Father Bloom

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"To learn, one must be humble. But life is the great teacher" A quote from James Joyce's book Ulysses, a tale that takes place over a single day - the 16th June - celebrated as 'Bloomsday'. Our Service today reflected on Fathers' Day, Ulysses, our rebellious streaks as teenagers, disobeying our fathers and, perhaps, our God.  The text of our reflection is below, or click the link at the top of the post for a SoundCloud recording of it.

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To learn, one must be humble,

But life is the great teacher

It is a quote from James Joyce’s book, Ulysses.  Ulysses is a long book, a novel, which supposedly takes place over a single day, the 16^th June 1904.  The story chronicles a day in Dublin as the main character, Leopold Bloom, goes about his business.

It is not an easy book.  Joyce himself claimed to have deliberately placed numerous puzzles and enigmas in the book to ensure professors debated and argued over it for decades to come.  And they do.

It contains numerous styles.  It is sometimes a pastiche of contemporary pot-boiler romantic novels.  It has passages that are streams of consciousness; one chapter manages just seven sentences, over 35 pages.  It has sections, or episodes, that are plays.  It is funny, it is sad, it is controversial.  It has been placed in the top 10 of many, many best book lists.

And, despite all this, hardly anyone I have met has actually read it.

It is the book to talk about reading.  It sells numerous copies. Many, I suspect, remain unread.

I have a copy.  In fact, I think I have two copies.  I have never read it all the way through.  I’ve read most of it, I think, in stages and out of sequence.  But I cannot really claim to have read it all.

And I was left puzzling and exasperated after many parts of it.

Writing this sermon, and reflecting on the importance of the book, has inspired me to try again. 

But don’t hold your breath.

When I was growing up, Ulysses was seen as a bit of a status symbol.  The cool kids had read it (well, the kids I saw as cool anyway).  They liked independent bands, the boys wore long woollen overcoats, the girls had berets.  They had read Ulysses.

Apparently.

I now wonder how many had really read it after all.  Although I suspect some did.

Yet to be thought of as one who had read Ulysses was to be unapproachable by mere mortals such as I.  Such people were truly wise to the world.  In my eyes.

 

My father has not, I think I can safely say, read Ulysses.  But further than that, I’m fairly sure he doesn’t necessarily wish he had either.  The status symbol of the intellectual bookist is not something my father has spent time pursuing.

I doubt many fathers do.  Fathers have other things to do.  They have children to care for and feed.  They have houses and gardens to maintain.  They have jobs to do, cars to wash, ceilings to paint, fences to mend, plugs to wire, shelves to balance, lawns to cut.

I know some of you are now thinking, “well, mothers and non-parents do those things to”

Yes, you’re right.  But it’s father’s day, and that’s where my focus lies for now.

There are stereotypical images of fatherhood, that may or may not coincide with your own experience, with which we understand the term ‘father’.

  

Fathers are cool until you reach your teens.  Then they stop being cool.  And do not recover that position for many years hence.  If at all.

Just as we all have mothers, we all have fathers.  We cannot all be fathers.  But we all had one.

And I would be foolish to suggest that we all have perfectly wonderful memories or knowledge of our fathers.  That can never be the case.  Fathers are human beings; fathers are as fragile and likely to do wrong as any other person in the world.  Fathers make mistakes.  Fathers can be bad, they can be good.  They can be rich, they can be poor.  Yet they are all fathers.

Yet, in religious terms, certainly for those coming from the Christian tradition, the notion of ‘Father’ is the way that God has been described.  How can this be?  Are we claiming our God is like our real father?  Or is our real father seen as a God-like figure?

I wonder if it isn’t a bit of both at times.

In the Hebrew Bible, in the book of Genesis, we are told that God made humans in his own image.  Now, whilst it is not factually true, and ignoring the male-dominated religious story-telling aspect, I see this as a positive approach to trying to understand our relationship with our God.

We are made in God’s image.  So, logically, we are like God, and God is like us.

