Prelude Melodia Africana I by Ludovico Einaudi
Opening Words by Alex Brianson (adapted)
We gather today 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 today 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
We light our chalice, symbol of our free Unitarian faith
Sign of the spark of life in all living beings
Fire of commitment to love and justice
As the chalice cup embraces the flame
May we hold one another in loving community
Sharing our gratitude, our pain and our hopes for our world
For we are co-weavers of the story of the universe
A web of intimate connections and infinite possibilities
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 A Man of Peace, Part 1, by Richard Bober
Many Unitarians will be able to relate to his [Thich Nhat Hanh’s] lifelong commitment to the peaceful resolution of conflicts as well as his deep commitment to sustainable living. Plum Village embodied both of these. It was built on the site of a Nazi atrocity. As Thay said to ‘heal the earth’. With years of meditation, chanting and mindful walking, the earth would one day be healed from the unspeakable deeds committed where the main temple now stands. When I attended retreats there, always in winter, almost no building was heated – even in December. The community was ever mindful of burning fossil fuel. ‘Thay’ literally translates as ‘teacher’. Those who awaken our compassionate heart, those who touch us with their courage, kindness and integrity these are our true teachers. Thay brought his austere Zen practice to the west and applied it like a soothing medicine to our traumatised and ever busy minds. It would be called ‘engaged Buddhism’. For his interpretation of Zen was forged in the heat of the war in Vietnam. His calling was to cultivate an inner peace that could be used to transform the chaotic conflicted world that permeates all our lives. In 1975 he published The Miracle of Mindfulness which communicated his deep and lifelong meditation practice in a form accessible to both Buddhist and non-Buddhist lay people. This paved the way for the mindfulness movement, which has done so much to calm and transform our troubled minds in the west.
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 A Man of Peace, Part 2, by Richard Bober
Thay is aptly called ‘the father of mindfulness’. His teachings and his life are outstanding spiritual gifts to the world. The question is, how can we use them?
The commitment to the way of non-violence and the practice of mindfulness as the salve for our disrupted inner lives will be part of the answer. Thay trusted that the universe could transform itself and crucially that transformation would be through us. The rest of the answer must surely start in silence. Those who awaken in us our vulnerable nature are our greatest teachers, from the mother who first nourishes us, to the holy men and women who, like Thich Nhat Hanh, administer the balm of spiritual consciousness to our disconnected, wounded, minds. His teachings, and example of the paths of engaged Buddhism – an open heart in the midst of tumult, a commitment to nonviolence as the route to conflict resolution, and the practice of mindfulness as a remedy to the individual and collective discord that infect the world were the offerings of a bodhisattva (one who seeks awakening). The question now is, what we will do with these offerings, now the extraordinary teacher has gone to meet what must surely be a blessed reward. Mindfulness is about stillness, bringing accord not only to the psyche but to the world around us. Where do we begin? In silence; in trust that the universe can repair itself, and that it will repair, and that process will be through us.
Prayer In an unquiet world by Cliff Reed, from Sacred Earth
God of our hearts,
whose Oneness makes us one,
in an unquiet world, let us be quiet.
In an unpeaceful world, let us be peace;
in an unjust world, let us be just;
in an unloving world, let us be love.
Make of our speaking the things you want us to say;
make of our deeds the things you want us to do;
make of us what the world needs us to be.
So may our lives be a blessing to all,
And our spirits the channels of your Spirit.
May it be so, Amen
Reading Committees by Richard Lovis, from With Heart and Mind
Are you on a committee? The likelihood is that you are, or have been. But perhaps my question should have been, ‘Are you a committee?’ Just you, by yourself, on your own.
The word ‘committee’ derives from an old English verb ‘committen’, meaning ‘to entrust’, and the -ee suffix denotes a recipient of the action involved (as in… ‘lessor’ and ‘lessee’ in the context of property). A committee therefore is someone to whom something has been entrusted. Strictly speaking, I suppose, we should talk of A Committees Meeting, i.e. a meeting of ‘committees’, rather than a Committee Meeting, but let’s not get too pedantic! After all, the Latin from which the English word derives in the first place means ‘to join, or come together’, which implies plurality.
