An Interval of Peace

I am feeling very blessed. I have just spent a few days at my best friend's cottage in Cumbria, and we had a gorgeous time. Didn't go anywhere, nor do anything exciting. Just a quiet chummery of good conversation, knitting (her) / stitching (me) and some seriously competitive games of canasta.

This was the sun setting in Arnside on Wednesday evening, the day I arrived. So beautiful, so peaceful. These few days have enabled me to re-centre myself, in preparation for my final three weeks at work, which are going to be hectic in the extreme. As well as my normal tasks, I have a lot of things to tick off, so that I am able to do a decent handover to my successors (I'm retiring on 26th February). 

I guess the point of this post is that sometimes, we need to step back, out of our busy lives, and admire a sunset, relax with a friend, concentrate on Being rather than Doing. The timing of this lesson of me has been perfect, and I feel much more able to get what needs to be done, done, because I have enjoyed these few peaceful days away.

I recognise that not everyone is lucky enough to have such a bolthole to retreat to, and know how very fortunate I am. But simply setting down your pen, walking away from your desk, shrugging on a coat and walking outside for a few minutes can help. Or doing something you really enjoy, simply because you enjoy it. We all need a break from work, sometimes.

Selfish Living

This week's quote, by the inimitable Oscar Wilde, reads, "Selfish does not consist of living as one wishes to live; it is asking others to live as one wishes to live."

You can guess whom I'm thinking of when I share the image above - the Orange Peril. It is terrifying me, how close his policies and acts are bringing our world to outright war and ruin. But it is not just him - it is the people behind him, who egg him on, support him in his ego-driven insanities, because there is money and power in it for them. He is simply the face of it all.

I grieve for all the people in the US (and there are very many of them) who do not support the current President. My Facebook feed is filled with anguished posts from those who are doing what they can, where they are, to stand against him. I was particularly chilled by one post from a friend who gave advice on what to do if ICE knocks on your door. It seems that America is no longer "the land of the free". 

But there is always the other side. The Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, made an inspirational speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and Europe is mobilising to protect the rights of the people of Greenland. I believe (I hope) that Trump and the people behind him can be stopped. That this time, unlike in Europe in the 1930s, people everywhere will stand up and fight for freedom. And not let it pass, like in Margaret Attwood's prophetic words in The Handmaid's Tale, "That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn't even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some direction. There wasn't even an enemy you could put your finger on."

Today, now, there is an enemy. Truly selfish living will be if we do not fight with everything we have to stop this insanity, so that others can live as they wish to live.

Speaking and Listening

Henry David Thoreau, the 19th century American author and Transcendentalist, once wrote, "It takes two to speak the truth; one to speak and one to listen."

(image: Free SVG vector files)

Hmm, I'm not so sure about that. If one person is doing all the speaking and the other is doing all the listening, to me, it implies an inequality in the exchange. The one doing the listening must be free to question what the speaker is saying, to ask questions of their own, to tease the deeper meaning out of what the speaker is sharing. Or at the very least - for example if the recipient is listening to a public speaker (or a worship leader!) - the listener should be free to talk with others and / or with the speaker, afterwards, about what the speaker has said, if they have questions.

We are thinking beings. I believe we should rarely accept what another says as 'the truth' uncritically, without questioning it. We have been given brains to analyse received information and should use them. For me, this is most of the problem with social media today. The "listener" is the person who browses Facebook or X or whatever, and reads whatever is framed as 'the truth', by the "speaker", the person who doing the posting. Engaging with the post is not the same as true conversation. Complicated algorithms control which posts we see, which tend to confirm the views we hold already. It takes a positive effort to move past this (to me, quite sinister) control and work out the truth for ourselves. 

In Thoreau's day, conversation was face-to-face, or by letter, between people who knew each other (or at least, knew the reputation of the speaker if, for example, the listener was attending a lecture or a worship service). Today, we are offered a wide variety of "truths" from many sources, most of whom we do not know personally. 

Our saving grace is that we are still inclined to speak with other people, face-to-face, about what we have learned. And so move towards a more nuanced understanding of 'the truth'. 

Happiness as a Way of Life

This week's quote reads, "Happiness is not a destination, it is a way of life."

