Aberdeen Unitarian Church
CALENDAR
MAY 2009
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CONTENTS |
FOREWORDCassandra is a character in Homer's 'Diad'. She is the daughter of Priam, King of the Trojans, and she was blest with the power of prophecy. Unfortunately, it was her fate that no-one would believe her. When she prophesied that disaster would follow if they brought the Greeks gift of a giant replica horse into the city, she was ignored. Desperate to have this colossal wooden (and useless) toy within their walls, they demolished their gate to bring it in. The Greeks attacked. The city was destroyed as she had foreseen. Generally speaking, prophets of doom find it difficult to bridge the credibility gap. When they foretell catastrophe we assume they are exaggerating for effect. They are just crying wolf. Nothing could ever be as bad as they say it will be. If there were to be any serious difficulty in the offing, the authorities. would surely take action at an early stage to neutralize it.... wouldn't they? That's their job...isn't it? And so we comfort ourselves by deceiving ourselves like the poor, old Trojans. Those of us who were brought up in traditional Christian households are aware of the Old Testament prophets who are all clearly identified as such, respected as such and listened to as such by serious minded people whether devout Christian or not. However, not all prophets are recognised as such and so their message is usually overlooked. Over the past few years the BBC and Hollywood have tried hard to alert us to the dangers of entrusting our way of life and our future to the finance industry. But have we paid any heed to them? The BBC has serialised several novels by Anthony Trollop ('The Way we Live Now') and Charles Dickens ('Martin Chuzzlewit' & 'Little Dorrit'), depicting what happens when people allow their appetite for worldly possessions to so dominate their lives that they enslave themselves to the money men, who turn out to be gamblers and risk-takers, unworthy of the trust placed upon them. The Hollywood film 'Wall Street' reveals the unscrupulous practices of financiers who will ruin the lives o thousands of innocent people to make a quick profit, bending the law in the process if not quite breaking it. In addition to these an other works of fiction, serious. commentators and documentary-makers have warned us from time to time of the dangers of unlimited borrowing to finance a life-style we cannot afford. Living beyond our means, however, has become normal practice for a great many of us, perhaps even the majority of us. Certainly we were encouraged by the finance houses to borrow money from them to go on holiday or to buy a bigger car or to refurnish our home and even move to more modern and more spacious accommodation. The government encourages many young people to borrow large sums of money to finance further education courses, on the expectation of a princely income upon graduation. For more than a decade instant gratification rather than common-sense was the dominant influence in decisions about borrowing money. "Neither a borrower nor a lender be; for loan oft loses both itself and friend and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry" (Hamlet) Thus Polonius advised his son Lacrtes on setting off to study in Paris, knowing full well that his advice would be ignored, because we usually only heed advice that suits us. We did not listen to what we did not want to hear. We had a great hunger for material things to fill the echoing hollows within our selves. The excitement of possessing the new, the bigger, the more impressive, tbe state-of-the-art-whatever only masks the spiritual yearning for a short time and then the awful emptiness at the centre of our consciousness becomes apparent again. Fulfilment did not follow gratification, after all. Now we are suffering. We feel betrayed by the bankers, the officials who were to monitor their activities, the Government, all of whom allowed us to spend freely what we had not earned. We have been betrayed by materialism, but also by ourselves. "The world is too much with us," says William Wordsworth. In his words we have been over-engaged in the business of "getting and spending". The prophets of financial doom have been vindicated. Will we now be persuaded that investing in the spirit is a better bargain than sinking all our capital, emotional as well as financial, in gratifying our appetite? After every administrative calamity the politicians comfort us by saying, 'Lessons will be learned'. I've no doubt the Trojan politicians said the same thing to Cassandra as they were all taken into bondage by their Greek conquerors. Wm. S. Stephen (Editor) Email: william134@btinternet.com or editor@aberdeen-unitarians.org.uk Tel: (01224) 317450PASTORAL GREETINGSeveral of our members have not been well over the past few weeks. To those who have been in hospital, who are in pain, who are housebound through infirmity or injury, we send our kindest thoughts. You are always in our mind; at every congregational event we think of you and recall happier days when you were present in our midst. JOYCE ASHWORTHJoyce Ashworth, who was President of the General Assembly, 2008-2009, will lead our worship on Sunday 16th May. As well as being Chairperson of her own Church at Rochdale, she is a member of the Denominational Support Commission, Support for Organisational Leadership, of the Future Ministry Panel and Coordinator of the Congregational Assessment Process. Joyce is also a keen rambler and is interested in music and the theatre. While in Aberdeen, Joyce will be the guest of Margaret and John