Prelude Yerevan by Ludovico Einaudi
Opening Words by Alex Brianson
We gather this morning to share a particular kind of community – a community of faith in which each of us is free to quest for our own ways of being spiritual and religious.
We gather this morning to think about how we have done this until now, and how we might do this from now.
We are none of us the same as we were twenty years ago or even last week; we are none of us the same as we shall be in five weeks or ten years.
As the paths of our lives cover new terrain, may we find helpful new thinkers, concepts, and understandings of Spirit, or of the highest good in life, and new ways to interpret those we have loved long and hard.
And may we be open to the voice of wisdom, wherever – and however – we find it.
Chalice Lighting (you may wish to light a candle in your own home at this point). Words by Laura Dobson.
As Unitarians we are people seeking
Truth, meaning, love and deep connection
As we seek to discern our path
May we follow the guidance of our hearts
May our hearts be open to unexpected truths
May our chalice flame remind us
To welcome all the truth of our lives
To welcome each other
Into the beloved community
Of love and compassion
Opening Prayer
Spirit of Life and Love,
Be with us as we gather for worship,
Each in our own place.
Help us to feel a sense of community,
Even though we are physically apart.
Help us to care for each other,
In this world in which Covid has not yet gone away,
And the clouds of war and climate change overshadow us.
May we keep in touch however we can,
And help each other,
However we may.
May we be grateful for the freedoms we have
and respect the wishes of others.
May we hold in our hearts all those
Who are grieving, lost, alone,
Suffering in any way,
Amen
Reading The Ten Commandments from the Hebrew Bible: Exodus 20:2-17
I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.
You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.
Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. For six days you shall labour and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.
Honour your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.
You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.
Alternative Lord’s Prayer
Spirit of Life and Love, here and everywhere,
May we be aware of your presence in our lives.
May our world be blessed.
May our daily needs be met,
And may our shortcomings be forgiven,
As we forgive those of others.
Give us the strength to resist wrong-doing,
The inspiration and guidance to do right,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
We are your hands in the world; help us to grow.
May we have compassion for all living beings,
And receive whatever life brings,
With courage and trust.
Amen
Reading extracted from What are the Five Pillars of Islam? by Kim Knott https://crestresearch.ac.uk/comment/islam-five-pillars/
The Shahada is the fundamental statement of faith and commitment made by Muslims: “There is not God but God (Allah), and Muhammad is His Messenger.”… Reciting it three times in front of witnesses is a requirement of becoming a Muslim.
Salah is the ritual prayer of Islam through which all Muslims conform to the will of Allah. Prayer is performed in the direction of Mecca five times a day. Friday is set aside as the day for congregational prayer (Jum’a).
The term zakat refers to the obligatory donation of a portion of a Muslim’s surplus wealth. Islamic charities encourage donors to use their services to relieve suffering and to help refugees, victims of environmental disasters, the urban poor, and those in conflict zones.
Sawm – Muslims are expected to fast during Ramadan – the ninth month in the Islamic calendar. During daylight hours (which vary depending on the time of year in which Ramadan falls), they abstain from food and drink, sexual activity and smoking, breaking the fast with a meal after sunset.
Completing the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, is a duty that every Muslim should perform during their lifetime. All pilgrims should be in good physical and spiritual health before they make the journey. Whilst in Mecca, they complete a series of individual and collective actions on the various days… following a pattern set by Muhammad.
Prayer Approaching Divinity by Cliff Reed, from Carnival of Lamps
Creator Spirit, within our hearts and moving among the stars,
we approach you with the powers and capacities you give us.
We approach you whenever we invigorate the understanding by seeking truth;
whenever we invigorate the conscience by following it, rather than our passions.
We approach you whenever we receive a blessing gratefully,
bear a trial patiently, or encounter peril and scorn with courage;
whenever we perform an unselfish deed, or lift up our hearts in true adoration.
We approach you whenever we resist the habits and desires that are in conflict with our higher principles;
whenever we speak or act with moral urgency and devotion to duty.
So may your Divinity grow strong within us, and the religion we profess
blend seamlessly with the life we lead.
Amen
Reading The five / eight / ten precepts from Open University Buddhism Study Guide by Helen Waterhouse
The five precepts for lay people are:
- To abstain from harming or killing living beings.