Without being too Pollyanna-ish about it, I have to say I agree. I think this is where the authors of the American Declaration of Independence got it wrong, with their insistence on the rights to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" (italics mine). 

As a result, most of us think of happiness as a far-off goal, which we must pursue by any means available to us. But here's the thing: it cannot be bought; it can only be appreciated, right here, right now. If we see it as a far-off goal, we will miss all the micro-moments of happiness happening to us today.

Of course, there will be times in all our lives when we are distinctly unhappy, for a variety of good reasons. But most of the time, we have a base level of happiness, to which we return naturally, no matter what life throws at us. I came across a fascinating blogpost on the Scott Free Clinic website, which explains it like this: "Psychologists gave this pattern a memorable name - the hedonic treadmill - after noticing how quickly people get used to both windfalls and setbacks. In the early 1970s Philip Brickman and Donald Campbell argued that people adapt to good and bad changes and then return toward a typical level of happiness. ... That typical level is often called a happiness set point - not a single emotion frozen in stone, but a familiar baseline your mood tends to orbit. Inherited biological factors largely determine the happiness set point, with temperament traits - a key expression of these genetic influences - shaping how emotions respond to life events. The brain's habit of adaptation then nudges feelings back toward this familiar baseline after spikes of delight or dips of discouragement."

Which is, I guess, why some people (like me) tend to be happier (most of the time) than others. Which I know can be very irritating for the others! Yet I do believe that the potential for happiness is all around us, if we are only aware enough to notice the tiny good things which happen to us every day.  I have a daily gratitude practice, which consists of recording in my journal three things which I am grateful for each day, last thing at night. They may be tiny, unimportant things, but they are there. Last night, I was grateful for an idea for a new scene for my work in progress; for good progress on my current cross-stitch project, and for participating in a lively and fascinating discussion about the favourite books we had read in 2025, at my local Writers' Group. Nothing very life-changing, or earth-shaking, but they made me happy.

What has made you happy over the last few days?

With Heart and Mind

 "Follow your heart, but take your mind with you." Such a lovely quotation to begin a new year.

Because both are necessary, if we are to lead a happy and fulfilling life. Mind without heart is efficient, effective, productive, but can also be sterile, unhappy, uncaring. Heart without mind is intuitive, emotional, spiritual, loving, but can also be biased, impulsive, unwise.

In 1959, the Lindsey Press published a slim volume entitled Essays in Unitarian Theology: A Symposium. Edited by Rev. Kenneth Twinn, who was at that time minister of Chowbent Unitarian Chapel in Atherton, Lancashire, it has eight different contributions by eminent Unitarian theologians. All make fascinating readings, but the one which really spoke to me was the first contribution, by Twinn himself. It was called A Personal Affirmation and I would like to share the first few sentences, as for me, they sum up what Unitarian theology should be about - living with heart and mind together.

"What I look for in religion is a system of thought that will give meaning to life - not necessarily that will answer all the questions I might raise, but that will give coherence to my experience of the totality; and a meaning which will at the same time suggest a way of life, involve a commitment or categorical imperative (to us whatever may be the jargon of the age), of the whole. The conclusions I have reached, the system I have evolved... is far from complete... It is not original, but influenced by what I have been taught, by patterns of thinking in which I have been brought up. I confess that I can never be ultimately satisfied with it, and that I ought to keep on examining it and modifying it, but it is something I can live by now. I recognise that it should not conflict with any facts that have been scientifically demonstrated, but equally it must respond to and correspond with all sides of my nature, spiritual and emotional as well as purely rational: my insight as well as my five senses. Therefore it has a poetical as well as logical expression."

So perhaps it is up to each of us to formulate our own theology; our own system of thought and belief that will satisfy not only our minds but also our hearts. And, crucially, it must be a system of thought and belief which can be lived by, not just pretty words and ideas talked about on a Sunday. A combination of heart and mind together, which will enable us to live wise and happy lives.

 

 

Christmas Carols

I love singing Christmas carols. It is that time of year when I cheerly put aside my Unitarian doubts and rejoice in the Christmas story, when a little child was born, who has brought hope to the world. Christmas Carol Services are very popular with Unitarians, with chapels, churches and meeting houses hosting larger than usual congregations.

