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

For All The Saints. October 31st 2010.

We heard this: 

Sweet Honey in the Rock: Breaths

I think we’re clear that today is a very special day in the Pagan calendar. 

And we can’t have missed, if we’ve been out in public in the last few weeks, that it’s also a hugely important event in the retail year.  It might just be me, but I genuinely do think that the huge commercialisation of Halloween is a very recent thing.  And if I’m old enough to say that, I’m also old enough to start the next sentence with “in my day . . . “ 

In my day, I only remember occasional apple-bobbing and maybe a toffee apple.  I remember being a bit surprised, even ten years ago, on a trip to the states, at how much you could buy to mark Halloween. 

The Guardian recently said that more money is spent on merchandise for Halloween than for any other non-religious festival.  That’s one of those facts that, at first, made me say “gosh”, and then made me go “but hang on . . .”.  Because, of course, Halloween, or Samhain is a religious festival to very many people. 

But a lot of religious people reject it entirely.  A friend of mine, an evangelical Anglican minister, a very lovely and calm man, became quite vitriolic on the subject, and told me he hated Halloween.  Because Halloween, to many mainstream Christians, is evil.  Not just non-Christian, but actually an embodiment of evil.  The argument seems to run something like this:  if Halloween is Satan’s Christmas, or a celebration of Satan, or Satan’s Birthday, then celebrating it is, obviously, wrong and harmful.

Well yes.  If. 

But that’s an argument which, to me, is up there with “if we had some eggs we could have ham and eggs, if only we had any ham.”

Because except for in a very few, small, instances, nobody, so far as I can tell, actually thinks that’s what Halloween is.  There may be an argument that Satanists celebrate that day in that way, but frankly, and maybe I’m being a little rude here:  firstly I can’t take Satanism that seriously; secondly, it seems to be a ’faith’ followed mainly by teenagers wanting to be ‘radical’ and annoy their parents; and thirdly, frankly, there are so few of them that they don’t pose much danger. 

And that’s apart from the fact that I don’t, in any case, believe in Satan. 

But what happens, I think, is that a lot of mainstream believers – either wilfully or subconsciously – confuse Satanism in their minds with Paganism and other Earth-Spirit faiths.  That’s not only inaccurate, it’s also very offensive to Pagans. 

And I’m sure we haven’t missed out on the fact that today also marks a major festival in the Christian calendar.  Today is the eve of All Saints Day – or All Hallows Day.  All Saints Day was, traditionally, a sort of mopping-up day for all those saints who didn’t have a special festival of their own.  It was much needed:  there were far more than 365 saints, so something had to be done to stop the others feeling left out, I suppose.

The day, then, was for the celebration of Christian Saints:  those rare and holy people beatified by the church and given a special status.  Those considered nearer to God.  Those who were, literally, holier than us. 

Living in Norwich, of course, we have no shortage of Saints’ names to revel in.  Personally, I live opposite the magnificently named St Etheldreda’s, which is one of my favourite saints’ names.  I also pass, on my way to chapel, St Peter Parmentergate, St Simon and St Jude (I always liked churches with a double dedication!), and seven others, either with less grand names, or ones I don’t know. 

And All Saints, of course, is also known as All Hallows:  the celebration of all those who are hallowed – all those who are holy. 

Now, that’s a word we often shy away from in Unitarianism.  It’s nearly up there with “God” in making us get a bit uncomfortable.  However, as you probably know, I’m on the religious end of our glorious Unitarian spectrum, so work with me here, and if you’re not comfortable with the word ‘Holy’, translate it in your head to something you can engage with a bit more easily.

And my theory is that we are all, every one of us, holy.  Every single living being – every living being who ever is or ever was – is especially holy, especially blessed, especially magnificent. 

Every single one of us.  You, me, your every ancestor, everyone you’ve met who’s had an effect on you, everyone you’ve never met who’s had an effect on you.  Everyone, in fact, ever.  Whether you are conscious of their existence or not. 