- To abstain from taking what is not given (stealing).
- To abstain from misconduct concerning sense pleasures, including inappropriate sexual activity, and over-indulgence in eating or sleeping.
- To abstain from false speech or lying.
- To abstain from intoxication or unmindful states due to taking alcoholic drink or drugs….
On special days of religious observance, lay Buddhists may take an additional three precepts:
- Abstaining from eating at the wrong time (after noon).
- Abstaining from seeing shows of dancing, singing and music and using jewellery and perfume.
- Abstaining from using high or luxurious beds.
These three extra precepts bring lay people close to the ten training precepts of novice monks and nuns. In the ten training precepts, the seventh lay precept is split into two and another is added, which is abstaining from handling money.
Time of Stillness and Reflection Live Fully by Sydney H. Knight, from Songs for Living (adapted)
Let smiles brim to our lips –
not just because our hearts are brave,
but because happiness overflows from us.
Let us enjoy beauty –
not only where other people see it,
but in the unexpected things of everyday.
Let us be truthful –
not merely because life is better that way,
but because we are true to ourselves.
Let us help others –
not solely from a sense of duty,
but out of eager sympathy.
Let us always show goodwill –
not just because we feel we ought,
but because we really want to.
Let us love –
not only because love is good,
but because we cannot help it.
Let us ponder these ideas in the silence…
[silence]
Let us live –
fully and wholeheartedly from the depths of our beings.
Amen
Musical Interlude Nefeli by Ludovico Einaudi
Address Rules, Precepts, Values
Rules, ethics, commandments, precepts – whatever we call them, every human being needs some boundaries in their lives. Because none of us live in perfect isolation from the rest of humankind, it is necessary to have some rules about how we are going to live together, to be together, for the greater good of all.
For many of us (perhaps for most of us) it is helpful to know what is forbidden and what is allowed. These rules may be in the form of civil laws, which cover so many aspects of our lives – pay your taxes, stop at a red light or a zebra crossing, don’t park where you’re not supposed to – or they come from the many faith traditions we follow. Our three readings today shared the basic ethics of four different religions – the Ten Commandments of Judaism and Christianity; the Five Pillars of Islam; and the Eight Precepts of Buddhism. Of course, each of those faiths has many more rules or precepts which its adherents are supposed to follow, but these are the basics.
I found it interesting to see how much overlap there was between them: Jews, Christians and Buddhists are all expected to refrain from killing, stealing, lying, or inappropriate sexual activity; and Jews, Christians and Muslims need to have faith in one God, whether He is called ‘LORD’, ‘God’ or ‘Allah’. Only Christians are allowed more leeway about what they eat and drink – the Jewish food laws, at least for the orthodox, are extensive and strict. And Buddhist monks and nuns are expected to obey hundreds of precepts, rather than just the basic ones.
I guess it makes sense to have some overarching rules to live by. I have a poster on the door of my bedroom, which (for me) poses a far more interesting challenge: how to work out one’s own rules for life. It is an alphabetical list of 26 pieces of advice allegedly from the Dalai Lama, under the title, Live one day at a time and make it a masterpiece. I’d like to share them with you:
Avoid negative sources, people, places and habits.
Believe in yourself.
Consider things from every angle.
Don’t give up and don’t give in.
Everything you’re looking for lies behind the mask you wear.
Family and friends are hidden treasures; seek them and enjoy their riches.
Give more than you planned to.
Hang on to your dreams.
If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.
Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
Keep trying no matter how hard it seems.
Love yourself.
Make it happen.
Never lie, steal, or cheat.
Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.
Practice makes perfect.
Quality not quantity in anything you do.
Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
Stop procrastinating.
Take control of your own destiny.
Understand yourself in order to better understand others.
Visualise it.
When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
Xcellence in all your efforts.
You are unique; nothing can replace you.
Zero in on your target and go for it.
Admittedly, some of them are a bit sound-bite ish (“Make it happen”, “Visualise it”) but there is a much good advice there. I have it on the door of my bedroom so that it catches my eye every time I walk out, and have often found a “helpful word in season” among the advices…. Talking of which, those of you who know me well will know that I try to follow the Advices and Queries of the Quakers, which are the best collection of how to live well advice I have ever come across.
