A year ago today . . .

A year after my dad died

My dad died a year ago today. I wasn’t looking forward to this anniversary: I thought it might be a difficult and painful day, but so far? It’s fine. 

He’s very much on my mind today, obviously, and there’s some sadness (no upset, just sadness, and that’s how it’s always been), but sadness is fine and appropriate. 

Being with my dad during the time he was dying was a very beautiful and holy thing, and I think I will always be grateful for the blessing of being there through that process. Watching that transformation – and being part of a small, very loving group who almost nursed that transformation – from someone who is alive and breathing and vibrant to someone who no longer is those things was a real gift and an honour.

The things that I remember clearly about my dad’s death change and shift. I’m always struck by his sheer will to communicate even in the very last hours: the way he made it clear to us he wanted to be held; the way he made it clear that what he wanted to hear was that we knew how much he’d loved us all; the way – let’s be honest here – he made it clear that it was absolutely time for some more whisky.

I can’t forget the sheer humanity and compassion and love shown by the hospital staff in those last days. There is no other word for it than love. There is nothing we could have wished for the hospital to have done, no way we could have wished for them to handle the situation, that we didn’t get. There are big things I remember – the speed with which someone arrived when we did need them to do something, and the fact that the rest of the time they left us alone. And there are tiny things – the red knitted bag they put over the drip containing the drugs which were allowing my father to die gently, so that what we saw was domestic and warm and cosy, not medical and potentially frightening.

And I’m constantly struck by how much the things we were saying – things we didn’t plan saying, because who knows what will take over when you’re with someone who’s dying – how much those things mirrored the things one hears at a birth. “You’re nearly there. You’re doing so well. Not long now.”

Being there, for that event, and being there with my mother, and brother, and former partner, was, honestly, a sad and difficult and exhausting but important and sacred and beautiful thing.

And now? Well, there’s stuff I wish he could have known, but there are no regrets. They are wishes, not regrets. His death was an easy one – he did go gentle, and I’m glad of it – and his being-dead is also sad but right.

I wish he could have known that we’re all okay. That we miss him and love him and think of him, but that we are, honestly, okay.

I wish he could have known that my mother – of whom I am not only hugely fond but enormously, enormously proud – has done more than ‘made the best of things’, and has been forging a new, different, but active, life for herself. That she misses him, but that she is able to see the things which she can now do that would have been harder before, and that she’s making a point of doing them.

I wish he could see the new – different, but not better and not worse – relationship between my mother, my brother, and myself. I wish he knew my brother stays at their house every single weekend, and not because he feels my mother needs looking after or because he feels he ‘should’, but because he wants to. I hope he knows I’ve colonised ‘his’ armchair, and that when we’re all there together it doesn’t feel like there’s a dad-shaped gap, because it’s okay as it is.

And I really wish – we all really wish – he could have known the sheer affection and respect he was held in. He genuinely never did know that. If he’d known who would turn up at his funeral, and what they’d say about him, and how far they would travel and what they’d say in their cards to my mum, he would have been shocked and stunned and moved.

I wish he could have seen how much people love and care for my mum, as well. He would have been in his element when the plaque honouring their work was unveiled at Wells Youth Hostel, and part of his enjoyment of it would have been the palpable feeling of affection towards my mum.

And there are small things I wish too. I wish he knew Cat went to the best possible home for her, and that his motorbikes (which sat in the garage for at least 20 years irritating the hell out of my mother) went to someone who will appreciate them and love them, and that his clothes went to the Open Christmas and that my mother has determined to always have a vase of flowers in the house for him.

I wish he knew people can still laugh, a lot, when they talk about him. That we still know how frustrating and cross and frankly childish and annoying he could be, and that we still know he had a temper, and that those things make no difference to how much we loved him.

And I wish he could have known – because there is no limit to the smugness he would have felt and to how annoying he would have been about it – how my mum has taken to Quakerism, and how much support and sustenance she has got from it. Actually, that one perhaps I don’t wish he knew. One of the things I’ve found important is remembering how frustrating and cross-making he could be, and he would have driven us all, frankly, insane on that matter.