All holy.  All special.  All hallowed.

As well as giving us the chance to celebrate our own sanctity, tomorrow is, in many traditions – Christian as well as Earth Spirit – held apart for celebrating the lives of our ancestors. 

In many cultures, most famously Mexico, it is held as El Dia de los Muertos – the day of the dead.  It’s a day for remembering and honouring your ancestors.  People visit the graves of relatives and loved ones, often taking gifts with them:  flowers, or the dead person’s favourite foods, alcohol, or, for children, toys.  One of the things I love about this tradition, is that the offerings are not then left on the grave.  You take your late relatives favourite food and drinks to their grave, and you gather, and you party, and you eat their favourite food for them. 

This is not, you’ll have noticed, a Northern European way of dealing with death.  We come from a culture where we sanitise death and the rites surrounding it – I’m probably not the only person who is actually slightly disturbed when the earth with which a grave is to be filled is covered in Astroturf to shield us from the reality of what we are doing. 

What is perhaps most remarkable about the marking of the Dia de los Muertos is its celebratory nature.  It’s not a day for mourning your dead, although grief is always a part of it: it is a day for celebrating their lives, their influence on you, the joy they brought to you, and perhaps, the light that shone through them.  It’s a party, celebrating those who have gone before.  It’s their day. 

I think we have something to learn from this attitude. 

Today then, is an important day.  Even for those of us who are grinchy about trick or treating, and who curl up in embarrassment at the very thought of fancy dress, there are reasons to celebrate today. 

The earth, and the wheel of the year, are turning very noticeably now.  Especially with today coinciding with the clocks going back we can’t deny any longer that despite some stunning weather recently, it’s pretty much now winter.  Celebrate that.

You are holy and special.  Celebrate that.

Sometimes it’s fun to carve faces in pumpkins and bob for apples and tell ghost stories.  Celebrate that.

And you are here today because of those who came before you.  And they were holy and special.  Perhaps that’s what we should celebrate most today. 

February 2010 – It’s Called Love – A Service to Mark LGBT History Month.

               

A baby girl is born, and a baby boy is born, and the baby girl grows up into a young woman, and the baby boy grows up into a young man, and they meet, and fall in love.  

It’s called love.

And sometimes, a baby girl is born, and another baby girl is born, and they both grow up into young women, and they meet, and fall in love.  

It’s called love.

And sometimes a baby girl is born, and a baby boy is born, and they both grow up into young men, and they meet, and fall in love.  

It’s called love.

And sometimes a baby boy is born, and another baby boy is born, and one of them grows up into a young woman and one of them grows up into a young man, and they meet, and fall in love.  

A child is born, and another child is born, and they grow up, and they meet, and fall in love.  

It’s called love. 

It’s called love. 

 Not long after I’d started coming to the Octagon, probably around the time I had my membership service, after which I vowed I would never, ever stand at the lectern again, I realised that there was an issue I was going to have to confront.  I’d been around long enough to pick up on some of the general principles of the place, knew what the atmosphere was like, and felt that – although it mightn’t be popular, although I might be judged, although it might alter how people perceived me – it would be safe.  Secrets, after all, are generally corrosive, and if Unitarians have a trinity, it’s freedom, reason, and tolerance.  So with that in mind, I pulled all my courage together, stood up here at the front, put my faith in God and in Unitarian acceptance, and stated, out, and reasonably proud, that I really really don’t like gardening.   

People have been very understanding. 

But joking aside – here’s the point:  it’s that random, it’s that arbitrary, and that incidental that I’m also in a same-sex relationship.  And fortunately, on the whole, I think that’s how most Unitarians, and certainly most of the congregation here, see the whole issue.  It’s something about me.  It’s not who or what I am.  One of the things that first attracted me and my former partner  to the Octagon, and made us stay, was that from the start, no-one was actually particularly interested in the fact that we were  a same-sex couple.  We have never felt like ‘the lesbian couple’, and sexuality has never been an issue. 

