God doesn't exist. (Many theologians have pointed this out, including John Scotus Eriugena, Paul Tillich, Karen Armstrong, and various thinkers from Judaism and Islam. This is because "God" is Being itself, or the Ground of All Being, or Nothing, or a process.)
God is love (according to various Christian commentators).
Love does not exist. (There's no thing you can point to and say it is love.)
Love is an experience shared between people.
God is an experience shared between people.
Wednesday, 1 September 2010
Friday, 30 July 2010
Norwich Pride Interfaith Service
The Norwich Pride 2010 interfaith service will be held at the Octagon Unitarian Chapel in Colegate in Norwich city centre. The service is at 6pm on 31 July. The church's beautiful walled garden will be open to picnickers prior to the service.Ooh I would very much like to go to that. Well done to all involved. I wrote some bits about coming out as a spiritual practice as part of my essay on LGBT Spirituality.
Stephen Lingwood, an ordained Unitarian minister, will lead the service entitled 'Coming Out as a Spiritual Practice'. He also plans to march in the parade with the diversity banner. He said he is pleased to be involved with Norwich Pride.
Thursday, 22 July 2010
prayer for liberation
O deep and ineffable Silence
That speaks from the depths
O space carved out by suffering
That is inexplicably filled with joy
You are the inspiration of our going forth
To connect with others
Move our hearts to compassion
That we may genuinely lift up the poor
Move our hands to action
That we may lift the burdens of the oppressed
Fill our heads with inspiration
That we may behold the vision of a just society
And work to bring it into being
Amen.
(inspired by liberation theology)
That speaks from the depths
O space carved out by suffering
That is inexplicably filled with joy
You are the inspiration of our going forth
To connect with others
Move our hearts to compassion
That we may genuinely lift up the poor
Move our hands to action
That we may lift the burdens of the oppressed
Fill our heads with inspiration
That we may behold the vision of a just society
And work to bring it into being
Amen.
(inspired by liberation theology)
Friday, 18 June 2010
Labyrinth walk at GA
The room was silent, the lighting subdued. Barefoot people waited meditatively to enter the labyrinth, which was surrounded by electric tealights. They stood on the threshold for a moment before embarking on the journey.
Each person’s journey was unique, although the labyrinth has a single pathway to the centre. We were all travelling on the same pathway, but each person was going at a different speed, travelling in a different way. Rather like life, the path twists and turns, in and out, and you never know how close to the centre you are. When the path appears to take you furthest away from the centre, you are nearer, and when you appear to be closest, you are actually further away.
The centre – the goal of the journey – can mean different things to different people. For me, it is a metaphor for the Divine: always present, always hidden. In Pagan labyrinths, the centre symbolises the underworld, the inner realm; in Christian labyrinths, it represents the goal of the pilgrim, Jerusalem, with Christ at the centre.
The centre is a place to meditate and reflect on the journey, connect with the Divine, or just look into yourself. The space at the centre is shaped like a flower, or like the rose window of a cathedral. Each of its petals represents one of six kingdoms: mineral, vegetable, animal, human, angelic and the unknown.
The journey back from the centre depicts bringing back the blessing and insight from the other realm to share with your community. On the way out from the centre, I felt like dancing, I was so full of energy. As you cross the threshold once more into the outer world, it is a good idea to meditate on the experience, and only gradually ease back into normal conversation.
Pagan labyrinths generally have the path winding through one quadrant at a time, possibly so the walker can meditate on each of the four elements in turn. Christian labyrinths have the path winding back and forth between the quadrants, so that you never know where you are. This is in many ways a more powerful experience, because you never know how close you are to the goal of the journey, so it is a revelation when you reach it. One such labyrinth is the one in Chartres Cathedral, which was constructed around 1200.
The oldest labyrinth design is the Cretan labyrinth, which is a very simple design and can be drawn quite quickly; it is easy to make out of pebbles in your garden or at a camp.
The labyrinth at GA was made of cloth, with the design of the Chartres labyrinth printed on it. It is owned by Danielle Wilson, an interfaith minister from London. If you did not get a chance to walk it at GA, you can attend one of the monthly walks at Rosslyn Hill Unitarian Chapel.