I love playing them too, and singing them at home. The two carol books above contain simplified versions of many popular carols, which I can still play, albeit slowly.

I was looking through the books the other day, and was fascinated by the rich mixture of beliefs and traditions they represent. Because the Christmas story is a complex one - Matthew tells one story (Jesus born in a house in Bethlehem, the Magi coming to visit him, the flight into Egypt, and eventual relocation to Nazareth) and Luke tells quite another (the journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, the birth in a stable, the shepherds coming to worship the child, the return to Nazareth). And today, it is all mashed together into one not-quite-Biblical story, re-enacted by young children each year.

There seem to be fewer carols which tell only Matthew's version of the story: We Three Kings, Three Kings from Persian Lands Afar, As With Gladness, Men of Old, and Star of the South, for example. But more which tell only Luke's version: Away in a Manger, While Shepherds Watched, See Amid the Winter's Snow, Silent Night, Once in Royal David's City, and It Came Upon the Midnight Clear. 

Many carol writers bit the bullet and went for both: The First Nowell, O Come All Ye Faithful, O Little Town of Bethlehem,, the Zither Carol, Unto Us a Boy is Born, Angels from the Realms of Glory, Past Three O'Clock, What Child is This? and Rejoice and Be Merry.

There are also many carols which are about the older, Pagan elements of Christmastide, or about Medieval Christmas customs. Examples include Here We Come a Wassailing, Deck the Hall, The Holly and the Ivy, O Christmas Tree, and The Boar's Head Carol. Others are simply joyful Christmas songs: We Wish You a Merry Christmas, The Twelve Days of Christmas, Christmas is Coming, Jingle Bells and Ding Dong Merrily on High.

There are even some which commemorate events which happened during the Christmas season: Good King Wenceslas ("on the feast of Stephen") and the heart-breaking Coventry Carol, which tells the story from Matthew's gospel of the massacre of the Holy Innocents.

But none of this matters. What matters is that Christmas brings people together, and reminds us that hope can be born in the darkest of times, and that there is still room, still time, for coming together to worship and rejoice, to spend time with the people we love.

Merry Christmas!

The Key to Happiness

I completely agree with this week's quote: "The key to happiness comes from within."

Or, as Monty Python's Four Yorkshiremen had it, "Money doesn't buy you happiness, son." I know from seeing and reading countless stories on social media and elsewhere, that material goods are not the key to happiness - they may make you feel good for a moment, but true happiness is an inside job.

At the same time, the relationship between material well-being and happiness is not quite that simplistic. If we are short of the necessaries of life - food, shelter, physical safety, someone to love and be loved by, happiness can be hard to find. I see far too many horrible stories about families having to choose between paying for food and paying for heating, particularly at this time of year. Which is an obscenity, in this country (or anywhere else, frankly) when the top few in the human hierarchy have money and material possessions in abundance, and pay their accountants to exploit loopholes in the taxation laws, while a large minority are starving, and either homeless or living in (very) sub-standard accommodation (often owned by that rich top few). There is far too much inequality in the world.

Yet I still believe that the key to happiness does come from within. Because the only thing we can control is how we respond to the circumstances we find ourselves in. Our reactions, our emotions, are the key to inner happiness. I hold up my hand and admit that I am very privileged - I live in a nice house, have all the material possessions I could possibly desire, and time to enjoy them. I have a close family and a few good friends. So I have plenty to be happy about. And I am, by and large.

I think the key to happiness is appreciation - being aware of all the good things we do have, and not wasting time yearning about the (unimportant) material goods we don't have. Which takes a certain level of self-awareness and a strong desire not to be seduced by the advertising / marketing industries into wanting random stuff, just because we've seen an advert on Facebook. (For the last couple of months, I keep seeing adverts for lovely Christmas jumpers and think, "Oh, I'd love one of those." I have to keep reminding myself that I already own a perfectly good Christmas jumper, which has served me well for years. And that is only one, tiny, insignificant example). It is far too easy to buy stuff these days - one click and you're committed.

So let's appreciate what we have, and commit to helping those less fortunate than ourselves.