A bit like our fathers really.  We are also made by them, in their own image. 

And perhaps the way we treat our fathers bears some resemblance to the way we treat our Gods, however that God might be to you.  Is this perhaps the message the writer of the myths of Creation was trying to express.

For each of us, God is different.  You may not even know your God by that name.  Yet almost all of us will have a notion of something bigger than all of us.  A supernatural God of some form, or the unexplainable idea of and Eternal Spirit, or the unifying spirit of humanity, or love, or the Universe.  Whichever or whatever you might experience and express your God, there will I am sure be times when you are overawed, and other time where you forget to remember you God, and you start to feel, intentionally or not, that you know better than your God.  Your decisions and actions are determined by yourself, even if you know deep down that they are not the most worthy actions you might take.

The influence of your father has waned.  You are now the teenager, rebelling against all you have been told is right and true in this world.

This rebellion against our God can take many directions.  Yet I suspect we are all aware of our own failings at times.  Those moments when we have acted in a way that we know, deep down, is wrong.  It may have been in response to another person’s actions.  It may have been against someone – perhaps even speaking badly to them.

Or it may have been different.  We can all be guilty of trying to balance in our minds the often reckless pursuit of the latest consumer gadget or must-have, desperately pushing aside that nagging voice that tells us to think a little more deeply about whether we really need it, or perhaps whether we should put up with the inconvenience of a ten-minute walk to the station rather than drive somewhere.

We all do it.  Well, I certainly do.

In our first reading, Mr Patton’s Message, by Kaaren Solveig Anderson, we heard of the wonderful music teacher that finally loses his rag and explains some cold, hard facts of peaceful living to the assembled children.  Despite having tried to lead them carefully and through the medium of proper band conducting, he finally gives in to his anger and tells the seventh grade band a few home truths about life.

Mr Patton is, to my mind, the exasperated father figure. The one we know is there, we sort of respect, but we think we can ignore when it suits us. 

A father-like figure.

Perhaps a God-like figure.

Mr Patton is there to be ignored.  The children all know better.  They are of course learning, but they each of them know themselves to be slightly better than their peers.  And certainly better than Mr Patton.  After all, he’s just got a baton.  A stick.  The children have real instruments and can make a beautiful noise.

Except they can’t really.

They are so engrossed in the personal story they fail to see the importance of the guide to life.  They are so engrossed, they fail to see their friends.  They fail to understand that the better approach to life is to be open to those around, and to look for leadership from the places we know, in our hearts, to be true.

I wonder whether the secret to a truly successful religious life is to follow this notion of moving beyond our teenage years.

By this I mean to listen again to the lessons our fathers taught us, or the lessons that those we see as father-figures in our lives have taught us.

In my teenage years, the fact my father was able to husband chickens, could cut a hedge 20 feet tall, was able to wire outside lights, knew how to erect a fence, and was an expert on butterflies was not impressive enough. 

He hadn’t, after all, read Ulysses.

But now, now I am so grateful for those snippets of teaching and life lessons that seem to bubble up when I least expect it.  Feeling my self acting as my father did when trying to clear roots from a new vegetable patch.

And, I am very lucky that, for now, he’s still around to give me further advice.  He still grows things.  He still creates.

Your fathers, or those you saw as truly father-figures in your life, will bring these or perhaps other memories and skills.  Maybe your father read Ulysses whilst you wished he would help you with gardening.  And it is his love of books and discourse that you now find so valuable in your life. 

We are all different.

Yet we must also see this in our approach to the world, to the life spirit that binds us all together.  To that breath of life called Love, to your God.

We must listen.  Like the seventh grade musicians, we may have to  put aside our ideas that we know best.  We may have to listen instead to the honest truths we know to be right. 

It is never easy to do this.  We are, after all, grown-ups.  We surely know things ourselves.  We do not need to be told what to do.