It is a very ancient form of meditation, very relaxing, and it’s well worth giving it a try. It’s very personal and inwardly focussed, and yet shared with your fellow-travellers in a wordless communion.
More information from Danielle Wilson and Rosslyn Hill Chapel
A brief history of mazes and labyrinths
Mazes are recorded in Egypt, Rome, Scandinavia, England, India, and the American Southwest. They are generally believed to symbolise the soul’s journey through life, or the journey of the dead to the underworld.
There are two types of maze: the unicursal (single path) maze and the puzzle maze. Both of these are referred to as both a labyrinth and a maze. However, in the myth of the Minotaur, the labyrinth in which the Minotaur dwells is clearly a puzzle maze (i.e. having dead ends), as Theseus needs a thread to find his way through to the centre. Apparently the legend of Theseus and the Minotaur refers to the maze-like palace at Knossos, which burned to the ground in the 15th century BCE.
The Classical Maze comes in four types, the Serpentine, Spiral, Simple Meander, and Complex Meander. The Roman ones were usually square, but these designs work as circular mazes too.
The principle of the maze was probably discovered in the Neolithic. The earliest recorded mazes were in Crete, 4000 years ago. In Egypt, there was a huge palace complex on the shores of a lake seven days journey up the Nile from the pyramids in form of a labyrinth. This was built by pharaoh Amenemhet III in the 19th century BCE. It consisted of thousands of rooms and twelve large maze-like courtyards, which were probably intended to keep out unwelcome visitors. Amenemhet also created a maze inside his nearby pyramid to thwart tomb robbers. Most Roman labyrinths, on the other hand, were too small to have been walked, and are typically found on the floor near the entrances to houses and villas; many have small city walls (perhaps indicating the walls of Troy) drawn around them. This suggests they served a protective function, and were perhaps believed to have warded off evil influences or intruders — a common function of the labyrinth in many other cultures as well. The tomb of Lars Porsenna (an Etruscan king) at Chiusi in Italy was said to be surrounded by a labyrinth.
The turf mazes of Britain and Scandinavia may have served a similar purpose, but in the Middle Ages they acquired an additional association with May games; hence the name “Robin Hood’s Race” or “Julian’s Bower”. The Celtic name for a maze was Caer Droia, the place of turning, and this was transliterated into English as Troy Town. It was widely believed that England was founded by Brutus fleeing Troy, and the mazes were believed to represent Troy. Mazes in Finland were often called Jericho, referring to the legend that it was destroyed by the Israelite army marching around it seven times. A maze called ‘the walls of Jericho’ also appears in a Hebrew manuscript.
Each person’s journey was unique, although the labyrinth has a single pathway to the centre. We were all travelling on the same pathway, but each person was going at a different speed, travelling in a different way. Rather like life, the path twists and turns, in and out, and you never know how close to the centre you are. When the path appears to take you furthest away from the centre, you are nearer, and when you appear to be closest, you are actually further away.
The centre – the goal of the journey – can mean different things to different people. For me, it is a metaphor for the Divine: always present, always hidden. In Pagan labyrinths, the centre symbolises the underworld, the inner realm; in Christian labyrinths, it represents the goal of the pilgrim, Jerusalem, with Christ at the centre.
The centre is a place to meditate and reflect on the journey, connect with the Divine, or just look into yourself. The space at the centre is shaped like a flower, or like the rose window of a cathedral. Each of its petals represents one of six kingdoms: mineral, vegetable, animal, human, angelic and the unknown.
The journey back from the centre depicts bringing back the blessing and insight from the other realm to share with your community. On the way out from the centre, I felt like dancing, I was so full of energy. As you cross the threshold once more into the outer world, it is a good idea to meditate on the experience, and only gradually ease back into normal conversation.