I have never been specifically proud of being a lesbian (this, dear reader, was several years ago before I started defining as bisexual), any more than I’m proud of having brown hair or being left-handed.  But at LGBT pride last year (that’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender pride), I was enormously proud of Unitarianism and the Octagon.  Although we’re growing hugely, we’re still not that big a congregation, but there were still at least fifteen people there from the Octagon.  And I’m pretty sure I can safely say ours was the only banner to be carried by a Sunday School.  And the attitude in which people attended Pride wasn’t one of needing to be seen to be supportive of a minority, it was one of wanting to join the celebration of diversity. 

Unitarians have a long and proud tradition of acceptance of ‘the other’.  The first female Unitarian minister, Gertrude Von Petzold, was accepted into ministry in 1904.  We weren’t the first  - various other non-conformist denominations have also been fully accepting of women ministers for centuries.  But we were in the advance guard, at least. 

And the General Assembly of Unitarians and Free Christians (the GA) carried a resolution back in 1977 stating that  This General Assembly resolves that the Ministry of this denomination be open to all – regardless of sex, race, colour, or sexual orientation.

In 1984 it declared its belief that the age of consent for homosexuals should be the same as that for heterosexuals. 

In 2000 it declared that it called upon the GA Council actively to work for the equal acceptance of lesbians and gay men in all walks of society.

And in 2008 it called for marriages and civil partnerships in England and Wales to be on an equal footing.

There are omissions here, which you will probably have spotted.  There is no mention of bisexuality, and no mention of those with a gender history:  those who are or were transgendered, and those who have gender dysphoria.  I don’t claim to know why that is omitted in our history and in our resolutions, and I’m bound to admit it troubles me.  I do think though, that, on the whole, most Unitarians accept gender as it is, and that that might go some way to explain the omission.  But it doesn’t excuse it.  The banner that we carried at Pride last year proclaims that Unitarians Celebrate the Diversity of Creation, and I know that that is intended as a fully inclusive statement.  But statements need to be stated, not implied, and that is something the denomination needs to be aware of. 

Unitarians, then, with some caveats, have a history of openness and right thinking on matters around gender and sexuality.  But it’s safe to say that many other mainstream denominations – within Christianity, within other Abrahamic faiths and in some non-Abrahamic faiths – don’t have such a shining history. 

Some, of course, wear their homophobia with distressing – and horrifying – pride.  The followers of Christ Jesus at Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas base their whole theology on overt, hateful homophobia.  These people – who, it is vital to state, are not affiliated with any known Baptist associations – have as their core mission the eradication of homosexuality and all who support it. 

Westboro aims to spread the word of God and the love of Jesus by picketing funerals.  Their favourites are the funerals of LGBT people who have died as a result of violence or AIDS. 

In 1998, when 21-year old Matthew Shepard was beaten, tortured and left tied to a fence to die, by men who had told their girlfriends that they wanted to rob a gay man, Westboro celebrated.  In the name of Jesus and of God, this church which thinks that LGBT people and those who support us are abominations, celebrated over the death by torture of a young man. 

But judging Christianity because there is Westboro church is hugely unfair.  If you take the extreme edges of any movement, you have no means of telling what happens in the centre.  Most Christians, most right-thinking people of faith,  I think it’s fair to say, despair at Westboro’s views.  To some extent, their opinions are so extreme that they almost do less harm than the less overt homophobia at play in some churches. 

And within Christianity, it’s fair to say that there is genuine struggle about the issues.  The Anglican Community has itself completely tied in knots, but mostly they seem to be doing their best to act with love and compassion.  Most moderate Anglicans, to be fair, seem to want the church to get over this issue, and get on with worshipping God.  And I think they probably will, but I don’t think it will be very soon. 