Yet, if we search our heads and our hearts, I wonder if we also know that, as grown-ups, we need to draw on the depths of experience that other grown-ups have been trying to pass on to us.  That experience of life that has been passed through the generations. 

We must listen.

In our second reading, Mary Wellemeyer’s ‘Trees’, we are reminded that the ‘ancient ones who watched our growing slowly go back to the earth, leaving us to take their places’.

We have much to learn if we are truly to take the place of the ancient ones.

We may just have to put aside our attempts to be the loudest tuba on the block, or the most erudite intellectual.

No matter our age, we always have more to learn.  To learn from others, from our fathers, from our father-figures, from our friends.  From the ancients.

From life.

As James Joyce put it so well,

To learn, one must be humble,

But life is the great teacher

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Love Within Us

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Events in Woolwich and elsewhere over the last two weeks have shattered lives and created tensions in the way we view 'community'. What is community? And how, as Unitarians, might we respond to the challenges that individuals place upon our ideals for the world? Using readings from Rev Ann Latham, and St Paul, our service reflected on our understanding and approach to community.  The words are below, or click the link at the top of this post for a 'SoundCloud' recording of it.

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I don’t mean to boast, and I do not intend to generate jealousy or frustration.

But I’ve been to Paris.

It was lovely.  I took the Service at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Paris, in the small church space they rent from a liberal Christian group.  A congregation of around 50 to 60, of many nationalities – all English speaking.  Thank goodness.  My French is not good enough for an hour of theological exegesis.  I’m not sure my English is, for that matter.

The UUFP, as it is known, meets just once a month – and it really makes the most of the opportunity.  The Saturday afternoon is given over to a shared lunch, a workshop to be led by the visiting preacher – me, in this instance – and then a shared afternoon tea.

On the Sunday morning, the Service starts after a quite long set of Notices – detailing all the different and diverse meetings, gatherings, small groups and pot-luck suppers coming up that month and beyond. 

And after the Service, there is a joint lunch for those that wish to attend.

Now, with around 90 members, and potentially 60 at each monthly Service, there is of course greater scope for groups and gatherings.

And we do this too.  We are, at present, a smaller group of individuals, but we too have our gatherings and friendships both inside and outside the Meeting House.  We have meditation groups – there will be more about that in the Notices.  We have lunches, and concerts and the wonderful Committee meetings.  And we meet away from here too.  There are friendships and gatherings for all sorts of reasons, that have brought together people from this congregation.

We are all individuals, yet through the binding of only a common faith, we become acquaintances, then friends.  With shared interests far broader than the works of James Martineau.

  

For some, time does not permit some of the other groups.  For others, they come to the groups but not the Services – there are a couple.  Yet we gather.  As many, as one.  Together in common cause.

This notion was already washing over me when I was conducting a different Service this week.  I gave the blessing at the wedding of my half-brother, David.  Some of you may recall that he and his now bride Louise were here with us a few weeks ago.

It is the second time I’ve married my brother.  So Unitarian.

But looking out across the gathering at the wedding, during the interminable photo sessions, and at the wedding breakfast afterwards, it was clear once more that we were strangers gathered for a single reason.  We had gathered with people we did not yet know – we knew some, of course, but not many.  Yet, recognising we had a common cause, we conversed, we danced, we laughed with complete strangers.  We became a single community that evening.  I talked and laughed with strangers I will most likely never meet again.  Yet we felt we knew one another.  We were, and we are, community.

Of course, it is the diversity of such groups that makes the community that much stronger.  In Paris, the Order of Service lists all those who will play a part in the Service: the Preacher, the President, refreshment providers, Children’s Group leader, crèche manager, greeters, stage managers, pianist.

We don’t do the same here in terms of print, but we all pull together to ensure this Meeting House is ready, cleaned, smelling of coffee, with a space for the children – and a space for the adults too.  With flowers, and music, and love.

We are able to experience because of others.  We might sometimes forget the skills and talents that others bring to our lives.  We might also sometimes forget the skills and talents we ourselves bring to our lives. 