Pagan labyrinths generally have the path winding through one quadrant at a time, possibly so the walker can meditate on each of the four elements in turn. Christian labyrinths have the path winding back and forth between the quadrants, so that you never know where you are. This is in many ways a more powerful experience, because you never know how close you are to the goal of the journey, so it is a revelation when you reach it. One such labyrinth is the one in Chartres Cathedral, which was constructed around 1200.
The oldest labyrinth design is the Cretan labyrinth, which is a very simple design and can be drawn quite quickly; it is easy to make out of pebbles in your garden or at a camp.
The labyrinth at GA was made of cloth, with the design of the Chartres labyrinth printed on it. It is owned by Danielle Wilson, an interfaith minister from London. If you did not get a chance to walk it at GA, you can attend one of the monthly walks at Rosslyn Hill Unitarian Chapel.
It is a very ancient form of meditation, very relaxing, and it’s well worth giving it a try. It’s very personal and inwardly focussed, and yet shared with your fellow-travellers in a wordless communion.
More information from Danielle Wilson and Rosslyn Hill Chapel
A brief history of mazes and labyrinths
Mazes are recorded in Egypt, Rome, Scandinavia, England, India, and the American Southwest. They are generally believed to symbolise the soul’s journey through life, or the journey of the dead to the underworld.
There are two types of maze: the unicursal (single path) maze and the puzzle maze. Both of these are referred to as both a labyrinth and a maze. However, in the myth of the Minotaur, the labyrinth in which the Minotaur dwells is clearly a puzzle maze (i.e. having dead ends), as Theseus needs a thread to find his way through to the centre. Apparently the legend of Theseus and the Minotaur refers to the maze-like palace at Knossos, which burned to the ground in the 15th century BCE.
The Classical Maze comes in four types, the Serpentine, Spiral, Simple Meander, and Complex Meander. The Roman ones were usually square, but these designs work as circular mazes too.
The principle of the maze was probably discovered in the Neolithic. The earliest recorded mazes were in Crete, 4000 years ago. In Egypt, there was a huge palace complex on the shores of a lake seven days journey up the Nile from the pyramids in form of a labyrinth. This was built by pharaoh Amenemhet III in the 19th century BCE. It consisted of thousands of rooms and twelve large maze-like courtyards, which were probably intended to keep out unwelcome visitors. Amenemhet also created a maze inside his nearby pyramid to thwart tomb robbers. Most Roman labyrinths, on the other hand, were too small to have been walked, and are typically found on the floor near the entrances to houses and villas; many have small city walls (perhaps indicating the walls of Troy) drawn around them. This suggests they served a protective function, and were perhaps believed to have warded off evil influences or intruders — a common function of the labyrinth in many other cultures as well. The tomb of Lars Porsenna (an Etruscan king) at Chiusi in Italy was said to be surrounded by a labyrinth.
The turf mazes of Britain and Scandinavia may have served a similar purpose, but in the Middle Ages they acquired an additional association with May games; hence the name “Robin Hood’s Race” or “Julian’s Bower”. The Celtic name for a maze was Caer Droia, the place of turning, and this was transliterated into English as Troy Town. It was widely believed that England was founded by Brutus fleeing Troy, and the mazes were believed to represent Troy. Mazes in Finland were often called Jericho, referring to the legend that it was destroyed by the Israelite army marching around it seven times. A maze called ‘the walls of Jericho’ also appears in a Hebrew manuscript.
Sunday, 18 April 2010
The Enlightenment
A motion was proposed at the UK GA in defence of the Enlightenment. The author of the motion was sitting in front of me, and said that he just wanted to start a conversation about it. What a good idea, I said. So here goes.
