2020 - what can Unitarians in Ringwood say?

 “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Oh! Unitarians can have pedantic conversations about the meaning of words, how we label ourselves (and others) individually and corporately, which literary and scientific scripts hold most for us personally, our direction of travel based on the paths we assert that we have already  travelled.  And we can make the mistake of airing in the broadcast medium of social media what instead should be addressed in quiet, contemplative dialogue with trusted friends in small groups.  But 'that which connects and that which divides are the same', as may be found engraved on certain old stone bridges in the wilder places in the UK; and we in Ringwood are hopeful for the future.

What do we most want to be and say as we turn this calendar page?  What is the best we can offer, at the moment, from our standpoint as Unitarians in Ringwood?

The Unitarian movement is a nonconforming movement deriving from the historic Church in the British Isles.  Nonconforming because it will not allow itself to be squeezed into a mould of anyone’s making, not by anyone who is fully participating in it, nor by anyone who is standing outside it.  It has attempted at various points in the past, and is yet attempting, to rediscover the Bible and Christianity as if found again with the innocence of fresh eyes.  Attempting to offer non-creedal universality and open reading of our shared cultural language and past.  Feeding into the dialogue, of the past with the present, the universality born of pluralism with insights from all sources hallowed by humanity, no matter how they become labelled.

In Ringwood we are attempting to sustain and grow a committed community, recognising where we each are at present, honouring our travels so far, and seeking a better world, right here and now, interiorly and exteriorly.  And locally.  For despite our online presence and the wide airing it gives us, what we most cherish are our person-to-person encounters in our local setting.

It seems to us in Ringwood that we are a community of faith, if faith is, as Stephen Lingwood says, “a search for a coherent set of stories, symbols, languages and practices that, taken together, offer a way of life that diagnoses a problem in human life and offers a solution......hope, community, vision.”

It seems to us that there is a peace there to be found, if only we look in the right way.

It seems to us that the world is beautiful, good and overflowing with the love and grace of the mystery that we obliquely refer to using the words God, All That Is, and many and various other insufficient labelling systems.

It seems to us that there is an essential relatedness and flow to existence.

It seems to us that human experience is essentially the twinned movements of response and listening in the context of existence.

It seems to us that what unites humans is that we cannot be divided.  We live and breathe in the same world that is, at heart, community, for better and for worse.

It seems to us that we are often blinded by words we hold onto, and imprisoned by ways of thinking and doing, which we have got used to; but if we listen and are ready to answer the call, however we understand the voice, then there is a way forward.

In that light, and given that as well as being the changeover of the year this is also Christmastide, you might imagine that it would seem to us to be right for us to present a message of good cheer.  Angels, music, shepherds, baby in a manger who turned out to have a saving message.  But actually, we don’t feel moved to anodyne words at present.  We are too restless for that; too much struck by discomfort.

As we stand at the deepest point of a multi-dimensional, national turning point:

• COVID19
• a new relationship with the European Union and potentially new relationships between the nations of the United Kingdom
• the rapidly growing societal inequality and the inadequacy of our economic system
• the emerging recognition of our slowness to dismantle discrimination in all its forms
• and — over and above all these — the climate emergency and largescale extinction events;

it seems to us that some traditional wisdom from biblical scripture has much to say to us.

Some of us are reading a book by Nick Baines* this Christmas season, and following his lead, we are paying attention to the prophetic voices of Amos and Isaiah across the centuries.

Amos spoke to a complacent people in about the middle of the eighth century BCE.  It was a time of great prosperity and apparent security.  But Amos saw that prosperity was limited to the wealthy, and that it fed on injustice and on oppression of the poor.  The report Amos brings from God is this:

“I hate, I spurn your pilgrim-feasts;

I will not delight in your sacred ceremonies.

Spare me the sounds of your songs;

I cannot endure the music of your lutes.

