A Time of Anticipation

Last Friday, my daughter and I went to our first University Open Day, at Sheffield. It was an exciting day, opening up new possibilities and opportunities for her.

The campus was full of Year 12 students and their parents, all trying to decide whether Sheffield was the university for them. I expect that most of them, like us, will be spending the next few weeks visiting other Universities, to enable them to make an informed decision about their futures.

They then have to wait until mid-August, until they get the results of their AS levels, before making final decisions and filling up the dreaded UCAS form.

It's a lot of pressure. Because so many young people now opt to go to University, competition for places is fierce - if you want to get onto a popular course at a respected university, you will probably be expected to get three As at A2 - a big ask in anybody's money. Most universities do not do interviews any more, so the students are judged purely on their grades and on their Personal Statements.

My thoughts and prayers are with my daughter in this time of waiting, and with all her fellow students, whose lives are going to be fundamentally shaped by what happens in the next few months.
May they survive with their self-esteem intact, and may they find a course they will find fulfilling and exciting.

The Future of Unitarianism

In a keynote speech to the FOY Society seminar in 1997, Miles Howarth said:

"If we can get the fundamentals right, then there will be enough people who are inspired, involved and active so they provide the money, the ways and the means ... We must be in the business of impact and success and growth."

This begs the question: "What are the fundamentals?" I think that this is the issue that our General Assembly needs to be concentrating on - to provide a clear, simple to understand exposition of the fundamentals of Unitarianism, so that new people will be attracted into our movement, and will stay.

Six years ago, in June 2006, the Executive Committee circulated a statement entitled Our Unitarian Ethos, which I believe was a step in the right direction. In comparison with the wordy 2001 GA Object, it is snappy, easily understood, and interesting. It reads:

"We Unitarians and Free Christians are united by our ethos and values. We aspire to create a loving, caring, religious community within which we:

• value people in their diversity and uniqueness
• encourage freedom of thought and speech
• support spiritual exploration
• create celebratory worship
• advocate justice, liberty, honesty, integrity, peace and love

Hence we strive to:

• make the best of the life we have
•  be democratic in our practice
• celebrate life in its many forms
• respect people whose beliefs and attitudes are different from our own."

This statement, with which I think the vast majority of Unitarians would agree, needs publicising widely. It sums up the underlying values of present day British Unitarianism. We all need to work together to save our precious "uncommon denomination" from extinction. Let us use our heads and hearts, our reason and imagination, and turn our movement around. In the words of Earl Holt:

"We remember this day those who have gone before us here, who laboured not for themselves alone, but with a vision of building for the future a world better than they had known. Inspire in us also a like vision, that we too may labour for things beyond ourselves, that our lives may be dedicated to high purposes and grand horizons. Make us unafraid of hopes and dreams; release us from cynicism and despair. Teach us to be realistic about our limitations but never to lose hope in our potential to transcend them."

May it be so.

 

The Interdependent Web of Life

These are the words of Marcus Aurelius, the great Roman philosopher:

"All things are interwoven with one another; a sacred bond unites them; there is scarcely one thing that is isolated from another. Everything is coordinated, everything works together in giving form to the one universe. The world-order is a unity made up of multiplicity: God is one, pervading all things; all being is one, all law is one (namely, the common reason which all thinking creatures possess) and all truth is one - if, as we believe, there can be but one path to perfection for beings that are alike in kind and reason."

If we believe that this is so (and I do) then everything we do has a knock-on effect on everything and everyone around us. I read these words as a reminder and a warning - that all of life is sacred, and it is our duty to treat others (and the earth) "with absolute justice, equity and respect". (Charter for Compassion).

Forrest Church quotes Unitarian Universalist minister David Bumbaugh: "We are called to define the religious and spiritual dimensions of the ecological crisis confronting the world, and to preach the gospel of a world where each is part of all, where every one is sacred, and every place is holy ground, where all are children of the same great love, all embarked on the same journey, all destined for the same end." Church continues: "Unlike those religions that view the world as a charnel house from which we must escape, Unitarian Universalism reveres the creation and challenges us to nurture it, even to defend it against ourselves when we lose our sense of intimacy with the earth as the ground of our being, the living web that connects us."