The Enlightenment was a complex phenomenon with many strands. One of those strands was the origin of the Pagan revival. Another was the rise of rational religion in the form of Unitarianism, deism and humanism. A further strand was the rise of rationalism, which at the time was in opposition to the empiricism of Locke and others. The rationalists held that reason was a priori, God-given; the empiricists held that we are born with a blank slate (tabula rasa) and acquire reasoning skills by experience. It was only in the early 20th century that a synthesis of rationalism and empiricism was finally achieved. Another strand of the Enlightenment was the concept of the sublime - the experience of awe when confronted by natural phenomena such as mountains, waterfalls and wilderness. This represented a considerable shift in attitudes to nature, and it was out of this that Romanticism emerged. A further aspect of the Enlightenment was the rise of feminism, with the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft and others. There had been previous feminist writings, but Wollstonecraft represents the beginnings of a movement as opposed to a few isolated individuals. Remember also that evolution by natural selection had not yet been discovered; hardly anyone was aware of the great age of the Earth; science was still called natural philosophy; Oxford and Cambridge were Anglican-only universities and generally not very science-focussed; if you wanted to study science, the best place to go was a Dissenting Academy, like Joseph Priestley.
So the Enlightenment was a multi-faceted phenomenon, a mixture of sometimes complementary and sometimes contradictory discourses. It was an intellectual ferment, an explosion of interest in natural phenomena, history, and literature - an awakening.
The legacy of the Enlightenment is therefore also a mixed blessing. Pure rationalism has given rise to reductionism, logical positivism, behaviourism and other scientific dead-ends; but the idea that we should subject all impulses and beliefs to reason before acting on them seems to me an excellent idea. Empiricism - the primacy of experience and experiment - is also a good principle to work by. Always asking, "Yes but does it work? What are the consequences?" is a good test for most situations. And utilitarianism (another Enlightenment idea) is also useful if not carried to extremes. Seeking the greatest happiness of the greatest possible number of people is good, as long as the rights of the remaining few are not trampled.
Where the legacy of the Enlightenment has failed us is when we assume that science does not need to be tempered with other approaches. The worst excesses of industry, pollution, eugenics, behaviourist psychology and other extreme science should have been tempered with compassion and humanity.
The Enlightenment was a complex phenomenon with many strands. One of those strands was the origin of the Pagan revival. Another was the rise of rational religion in the form of Unitarianism, deism and humanism. A further strand was the rise of rationalism, which at the time was in opposition to the empiricism of Locke and others. The rationalists held that reason was a priori, God-given; the empiricists held that we are born with a blank slate (tabula rasa) and acquire reasoning skills by experience. It was only in the early 20th century that a synthesis of rationalism and empiricism was finally achieved. Another strand of the Enlightenment was the concept of the sublime - the experience of awe when confronted by natural phenomena such as mountains, waterfalls and wilderness. This represented a considerable shift in attitudes to nature, and it was out of this that Romanticism emerged. A further aspect of the Enlightenment was the rise of feminism, with the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft and others. There had been previous feminist writings, but Wollstonecraft represents the beginnings of a movement as opposed to a few isolated individuals. Remember also that evolution by natural selection had not yet been discovered; hardly anyone was aware of the great age of the Earth; science was still called natural philosophy; Oxford and Cambridge were Anglican-only universities and generally not very science-focussed; if you wanted to study science, the best place to go was a Dissenting Academy, like Joseph Priestley.
So the Enlightenment was a multi-faceted phenomenon, a mixture of sometimes complementary and sometimes contradictory discourses. It was an intellectual ferment, an explosion of interest in natural phenomena, history, and literature - an awakening.
The legacy of the Enlightenment is therefore also a mixed blessing. Pure rationalism has given rise to reductionism, logical positivism, behaviourism and other scientific dead-ends; but the idea that we should subject all impulses and beliefs to reason before acting on them seems to me an excellent idea. Empiricism - the primacy of experience and experiment - is also a good principle to work by. Always asking, "Yes but does it work? What are the consequences?" is a good test for most situations. And utilitarianism (another Enlightenment idea) is also useful if not carried to extremes. Seeking the greatest happiness of the greatest possible number of people is good, as long as the rights of the remaining few are not trampled.
Where the legacy of the Enlightenment has failed us is when we assume that science does not need to be tempered with other approaches. The worst excesses of industry, pollution, eugenics, behaviourist psychology and other extreme science should have been tempered with compassion and humanity.
Saturday, 17 April 2010
A happy whale
I just received this very touching story via email.
