The Joys of Gathered Community

I have just returned from a wonderful, wonder-full week at the Nightingale Centre at Great Hucklow. Summer School 2019.

(I'm not sure who this photo is by, but whoever it was, thank you!)

Our theme this year was 'Theology in the Flesh: How might our embodied experience shape our answers to life's ultimate questions?' It was such a rich week... full of deep sharing, a wide range of optional activities and, above all, Summer School magic.

I have been attending Summer School each year from 2009, and every year it is the same... a bunch of disparate Unitarians from all over the UK and further afield come together in community and create something so very special. I come away at the end of the week feeling enriched and grounded and whole.

While I was there this year, I felt moved to write a prayer:

Spirit of Life and Love,
Thank you for the many blessings of Summer School;
For our sacred community, where it is okay to be authentic;
For the theme talk speakers, group leaders, worship leaders, optional session leaders and the Summer School panel, who make it all possible;
For each and every one of us, who choose to risk being vulnerable;
For the staff of the Nightingale Centre, whose quiet efficiency makes us feel so welcome;
For the joys of reunions with old friends, and for making new ones;
For the beauties of the Derbyshire countryside, which enfolds and surrounds us;
For sunlight on green grass and the sound of children's laughter;
For the chance to learn new ways of thinking and understanding, and kinder ways of being together;
For the stretching of bodies, minds and hearts, through our groups and activities and worship;
For giving and receiving,
For sharing and silence,
For food and faith and fellowship;
For all these contributions to the magic which is Summer School,
I am truly grateful.
Amen

Tending to the Fire in your Soul

I really love the message on this week's postcard, by Vincent van Gogh: "Man soll das Feuer in seiner Seele nie ausgehen lassen, sondern es schüren."

Which being translated means: "One should never let the fire in one's soul go out, but should stir it up."

This is advice that all ministers and worship leaders and people who spend their lives giving to others should heed. Because we cannot give of our best, from our souls, if we do not also nourish those souls by receiving what we need - worship, inspiration, knowledge, hope.

This was brought home to me this week, when I (and many Unitarian ministerial colleagues) attended MOSA - the annual conference at Harris Manchester College, Oxford. My friend Kate McKenna reflected on this on her return home... that ministers need to experience worship without being responsible for it.

Because it's not possible to give out nourishment, if we ourselves are empty inside. Which is why attending events such as the General Assembly meetings, the Ministerial Fellowship conferences and Summer School is so important to me. They feed my soul, enable me to recharge my emotional and spiritual batteries, and return to my vocation refreshed and strengthened. The fire in my soul is stirred up by new experiences, by worshipping with others, and burns brightly again.

And this doesn't only apply to ministers and worship leaders. It applies to all creative people, and to all people who wish to live wholeheartedly, with all of themselves. Which is why I'm going on a one-day writing retreat on 13th July - to feed my soul, and re-inspire me. There are many retreats and events of all kinds where you can go to learn new things, make new friends, and come back to your ordinary life energised and enriched.

If you are feeling undernourished, lonely, in need of encouragement and energy boosting, why not find an event to go to?

Room to Breathe

This week's postcard is an idyllic scene - a white beach in front of a blue sea, in the sunshine. The ideal place to rest and restore one's soul, perhaps.

Just looking at it makes me yearn for a few peaceful days off. And the quotation, by Victor Levin, says: "Geniesse deine Freiheit und gib deiner Seele Raum zum Atmen."

"Enjoy your freedom and give your soul room to breathe."

I wonder, how often do we do that, even on holiday? In our family, the main holiday each year is spent exploring cities, which is great fun, and very interesting, even satisfying, but it is rarely about giving my soul room to breathe. Walking holidays near lakes and mountains do that, but again, they're still active.

I don't think I've ever been on holiday, and just rested. Just. Rested. Often, when I come back from an exploring-a-new-city holiday, we've packed in so much to our few days away, that I come home needing another holiday to get over it!

It's interesting that the derivation of the word "holiday" is holy day. On holy days, we do stop and rest, and give our souls room to breathe in the resulting freedom.

Hucklow Summer School helps me to do exactly what Levin advises: enjoy my freedom and give my soul room to breathe. A week in the Nightingale Centre, set in the midst of the beautiful Peak District, in the company of other Unitarians, does give my soul room to breathe. Perhaps we should rename it 'Hucklow Holy Days'.

Of course, there are theme talks to attend, and the all-important two hours a day in your engagement group, but the rest of the activities are optional, and there are many opportunities to give your soul room to stretch and breathe and rest. I would recommend it to all Unitarians.

Day of Expectation and Gratitude

Christmas Eve has been a day of expectation and gratitude for me. The house is clean and tidy, the presents are wrapped, and I'm waiting for my daughter and her fiance to arrive. My dearly beloved collected the turkey at 11 am, and has spent the afternoon cooking it, and the kedgeree for tomorrow's Christmas breakfast (a Woolley tradition). The house is filled with gorgeous smells and I am so grateful.

I've spent the day working on a blanket for the Summer School Silent Auction next year - it's now five feet across, so I've just got another foot to go. Crocheted with love - I hope it raises a shedload of money for the Summer School Bursary Fund.

