Sunday Service, 30 June 2024
Led by Rev. Michael Allured
Opening Music: O Isis und Osiris – W. A. Mozart (played by Holly Redshaw and Andrew Robinson)
Opening Words: ‘There is Always Light’ by Amanda Gorman (excerpt)
For there is always light,
If only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it. (Amanda Gorman)
Words taken from a poem ‘The Hill We Climb’, which she recited at the inauguration of the current President of the United States.
I invite you to notice your breath; its rise and fall. Let us take a few moments to settle and to become intentionally present. As we breathe out let us lay our distractions aside to nurture our whole being.
Words of Welcome:
Welcome all who have gathered this morning, for our Sunday service. Welcome to those of you who have gathered in-person at Essex Church, to all who are joining us via Zoom from far and wide, and all who are viewing on YouTube or listening to the podcast at a later date. For anyone who doesn’t know me, my name is Michael Allured, and I’m minister with Golders Green Unitarians. It’s good to be with you again.
This morning we are making space for each other to reflect on aspects of courage and resilience, qualities we all surely need sometimes as life’s winds blow us about. In our strength and fragility we are gathered here. We gather online with our joys and our woes, each with our gifts and our failings aspiring to feed our best selves. May we be present with open minds, loving hearts and outstretched hands.
Chalice Lighting:
We light our chalice flame as we do each time we gather. This simple ritual connects us in solidarity with Unitarians and Unitarian Universalists the world over, and reminds us of the proud and historic progressive religious tradition of which we are a part.
(light chalice)
Spirit of Life
As we light our flame
We invite you into our hearts to guide our giving.
Bless us in our voices, as we pray for those in need.
Bless us in the circle of hands that hold what we shall give.
Speak to us in mind, and see us through your sight,
as we look to the vision in the grace of giving.
May we give unconditionally, so that our little today
is someone else’s plenty tomorrow and in their days to come.
Hymn 98 (purple): ‘Love Will Guide Us’
Let’s sing together now. The words of our first hymn help us in our reflections on today’s theme: courage and resilience. May the words touch hearts and heads. Number 98 in our purple hymnbook and for those joining via Zoom the words will be up on screen. Please stand or sit as you prefer.
Love will guide us, peace has tried us,
hope inside us will lead the way
on the road from greed to giving.
Love will guide us through the hard night.
If you cannot sing like angels,
if you cannot speak before thousands,
you can give from deep within you.
You can change the world with your love.
Love will guide us, peace has tried us,
hope inside us will lead the way
on the road from greed to giving.
Love will guide us through the hard night.
Candles of Joy and Concern:
Each week when we gather together, we share a simple ritual of candles of joy and concern, an opportunity to light a candle and share something that is in our heart with the community. So we’ve an opportunity now, for anyone who would like to do so, to light a candle and say a few words about what it represents. We’re going to go to the people in the building first, and take all of those in one go, and then I’ll call on the people on Zoom to speak up.
So I invite some of you here in person to come and light a candle and then if you wish to tell us briefly who or what you light your candle for. The people at home really want to hear what you’re saying – and if you don’t hold the microphone really close they simply can’t hear you. So point it directly at your face and hold it really close (like you’re about to eat it!). Thank you.
(in person candles)
And if that’s everyone in the room we’ll go over to the people on Zoom next – you might like to switch to gallery view at this stage – just unmute yourselves when you are ready and speak out – and we should be able to hear you and see you up on the big screen here in the church.
(zoom candles)
And I’m going to light one more candle, as we often do, to represent all those joys and concerns that we hold in our hearts this day, but which we don’t feel able to speak out loud. (light candle)
Time of Prayer and Reflection:
We’re moving into a time of prayer now. Words interspersed with drops and pools of silence for your own inward reflection. This will be an extended time of prayer, maybe 5-6 minutes or so. You might first want to adjust your position for comfort, close your eyes, or soften your gaze. Take a few moments to find the posture that helps you feel comfortable, more aware.
Do whatever you need to do to get into the right state of body and mind for us to pray together – to be fully present here and now, in this sacred time and space – with ourselves, with each other, and with that which is both within us and beyond us. (pause)
Spirit of Life and Love, in whom we live and move and have our being,
we turn our full attention to you, the light within and without,
as we tune in to the depths of this life, and the greater wisdom
to which – and through which – we are all intimately connected.