There is a deeper meaning to the word ‘commit’, however, and this is the nub of the matter. A ‘committed’ person is someone who has pledged or aligned themselves to a particular cause or action; who has made a ‘commitment’. Putting the two meanings together, therefore, when we join a committee we are acknowledging the trust of others in our commitment to whatever cause or action it is that we have espoused… Come to think of it, doesn’t that make every member of a congregation a ‘committee’? We all ‘come together’ regularly to ‘commit’ ourselves to our high calling as Unitarians and to seek the strength to be able to honour that commitment.
What that commitment might entail may not be too obvious on a week-by-week basis, but we can be very sure that every now and then the challenge will present itself in very clear terms.
When that happens, may it be that we shall recognise it and respond to it as a true ‘Unitarian Committee’.
Time of Stillness and Reflection words by Richard Lovis (adapted)
From the self-seeking, which so often fills our daily lives with getting and spending,
we turn aside now.
We are conscious that we should turn aside more frequently,
conscious that our priorities in how we make use of our time and abilities
are frequently wrong.
Yet we are grateful, nevertheless,
for the discipline of times like this,
which prompt us to get our priorities right,
and we believe that such times can make a difference
to the way we live.
We are conscious of past disappointments with ourselves:
stirrings in our hearts that we have failed to respond to,
ideals we have failed to live up to,
duties we have neglected,
kindnesses we have failed to show.
But even as we acknowledge such stifled stirrings,
such unrealised ideals, such neglected duties, such missed opportunities,
we are aware too that we have not always failed to heed them.
It is in this awareness that we draw together now,
to seek what is highest, what is hardest perhaps,
but what we feel to be infinitely worthwhile:
the pursuit of truth and goodness in our own lives,
and in those matters upon which we are engaged.
[silence]
May it be that as we gather here together now,
we shall be able to recognise with thanks those influences
that work for good in our lives,
and open ourselves afresh to them.
Amen
Musical Interlude I Giorni by Ludovico Einaudi
Address Making a Commitment
It is the beginning of the annual meetings season, that time of year when Unitarians all over the country will either make a new commitment or renew their ongoing commitment to supporting their own congregation, district or society. Becoming a committee member is about choosing to be more than a ‘bum on a pew’, if you will excuse the phrase. It’s about choosing to take some responsibility for the ongoing wellbeing of your faith community.
Being a committee member is not a popular occupation these days, particularly among many younger people, of whom there are not enough in the movement, anyway. They get more than enough of meetings at their places of work. And so the day to day running of congregations, societies and districts falls upon the increasingly overburdened shoulders of the committed few, who may often be members of multiple committees, both inside and outside Unitarianism.
And this week also marks the third anniversary of the passing of the Vietnamese Buddhist master, Thich Nhat Hanh, who died on 22nd January 2022. We heard Richard Bober’s tribute to Thay (as he was known) in our first and second readings. Thay was someone who committed his whole life to the joint causes of non-violence and sustainable living. He is rightly called “the father of mindfulness” and was instrumental in popularising the concept of mindful contemplation in the West. I have read and re-read his wonderful book, The Miracle of Mindfulness, several times, and it is full of good advice about how to live a mindful life.
Which I believe is an essential ingredient for being a good committee member. Making the decision to join a committee is not something which should be undertaken lightly. When you put your hand up, you are committing to showing up to meetings regularly, and participating in the decision-making process, as well as (sometimes) working in between times for the good of the organisation.
For ordinary committee members, that may be where their responsibilities end. The committee might meet four or five times a year, for a couple of hours. Yet you have the satisfaction of knowing that you have helped in some small way towards the smooth running of your organisation, whether that is a congregation, a district or a society.
Both belief and faith are necessary components of committee membership: belief in the aims and objectives of the congregation or district, and faith in the process of decision-making that goes on. They are also essential elements for making the commitment in the first place: you have to believe that your organisation is worth supporting and have faith in what it stands for.