If you had read a recent front page story of the San Francisco Chronicle, you would have known about a female humpback whale that had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines. She was weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She also had yards of line rope wrapped around her body, her tail, her torso, and a line tugging in her mouth.I found the original story in the SF Chronicle.
A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farallon Islands (outside the Golden Gate ) and radioed an environmental group for help.
Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was so badly off, the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her.
They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her.
When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles.
She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, and nudged them, pushed them gently around...as if thanking them.
Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives.
The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth said her eyes were following him the whole time, and he will never be the same.
Wednesday, 14 April 2010
My GA UK experience
At the weekend, I went to the Unitarian General Assembly event. It was a great opportunity to see old friends and make new ones, and find out more about other Unitarians and their spirituality. There were a number of business meetings with votes on various issues (none particularly ground-breaking this year, though they were important, and there have been some very important motions in the past). The sense of participating in the democratic process of the Unitarian movement is quite important to me - it means that there is a mechanism for change.
There was the opening ceremony (I am afraid the drumming in the opening ceremony was too loud for me, but I appreciated its energy); and the Anniversary Service, which was excellent and I experienced a genuine sense of the divine in it.
I also attended some of the fringe meetings. The Unitarian Earth Spirit Network meeting had Prudence Jones as its guest speaker (an excellent choice). Perhaps ironically, I see her Enlightenment-inspired version of Paganism as being much closer to Unitarianism than to the views expressed by most Pagans these days. But then that's why I am a Unitarian, because I agree with most of her views.
I also attended the Unitarian Christian Association session, which was holding a launch of a new book by David Doel, entitled The Man they called the Christ, which embraces the mythological view of Jesus, which regards the whole story as mythology along the lines of other dying-and-resurrecting Middle Eastern vegetation gods. This does not make the story any less valid; it just sets it in the context of other similar mythology and allows us to experience it as the death of the ego and the resurrection of the larger self as we turn towards the Divine in the experience of metanoia.
Another really great session was the Labyrinth Walk. The labyrinth is a metaphor for life's journey; it twists and turns towards the centre, but you never know how close you are to the centre until you get there. You meet people on the way, and pass people, but each journey is an unique experience, even though we're all travelling on the same path. This is the second time I have walked this labyrinth, which is based on the Chartres Labyrinth.
The Nottingham University campus, where the event was held, is lovely - lots of water and modern wooden buildings, and a very tame heron. The food was quite nice, the rooms comfortable, and the staff were very friendly and helpful.
It was fantastic to see old friends and make new ones, and I look forward to more of the same.
There was the opening ceremony (I am afraid the drumming in the opening ceremony was too loud for me, but I appreciated its energy); and the Anniversary Service, which was excellent and I experienced a genuine sense of the divine in it.
I also attended some of the fringe meetings. The Unitarian Earth Spirit Network meeting had Prudence Jones as its guest speaker (an excellent choice). Perhaps ironically, I see her Enlightenment-inspired version of Paganism as being much closer to Unitarianism than to the views expressed by most Pagans these days. But then that's why I am a Unitarian, because I agree with most of her views.
I also attended the Unitarian Christian Association session, which was holding a launch of a new book by David Doel, entitled The Man they called the Christ, which embraces the mythological view of Jesus, which regards the whole story as mythology along the lines of other dying-and-resurrecting Middle Eastern vegetation gods. This does not make the story any less valid; it just sets it in the context of other similar mythology and allows us to experience it as the death of the ego and the resurrection of the larger self as we turn towards the Divine in the experience of metanoia.
Another really great session was the Labyrinth Walk. The labyrinth is a metaphor for life's journey; it twists and turns towards the centre, but you never know how close you are to the centre until you get there. You meet people on the way, and pass people, but each journey is an unique experience, even though we're all travelling on the same path. This is the second time I have walked this labyrinth, which is based on the Chartres Labyrinth.
The Nottingham University campus, where the event was held, is lovely - lots of water and modern wooden buildings, and a very tame heron. The food was quite nice, the rooms comfortable, and the staff were very friendly and helpful.
It was fantastic to see old friends and make new ones, and I look forward to more of the same.
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