Gene Robinson, the Episcopalian Bishop of New Hampshire, and the first openly gay man to become a bishop in the Anglican Communion, feels that the church should stop waiting for a consensus on the issue of homosexuality.  He states, and apparently said to Rowan Williams, that all the great steps towards justice have been the result of somehow finding the courage to do the right thing, and then thinking it through later – not the other way round.  If we’d waited, he says, for everyone to agree about civil rights, there would still be separate drinking fountains for blacks and whites.

The track record of mainstream churches hasn’t always been great.  Many LGBT people have been made to feel unwelcome, expected to put up with being tolerated, or deliberately ejected.  And the LGBT community has been wounded by this, and continues to be wounded. 

It’s been suggested that in doing a service for LGBT history month, I should take the opportunity to apologise on behalf of the church to the LGBT community.  I won’t do that.  I can’t apologise for something I didn’t do, that would be entirely empty.  Twenty-first century Unitarians can’t apologise for what 19^th Century Anglicans did, or even for what 20^th Century Unitarians did.  Nobody from one culture in one time can truly apologise for what happened in another. 

What I can do, what we can do, what we must do, is look at what we’re doing now that people may be asked to apologise for in another 200 years.  It’s unlikely that any of us can have an entirely clear conscience about every aspect of our lives.  If any of our actions support bigotry and discrimination, ever, and it’s likely they do, then we should be mindful of what we can do to prevent it. 

Something else needs to happen, as well.  The church needs to continue in its struggle to accept and celebrate diversity, and even us Unitarians, self-congratulatory though we could be, aren’t completely there yet.  But the other thing that needs to happen is that the LGBT community needs to become more accepting of the church, of religion, and of people of faith in general. 

Clearly, most people within the LGBT community will probably never become churchgoers, and that’s mainly because most people will never become churchgoers.  But there is can be an assumption that we won’t be welcome, that church isn’t for us, that people of faith will see us as a problem, an issue, an ‘other’.  No one wants to go where they’re simply tolerated.  But the simple fact is that, although there are still many – perhaps the majority – of churches where that is the case, there are also many, and increasing, where it isn’t.  And that situation will only continue to improve if the LGBT community lets itself start to heal and lets the churches start to help that healing.  And even amongst LGBT Unitarians, there is sometimes a feeling of oppression. 

Gene Robinson says that LGBT people of faith need to do three things.  Firstly, he recommends that those who have left their faith community go back.  Or, if that’s not possible or comfortable, at least find a new spiritual home.  He says “your religion needs your support, your witness.  And the LGBT community needs the support of the religions that have traditionally condemned it.” Secondly, he recommends being willing to pay the price for moving forward.  “Instead of giving up on our religious communities, let’s think about taking the risks and bearing the burdens of transforming them.”  And thirdly, he says, come out!  Come out as a person of faith to your friends in the LGBT community, which, he points out, may very well be harder than coming out as gay to your straight friends. 

And what about that other G word?  What about God?  Quite apart from not liking gardening, having brown hair, and being in a same-sex relationship, I also do believe in God.  This is by no means universal within Unitarianism, I don’t believe in the God of the picture-bible, not the bearded man on a cloud, and the harps, and the angels, but I do believe in a creative spirit, a divine force, in something above and beyond the human experience.  I call that God.  And generally, I call God “him”, which is not to imply that I think God has any human attributes or that God is in any way male.  But “him” works for me. 

I can only speak for myself, and clearly, I’m biased, but I cannot conceive of a God who does not celebrate and rejoice in love.  Insofar as the God in whom I believe is a personal God – a god who can or could intervene in the lives of individuals – I cannot imagine him having as many concerns about what gender the person we love is, and what sex they were born into, as he does about how fully we love, how wholehearted our passions are, how much we’re prepared to risk for love and how much we’re prepared to hurt for love. 