Robinson. ANNUAL GENERAL MEETINGOur Annual General Meeting on 29th March, unanimously confirmed the current Office-bearers and retiring members of Committee in their respective posts for another monthly Committee Meetings year. The main topic of discussion was pulpit supply. It was agreed to continue to commit ourselves fully to the G.A. Cluster scheme in the hope that a Minister may be appointed to the Scottish District. We shall also continue to accept offers of help from other sources as well as employing our own preaching resources to the full. Currently our membership for 2009 numbers 40. Members who have not as yet paid the annual subscription of £25.00 (£12.50, unwaged) are not included on the 2009 role. Kathleen Bruce, our Assistant Treasurer, will be delighted to accept subscriptions at any time. FAREWELL HARRYSue and Bill Good's Springer Spaniel, Harry, died last month (April) aged 14. For many years Harry was the most enthusiastic member of the Felix Club walking group, and more recently had taken to attending our monthly Committee Meetings, with rather less enthusiasm. He was a wonderful companion, affectionate, biddable, lively cheerful, even-tempered and whole-hearted in everything he did. It was a joy to see him bounding across a heather-clad hillside and suddenly spring into the air to check his bearings. He would plough nose-first through the leaf litter on the forest floor, dig deep holes among tree roots, explore the mysteries of overgrown ditches to emerge smiling and caked in mud, leap impulsively into burns and lochs and afterwards rub himself dry against our legs. On every walk Harry demonstrated his philosophy of life: live it, enjoy it, make much of it. We shall miss Harry's tail-wagging exuberance, his gentle presence, his innocent, trusting nature, his little whine of pleasure when he recognised a friend, his impatience to be up, up and away on yet another adventure. A CELEBRATION OF LIFEBy Bill Stephen A few months ago, while our financial structures were collapsing like a house of cards, and in spite of our confusion and alarm, the latest newsflash from the red planet sent a tingle of excitement and pleasure around the globe. The latest NASA exploratory vehicle had detected the presence of methane gas just below the Martian surface. Methane gas is usually produced by living organisms. The news was that some thing was or had been alive on the planet Mars, the very first indication that elsewhere in the universe, other than on earth, there existed a form of organic life. Perhaps it was no more than an anonymous, microscopic, flake of life, too minute to be called a creature, but nevertheless sharing with us the life cycle of all organic things. There it is, out there in the vastness of space, a tiny thing almost without dimensions, but it is being born, feeding, reproducing and dying. In those cataclysmic days of financial melt-down, our imagination voyaged to the rust-red desert of a barren planet to try to comprehend the how and why of its existence and its significance in the universal scheme of things. We have long speculated about the existence of life beyond our own planet. We have sent vehicles, bearing our name and address, into the vast reaches of space beyond the solar system, in response to our need to seek out and communicate with other forms of life, so dear is the consciousness of existence to us. The search for meaning is an innate hunger that stimulates our imagination and motivates our curiosity. The riddle of existence is the mystery that has confounded every generation of our species since we first became self-aware. Out there in the uncharted and infinite universe, if life may be found, the answer to our conundrum may yet be uncovered. If not in outer space then in the depths of our earth-bound oceans, that meaning may be found. Among the sunken valleys and hills of the deepest oceans, machines. are creeping, observing and recording a world where the rays of the sun never penetrate, a world teeming with life that happily thrives in eternal darkness, moving around without impediment, fulfilling its destiny, oblivious to the pressure of millions of tons of sea water bearing down upon it. What does it mean? Here, in an incredibly hostile and austere environment the spark of life burns as brightly as anywhere on earth's benign and sunny surface. What is this thing called life that will brook no restraint upon its urge to spread itself over the universe? Ecologists, entomologists, botanists and zoologists, in South America, Madagascar, Indonesia, hack their way through impenetrable jungles, seeking, ever seeking, organic forms hitherto unidentified and unrecorded adaptations of the life principle, fulfilling themselves in whatever restrictive environments they have managed to occupy. Still pursuing the mystery of life, geneticists have mapped the human genome, attempting to untangle the many strands of our physical history in the hope of uncovering our final cause, the very seeds of life itself, the why and wherefore of our being here this very Easter morning. Of course, genetic research has its practical application in seeking cures for diseases that have so far eluded our medical expertise, but it is also motivated by our continuing fascination with life in all its forms, how it works, how it came about and what it all means. Long before religion and science split apart into two different ways of experiencing reality, there were many mythological accounts of how everything we know came about. The earliest Greek civilisations claimed that the source of all being was a goddess called Gaia, who gave birth to all the other gods and