I wish he knew that I’ve lost my certainty that there is nothing after death. I wish he knew how much I felt him around in the first couple of weeks after he died, and that he knew there was a point in the middle of one night when I knew his spirit, or his soul, or something, wanted to finally go.

But none of those wishes are regrets. We were in the unusually lucky position of having the time, in the knowledge that he was dying, to tell him the things we wanted him to know. The things he doesn’t know are the things that have happened since he died.

But I don’t wish him back. I don’t wish any of it hadn’t happened. I don’t wish any of it had happened differently.

And because I’ve lost my certainty about there being nothing after death, do you know what? In my head, I’m going to revise all the times I’ve said “I wish he knew” and change it to “I hope he knows.”

Summer School Theme Talk

You know you have those moments and incidents and times in your life that you know are going to be good to hold onto when other things are horrible?

This is one of mine:  Summer School 2012 was very, very special.  We did hard spiritual work and loved each other very fully.  And I did a theme talk.  And I did it well and it was one of those times you know you’re where you’re meant to be and doing what you’re meant to do.  

And rather arrogantly, when I hear it now, it makes me proud, smug, and a bit wistful.  

 http://www.hucklowsummerschool.org.uk/audio/ThemeTalk_KateMcKenna_23August2012.mp3

Religion for Atheists (and atheism for the religious), 28th June 2012

We lit the chalice to this:

This candle burns the same for us all.  It lights the room equally for all of us.  It does not care what we believe, what mood we are in, what is on our minds, or who we have come with it.

It burns for us all.

The story was this:

Once upon a time . . .

Once upon a time there was a woman who wanted to know what she was supposed to do with her life.  So she meditated about it.  And one night, after she’d meditated, she fell asleep, and she had a dream that she was walking through a forest.  And she knew that this dream was telling her what to do.

So the next day, she got up and went to the forest, waiting to find an answer to her meditations. 

And as she was walking along, she saw a patch of red fur lying on the ground.  She went closer, and saw that it was a beautiful red fox, lying underneath a tree.  But the poor fox was injured.  She was going to go and look at it more closely, but she heard a rustle in the bushes, and all of a sudden a lion leapt out, with a fish in its mouth. 

The woman was scared, and she hid, in case the lion was going to hurt the fox, or her. 

But what actually happened was that the lion laid the fish down beside the fox, very gently, and went away again.

And the fox ate the fish, and the woman could see that it was getting better very quickly.

And she thought to herself, “well, there’s my answer!  The Great Provider  - who takes care of the injured fox – will also take care of me.  I needn’t do anything.  I will be taken care of, if I just have faith.”

So she went home, and decided to do nothing, and let the great provider take care of her.  She didn’t go to work, she didn’t feed herself, she didn’t get washed, she didn’t do anything.  She had learned, you see, that she’d be taken care of, like the fox was. 

But no friendly lions – or even neighbours – came to help her.  She got hungry, and smelly, and weak, and people avoided her. 

And one night, she had another dream.  She was walking in the forest again, and she saw the Great Provider, who she’d been relying on to look after her.

“Oh Great Provider!” she called out to him, in the dream.  “You took care of the little fox, but you are not taking care of me!  I learnt my lesson when I saw the fox and the lion, and I trusted you to take care of me!”

And the Great Provider replied “You got the lesson wrong though.  I didn’t want you to be the fox.  I wanted you to be the lion.”

The sermon went like this:

Part One (which came after this (or, at least, the actual Wager):  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager)

I hope your headaches have subsided after hearing the details of Pascal’s wager.  It’s going to get worse shortly when we hear the Atheists’ Wager.

Fairly obviously, I got the inspiration for this service from Alain De Boton’s recent work “Religion for Atheists.”  It’s a fairly readable, if not particularly groundbreaking book.  It contains some very good points, though I find it annoying in many ways.  The Guardian, incidentally, calls it an impertinent work.