The bible may screw us up in knots about this issue.  Fundamentalists may insist that the Bible is clear here, that homosexuality is inherently wrong.  It is one part of the bible on which they won’t be shifted.  But their answer to the questions Bruce posed in his reading is often – on other matters – that times have changed, that the bible was written in a specific time and place and culture.  It was.  And if there’s flexibility, and doubt, and change, and the possibility of a wavery line in translations, then that goes for the whole of the Bible.  And God, it is often said, and sung, is love.  And if God is love, then there is no doubt in my mind that God loves love. 

Take away the politics, take away the many and various possible interpretations of some of the bible passages, and what you’re left with is people loving each other.  No matter the gender of the people you love, no matter the gender history of the people you love, no matter your own gender history.  What’s important is to love wholly, to love courageously, and to love proudly.

There’s a name for behaving like that.

It’s called love.

Amen. 

One of our readings was from John Fortunato, and it went like this: 

From Embracing the Exile

[John Fortunato talks of planning a ceremony to bless his relationship with his partner, in Washington DC in, probably, the seventies.  His church were hugely supportive, but the press found out and had a field day.  John was abandoned by his family, lost his job, and was violently harassed by strangers]. 

He says:  One night, I got up, and I sat in the dark and meditated.  And then I had a vision.  I know, that’s crazy.  It was all my imagination, right?  Well, maybe it was, but I had a vision.  I imagined something. 

I imagined I was sitting there, and God was sitting there, right in front of me.  It was very peaceful.  I was saying, “You know, sometimes,  I think they’re right, that being gay is wrong.”  God smiled, and said quietly “How can love be wrong?  It all comes from me.” 

“Sometimes, I just want to bury that part of myself,” I said, “just pretend it isn’t real.”

“But I made you whole,” God replied.  “You are one as I am one.  I made you in my image.”  I knew he was trying to soothe me, but I’d been through months of good Christian folk trying to ram down my throat that I was an abomination, so all this acceptance was getting me very frustrated. 

“Your church out there says that you don’t love me.  They say that I’m lost, damned to hell.”

“You’re my son,” said God, in way both gentle and yet so firm that there could be no doubt of his genuineness.  “Nothing can separate you from my love.” 

“But what do I do with them?”

And in the same calm voice, God said “I’ve given you gifts.  Share them.  I’ve given you light.  Brighten the world.  I empower you with my love.  Love them.”

That did it.  After all I had been through, I’d had it with sweet words.  “Love them?  What are you trying to do to me?  Can’t you see?  They call my light darkness!  They call my love perverted!  They call my gifts corruptions!  What the hell are you asking me to do?”

“Love them anyway,”  he said, “love them anyway.”

“Love them anyway?” I moaned.  “But how?”

“You begin by just being who you are.  A loving, caring, whole person, created in my image, whose special light of love happens to fall on men, as I intended for you.  You must also speak your pain and affirm the wholeness I’ve made you to be when they assail it.  You must protest when you are treated as less than a child of mine.  You must go out and teach them.  And assure them by word, and work, and example,  that my love is boundless, and that I am with them always.”

“You know they won’t listen to me,” I said with resignation, “They’ll despise me.  They’ll call me a heretic and laugh me to scorn.  They’ll persecute and torment me.  They’ll try to destroy me.  You know they will, don’t you?”

God’s face saddened.  And then God said, softly, “Oh yes, I know.  How well I know.  Love them anyway.”

Freedom, 1st July 2007

This service was from a long long time ago, it seems.  Before, frankly, I was very good at all!  But I decided to put really old stuff here as well, because progress is progress.

We lit the chalice – obviously.  But I didn’t write the words down that we used . . . did I mention it was a very long time ago?

The story was this:

http://archive.uua.org/re/reach/teaching/children_story.html

The sermon went like this:

This morning seems a good morning to be talking about Freedom (as if there were ever a morning which isn’t), given that it’s the first day of “smoke free England”.  There is, of course, a view that this new legislation is a curtailment of smokers’ rights.  But there is also a view – and it’s mine – that’s it’s a declaration of the rights of non-smokers. In fact, far be it from me to use this as a forum for gloating, but “hurrah”!