Be with us now as we allow ourselves to drop into the
silence and stillness at the very centre of our being. (pause)
This morning, as we consider courage and resilience, we give thanks for the ability to begin again: after the disaster, after the tragedy, after the loss, after meeting the challenge set before us. Grant us the courage to continue on the journey, the courage to speak up for the well-being of others and ourselves and the planet.
May we forgive each other when our courage falls short, and may we try again.
Grant us hearts to love boldly, to embody our faith and our values in living words and deeds. May our hearts open to embrace humility, grace, and reconciliation. Grant us the ability to learn and grow, to let the Spirit of Love and Truth work its transformation upon us and within us.
Grant us the spirit of hospitality, the willingness to sustain a fit dwelling place for the holy that resides in all being. Grant us a sense of being at peace in the world, even as we are in motion.
May we cultivate together the strength to welcome every kind of gift and all manner of ways to be on the journey together.
(short pause)
We gather together each Sunday with hearts full of life’s sorrows and joys.
We try to make sense of life in general and often our own lives in particular.
We long to find light to counter darkness, goodness to stand up to evil, generosity in place of meanness, connection and companionship not isolation and despair, compassion over unkindness.
We long to find hope and healing poured out through the hospitality of hearts.
Spirit of the Universe of our hearts and many names be with us now.
(short pause)
If you are holding someone in your heart this morning, I invite you to say their names aloud in the coming moments of stillness, and if you’re online please type your names into the chat box on Zoom. In our naming people in our hearts may we hold them in our thoughts and our prayers this morning. (pause for names)
We give thanks for those who bring us joy, and pray for the safe keeping of those whom we hold in concern. For all those names, spoken and unspoken, may they be surrounded by the loving kindness we offer them today and in the coming week.
We reach out with minds and hearts to all who are suffering because of war, famine, being homeless, poverty and the many other injustices and cruelties that humankind and sentient beings endure. But there is goodness in the world.
Where it is found may it be nurtured
Where it is planted may it give comfort
Where it is given away to another may it spread hope.
For all the named and unnamed we hold in our hearts I light one more candle.
(light candle)
Amen.
In-Person Reading: ‘Today Was a Difficult Day’ inspired by Winnie the Pooh (read by Juliet)
“Today was a Difficult Day,” said Pooh.
There was a pause.
“Do you want to talk about it?” asked Piglet.
“No,” said Pooh after a bit. “No, I don’t think I do.”
“That’s okay,” said Piglet, and he came and sat beside his friend.
“What are you doing?” asked Pooh.
“Nothing, really,” said Piglet. “Only, I know what Difficult Days are like. I quite often don’t feel like talking about it on my Difficult Days either.
“But goodness,” continued Piglet, “Difficult Days are so much easier when you know you’ve got someone there for you. And I’ll always be here for you, Pooh.”
And as Pooh sat there, working through in his head his Difficult Day, while the solid, reliable Piglet sat next to him quietly, swinging his little legs…he thought that his best friend had never been more right.”
Hymn 35 (purple): ‘Find a Stillness’
Time for us to sing again. I invite you to feel the stillness through the words. Hymn 35 in the purple hymnbook. Please stand or sit as you prefer.
Find a stillness, hold a stillness,
let the stillness carry me.
Find the silence, hold the silence,
let the silence carry me.
In the spirit, by the spirit,
with the spirit giving power,
I will find true harmony.
Seek the essence, hold the essence,
let the essence carry me.
Let me flower, help me flower,
watch me flower, carry me.
In the spirit, by the spirit,
with the spirit giving power,
I will find true harmony.
In-Person Reading: ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ by Michael Rosen (read by Michael Allured)
Fans of Michael Rosen will know today’s story and may even have heard him read it. Life’s hard and somehow this story tells it how it sometimes is. (You can watch Michael Rosen read the story here)
Words for Meditation: ‘Wild Geese’ by Mary Oliver (read by Michael)
We’re going to have a change of pace now – we’re moving into a time of meditation. I’m going to share a very well known and well loved poem by Mary Oliver. This will take us into 3 minutes of silence which will end with the sound of a bell. Then we’ll hear some music from Holly and Andrew. So let’s each do what we need to do to get comfortable. As we always say, the words are an offering, feel free to use this time to meditate in your own way.