Which is one reason why good communication is important. For example, in every issue of Bits & Pieces, the Midland Unitarian Association’s monthly news-sheet, and in every issue of MU Now, our magazine, the Aims of the District’s Executive Committee are shared. Many readers may glide over them, but they are there to underline why the MUA exists, to share the commitments your Executive Committee is making to all our member congregations. There are four:
1 To support congregations.
2 To make things happen by providing leadership and initiating projects.
3 To find resourceful solutions.
4 To connect Unitarians in the Midlands.
In the past twelve months, the MUA has paid for Unitarian Transformers to carry out a Sustainability Audit of each Unitarian congregation in the District. Each congregation has had two meetings with the Transformers facilitators, during which all aspects of the life of the congregation have been examined. This process is just coming to an end, and the final report will be produced in the next few weeks.
I believe that this has been an incredibly worthwhile commitment by the MUA, which will have two huge benefits. First, it will mean that each congregation (who will receive their own individual report) will have a great opportunity to see where they stand at the moment, and to come up with new ideas for ways to flourish and grow. Second, it will mean that the District’s Executive Committee, who will be receiving a consolidated report about all the congregations, will be in a good position to fulfil our aims of supporting our congregations and coming up with resourceful solutions in the light of the information contained there.
Of course, it will be down to the individual congregations to make a commitment to move forward, based on the information they will be given. And that may mean that new commitments will be required by ordinary members of the congregation as well as committee members.
I loved Richard Lovis’s take on what it means to be a member of a Unitarian faith community, which I shared with you as our final reading. He wrote, “A ‘committed’ person is someone who has pledged or aligned themselves to a particular cause or action; who has made a ‘commitment’. Putting the two meanings together, therefore, when we join a committee we are acknowledging the trust of others in our commitment to whatever cause or action it is that we have espoused…. Come to think of it, doesn’t that make every member of a congregation a ‘committee’? We all ‘come together’ regularly to ‘commit’ ourselves to our high calling as Unitarians and to seek the strength to be able to honour that commitment.”
I particularly liked his final two sentences: “Come to think of it, doesn’t that make every member of a congregation a ‘committee’? We all ‘come together’ regularly to ‘commit’ ourselves to our high calling as Unitarians and to seek the strength to be able to honour that commitment.”
Without the commitment and dedication of every member, our congregations are bound to fail, whether sooner or later. “Every little helps” as the Tesco slogan goes: and there are so many things which need doing to ensure a flourishing congregation. It’s not just the committee meetings (essential though those are). It is also the work which goes on quietly behind the scenes – the production of newsletters; the updating of websites and social media pages; the organisation of pulpit supply, if your congregation doesn’t have a minister or lay leader; the organisation of essential building maintenance; keeping the garden (if we are lucky enough to have one) looking tended and beautiful; the running and organisation of other than Sunday groups; the management of lettings; the purchase of everyday necessities such as tea, coffee, milk, biscuits, and toilet paper; the provision and arrangement of flowers… the list is endless. And before and after the service, the welcoming of people to the service, including handing out hymn books and orders of service (where provided) and the provision of refreshments afterwards. And we must not forget those frailer members of our congregations, who are no longer able to attend in person – they too need to be valued and visited. None of these things “just happen”. They happen because someone has made a commitment to make it so. I believe that every active person in a congregation should be able to commit to at least one small task.
So this year, will you make a commitment to do more than simply show up on a Sunday? Is there something small you could do to contribute to the smooth running of your congregation? Perhaps you might even consider making the splendid commitment of joining the committee, so that you are able to make the important decisions that will ensure that your congregation will still be open, this time next year…
Who knows? You may actually enjoy it! At the very least you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you are making a positive difference to the life of your own beloved faith community. Too many of our congregations have foundered in the past decade or so, because no-one was prepared to stand up and be counted. Because the few who were committed members, on whom all the tasks fell, grew old and tired. Sharing the load could help this to be avoided. The Unitarian witness in the Midlands is so precious – let’s keep our congregations growing, so that other people can discover the marvellous faith we all share.
Closing Words
Spirit of Life and Love,
Our time together is drawing to a close.
May we find the commitment in ourselves
to support the life of our congregations,
so that others may discover our wonderful faith.
May we share the love we feel,
may we look out for each other,
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 Melodia Africana II by Ludovico Einaudi