Aberdeen Unitarian ChurchCALENDARDECEMBER 2008JANUARY 2009
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FOREWORDAt Christmas we celebrate an epoch-making event, that is one upon which we base our Calendar. The Roman's calendar started with the foundation of their city, the Moslems from the year Mohammed journeyed from Medina to Mecca. Great historical events, such as W.W.2 create a watershed between before and after for all of us, but there are particular occasions in the lifetime of individuals as well, that act as major punctuation marks, occasions when a new experience suddenly brings about a fundamental change in how we perceive existence. On a wet and windy evening in September past, as a special treat, friends invited me to attend an organ recital given by a world-famous performer in a church in my home town. The church, which I had not entered for a half century or more, had once been familiar to me, as I had sung there many times as a member of our school choir. As well as performing for occasional services there, every Christmas and midsummer we would give a public concert on a Sunday evening. It is a handsome building. The interior is wide and high, and tall lance-like windows reach upwards to the heavens. The eastern end supports an array of organ pipes, while a horse-shoe gallery of polished wood occupies the other three walls, embracing the interior, binding everything together, creating, thereby, a powerful sense of unity. A Sunday evening in June 1954, was the last time I sang there. It was very bright, high summer, but very windy, and clouds were scudding across the sky creating sudden and dramatic lighting changes inside the church One minute we would be singing in bright sunlight and the next plunged into deep gloom. The most moving item was a performance of Mozart's 'Alleluia' sung by a solo soprano who was later joined by the rest of the girls for the reprise. The soloist started to sing in deep shadow and then as her voice, liquid and clear, soared into a series of trills, pulses of sunbeams flashed through the tall windows and rippled across the organ pipes as if they were harp strings, miraculously in time to the music. Up there, far above our heads, sunlight and melody were weaving a vision of pure delight. We gazed, enraptured, caught by the emotion of the moment. Intense joy illuminated our whole being. We had reached a place where all was gladness and peace. As the girls started to sing, they were suddenly bathed in a glory of evening sunlight which held them, shimmering, until it faded, slowly with the last lingering note. We all sat enthralled. No-one moved. No one applauded. None dared to break the spell. We were involved in something beyond our experience. A blessing had descended upon us. An act of grace. Mozart's music, the girls' voices, the play of sunlight and shadow had moved us to the depths of our soul. Some of us for the first time were aware of a spiritual response we had not known we possessed. This had been a moment of revelation, a watershed in our spiritual experience. The nativity story, on a vastly increased scale, describes the same experience, a new idea, a new vision of human potential, entering and flooding the human mind with new hope. Wm. S. Stephen (Editor) Email: william134@btinternet.com or editor@aberdeen-unitarians.org.uk Tel: (01224) 317450
HOLIDAY RECESSPlease note there will be no Sunday morning Service on December 28th and on January 4th 2009.
FESTIVE GREETINGSDuring the Christmas and New Year period several special events will take place in our Church: a Carol Service, A Festival of Light and our Christmas Cantata which will conclude with the miraculous appearance of the kindly and generous St. Nicholas, patron saint of Aberdeen. Our various organisations will also be arranging Christmas parties etc. At all these events we shall remember all our friends who are house-bound, infirm and unwell. You are always in our thoughts. Your presence in spirit is a vital part of our congregational fellowship. We wish everyone a Happy Christmas and pleasant Festive Season.
CHRISTMAS CRAFT FAIROur final fund-raising event of the year will take place on Saturday 6th December, 10.00am - 12.00pm. Christmas gifts, stationery, greetings cards, decorations etc. most of which are hand-made and therefore unique, will be on sale. In addition there will be several supporting attractions and the famous Terrace Caf coffee and cuisine. Entrance fee which includes refreshments, is £1.00. Please come along and enjoy the fun, the fun, the fun of this cracker of an occasion and persuade your friends to accompany you. It's tinsel and tinkle and twinkle and jingle all the way!
TABLE-TOP SALEA Table-top sale will be held on Saturday 28th February, from 2.00pm - 4.00pm. Stall-holders may purchase a table-top on which to display their own goods for £5.00. More information is available from Kathleen Bruce and Kathleen McGregor.
ROBERT BURNSCOMMEMORATIONJanuary 25th 2009 is the 250th Anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns. The Scottish Parliament in honour of this event has designated the year 2009, 'Homecoming Year' as a means of persuading people of Scottish descent to visit Scotland and participate in the year-long celebration of the 'bardie's' birth. In the same spirit of celebration and tribute, we shall welcome all our members and friends to a special commemorative event on the very day that the north wind 'blew hansel in on Robin', Sunday 25th January, at 11.00am. We shall reflect the life and work of the Bard in his own poems and songs and in the music of Scotland. At 12.00 noon, taking the 'Cotter's Saturday Night' as our model we shall sit down to simple but wholesome fare of haggis (alternatives are available) and chips, followed by dessert (a culinary digression as a substitute for sowens which would not suit modern tastes and which are probably unobtainable any way). There is a possibility, however, of a 'weel-hained kebbuck', The cost, reckoned in contemporary bawbees (if we are still using sterling by then) will be £3.50.