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Period of Silence and Stillness (total 3 minutes)
Musical Interlude: Voi che sapete – W. A. Mozart (played by Holly Redshaw and Andrew Robinson)
In-Person Reading: ‘Still I Rise’ by Maya Angelou (read by Chloë)
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise….
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise. I rise. I rise.
Sermon: ‘Courage and Resilience’ by Rev. Michael Allured
There are times in all our lives when we need to find courage: when we are pounded so hard – physically, intellectually, emotionally – when it’s only the resilience we can muster from the depth of our spirits that keeps us going and wrings that extra bit of strength that saves us from giving in.
This week has been just one of those times for me. When our Soul Deep engagement group gathered online on Tuesday evening the previous two days had been taxing: intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, physically. I went to bed on Thursday at 8 pm for a cat nap and slept for nine hours. I woke ready to face the new day.
‘Still I rise’, wrote Maya Angelou, in her poem. I hadn’t realised that Nelson Mandela chose it for his inauguration in 1994 after spending 27 years in Robben Island prison for his resistance to the South African apartheid government. Mandela himself spoke and wrote at length about the importance of maintaining dignity and strength in the face of overwhelming oppression.
It was the perfect poem for such an occasion. It’s a perfect poem for so many occasions: times in our own lives when we need that extra injection of courage, that extra surge of energy to sustain us.
Poems are often prayers and this poem has become one of my prayers, which sustains me and I know my friend Ronnie too as we greet each other on WhatsApp. ‘Still rising’, she confirms with defiance against illness and the cocktail of treatments she undergoes.
As a token to celebrate Ferargus’s and my ninth wedding anniversary she sent us a wooden ‘happy wedding anniversary’ heart as a keepsake. Below that message was written: ‘9 years. 108 months, 488 weeks, 3285 days, 78,000 hours, 4,730,400 minutes, 283,824,000 seconds.’ Now that’s resilience!
The carved wood has an image of two birds perched by a tree: the tree of life. The tree is painted so it looks precariously poised at an angle. It looks strong but also as if it could topple. Perhaps that’s a metaphor for our lives and that we can often as individuals – as a species – find ourselves standing on the edge of one precipice or another.
There are personal uncertainties which can be the backdrop for our lives. There are political uncertainties though this week we get to choose. Uncertainties are present as to the sustainability of our planet and whether our species will wake up in time to the dangers to the eco system we all face.
And yet that small fragile wooden heart shows us symbols of courage and hope: the two birds balancing on a branch and sustaining each other’s spirits. To me the image on this wooden heart is suggesting that the best sources of courage and resilience we have to help us are those bonds made with each other. It is these relationships, perhaps nurtured over many years, that give us the strength to face what we must and to follow through.
So whatever choices we make this week in the privilege of that little booth may we put aside all the noise of debate and challenge and instead – as well as our photo ID – bring with us our Unitarian values: dignity and worth, service to humanity, and the interconnected web of which we are all part.
I would have struggled more this week had I not had friends and family who care about me. It was their love and encouragement that kept me going. And maybe a little outrage too. Yes: outrage at unfairness, injustice.
It’s LGBTQ Pride month in June and so there’s a fair amount of historic material on social media platforms reminding us of the days when Pride marches were protests, not celebrations. So much progress and so much more reaching out, connecting, facilitating understanding and education still to do.
In the 1970s and 80s Keith Gilley championed dialogue between gay and straight people through Integroup: a safe space to be who we are. It feels as if in today’s increasingly hostile climate for trans people that we Unitarians could step in to be 21st Century pioneers in building bridges of understanding where there seem to be so few.
So today I pay tribute to my visionary predecessor Keith Gilley, who, judging from our reading of GGU’s archives, needed courage and resilience in bucket loads to make a difference and give shelter to those whom society then considered outcasts.
‘Still I rise’. And what kept Keith going in pursuit of gay religious liberation? Those who believed in him: the Olive Thompsons and Joyce Pearsons who helped him fight his corner, even with some less progressive and enlightened elements in our then Unitarian General Assembly. So: when courage is required it helps if we have each other for mutual sustenance and strength.
I chose Mary Oliver’s poem Wild Geese because it shows us how we can gain that strength to carry on from being in and around Nature.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Doesn’t that make you come alive?