the whole universe. Gaia eventually became downgraded to the Goddess of earth and her name reduced to Ge, the Greek word for Earth, we retain to day in such words as geology, geometry, geography and geophysics. The name Gaia survives, however, in a major scientific hypothesis, known as the Gaia Hypothesis, which postulates that the climate and the composition of the earth always are close to the best living conditions for whatever life happens to inhabit it. The Gaia Hypothesis was formulated by a distinguished ecologist, Professor James Lovelock, who considers the whole mass of the planet earth, all its living creatures, plants, water and atmosphere, as one single living organism. He describes the planet as a single living system which keeps itself in a condition most favourable for the life on it. "If we are all creatures, great and small from bacteria to whales, then we are all of us potentially important to her well-being. We now see that the air, the ocean and the soil are much more than a mere environment for life: they are a part of life itself. Thus the air is to life just as is the fur to a cat or the nest to a bird. Not living but something made by living things to protect against an otherwise hostile world. For life on earth the air is our protection against the cold depths and fierce radiations of space." This understanding of the unity of life, not only as life on Earth but life as Earth, suggests Lovelock emanates from our seeing Earth from space, a beautiful white and blue sphere, which thrilled everyone who saw it for the first time to the very depths of their being. This change of viewpoint made us appreciate, as never before, not only how beautiful our planet, is but also what an incredible and unique object it is, hanging there in space. Compared with the bare and barren Venus and Mars, Earth, set in the velvet blackness of space, is like a jewel, a strange shining anomaly. James Lovelock's vision of the one-ness Earth is similar to that featured in a scientific report produced after the world-wide conference on climate-change in 2001, which claimed that the Earth. System behaves as a single self-regulating system, comprised of physical, chemical, biological and human components. Lovelock is deeply pessimistic about the fate of the planet. His concerns about the damage inflicted by pollution upon the atmosphere are rehearsed in several important works, including 'The Revenge of Gaia' and 'How we can still save humanity', in which he writes "Mankind has passed the point at which it is possible to reverse the dangerous effects of global warming. If we fail to take care of the Earth it will take care of itself by making ud no longer welcome. The planet we live on has merely to shrug to take some fraction of a million people to their deaths." In 'Why the Earth is fighting back' he says 'The Earth is very ill and is becoming even sicker due to global warming', a statement which calls to mind William Blake's heart-broken poem, "The Sick Rose". 0 Rose, thou art sick!
"The Bonnie Broukit Bairn." A century separates Blake and MacDiarmid but their concern for the beauty of life and the danger in which it stands from the insensitivity and selfishness of humankind is not diminished by the passing of time nor the change in manners and customs. Both are heartbroken that what is so beautiful, so precious and so unique should be treated so shabbily by those who depend upon it for their very existence. That they should be so aware and yet be so unappreciative of what they cannot do without. Lovelock states that both religious believers and non-believers are responsible for the Earth's current illness because both have taken for granted that it was there to be exploited for their own benefit, irrespective of the consequence to all the other myriad forms of life dependent upon it. Like the poets, Lovelock is deeply appreciative of that creative energy that produced the universe and all the wonders it contains. What mysterious act of grace brought everything into being? Why is there something rather than nothing? What supreme act of imagination invented the idea of a self-procreating life-force. The smallest speck of life is complete in itself, an individual life with a history of its own and a destiny to fulfil. We are conscious of all this. Our function is to enable creation to be self-aware, to know tbat it exists, to observe its wonder, to mark its beauty and complexity, to celebrate its achievement and admire its unmatched creativity. If we do not respect and care for the life around us we are failing in our obligation. We need to engage imaginatively with those life forms. Consider how we regard people whom we encounter daily but who are otherwise unknown to us. Let us say a shop assistant at a supermarket check-out. A pair of hands passing the goods across the laser-beam; a voice enunciating the total cost. Are we: in turn anything more to the assistant than a pair of hands proffering cash and receiving change? Each takes for granted that the other is a human being, but neither considers the other as existing beyond the customer-shop-assistant relationship. Neither sees the other as a fellow creature with a history, with relationships, with hopes and dreams and' a destiny to be fulfilled beyond the shop environment. Neither has an imaginative appreciation of the other as a personality in the round. She is the check-out operator; he is merely a customer, two dimensional functions engaged in a transitory commercial transaction. That each is as unique in time and space as Michael Angelo's 'David' or Da Vinci's 'Mona Lisa' and a million, million, million times more