Early this evening, I phoned my god-mother, now in her nineties, who had a fall last week, and is spending Christmas in hospital. It was good to hear her voice, and I think she was pleased to hear from me. I am so grateful to the hospital staff, who give up their own Christmases to look after the sick and the injured. Bless them, every one of them.

At ten past eight, they arrived. Our little family is now complete. I am riding on a tide of gratitude and happiness. We watched Celebrity University Challenge, cheering when we got an answer right (more often than usual - the Celebrity version is much easier than the regular one!)

I wish everyone who reads this blog a very Merry Christmas and a Peaceful and Happy New Year.

This Changes Everything

I've been attending our Unitarian Summer School at Great Hucklow for eight years now, and each year, I come home changed, enlightened, and enriched (and generally a couple of pounds heavier, but that is another story!)

My friend and colleague Danny Crosby usually invites people to worship with the words: "Come as you are, exactly as you are...but do not expect to leave in exactly the same condition..." and Summer School is much the same. It provides a rich mixture of worship, theme talks, engagement groups, and other optional activities.

This year's theme was 'This changes everything'. We were treated to some outstanding theme talks, and inspirational engagement groups. In my group, we were asked to discern / work on a credo or touchstone to which we might turn in times of shock, uncertainty, and change. This was a very deep and enlightening process.

But the thing I have taken away this year, that I haven't been able to stop thinking about in the last couple of days, is a lovely song, which was taught to us all at the end of one of the theme talks, by Nancy Crumbine, a Summer School stalwart from the US. It goes like this:

Here I am, here and now, in this moment,

Here I am, in the place I am meant to be

Nothing can hurt me, nothing can shake me

I am free, I am whole.

This is what I love so much about Summer School - the unexpected, life-changing gifts it provides, year after year. It is the spiritual highlight of my year, and I wouldn't miss it for the world. I am so very grateful to everyone who contributes: to the Summer School Panel, who work for months to get it all in place; the facilitators of the engagement groups; the leaders of the optional activities; the worship leaders for morning devotions and epilogues; the minister for the week; and the Nightingale Centre staff. And to all the participants who come along prepared to be open and vulnerable, and to trust the process, and to grow and change.

Exploring pleasures, treasures, hopes, and dreams

Last week I was at Summer School. This is an annual week of spiritual exploration and learning for Unitarians, held at the Nightingale Centre at Great Hucklow towards the end of August. In terms of spiritual growth, it is the most precious week of the year for me.

And when you arrive on the Saturday afternoon, you never know how the week is going to turn out. You just know that you will not leave as the same person you arrived. As part of our Sunday Service, Michael Dadson had us singing:

"Open up a Hucklow bubble, wide enough to hold the week.

Open a space like a smiling face, hold it with unsuspecting grace.

No-one knows what's coming - only when it's here!

Open up a Hucklow bubble, for the blessings of the week!"

And it *is* a bubble - a week out of your ordinary life, during which amazing things happen. The theme for this year was The Authentic Self, and we were led on a rich and satisfying exploration of who we really are, when you strip away all the roles, all the poses, all the superficial stuff. The theme talk speakers and engagement group leaders invited us to dig deep, and there was a dazzling variety of optional activities in the afternoons and evenings which supported the process. Among other things, I enjoyed learning to write Haiku, zen-doodling, mindful colouring, walking a labyrinth (probably the highlight), walking in the beautiful Derbyshire Peak District, and singing wonderful Unitarian hymns and songs.

And, also as usual, I have learned a lot about myself, and have also learned some things that I am able to bring home and incorporate into my life and my ministry. I have made some new friends, and grown closer to old ones. And I have made four commitments, which I hope to honour:

1. I commit to loving my whole self.

2. I commit to letting go of ineffective anger.

3. I commit to recognising the Spirit at work in my life and to writing about it.

4. I commit to being more serene and peaceful.

Summer School is one of very few places that I get the chance to do this sort of work, and it is very precious. I've said before and I'll say again: Hucklow at Summer School time reminds me of Rivendell, as Bilbo describes it in The Hobbit: it is "a perfect house", whether you like going deep, sharing joys and concerns and laughter, arty-crafty-creativity, new spiritual practices, walking in the beautiful Peak District, singing, storytelling, good company, playing games "or a pleasant mixture of them all." It is very, very special.

Spiritual Nourishment

Maybe it's because I've spent so many years involved with education - both my own and my my children's - but for me, September always feels like the beginning of the new year. The long lazy days of Summer are over, and I can scent the fresh-baked bread smell of new beginnings in the air.

photo: livingforgod.net

September is the time for feeling energised, and for making plans for the year to come. Luckily for me, it also comes just after my spiritual batteries have been re-charged by spending a week at Hucklow Summer School. This wonderful Unitarian institution gives a few lucky people the opportunity to spend seven precious days at the Nightingale Centre in the Peak District, living together, worshipping together, re-connecting with old friends and making new ones, caring and sharing, and growing spiritually. Going home at the end of it feels like a little death.

A prayer written at Summer School this year:

Dear God,
Thank you for the annual blessing that is Summer School.
May it be a week of deepening old friendships,
And creating new ones.
May it be a time of spiritual stretching and nourishment.
May I be open to new light from whatever source it comes,
And may I be open-handed and open-hearted in all my dealings here.
Thank you,
Amen