And that’s – if you’ll excuse the slightly stretched and obscure pun – the rub.  Like so many any other issues about freedom, it’s not a universal liberation.  Right or wrong, fair or not, in the interests of public health or just in the cause of a nanny state, some people are now unable to do something they could do this time yesterday.  Freedom is seldom without a price.

The reading Helaina shared with us is from Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.  If you haven’t read it, read it.  I will try not to spoil the plot too much: as well as being a horrifying, sobering read, it is a brilliantly crafted read.  Written in 1985, The Handmaid’s Tale is set in the Republic of Gilead, in what is now Massachusetts, in a then-future late twentieth century. 

The name Gilead is, of course, biblical, and refers – amongst other things to the hymn that says “There is a balm in Gilead that makes the spirit whole.  There is a balm in Gilead that heals the sin-sick soul”.  Society in Gilead is based on a bastardised version of a selection of bible passages, dissent is punishable by death; women’s rights have been suddenly and catastrophically removed, and the enforcement of rigid social roles is swift and sickeningly severe.  Women are no longer allowed to work or to own money.  These changes happen suddenly, with women being sent home from work and their bank accounts being transferred to their husbands, fathers or partners.  Other changes happen slowly – as the protagonist says “nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub you’d be boiled to death before you knew it”. 

Women’s fertility has also become a matter of state regulation.  All fertile women (for in the book there are precious few of them) become ‘handmaids’ and are assigned to a high ranking male official, and their one role in life is to bear him children.  If they fail to do so, they are exiled to the colonies, where, like other infertile women they die a slow and painful death.  There are, of course, other roles for women:  wives, “marthas”, who are domestic servants, and daughters.  There is no movement between roles, and every item of a woman’s clothing denotes her rank.  Handmaids wear red robes, with wings to prevent eye contact.  Every aspect of life is ruled and regulated – conversations are limited to platitudes, the only entertainment available is public executions and – more rarely – public birthings. 

Nearly as horrifically to most of us, all form of reading matter is banned.  Not just magazines, or books, or anything-except-the-bible, but all reading matter.  Shops no longer have names, just pictures of what they sell.  The protagonist finds a cushion, embroidered with the word “faith”, and this becomes her greatest treasure, not because of the illegal luxury of softness, but because of the illegal luxury of words.   

What is perhaps most frightening about Atwood’s dystopian vision is that none of it is entirely made up.  There is nothing in the novel, from public participation in executions to a warped allegiance to a deliberately biased form of the bible that cannot be traced to some real civilisation. 

But what is also frightening is that Atwood manages to make some aspects of the regime attractive.  Certainly, the first time I read the book, at about 18, I didn’t find it entirely negative.  The order, the surface calm, the assigned roles, the lack of responsibility to do anything other than what you are told, all hold a certain charm. 

There is, indeed, a balm in Gilead, for those who chose to accept blindly, although it would be a stretch to say that it either makes the wounded whole or heals a sin-sick soul.  The film version, a few years later, is certainly visually stunning, and if you can ignore the underlying brutality, it is easy to swallow the promise of “freedom from”.  And I think we can all sometimes be guilty of allowing ourselves to ignore the underlying brutality.

Because “freedom from” is a very tempting proposition.  I think at some level we would all like to be free from responsibility, to be free from having to decide, to have someone tell us that if we do so-and-so we will be fine and safe and rewarded.  Freedom from can certainly be easier.  I have always been, on one level, slightly envious of people who can just swallow a dogma whole and live by it.  Although, intellectually, we know that mind control is a bad thing, that brainwashing is wrong and that cults – religious or otherwise – are dangerous, there must be something to be said for having your every decision made for you, your every belief fed to you and your every question answered for you.