miraculous, never occurs to either. This is not sentimentality as sympathetic engagement with others tends to be dismissed in this self-orientated age of ours, but a just and sincere recognition of the other's individuality and aa a fellow beneficiary of the life-force. We tend to approach nature in the same off-hand way. It's there, we take it for granted, without ever appreciating the miracle of its existence and the miraculous process by means of Which we are aware that we exist and are aware that everything around us is also existing at the same time as ourselves. Every event which we experience is a creation of existence which is itself a mystery beyond our comprehension, but yet because we have life we are aware of it. Existence, being rather than non-being, something rather than nothing, requires life to know itself. We are incredibly fortunate to be occupants of a planet, the only one we have so far encountered capable of supporting self-conscious life, and by some miracle to be that self-conscious life. It seems to me that we on this Spring morning, in, this season of rebirth, we have much to be grateful for, so much to be responsible for and a whole universe of life to celebrate. WHO ARE THE UNITARIANS?By Bert Inkson"Who are the Unitarians?" Well my father was one. I remember his telling me about Church Parades when he was in the Army during the First World War. When he declared that he was a Unitarian, they did not know what to make of that nor to which Church to send him. So he had regularly to do cookhouse fatigues instead. After World War Two, a young man went to the Army to do his National Service At the recruiting office he was asked a series of questions: name? age? place of birth? Parent. ? occupation? And finally religion? "Unitarian", he said. "Never heard of it", said the Recruiting Officer, "Is that official?" Many people have not heard of us, yet Unitarianism is one of the oldest of the non-conformist denominations in Britain. Over the past three centuries or so, Unitarians have made a significant contribution to the religious life in Britain as elsewhere. They have also, like the Quakers, played an important part in movements for social, economic and political reform. Even today, although our Churches are fewer and generally less active than in the past, we Unitarians still exercise an influence out of all proportion to our numbers. The reason why Unitarians are comparatively unknown is that we are on the whole, unwilling to publicise ourselves. Some of our Churches do not even call themselves Unitarians but 'Free Christians'. On some Church notice-boards the word 'Unitarian' does not appear at all, as they may use the title 'The Old Meeting House' or in the centre of Manchester 'Cross Street Chapel'. When I first noticed that one in the 1950's my Sister said that everyone in Manchester knew that Cross Street Chapel was a Unitarian Church. But I wonder if that is true today. Our tendency to keep a low profile has been bred into us because of our deeply held belief in the principles of Freedom, Reason and Tolerance. Like all the older non-conformist denominations we are successors of people who were persecuted for their beliefs They had to hold Services of Worship in secret for fear that the authorities would find them out and impose punishments of fines and imprisonments. That was the situation until 1813 when the Unitarian Relief Act declared that Unitarian beliefs were no longer illegal. In the same year our Scottish Unitarian Association was founded. Because our beliefs were for so long illegal and even today are still regarded with suspicion and sometimes with hostility by other church people, no wonder we prefer to keep our heads down, or if you like hide our light under a bushel. Some years ago, during the ceremony at which Hong Kong was returned to the People's Republic of China, Chris Patten stated that he was the 28th and final Governor of that colony. He did not, however, add that the very first Governor of Hong Kong, appointed some 160 years ago, was Sir John Bowring, a distinguished Unitarian, who wrote hymns, three of which appear in the Unitarian Hymn Book published in 1927, and two of them were considered still relevant enough to be included in the 1962 version. A generation or so later, a member of Sir John's family, Lady Bowring, became the first National President of the Unitarian Women's League. We are all familiar with the chimes of Big Ben which were first heard in 1859. This famous clock was named after Sir Benjamin Hall M.P., Commissioner of Works, who had "a portly and bell-shaped appearance". He had the responsibility of installing the clock as part of his parliamentary duties. He too was a Unitarian. Every time we hear the Big Ben chimes we are reminded of a great Unitarian and of his contribution to the traditions and customs of the British nation. I shall now look at some of the better-known Unitarians of the past. First of all there is Francis David who trained as a Roman Catholic priest. He progressed through Lutheranism and Calvinism to a Unitarian Faith. He became court preacher to the first Unitarian monarch in history, King John Sigismund of Hungary and Prince of Transylvania, Francis David is acknowledged as the founder of the Hungarian- speaking Unitarian Church which is represented each year by ministers and bishops at our General Assembly Meetings. When King John Sigismund died the Rulers who followed him had little regard for the idea of tolerance and Francis David died a martyr's death in 1579. Michael Servetus was a Spanish doctor and theologian. He was the first to describe the circulation of the blood