To paraphrase the 17^th Century poet John Donne (one time vicar of St Nicks here in Sevenoaks):

No-one is an island entire of itself; everyone

Is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;

If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe

Is the less.

We are dependent on others.  Our lives are guided and shaped by others at least as much as we shape it ourselves.  We are living in community at all times. 

We are living in many communities, at all times and in all places.

Take a moment to think about the communities you are a member of.  Communities of faith – here – sports groups, residents’ groups, neighbours, poetry group, the Parent Teacher Association, volunteer drivers.   

Then think more widely.  We are in family communities.  We are in other families’ communities.  We are part of the Tesco community, or the Waitrose one.  We might drink at a particular pub.  We might support a particular band. We may be in the same choir.

And, so often, once we are within that community, we feel we are with like-minded souls.  We speak to strangers because we have a common thread connecting us.  We are part of a group that, in some instances, may not have even existed five minutes before.  Yet we become part of it.  It becomes home.  It becomes safe.  And we are affirmed as part of it.

Community is a two way system.  We are part of a community.  We serve a community, and it serves us.  To use a phrase that seems to be very old fashioned now,

‘you get out what you put in’

Community is not a ‘something for nothing’ approach to life.  All too often now we can be enticed to believe that the world exists to serve us.  Yet, I hope, we know that is never really possible.  A community cannot exist without the collective effort.

And a good community recognises that not all are able or confident to give at the start – or at many other times too. 

In Ann Latham’s words we heard earlier, Ann relates the feeling of helplessness she felt when many of her family brood suddenly left the nest.  Reflecting further, Ann realises that she is not worthless or of lesser value.  Ann discovers or recalls a more basic truth about us all.

She used the words:

‘I am a person of worth, as we all are, because we have Love within us.’

For me, Ann is beginning to identify the difference between a religious community and many others.  The sense of a community being formed and strengthened by the notion of a Love that is within us all is the strength that, for me, being part of a religious community can bring.

And as Unitarians, we must surely take this message to our hearts.  We are not brought together by a set of imposed religious beliefs and laws, nor because we are told we must go to church or face eternal torment after death.

We do not necessarily believe the same things, and we each have our unique faith journeys.

Yet we come together as community.  We come together for the simple purpose of being together.  To hold and support one another in our journeys.  Yes, of course, we all come to gain personal support and strength.  But we do that together.  And simply by coming here you are providing strength to our gathering.

And it is this community of acceptance and welcome that made me stay with a Unitarian community when I first found one.  It was only 12 years ago or so, but I knew I had found a community of faith that would accept me as I was.

And I am sure I am not alone in that.

Yet this community, this congregation, does more than provide a safe and welcoming space for worship, for personal devotion.

Religion is about transformation, and I hope, and indeed pray, that we are able to take the comfort and love of this place with us into the world outside.

The world outside, just like the one in here, is the real world made of real people living real lives.  Everyone has real worries, real fears, real concerns.  You and I have them, I’m sure, and so do many others.

The vast majority of people you met when you first walked through that door were strangers.  Perhaps all were strangers.  Perhaps some still are.

Yet we recognise that we are each of us here with common purpose and with a welcome for all.  We are all filled with God, or the Spirit, or just plain simple Love, you decide.  We are One with ourselves, with each other and with the world.

And this Oneness, when taken our from here and into the world with us can make a real difference.  By taking this notion of ourselves as one in the single family of humankind, we are recognising the concept of community as open, rather than closed.  We are opening the circle of friendship to enable all to enter in.

Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley, in a litany repeated in the hymn book ‘Singing the Living Tradition’ put it well.  She wrote:

If, recognising the interdependence of all life, we strive to build community, the strength we gather will be our salvation.  If you are black and I am white, it will not matter.  If you are female and I am male, it will not matter.  If you are older and I am younger, it will not matter.  If you are progressive and I am conservative, it will not matter.  If you are straight and I am gay, it will not matter.  If you are Christian and I am Jewish, it will not matter.