May it be so.

All You Need Is Love

Often in this life, it is easy to pretend that all is well, that you are self-sufficient, that we don't need anyone's help. But eventually, there comes a time when relying on yourself is not enough. You need to reach out to another human being, and, in all humility, ask for what you need. There is no shame in this, or there shouldn't be. As John Donne wrote:

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

We are all "involved in Mankind" (or humankind). Love (or compassion) is the central truth of all religious traditions. Every time we reach out to another person, every time we feel their pain, every time we try to make someone else's world a better place, we are putting love and compassion at the centre of our lives. Which is where it needs to be. As St. Paul wrote:

"If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. ... And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love."

Some Good Advice

I have not had a good couple of weeks - lots of stress about various things. So I was uplifted by the picture below, which was posted by Joy Happiness Love Family:

So I am going to really try to not think, not wonder, not imagine, not obsess; just breathe and have faith that everything will work out for the best.

A Good Laugh

I think it was Anne McCaffrey who once wrote: " A man can sleep any time, but a good laugh restores the soul."

I was reminded of the truth of this yesterday. The week so far had been fairly tedious, full of tasks and duties, and not full of fun. Then I went for my piano lesson, and for the last few minutes, my teacher suggested that we play some duets. Well, within minutes of starting we were both convulsed with laughter, tears pouring down our faces, as I vainly tried to keep up with her. And for the rest of the evening, I felt light and bubbly and happy. I felt Joy.

In his classic The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis divides the causes of human laughter into "Joy, Fun, the Joke Proper and Flippancy." He writes: "You will see the first among friends and lovers reunited on the eve of a holiday. Among adults some pretext in the way of Jokes is usually provided, but the facility with which the smallest witticisms produce laughter at such a time shows that they are not the real cause. ... Laughter of this kind does us [devils] no good and should always be discouraged."

Of Fun, he writes: "Fun is closely related to Joy - a sort of emotional froth arising from the play instinct. It is very little use to us. ... in itself it has wholly undesirable tendencies; it promotes charity, courage, contentment, and many other evils."

Of the Joke Proper, he writes: " The Joke Proper, which turns on sudden perception of incongruity, is a much more promising field. ... Humour is for them [the English] the all-consoling and (mark this) the all-excusing, grace of life. Hence it is invaluable as a means of destroying shame. ... A thousand bawdy, or even blasphemous, jokes do not help towards a man's damnation so much as his discovery that almost anything he wants to do can be done, not only without the disapproval but with the admiration of his fellows, if only it can get itself treated as a Joke."

And he writes: "But Flippancy is the best of all. ... Among flippant people the Joke is always assumed to have been made. ... every serious subject is discussed in a manner which implies that they have already found a ridiculous side to it. ... It is a thousand miles away from Joy; it deadens, instead of sharpening, the intellect; and it excites no affection between those who practice it."

Whenever I read these definitions, it makes me reflect on the amount of Joy and Fun in my life, and reminds me of the danger of Flippancy. Laughter does indeed restore the soul, but never at others' expense.

The Joy of Learning

I have just been required to summarise the three years of my ministry training in a report to the Interview Panel. And it brought home to me two things: a) how much I have learned in the last three years, and b) how much I still have to learn.

Many years ago, my wise mentor, Arthur Beckenham, quoted the following advice to me, which I have tried to follow ever since:

"Learn as if you were to live forever; live as if you were to die tomorrow."

When I finished the bulk of my training last June, I felt bereft. I had really enjoyed the experience of learning more about Unitarianism; its history; its theology; all of it. I had also derived huge benefit from contact with the Baptist ministry students at Regent's Park College, who gave me a real insight into mainstream Christianity, from an insider perspective.

I love learning new things, and I love that my Unitarian faith is broad enough and deep enough to incorporate what I learn into my life. To quote the Quakers: "may I be open to new light, from whatever source it comes".