Visiting Godalming Unitarians

On this wet Sunday in May I attended the Godalming Unitarian Church’s alternative service, which is more reflective in nature to their ordinary services – drawing from another faith tradition – this time drawing from Christianity.

The service was an extended reflection on the verses of the Beatitudes – dispelling some of the misconceptions, and ways in which the words are from time to time are narrowly defined, with some Aramaic chants for the musical interludes.  

Though we receive the Beatitudes through the Christian tradition, it is helpful to reflect on these proverbs in isolation of their Christian heritage – as indeed for so many this heritage is not life-giving, but stifling and oppressive. The Beatitudes have a great deal to offer in and of themselves, they certainly do not require a Christian orthodox meta-narrative for them to make sense, in fact in many ways to me the Beatitudes seem to subvert the prevailing Christian narrative.

The various passages were mused upon by considering the native tongue Jesus would have originally spoken the words in – Aramaic. Through this process a richer reading becomes possible…

‘Blessed are those in emotional turmoil; they shall be united inside by love.

Healthy are those who have softened what is rigid within; they shall be surrounded by what is needed to sustain their bodies.

Blessed are those who from their inner wombs, birth mercy; they shall feel its warm arms embrace them.

Blessed are those who plant peace each season; they shall be named children of God...’ (Neil Douglas-Klotz) 

Visiting Kensington Unitarians

This Sunday I visited the Kensington Unitarian Church for the first time. The church is a stone’s throw from Kensington Palace, so I followed up my visit with a very nice walk though Hyde Park, also for the first time.

There was a very warm and friendly welcome to the Unitarian Church which was far bigger than any Unitarian congregation I have been to previously. Compared to the congregations I am more familiar with (Cambridge, Portsmouth, and Southampton) Kensington’s less traditional aesthetic, the American expats, and the semi-in-the-round layout creates an atmosphere unlike what I have experienced to date; perhaps more akin to UU congregations, at least as I would imagine them.

The collaboratively lay-led service’s theme was ‘Sabbath’ – “Most of the things we need to be most fully alive never come in busyness. They grow in rest” (Mark Buchanan). The address began with the roots of the Jewish day of rest, then looked at different examples of Sabbath-esque days in other religions and cultures, finally concluding with a reflection upon how we might incorporate a ‘Sabbath’ into our own lives.

We were asked to reflect on questions such as: ‘Where would or does your inspiration come from: Which source or combination of sources? Spiritual? Religious? Literature? Other forms of media?’

Visiting Southampton Unitarians

This morning I went to join the congregation at the Edmund Kell Church in Southampton. The service focused upon the season of spring, the return of life, the waking up of our gardens. The service took place in their chapel (pictured to the right) situated on the first floor, above their Church hall. It was a very nice space, with a modern wooden beamed ceiling; the church was redesigned and rebuilt in 1990. The original building which was built by Edmund Kell in the 1850’s was destroyed by Nazi bombing in 1940.

“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.” – Words from the Native North Americans.

The address unpacked the ecological reality of an interconnected world: the pollution of one country impacts upon another. The El Niño warm water current of the pacific impacts the weather of the American West Coast, but even impacts weather right here in the UK.

Reading from Lay Blaylock’s Creation in Reverse - “On the last day before the end of the earth, man finally realised that he had completely destroyed the way plants, animals and people could live on the earth.  He also had no idea how he was going to get himself out of the fix he was in. And man said: “Oh God!”

And God said…

The obvious question to be posed is what can we do better, how can we respond to the ecological time bomb?

And yet, we do not want to simply reduce creation to an obstacle to be overcome, we want to delight in it also. We should enter into a place of wonder, through enjoying the sacred space which is the garden, by joining with others in religious rituals and metaphor which draw us into delighting in the wonder of this planet.