If we join spirits, as brothers and sisters, the pain of our aloneness will be lessened, and that does matter.

In this spirit, we build community and move towards restoration.

Our world has been rocked in recent days and weeks by the barbaric murder of a soldier in Woolwich.  Drummer Rigby was killed, it appears, for no reason other than he was a member of the Armed Forces.  This appears to be not an attack on an individual, rather an attack on a community. 

The definition of community here has been taken by many in a variety of guises.  This was, they say, an attack on the Army.  It was an attack on ‘Westerners’.  It was an attack on Christianity.  It was an attack on British people.

Extremists of all sides are exploiting this terrible murder to further their own messages of division and hate.

This weekend has again seen marches and rallies from all sides, attempting to sow and grow the seeds of difference and misunderstanding.

How, as Unitarians, might we react to this?

How, as Unitarians, do we bring our understanding of the Oneness of humanity, of the common bonds of love that should and can bind us together, into our personal response to these events.

I spoke from this pulpit just two weeks ago on the need for openness to the religious ideas of others.  For tolerance.  For perspective.  I still believe that is the right thing to do. 

The terrible, terrible murder in Woolwich does not show that people of different faiths cannot live together.  It does not show that immigration is a bad thing.  It does not represent the actions of the vast majority of peace-loving humans from a wide variety of backgrounds, faiths, nationalities that inhabit this country, this nation, this world. 

The parents of Drummer Rigby have called for calm in response to the murder.  They have said he would not want hatred and division to be a part of his life and death.  Their bravery and courage in the face of such emotional turmoil is a lesson to us all.

As Unitarians, as people that recognise the value of community, as people that recognise the elements of the Divine that appear to provide that spark of life within each of us, as people that embrace and welcome strangers, we too must reflect on how we might bring this love of life and recognition of Oneness into our response to calls for division and hate.

People matter.  We each of us are unique.  We are each of us the same.  We are miracles of life.  We are, collectively, part of life, and love, itself.

St Paul, in our second reading, wrote:

if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink.  Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

You may have seen the pictures this week of members of a mosque in York, when faced with an angry demonstration outside their building organised by the English Defence League, taking tea and biscuits out to them.  Taken aback, the EDL members could do little but accept the generous offer.  For the muslim community, to take tea and food was a brave and loving gesture.  And it appears to have calmed and diffused the tension in the air in that neighbourhood. 

Overcome evil with good, says Paul.  If your enemies are thirsty, give them something to drink.

In this spirit, we build community and move towards restoration.

White Sunday 2013

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Pentecost, Whitsun, White Sunday. The Book of Acts tells a story of the Holy Spirit descending on the early Church leaders, enabling them to both speak and listen in languages they didn't previously know. For Unitarians, this provides an opportunity to reflect on the importance of listening to other voices, to enrich our spiritual lives and understandings through greater engagement.  The text of this morning's sermon on this topic is set below.  Or you can hear a SoundCloud recording of it by clicking the link at the top of this post.

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Whitsun.

If we were Pentecostal Christians, this is the big day.  This is the day we might reflect and celebrate the possibility of being visited by the Holy Spirit; being filled with the voice of God and speaking a truth from deep within.  Speaking in tongues is the phrase used, but the underlying idea is that an unknown and unexpected force, or Spirit, takes you over and you are able to speak the words of God.

Millions of people find this a valuable part of their spiritual lives.  Yet, for most Unitarians, it isn’t a regular part of our Services.  Indeed, I’m not sure I’ve ever been aware of such a thing happening. 

But does that mean we are less filled with the Spirit?  Does it mean that we are in some way better, or even in some way lesser, than the Pentecostal Christians.  I hope not.  I think it is a false action to try and suggest that any one religion or path is necessarily better or worse in pure form.  Perhaps in application things may change, but that grappling with religion, that attempt to make some sense from our crazy world and the forever on-going pressures upon us, that is where I hope we are all of a common purpose.