All of us are born with innate free will, and can choose what we make of our lives. We may choose to follow this or that set of rules or precepts, and this will have an enormous impact on how we live. And along the way, we learn what it is we truly value:
“all those things that if everything else was lost and if only they remained, your life would still be full.” But working out what it is we truly value can be hard, and people get it wrong. We’ve all heard of top business types who are so addicted to their work that they take their laptops on holiday with them. To my mind, they are out of balance, and their health and family and social lives will suffer.
So how should we approach this most important task? Bill Adams, author of The Five Lessons of Life, passes on the following method from his teacher, Sangratan, the Amchi teacher from the Himalayas:
“Firstly, think of the things and people you value most. Give yourself plenty of time to do this, in an environment where you will not be disturbed.
Secondly, on a piece of paper, list all those things that you value most, and why you value them. Include such things as family, relationships, health, career, religion, hobbies.
Thirdly, try to number them in order of importance, beginning at 1.
Fourthly, examine your choices. Be honest with yourself. Consider the questions [that follow]:
- What do you spend most of your free time thinking about, or wishing for?
- What have you always wanted?
- What gives you most pleasure?
- What ways of behaving do you find most admirable?
- Are there things you enjoyed as a child which you were told to put away for the sake of a career or a relationship? If so, do you still value them?
- Whom do you admire most and why?
- What attributes do you most value?
When you have considered these questions, look again at the list of things you value. Is there a contradiction between your most important values and what you spend most of your life wishing, craving, wanting, or working for?”
The other four lessons of life show how we can begin to rearrange our lives so that what is important to us is what we pursue most vigorously. This isn’t a once-for-all process – we will need to do it periodically throughout our lives as our circumstances change. It is during these more challenging times in our lives that it is useful to have a set of rules, precepts, or values to fall back on, to ground ourselves, to re-centre us.
We not only need to do this kind of deep thinking as individuals, but also as communities, members of society. Or else, as Richard Rohr warned in his Daily Meditation on 14th July, we can fall prey to what he calls “stinking thinking”. He wrote, “’Stinking thinking’ is the universal addiction. Substance addictions like alcohol and drugs are merely the most visible forms of addiction, but actually we are all addicted to our own habitual ways of doing anything, our own defenses, and most especially, our patterned way of thinking and processing reality. These attachments are at first hidden to us; by definition, we can never see or handle what we are addicted to, but we cannot heal what we do not first acknowledge.
All societies are addicted to themselves and create deep co-dependency. There are shared and agreed-upon addictions in every culture and every institution. These are often the hardest to heal because they do not look like addictions. We have all agreed to be compulsive about the same things and unaware of the same problems.”
“We have all agreed to be compulsive about the same things and unaware of the same problems.” A sobering thought…
So I believe it is up to each one of us, and to each community, to work out what our values are, to establish the rules and precepts we choose to live by, and then to translate them into concrete actions. Whether we choose to follow the Ten Commandments, the Five Pillars of Islam, the Eight Precepts of Buddhism or some other list is unimportant, so long as we take responsibility for our words and deeds, and choose to follow the best we know in our lives.
Each one of us will have different personal values, and will give different priority to the various rules or precepts we come across – we are, after all, Unitarians! However, I’d like to think that we could get together in our communities to share our personal values, discover what our fellow Unitarians value, and then work together to forge these into an agreed set of values for our community. Then, most importantly, commit to putting them into action.
Many members of other faiths find that an important part of their bond with others is in scriptural or creedal affirmations. That door is closed to us. Ours is a fellowship in diversity, a band of pilgrims on the same spiritual seeking path, each having perfect freedom to follow the dictates of our individual reason and conscience to forge a living faith that will help us to follow the best that we know for the greater good of ourselves and the world.
I believe that the way forward is a combination of commitment to the radical values of love and compassion, and being in community, not only with fellow Unitarians, but with the wider world.
May it be so, Amen
Closing Words
Spirit of Life and Love,
Our time together is drawing to a close.
May we be motivated
to do the necessary heart work
involved in establishing the rules and precepts
by which we choose to live our lives.
May we share the love we feel,
May we look out for each other,
Sharing our joys and our sorrows,
And may we keep up our hearts,
Being grateful for the many blessings in our lives,
Now and in the days to come, Amen
Postlude Yerevan II by Ludovico Einaudi