Still I Am One: worship

Showing posts with label worship. Show all posts

Friday, 28 June 2019

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?

Friday, 16 May 2014

What's in the Temple?

In his poem What's in the Temple?, Tom Barrett poses three questions:

If you had a temple in the secret spaces of your heart, what would you worship there?
What would you bring to sacrifice? and
What would be behind the curtain in the holy of holies?"

I think that the first question, "what would you worship there?" is quite a challenging one for Unitarians, as we do not presume to define God / the Sacred Divine for others, and some of us do not believe in an external divine other at all. Our Unitarianism these days is a wonderful “free faith based on the inner authority of the enlightened conscience.” And our consciences are enlightened by not only what we think and believe with our heads. Intuition and feeling are also considered important, thanks initially to James Martineau, the great 19th century Unitarian theologian. And our beliefs may change over time, as part of a process of continuous and continuing revelation.

So my answer to the first question might be: I would worship the God I believe in, whom I have come to believe in through exercising my reason and conscience, and through bouncing ideas off other Unitarians. And that the God I believe in is a personal God, who exists both "out there" as well as "in here", and whose divine principle is Love. But that is just my answer, as a unique Unitarian, and this belief might change over time.

At first sight, the second question "what would you bring to sacrifice?" may seem to have little relevance to modern Unitarians. But I think that if you understand the word "sacrifice" in terms of giving something up, it makes a lot more sense in a Unitarian context. Because our Unitarian faith should not be practiced lightly, without commitment, and making a commitment to something often involves sacrificing some part of our old lives.

My answer to this second question would be, in the words of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross "all that is not truly me, all that I have chosen without choosing and valued without evaluating, or accepted because of someone else’s extrinsic judgment, rather than my own; and all my self-doubt that keeps me from trusting and loving myself or other human beings." This is a work in progress; to fulfil it will take my whole life.

Barrett's last question was "What would be behind the curtain in the holy of holies?" The holy of holies was the innermost sanctuary of the Temple in Jerusalem, and was separated from the rest of the Temple by a curtain or veil. According to the Hebrew Bible, only the high priest could go in there, and he only once a year. The holy of holies was said to contain the Ark of the Covenant, which contained the ten commandments given to Moses by God on Mount Sinai. This was the most holy and precious object in Temple Judaism.

So the answer to the question what would be behind the curtain in the holy of holies refers to that which is most precious to each of us, which we prize above all other things. Or perhaps what we appreciate most about our own faith tradition, in my case Unitarianism.

For me the important thing about Unitarianism is that we are united in our diversity; united in the mutual provision of this safe and sacred space, in which we may explore our diverse beliefs and faiths, knowing that our doubts and questions and beliefs will be held and respected, and that we will be welcomed just the way we are.

And it is precious. This way of being united in diversity - a way of being religious and spiritual that involves mutual respect and acceptance and love - is what would be behind the curtain in my holy of holies.