I don’t think it’s impertinent.  I think it has huge strengths.  It points out that religious practice adds a great deal to the lives of many that is missing in the secular world.  True.  It points out that belonging to a religious community can make people live better, behave better, and co-operate better.  True.  It points out that religious faith formalises difficult situations, brings solace and comfort, and provides a framework for carrying on in the face of adversity.  True.

 But it does so with a sort of underlying assumption that those of us who go to church, those of us who have a religious belief or who enjoy the ritual and formality of church life, do so blindly and unaware of how we’re being led.  And I don’t think that’s fair. 

I realise that I’m talking to the wrong sort of congregation here for any of this to be news.  Almost by definition, you can’t be a Unitarian without having given some thought to what you believe and why, and why you are a Unitarian, and why you come to church, and all of that.  It comes as no surprise to any of us – even the most firmly entrenched atheists – that there is much to gain from religion.  Equally, it should come as no surprise to us – even the most firmly entrenched theists – that there is much to gain from our atheist friends.  After all, those of us who are atheist would hardly be in church at all if we did not have something to gain from it, and those of us who are theist would not be in this church if we were not open to the strengths of non-theists. 

One thing I very much liked about the book is that it’s moved away from the concept that to be atheist is to be anti-religion, and to be religious is anti-atheist.  Unlike Dawkins and his ilk, De Boton seems to have a great respect for religion, if a slightly patronising view of the religious. 

The book has a lot to say to us as Unitarians – a lot of which I think we know already.  I personally like its underlying message that it’s perfectly fine for secularists to steal the bits of religion that they want and that they find useful.  After all, religions – including us – have been nicking stuff off each other for centuries, and it’s enriched them all, so there’s no earthly reason why other people shouldn’t nick it too. 

There’s quite a lot on the internet about what atheists, non-theists, can learn from religion.  It’s a topic that’s been around for many, many years, long before De Boton got his hands on the subject.  What surprised me is that it’s hard to find anything about what the religious can learn from atheism.  I have no real theories about why that might be, but it certainly struck me as notable. 

That’s the book review part out of the way.  After our next hymn I’ll be moving on to talk about what we can do with the messages from the book, and whether there’s really a dialogue to be had between the benefits of believing in God and not believing in God. 

Part Two (which came after this:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheist's_Wager)

I hope you’ve all got that.  I had to stare and stare at it for a long, long time before it started to make sense. 

I want you to imagine, if you can, a Unitarian church where you might go and have someone try to change what you think or believe.  And I want you to imagine that someone at that church had such good powers of persuasion that they were able to do so.

Now I want those of you don’t believe in God to imagine that you become convinced of the logic and sense of believing in God.  And I want those of you who do to imagine that you become convinced of the logic and sense of not believing in God. 

That’s all well and good.  That’s either Pascal’s wager or the Atheists’ Wager working. 

But what’s missing? 

You can follow those theories down to the last full stop.  You can be completely sure that one position of the other is logical. 

And it won’t change a thing.

Because belief – faith – is not the same as rationality. 

As a theist, I often come across people trying to persuade me of why it’s illogical to believe in God.  Why he (she, or it) can’t exist.  Why I’m fooling myself.  Blah blah blah.  And I’m sure it’s just the same in reverse for the non-theists. 

And I am often completely convinced by the arguments of the non-theists who think I have an imaginary friend up in the sky.  It isn’t a logical standpoint.  It doesn’t actually make sense. 

At that has no bearing on my continuing to believe in God.  The fact that I believe in God doesn’t have anything to do with a logical statement, or a conscious decision, or a desire to save myself from going to a hell I don’t even believe in.  I just believe in God.  I can’t conceive of not believing in God.

And in exactly the same way, most atheists and non-theists I know just don’t believe in God.  No conscious decision, no running through a checklist of options and working out which is the most sensible course of action. 

Some people are religious.  Get over it.  Some people aren’t.  Get over that, too. 

I think what tires me about the whole debate about what religious people can offer to non-religious people and what non-religious people can offer to religious people is just that it’s so divisive.  It sets the two groups of people up in opposition – and there’s a difference between believing something opposite and being in opposition. 