But before we head home – rich or poor, whoever we are – we face the battering that life sometimes gives us. Which brings us back to Michael Rosen’s story: if we can’t go over it and we can’t go under it, we’ve got to go through it.
When he was close to death with the severe effects of Covid Michael did go through it. It took strength and courage to fight. What sustained him?
The love and care of family and friends: a connection to life through the power of story and the ability to tell stories. Hope amid despair sometimes. And a measure of luck.
May these be the qualities that sustain all of us as we live and make the stories of our life in the days to come. Amen.
Hymn 70 (purple): ‘I Wish I Knew How’
Time for our final hymn – number 70 in the purple book – ‘I Wish I Knew How’. Please sing up as best you can!
I wish I knew how it would feel to be free.
I wish I could break all these chains holding me.
I wish I could say all the things I could say,
say ’em loud, say ’em clear
for the whole world to hear.
Say ’em loud say ’em clear
for the whole world to hear.
I wish I could share all the love in my heart,
remove all the bars that still keep us apart.
I wish you could know what it means to be me,
then you’d see and agree
everyone should be free.
Then you’d see and agree
everyone should be free.
I wish I could give all I’m longing to give.
I wish I could live like I’m longing to live.
I wish I could do all the things I can do,
though I’m way overdue
I’d be starting anew.
Though I’m way overdue
I’d be starting anew.
I wish I could be like a bird in the sky.
How sweet it would be if I found I could fly
I’d soar to the sun and look down at the sea,
then I’d sing ’cause I’d know
how it feels to be free.
Then I’d sing ’cause I’d know
how it feels to be free.
Announcements (to be read by Liz)
Thanks to Michael for leading our service today. Thanks to Ramona for tech-hosting. Thanks to Charlotte for co-hosting and welcoming everyone online. Thanks to Juliet and Chloe for reading. Thanks to Holly and Andrew for playing for us today. Thanks to Pat and John for doing coffee and greeting. For those of you who are in-person – please do stay for a cuppa after the service – served in the hall next door. If you’re joining on zoom please do hang around for a chat with Charlotte.
There are various activities going on during the week that you might be interested in: this Wednesday we have our regular poetry group here at the church. Do have a word with Brian if you’d like to know more and email him in advance with any poems you’d like to share.
Sonya will be here as usual for her Nia dance classes at lunchtime on Friday. You’ve just got a couple more weeks before Sonya goes on her summer break so join her while you can.
We also have our regular online ‘Heart & Soul’ Contemplative Spiritual Gathering on Friday at 7pm when we’ll be exploring the theme of ‘the Weather’. It is a great way to connect with others on a deeper level – sign up with Jane if you want to get the Zoom link for that.
Looking a bit further ahead: Next month the ‘Better World Book Club’ will be reading ‘Loving Our Own Bones’ by Rabbi Julia Belser. We’ve got a few copies of that in the church library if you’d like to borrow one. And even further ahead a date for your diary: there will be another tea dance coming up on Sunday 8th September.
Next Sunday our minister Jane will be back and we’re going to have a flower communion service so please do bring along a flower if you can so you can join in with this special Unitarian tradition (if you can’t bring a flower don’t worry – we’ll have spares – but it’s nice if you can bring your own). And Hannah will be back with her regular community yoga session after next week’s service.
Details of all our various activities are printed on the back of the order of service, for you to take away, and also in the Friday email. Please do sign up for the mailing list if you haven’t already. The congregation very much has a life beyond Sunday mornings; we encourage you to keep in touch, look out for each other, and do what you can to nurture supportive connections.
I think that’s everything. I’ll hand back to Michael now for our closing words.
Benediction: based on the Tao
Words to sustain our courage and resilience: Tao. Tao is a Chinese
concept of the basis for things to exist and events to happen.
Close no doors to tao to undo your translucent seeing.
Live through the questions
into an even deeper known unknown.
Seek solitude, honouring your time to sit with the discombobulation you find.
Sacred texts abound, and God is unknowable,
recognisable only in the perfections and imperfections of us all.
Close no doors to more seeking of yet unknown answers.
Meanwhile be the good in the world that feeds your soul.
Amen.
Closing Music: Mvt II from Sonata No. 6 in B-flat Major – A. Vivaldi (played by Holly Redshaw and Andrew Robinson)
Rev. Michael Allured
30th June 2024