WOMEN'S LEAGUE PROGRAMMESDECEMBER 2008
JANUARY 2009
The members of the League wish to thank everyone who helped to supply, staff and who patronised the Sales-table on Saturday 15th November. The sum of £74.60 was raised for League funds.
HALLOWE'EN FAIR RESULT.Our Hallowe'en Fair raised £509. 09 for Church funds. In view of the many competing events of a similar nature, on the same day, this was a splendid achievement. We congratulate Rhona Stewart and her team on the success of their labours and thank everyone who supported the event.
ANNIVERSARY APPEALOur Anniversary Appeal has so far raised £900.00. The Appeal remains open for the next few weeks, and so there is still an opportunity for us to show our generosity to our Church.
INWARDLINESSTHE SOMETHING OF RELIGIONBy Bill Stephen There is a frustrating mismatch between the infinite reach of the human mind and the limitations of the human senses. As a consequence we feel beleaguered by baffling questions and insoluble mysteries. There is an equal mismatch between our ability to perceive these mysteries and our capacity to portray them. These musings accompanied me on my stroll around the St. Mungo Museum of Religion in Glasgow, during my recent visit there. Here were galleries of well displayed and meticulously explained objects inspired by the religious impulse but falling short of revealing its mysterious nature and origins deep within the human mind. How do we express our spiritual longings in physical form? The Colossus of 20th. century philosophy, Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote "Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent." There are mysteries beyond definition but such is our need to communicate with ourselves as well as with each other, in order to engage with these mysteries that we persevere in trying to represent what we perceive to exist in the very depths of our being. As there are no words to describe impressions we discern in the profound recesses of our mind, we use approximations, metaphors, similes, parables, and symbols that stand in for that amorphous something. We call upon the written word, art, poetry, and music to convey our spiritual perceptions which are so difficult to fix because they slip away from us so easily. Above all, we give narrative form in the shape of mythologies to our spiritual experiences in an effort to bring them to the surface so that they may be part of our everyday life, that we may live in them, participate in them, feel involved in the unfolding drama of eternity and so feel that as individuals we have meaning and significance. Many religious cultures give or gave shape to their beliefs by making images of their Gods. The ancient Hebrews were severely censured by Moses for creating in his absence, a Golden Calf as an object of worship. The ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans produced sculpted portraits of their gods, as do the Hindus today. Roman Catholic churches display statues and paintings of Jesus, the Virgin Mary and the Saints, as well as angels and even demons. Many protestant institutions which forbid other forms of divine representation, are not now averse to the portrayal of the various forms of the godhead in stained glass windows. The cross, of course, in its various forms is a universal Christian symbol. Worship ritual as a means of making spirituality explicit is essential to all religions and takes many forms. In many primitive cults, ritual was a means of influencing or even entering the spirit world or the supernatural realm of the gods. Moslems have to pray at specific times every day, while kneeling and facing towards Mecca. Christianity is based upon this practice of embodying the supernatural, as God, a spirit, enters human history by being born of a human mother, like any human child, living, acting and then dying as a human being. Jesus is God or spirit made flesh. The Roman Catholic Eucharist attempts to make what is spiritual a physical experience, by involving the senses. There is music, incense, bread and wine, the traditional choreography of the priests and altar boys, the gold and silver vessels used in the ceremony of the mass, and the appearance of God on the altar in the bread and wine which mysteriously possesses two natures the physical and the spiritual. Jews, Moslems, Hindus, Buddhists all practise rituals of greater or lesser elaboration during their spiritual exercises. Many religions also establish a physical dimension by imposing upon their devotees strict rules of behaviour, controlling almost every aspect of their physical lives, including how they may dress, what they may eat, with whom they may associate and so on. Clothing, or the way one cuts or dresses one's hair, or the personal ornaments one may wear are common ways of manifesting or publicising one's spiritual beliefs to oneself and to the world. The gleaming glass cases in St. Mungo's museum, were full of such stand-in's, objects and devices that represent the metaphysical in physical terms. The objects themselves acquire a special significance derived from their sacramental function and they are identified by ritualistic names. A cup becomes a chalice, a wash basin 'a piscina', a bowl a 'font', the priest's clothes become vestments and each garment has its own name, such as alb, cope, stole, chasuble and so on. The danger is that the objects themselves, the ceremonial and the setting become more important than the true object of worship. Like all the other developed religions of our time, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity relies upon the written word, Scripture, for its spiritual revelation and instruction. The Bible affords us traditional guidance about how we should live as members of a community, such as the Ten Commandments or the Sermon on the Mount for instance, but in the matter of personal spirituality it is less specific. There is general agreement that personal spirituality is wrapped in mystery and that understanding is to be found deep in our own heart, but there is little indication as to what that might be. In Luke Chapter 8, explaining the parable of the sower to his disciples, Jesus says, 'Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God; but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see and hearing they