If you google atheism, a lot of what you find isn’t actually about atheism.  Instead of being positive about atheism, there’s a tendency to attack religion. And likewise, it’s saddeningly easy to find religious groups attacking and sneering at atheism.  I think my favourite on that front was the synopsis of a book called Jimmie and the atheist:  “Jimmie, caught in his burning home, is saved by an atheist at the risk of his own life.  Jimmie, in turn, is used to bring his benefactor to the Lord Jesus Christ.  Good salvation message.”

It makes me sad that it seems to have to be this way.  We live in a world which is slowly but surely moving away from this sort of thinking.  Society is more and more comfortable with the fact that some people are black and some are white, some are male and some are female, some are gay and some are straight.  We wouldn’t, I hope, dream of seeing an encounter with someone of a different ethnicity as an opportunity to tell them why we are better than them.  And yet we still seem to struggle with this notion that religion and atheism are different but equal. 

Of course, sitting here in our Octagon bubble, we probably do look at this from a slightly different angle.  You can’t be a non-theist Unitarian and not have respect for religion.  You can’t be a theist Unitarian and not have respect for non-theism. 

And there is a risk in that, as well.  If you haven’t already looked at the cartoon on the front of the order of service, have a look now.  I think we need to be mindful of thinking of ourselves as “better than other atheists because some of our best friends are religious,” or vice versa.  I feel qualified to say that there’s this risk, because it’s a trap I sometimes fall into myself.  “Me?  Yes, I’m religious, but I’m not like some other religious people because I love humanists and atheists too, and I even think they may be right.” 

It’s not attractive, it’s not okay, and we really do have to watch out for it. 

Most of the talk about what religion can offer to atheists is about practices, about the things religions do that can offer something do those who don’t adhere to them.  And there’s lots.  Equally, there’s an awful lot that religions can learn from the secular world – perhaps most importantly, what the secular wants and doesn’t want.

But what it really boils down to is what people can offer to other people.  My atheist and non-theist and humanist friends have a huge amount to offer me.  And it’s got very little to do with their atheism or non-theism or agnosticism or humanist.  It has everything to do with the fact that they are my friends.  I try very hard not to go round choosing friends based on what they can offer me, anyway – I prefer to make friends with people because I like them and they like me – but it would be utterly absurd to sort of decide I should have an atheist in my life because I might be able to learn from them.  I don’t want to be friends with someone because they think my faith makes me interesting, either. 

Each of us here has a huge amount to offer to everyone else who is here.  Not because of what we do or don’t believe, and not because of who or what we do or don’t believe in, just because every single human being has a huge amount to offer to every single other human being. 

And if we really do believe in equality, and I hope we do, then it gives me hope for a world in which we won’t need to come up with theories about what religion can offer atheists, or what atheists can offer to religion, any more than we need to come up with theories about what people of colour can offer to white people, or what straight people can offer to gay people. 

We sang:

All are welcome here. 

Heritage

Others call it God

For the splendour of creation

The spoken prayers went like this:

Please join with me now in a time of prayer and reflection.

Put down anything you’re holding on to, and make yourself physically comfortable. 

Relax your body, and let yourself settle into the quietness of this time. 

And now let us join our hearts and minds in the quiet of meditation and prayer.

How shall we pray?

First, let us be open to the silence. Let us hear the sounds in this room, and the noises outside. Let us begin to hear the soft beating of our hearts. And let us listen intently for messages from within.

Next, let us feel gratitude for our lives and for our beautiful earth. As hard as life gets, as sad or lonely as we sometimes feel, let us always be warmed by the gifts of this life.

Next, let us hold in our hearts all those, known or unknown who are in need. May we find in ourselves the energy and knowledge to bring care to the world.

And finally, let us be aware of the blessing that it is not ours alone to do the work of the world. Love and community work wonders that we by ourselves could never manage.

In this time of silence let us form our own prayers out of the concerns of our hearts.

Amen