Let justice roll on like a river

and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”  

Amos, Chapter 5 vv 21-24 

These words seem to us to resonate with our personal disquiet about the general state of the land in which we live today, and what needs to be done about it.

Moreover, we are also aware that many around us today are beyond being consoled.  What can we possibly say that would bring comfort and joy to the bereaved, the destitute, the unwell, the frightened, the lost, for whom 2020 has brought personal catastrophe?

MELANCHOLY by Albert György

It seems to us that the only thing we can say is that, in the words of Nick Baines, "We will stay there with you even when there is nothing more to say and nothing we can say or do will resolve your predicament."

* Freedom is Coming: From Advent to Epiphany with the prophet Isaiah, Nick Baines 2019

In the conscience

Is there a Unitarian faith, and if there is, is it a religion in its own right, or does it just borrow from other faiths?”

What hard questions to answer.  The starting answer is that there is no single faith for all Unitarians, so it would be meaningless to ask, “What is THE Unitarian faith?”   But it would be meaningful to ask, “What is the faith of Unitarians?” despite the fact that there will be many answers.

So here you will find just one Unitarian’s answer to: “Is there a Unitarian faith, and if there is, is it a religion in its own right, or does it just borrow from other faiths?”

~~~~

Many Unitarians would agree that a person is a unique meeting point within the universe.  A meeting point in time and space of the universal laws, the randomness of chance, the biologically inherited characteristics, the cultural upbringing, the body and its skills, the senses and emotions, the memory and  intellect, and the conscience.

Most of all, the conscience.

For each meeting point that we call a person, there is what might be described as a “calling”.  I guess it would be common for Unitarians to accept that each different person has a different calling.

As a result of that, Unitarians long ago rejected the idea that there should be one statement of belief, called a creed, for everyone who is in search of a fulfilled inner life to sign up to, either freely or under coercion.  In more recent centuries Unitarians have also rejected the idea that any single philosophy or religion framework is supreme over all others.  Many Unitarians investigate the frameworks of faith of a number of world religions, and find much of value in them, that speaks to their current position.

Unitarians do not declare any of the traditional faith systems to trump any other.  We do not accept the assertion from any adherents of the traditional world faiths that it has to be “all, or nothing”; we do not agree that a successful spiritual search depends on adoption of a single religion, to the exclusion of others.  We agree with many, however, that the search has to be disciplined and on-going over a whole lifetime if it is to yield fruit.

Many Unitarians would assert that the prime point where Essential Truths operate, the place within which the “bigger than daily life” Pure Life is lived, experienced and acted upon, is the conscience of each person.  We assert that, whilst it is possible to get glimpses of God or the Ultimate through relentless and dedicated application of a range of faith practices (and also secular practices), the Redeeming Truth – which everyone seeks as a remedy for restlessness – transcends ALL religions.

So let us say that for a while I soak myself in the learned wisdom of traditional Christianity, and I gain much.  And then, while I am struggling to understand how to apply Christianity in my life, say I am impacted upon by the Tibetan form of Buddhism: then, I may suffer the breaking of my mental models, my expectations, my sense of direction.   I may experience confusion as the icons I was becoming used to, my windows on the divine, are called into question, or wrenched from me.  A modern therapist might call this a “cognitive dissonance”.

Would that mean that my Christianity had somehow been “wrong”?  That the set of ideas new to me, Tibetan Buddhism, should be rejected as “wrong”?  Or that Buddhism is “right” or “better” and I should reject my attempt at Christianity?  Have I been “doing it wrong”?

The answer is “none of the above”.  A genuine Unitarian calling might, in fact, provide the strength and motivation to struggle through this cognitive dissonance and come out the other side, stronger.  A Unitarian view might be that there is no competition between well developed faith systems.  Unitarians might say that for many people, the well-developed faith systems are perfect callings, and those people would do well to adhere to them.  For instance, it is conceivable that a Unitarian would advise a wavering Muslim to go back to Islam and study Islam further; or suggest to a lapsed Catholic that they go and have a chat with their priest and see if they can uncover what has caused them to drift away from their faith and faith community – with a view to returning to it.  Whereas, for themselves, Unitarians may have a different calling altogether.