might not understand.' These seems to suggest that there is spiritual knowledge that the disciples are aware of instinctively but of which other people are unaware and so must have it explained to them in words. This knowledge is conveyed in the word of God, which makes everything as clear as day. Ecclesiasticus also suggests we should trust to our own instincts, 'Accept no man against thine own soul.. ..And in the counsel ofthine own heart stand.' Thomas a Kempis, the 15th century religious writer also acknowledges that spiritual truth is only available deep inside the mind: 'Blessed are those who listen to the truth teaching inwardly... ..Blessed are they that enter far into inward things and endeavour to prepare themselves for the receiving of heavenly secrets.' And 'Do thou speak, 0 Lord God,... Thou unlockest the meaning of sealed things.' Writing in; the 20th century, Alfred North Whitehead, one of the greatest mathematicians of his age, finds spiritual truth elusive and beyond perception, 'Something that gives meaning to all that passes and yet eludes apprehension.' What I gather from this, is that spiritual truth is purely subjective. That it is something that we may be aware of in ourselves, but difficult to pin down; of the nature of a feeling, but more of a conviction, a certainty, a perception, an understanding without any form of logical deduction or evidence, like knowing the answer to a mathematical problem without being able to show the working. Emerson in his essay 'Intellect' is I think making the same point:' All our progress is an unfolding like the vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge,....Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason. It is in vain to hurry it. By trusting it to the end, it shall ripen into truth and you shall know why you believe.......Each mind has its own method. For we cannot oversee each other's secret.' Each of us then is responsible for our own spiritual knowledge, which will influence how we react to whatever happens to us in our daily lives and how we behave. This spiritual urge is instinctive; it is not subject to our will; we may try to ignore it but we cannot switch it off. I think it is a coping mechanism to help us to survive in an indifferent universe. It has evolved to serve two related needs. We crave meaning and we crave acceptance. It is a compulsion to seek out an answer to the riddle of being. What is existence and why are we here? In other words, no matter who we are, how self-confident, how talented, how powerful, we need to feel that there is something in our life that gives it meaning. Something at the deepest level of our mind reassures us, that comforts us that there is a unique essence that is us. We have a truth of our own. Strip away our hopes and fears, self-deception and fantasies, vanity, our public face, our education, material ambitions and desires, all the influences we have been subjected to, everything we have developed over a lifetime to function in our society, and at last we find that something which brings us peace. Intimately associated with this hunger for meaning, indeed it may be the same thing, is a basic longing for acceptance, to feel that we are part of and have a role to play in the on-going drama of the universe. Our intuition tells us that there is a unity in all creation, and we seek this metaphysically by means of religious practice, and this wholeness may be the something, the truth, that gives our life ultimate meaning. Alfred North Whitehead refers to the paradoxical nature of this something. It is everywhere but cannot be perceived. It is immeasurably remote but intimately present in our very selves. It exists but defies definition. Above all, we all seek it but are fated never to achieve it. Our first response to this may be that he is describing the ultimate form of frustration, but in fact he is describing a compulsion that has nothing to do with reason. As Emerson says, 'Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.' In the same essay, again talking of the strength of intuition he says, 'What am I? What has my will done to make me what I am? Nothing. I have been floated into this thought, this hour, this connection of events, by might and mind sublime, and my ingenuity and wilfulness have not thwarted, have not aided to an appreciable degree.' We pursue this transcendent 'something', this aspiration, this truth because we cannot help ourselves. It is in our genes. It is the pursuit of wholeness and as this is regarded by most religious traditions as the source of divinity and vital to our spiritual well being and by many as the source of our moral consciousness, enormous efforts are directed to making what is abstract, exclusively of the mind, as explicit as possible. As I wandered around the St. Mungo museum, I was again reminded that Art came into being as the voice of religion, to enunciate those longings to feel at one with the universe, and to find meaning and purpose in our existence. Art creates a connection, but more than that, an intimacy between the inner and the outer worlds. The genuine work of art, be it music, poetry, painting, sculpture, embroidery is a record of the creator's struggle to make what is abstract, that which exists originally as a mental event, an idea, obvious to the senses and the conscious mind. Because art communicates initially with one or other of the senses, it is easy to regard many works of art, pretty pictures, catchy tunes, exciting or sentimental stories, for instance, as little more. than a pleasant sensual experience, but a work that emerges from the artist's attempt to recreate the truth of his/her subject, reveals its human creator grappling with the problem of how to express our compulsion to extract meaning from our Worship, I think, is an art form. Although Unitarian churches don't employ elaborate rituals, - lighting the chalice is a modest use of symbolism our selection of words, music and silence is an aesthetic process intended to reflect the infinite aspiration of the human mind and our common effort to express that hunger for meaning and wholeness, that generates our creative powers and justifies our claim to be regarded as a spiritual community.
PATOISI saa Ha,Ha! Ha, Ha!,
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