Just think of all the decisions you’ve had the freedom to make, just this morning, just up to now.  When, and indeed whether, to wake up; whether to get up then, or turn over for five more minutes or an hour or the rest of the day; what to have for breakfast, or not to have breakfast; tea, or coffee, or juice – herbal, fruit, earl grey or bog standard – cup or mug, milk or not, sugar or not; whether to leave the empty cup on the table, or stack it for later, or wash it up.  Whether to put the TV on, or the radio, or some music, or nothing.  Whether to shower, bath or wash at the sink, whether to wash your hair, what soap or shampoo or shower gel or perfume to wear.  What clothes to put on.  Whether to iron them, or wear yesterday’s, or wear whatever’s clean or worry about the holes in them or whether you wore the same thing last week.  Whether to come to church or not.  Whether to leave on time, or a bit late.  Whether you really need your coat, or your umbrella.  Which route to use to get here.  Whether to listen to music on your journey, or talk to someone, or think, or let your mind drift, or make a shopping list in your head.  Where to sit.  Who to chat to, or whether to chat to anyone.  Whether to help light the chalice, whether to light a candle, whether it should be a joy or a concern.  Whether to join in the hymns, whether to sing the melody or a harmony.  Whether to join in with the prayers and meditations, or to think your own thoughts or to pray your own prayers.  Whether to listen to the technical mastery of the musical interlude, or let the feelings wash over you, or chatter, or meditate or think or ignore it. 

And that’s just a couple of hours’ worth of decisions we were all free to make.  Stretch those decisions out over a day, then a week, then a month and a year and a lifetime, and our freedom is really quite mind-boggling.  It is, as the Ralph Waldo Emerson said “awful to look into the mind of man and see how free we are” – bearing in mind that when Emerson was writing, awful meant “full of awe”, not “bad”. 

Those are exactly the sorts of freedoms that the protagonist of The Handmaid’s Tale gets the most emotional about.  She talks clinically about the lack of financial freedom, and with a perhaps necessary detachment about her role as a child bearer for another woman’s husband, but with loss and hurt and love about postcards and the ability to write on them. 

It is not for nothing that the highest form of state sanction in this country – and to my mind, any country that dares to call itself civilized – is the removal of freedom.  The worst punishment a court can hand down in the UK, is that of imprisonment.  And whatever the arguments about lengths of sentences, and ease of life in today’s prisons, and whether prison even works, one thing is clear to me – that convicted criminals are sent to prison as a punishment, not to be punished.  The lack of freedom is the punishment.  Almost every one of those daily freedoms I’ve listed is removed from almost all prisoners.

And it’s not only in the legal and penal system that removal of freedom is that last resort – anyone who is deemed to need psychiatric treatment against their will is subject to a very thorough assessment before it can be decided – by a panel of people including medical staff, psychiatric staff and social workers – that they should have their liberty removed.  It is never something which is done lightly, although, like convictions and imprisonment, it is too often done wrongly or unjustly. 

Those small daily freedoms we have may seem trivial.  But their very triviality is what makes them precious.  I am aware that I’ve not mentioned the history of slavery and abolition, or modern day slavery, or sex trafficking or sweatshops or economic or political freedom.  Those subjects are too huge to cover here, and need services of their own.  Some are soon to have them. 

So, where does our Unitarianism fit in all this?  We are certainly not offered the freedom from responsibility and freedom from decision-making I mentioned earlier.  We cannot come and sit here, Sunday after Sunday, in the calm and trusting knowledge that we are being told what is right and true and eternal.  We can’t come and sit here and be told what to do and what not to do and where to go and who to trade with and who to associate with and know that if we go along with that we’ll be okay in this world and more importantly in another one.  It would be categorically impossible to believe in or agree with everything everyone says who stands up here.  We would have to be able to hold directly contradictory opinions at the same time.  If we have a moral or theological or spiritual problem or issue to discuss, we cannot turn to our book of dogma and find an answer, or turn to an ordained leader and be given an answer.

