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.