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Whitsun.  White Sunday.  The fiftieth day after Easter – should perhaps be known as Gold Sunday.  But it’s not.  It’s White Sunday. The reasons for this are lost in time, but it is known that it was traditional for people to wear white this day.  In celebration.  Whitsun.

This idea of wearing white leads me to think, perhaps, that this is a day of reflecting light.  The ‘tongues, as of fire’ that we heard about from the Book of Acts might also be pictured perhaps as tongues of light the light of the Spirit, the light of God, coming in to that room with early Church leaders and inspiring them to be able to speak with one voice.  To be able to articulate in their own language, but for their message to be heard and understood by all who listened.

And we had a further image within that first reading.  The idea that,

“suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting”

This idea that the Spirit came down as a violent wind is not new.  And was not new then.  In the opening lines of the Bible – that literary attempt to describe how the world might have been created – we have the following:

“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.”

That piece of course goes on to describe the apparent creation in six days – seven if you count the Sabbath.  We may not accept it to be a literal or scientific account, but it remains a beautiful piece of literature.

And it was of course a key text for the Jewish people.  Still is.  The first words of the first book of the Hebrew Bible, the first words of the Torah.  This idea of God coming to the earth in the form of a wind would be well known.   The breath of God.

It appears in several early Bible stories, not just the Creation in Genesis. 

Wind is of course a great metaphor for God.  You can’t see it, you can’t hear it – not the actual wind itself that is – you can’t touch it.  Yet it exists.  You can feel it and be affected by it.  You can hear it when it touches other things and other people, or when it is rushing past your ears.  It is powerful and, ultimately, uncontrollable.  You cannot see from where it starts, nor where it ends. 

So of course those early theologians would see the winds as that most perfect way to describe the presence of God.  Of the Spirit.

And then, in a book that is attempting to record the history of a group of Jews who are to form the nucleus of the future Christian church

“suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting”

But unlike the spirit that hovered over the waters, on this occasion, at Pentecost, the spirit is touching and into each of the people gathered.

It’s like a cinema ad.

“God is back.  And this time it’s personal.

However, it is not only personal, it is also positive. 

The story claims that the Spirit not only touched each of those present, but it also enabled them to hear and understand each other.

Something we might want a little bit more of in the world today.  An ability for more people to listen, to hear, to understand, and to respond in delighted amazement.

We need more understanding.

Religious fundamentalism remains a real threat to peace in the world.  The great religions – almost universally intended to be paths of peace and love – often have these pockets of followers who will use their religion as a way to divide, rather than bring together, as a way to impose and dominate, rather than to be open and welcoming.

There are very high profile groups within Christianity and Islam who will use religion to justify violent conduct against others.  Sects within Hinduism and Sikhism have also had their moments.  And, astonishingly or at least surprisingly, I read of some extreme violence, and murder, being carried out in Burma, I think, by an extremist Buddhist sect.

This is not a new phenomenon, a point made clear by the Unitarian Universalist Forrest Church in one of his contributions to the book 'A Chosen Faith'.  He says:

“Each generation has its terrorists for Truth and God, hard bitten zealots for whom the world is large enough for only one true faith.  They have been taught to worship at one window, and then to prove their faith by throwing rocks at other peoples’ windows.”

These may not be a new phenomenon, but they are unwelcome nonetheless.

One of the problems this raises however is the risk that we begin to overlook the goodness that can be found in all religion, and we start to see the negative alone.

The recent bombings in Boston were headlined by some as another example of possible extremist Islam taking a form of revenge on the United States.  Now, the truth of what was truly going on in the lives and minds of those two brothers is still being pieced together, and tragically, we will never know the full story.  A terrible and murderous crime was committed, and the full force of the law should be used to seek justice.  But the risk of making this into a trail of a religion will remain under the surface, always threatening to emerge.

People do bad things.  People do bad things in the name of religion, and under cover of religion.  But this does not in itself make the religion bad.