The thing about the Unitarian calling is that it also tends to be universalist in outlook.  By which I mean that, at heart, Unitarians may feel it to be true that what applies to ONE human being applies in some way at some level to ALL human beings, without exception – just like gravity, or the tides, the rise of the sun, or the fact that we all breathe oxygen.  So we are curious about what different faiths say that can be applied everywhere, to everyone.

People who – it turns out – are genuinely called to be Unitarians may study a wide range of world faiths and may notice that in some places there are not necessarily direct “translations” from (say) traditional Christianity into Buddhism; or Hinduism into Judaism; or Classical Greek Stoicism into Sikhism or Islam.  There are GAPS between the frameworks.  Something is missing from the universalist point of view.   Yet a Unitarian outlook would assert that Universal Laws and Unassailable Truth must nonetheless exist in those gaps.  For the Ultimate to be the Ultimate it must apply NOT ONLY in all frameworks and knowledge systems, in all pictures and metaphors we are able to imagine, BUT ALSO in the gaps between and beyond all these human-made constructs.  For the Ultimate to be the Ultimate, it must actually be Ultimate; it must transcend all human experience of religion.

The place where we meet the Ultimate is in our conscience.  And that is where the Ultimate meets us, too.   The Ultimate, aka “The Way Life (And Everything Beyond It) Is Turning Out”, experiences for Itself new combinations in each person that It brings into existence.  We see that it is in the conscience of each person that the exact and unique experience is felt, which we were brought into being expressly to manifest.  So if one day I am led along a wisdom path derived from one faith and the next day out of the blue I am fed a new wisdom: well, that is because the exact juxtaposition of these two wisdoms is what I was required to experience at this point in the universe, with who I am, right now.  Neither faith system is wrong (or less true), and neither is right (or more true).  Neither is supreme and neither is final.  What is right, and wanted, is the nexus of the two at that point in me as I am at that moment, all things considered.

This sort of view can be pooh-poohed by more traditional religions, as a half-hearted “pick and mix” approach to faith.  But I’m telling you, it’s not a barrel of laughs to be caught by these cognitive dissonances – they rock your whole being and it can take a long period of trust and re-learning to recover from them.  But if you have experienced one, and found it thrilling, and haunting – if you have followed me in this – perhaps your calling is to be Unitarian. 

Are you a Ringwood Unitarian without knowing it?

There are Unitarians in Ringwood.  It's just that they don't yet call themselves Unitarians because they don't know the name "Unitarian".  Are you one of these?

The thing about being a Unitarian is that there is no rule about what a Unitarian is.  Some say it's about hope, some say it's about systems of belief, some say it's about how you live.  Some say it's about freedom, reason and tolerance.  Some say it's about how you do a radically 21st century way of faith.  The national support team for Unitarians says it could be described as "nurturing faith, embracing life, celebrating difference".  All would agree that being a Unitarian is about exploring fundamental and searching questions, and not about preaching answers.  Unitarians also agree that the ultimate authority for anyone has to be their living, challenging, perplexing conscience, no matter what any other person says.  Behind all of this is the traditional Unitarian insistence on the oneness of God or the God idea, from which we get our name.  We set great store by any wisdom framework that points towards that oneness, without worrying about where that wisdom comes from.

Unitarians insist on the central call to love and typically care about right relationships such as

• equal rights and the ending of oppression
• being in touch with the Earth and its growing creatures and living lightly on the planet
• being in touch with how we have got to where we are now and what that means for our shared future
• being in balance in our inner life
• being human together and supporting strong communities

and about doing more than thinking about right relationships - Unitarians typically care about getting down and working for it, working for that better world now.