Unitarianism offers us freedom from other things – freedom from the expectation to believe in things we may find hard to swallow, freedom from the obligation to believe the same thing consistently, freedom from an expectation that we will trust anyone’s word and experience as being more valid than our own.  And it offers us freedom to as well: freedom to think, and to reason, and to come to our own conclusions and form our own beliefs  - and crucially, to express those conclusions and beliefs; freedom to doubt and to be discouraged and to get fed up and to disagree; freedom to participate in whatever way we feel comfortable, freedom to be busy and active or to simply participate by being here. 

But those freedoms are also responsibilities.  If we have freedom of choice, and freedom of thought and freedom of belief, then I believe we have a responsibility to use them.  I won’t say to use them wisely, because we can never know until afterwards whether we’ve chosen wisely or not.  We are lucky enough to live in a society with a relatively well functioning democracy, and in which we are entitled to vote.  It is foolish of us not to, or at least, if we don’t, to have a good reason not to.  It is also, given the sacrifices that have been made to win the vote – and not just for women – rather rude.  By the same token, we are fortunate – or wise, or brave – enough to have found our spiritual or worshipping home here, and it would be foolish and irresponsible of us to throw that away by not, at least, ensuring that we do think our own thoughts and find our own beliefs. 

We are all, I hope, aware of the evils of slavery and oppression and totalitarianism and imprisonment and restrictions on religious expression.  And we are all, I hope, aware of the blessing and grace that is our freedom from those evils.  But I am aware that I, for one, am not always fully conscious and appreciative of the tiny, trivial freedoms that I enjoy and that others do not.  And I believe that it would do none of us any harm to start looking at those freedoms and enjoying them consciously.

We sang:

Life that maketh all things new.

We shall be strong and free

Faith of the free

For the healing of the nations

With joy we claim the growing light

Our readings were:

From Trainspotting, John Hodge:

Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing junk food into your mouth. Choose your future.  Choose life          

From A Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

In returning my pass, the guard bends his head to try to look at my face. 

I raise my head a little, to help him, and he sees my eyes, and I see his, and he blushes. He is the one who turns away. 

It’s an event.  A small defiance of rule, so small as to be undetectable, but such moments are the rewards I hold out for myself, like the candy I hoarded as a child, at the back of a drawer. 

Such moments are possibilities, tiny peepholes.

It’s hotel rooms I miss.  The fresh towels, the wastebaskets gaping their invitations.  I was careless, in those rooms.  There were postcards, with pictures on them, and you could write on the postcards and send them to anyone you wanted.  It seems like such an impossible thing now, like something you’d make up.

I think about laundromats.  What I wore to them: shorts, jeans, jogging pants.  What I put into them: my own clothes, my own soap, my own money, money I had earned myself. 

I think about having such control. 

There is more than one kind of freedom, said Aunt Lydia.  Freedom to, and freedom from. 

In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to.  Now you are being given freedom from.  Don’t underrate it.

                                 

And from Ralph Waldo Emerson:

 My life is a May game.  I will live as I like.  I defy your strait-laced, weary, social ways and modes.  Blue is the sky, green the fields and groves, fresh the springs, glad the rivers, and hospitable the splendour of sun and star.  I will play my game out.  And if any shall say me nay, shall come out with swords and staves against me, come and welcome.  I will not look grave for such a fool’s matter.  I cannot lose my cheer for such trumpery.  Life is a May game still.

Freedom is necessary.  If you please to plant yourself on the side of Fate and say, Fate is all, then we say, a part of fate is the freedom of man.  Forever wells up the impulse of choosing and acting in the soul.  Intellect annuls fate.  So far as a man thinks, he is free.

It is awful to look into the mind of man and see how free we are, to what frightful excesses our vices may run under the whited wall of a respectable reputation.  Outside, among your fellows, among strangers, you must preserve appearance, a hundred things you cannot do; but inside, the terrible freedom!

 There were spoken prayers and a benediction, but neither of them were orginal and I can’t find them, so they’re not here!