And Unitarians, as perfect as we are, are not immune to these reactions against certain religions at certain times.

Many arriving within the Unitarian fold come from another religion.  Often, but not exclusively, Christian.  We are, as Darwin’s father-in-law put it so well, ‘a feather-bed for falling Christians’.  A leaving a previous path and finding a new one can sometimes lead us to look at our past spiritual journeys with some concern – and begin to consider it as false, whereas our new path – that wonder that is Unitarianism – is true.

I do not believe it is quite that simple.

Unitarians are named so since they traditionally believe that ‘God in One’.  The early Unitarians were called that since they were Christian but not Trinitarian.  No Father, Son and Holy Spirit for them.  God is One.

And that idea continues.  Yet, as an evolving faith, we have brought the idea with us as the context in which we live as community, as individuals and as a congregation has changed.

We still have links to our Christian past, but we are not a Christian denomination. 

We still believe that God is One.  But our notion of God may be different.  Indeed, there may be as many ideas of God in this Meeting House this morning as there are people.  Perhaps more.

When we say that God is One, perhaps we are also suggesting that there is only one God.  That all people of faith, of religion, are looking at the same God.  It is the same Divine Presence that we seek to connect with, no matter what our path.  Religious paths the world over may be a personal choice or, more likely are dictated by geographical context rather than deliberate rational judgement.

Yet we do, perhaps, all point towards the same God.  To use the metaphorical approach of Forrest Church from earlier, we are all looking at our own windows yet we need to recognise that the light that floods through it is the same light.  We are all inspired by the same higher connection.  Be that named as God, the Eternal Spirit, the Universe or simply the human web of existence.

By taking this approach, we start to see that we might learn from others, not just ourselves.

In our second reading, from the Dasam Granth of Guru Gobind Singh, we heard the most wonderful example of interfaith understanding:

“Let it be known that mankind is one, that all belong to a single humanity.  So too with God, whom Hindu and Muslim distinguish with differing names.  Let none be misled, for God is but one; he who denies this is duped and deluded….

….There is no difference between a temple and a mosque, nor between the prayers of a Hindu or a Muslim.  Though differences seem to mark and distinguish, all are in reality the same.”

These writings, from 17^th Century India tell a wonderful story of how and why people should live together in harmony.

The notion that differences may be put aside in common pursuit of goodness and love is a timeless message.  One that surely resonates deeply within.

And this is not just the notion that we can overcome our differences.  There is a subtle line, early in the story of Pentecost, where it is suggested that, after the arrival of the Holy Spirit, meaning perhaps, after the recognition of this greater, transcending presence, that people began to speak in other languages.

Not therefore a simple claim that we can understand others.  Pentecost, Whitsun tells us of the great feeling of new beginnings, this coming together of people, is achieved in part by speaking in the way of others.  Not making ourselves understood, but actually understanding from another’s perspective.

It all sounds so simple doesn’t it?  Just accept the idea of God, or goodness into your lives.  Or, more likely, recommit to goodness, to living a good life in peace and love with our neighbours.  A life in which we try to understand, to listen, to learn.

Listening to others stories.  But not just listening, also by putting ourselves in others places.  By speaking the language of others, not just claiming to understand it.

I think we all know it is not always so straightforward.  Despite our best efforts and intentions, we can sometimes find ourselves guilty of misunderstandings, and of an unwillingness to devote much time to the stories, hopes and aims of others.

For Unitarians, I see Whitsun as the reminder that our paths, and our truths, are never straightforward nor, necessarily complete.  We need to remain open to others, to listen and not to judge.

And Whitsun provides also the chance to become re-energised, to listen and to learn.  The chance is for us all to be touched by the Spirit, like those in that room, in the Book of Acts.  We can all make our connections to the intangible, to that which we can never truly understand. 

And that connection can bring us closer together.  With our loved ones, with our community, with all who strive for peace, love and understanding.

Let us be touched by the Spirit, and let us learn to understand and to listen.