around our bodies. As result of his published criticisms of the orthodox doctrines of the Trinity and of the eternal sonship of Christ, he was condemned by the Spanish Inquisition and burned to death in Jean Calvin's Geneva. Anyone who has studied chemistry will have heard of Joseph Lriestley, the discoverer of Oxygen. As well as a scientist, he was also a Unitarian minister. His belief in freedom and tolerance caused him to support both the French and American Revolutions. As a result his home and his laboratory in Birmingham were attacked and burned by a mob in 1794. He fled to America where he established the First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia Ten years ago, a special event was organised in Birmingham and Unitarians took part to mark the bi-centenary. ''We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." These are the words of Thomas Jefferson who also said that he was "contented to be a Unitarian by myself". The Rev. James Martineau, 1805 to 1900, was the most distinguished British Unitarian theologian during the 19th century. He was called by the Prime Minister, William Gladstone, who had attended his services, "the greatest of living thinkers". He taught that the individual conscience is the seat of authority in religion. His memorial is not far from the parish church of Rothiemurchas, near Aviemore, at the junction of the road to Loch-an- Eilan. In that church are examples of wood-carving taught to the local people by one of Martineau's daughters. Florence Nightingale, who is best remembered for her nursing reforms and her work in the Crimean war, was from a Unitarian family, although there is some uncertainty about whether or not she openly declared herself to be a Unitarian. Robert Burns wrote a poem entitled 'The Rights of Women'. It was spoken by a favourite actress in Dumfries, a Miss Fontenelle, on November 26th. 1792. In that same year, Mary Wollstonecraft published a book entitled, 'Vindication of the Rights of Women'. She was one of the earliest campaigners for women's rights and also a Unitarian. It is interesting to speculate if Robert Burns was aware of her book and if he was inspired by it to write his poem. One of his poems appeared in our red hymnbook and this makes us wonder about his Unitarian sympathies. The popular Victorian novelist, Elizabeth Gaskell, was also a Unitarian. Her husband William Gaskell was a Unitarian Minister and author of many hymns two of which, nos. 222 and 393, have survived from the Red and Blue hymnbooks into our current Green book. At the end of the 1800's, a German women came to study in Britain. She became the first woman of any denomination to be ordained into the ministry in England. Gertrude von Petzold was appointed minister of Unitarian Great Meeting, Leicester in 1904 after training in Manchester College, Oxford. She ledt Leicester in 1908 for Birmingham, before going to America to continue in the Unitarian ministry. One of our most outstanding woman ministers, who 'became a legend in her own lifetime', was Margaret Barr. She was born in Yorkshire of Methodist parents. While studying at Girton College, Cambridge, she joined the Cambridge Unitarian Church. After training for our ministry at Manchester College, Oxford, she did a six-year pastorate at Rotherham. In 1932, she heard that a minister was needed to serve the little group of Unitarian churches in the Khasi Hills of Assam, in North-East India. She wrote to the committee responsible for making the appointment, but they refused to allow a woman to go to 'such a lonely post'. So she got herself a teaching job in Calcutta. There she made a friend of Mahatma Ghandi who advised her to go and work in the villages to serve those who needed her most. After several unofficial visits to the Khasi Hills, she was eventually given charge of the churches there in 1936. She spent about ten years in Shillong, the capital of Assam, where she founded two schools. She then left the comfort and security of the town and settled in the remote village of Kharang, a place that could be reached only after a 25 kilometre walk along a rough and stony track. There she established a rural training centre and hospital where she was teacher, nurse, midwife, counsellor and friend to a great company of people in the surrounding countryside. All the while she continued to act as superintendent minister to the Unitarian Union of the Khasi and Jaintia Hills. I remember meeting her in 1963 when she was the Anniversary Preacher during the General Assembly Meetings in Edinburgh and then again, some years later, when she came back to Britain to have an eye operation. She was 74 when she died in 1973 and our Women's League continues to support the Rural Centre which she established and which under her care, flourished and became famous throughout the region. Except for the last two ladies, all these Unitarians who made their mark in various fields, lived before our time. There are, however, contemporary Unitarians who have also distinguished themselves in their area of expertise, sustained by their Unitarian values and ideals. Unitarians always need to be forward looking, otherwise other denominations will be catching up with us. We also need to keep on the move as part of the Unitarian Movement. Over the centuries since Francis David and Michael Servetus, and even the 19th century James Martineau, our beliefs and practices have changed more rapidly and more radically than those of any other denomination. Unitarians have been described as people who think for themselves. Let us continue to think and probe and experiment in our beliefs and in our worship practices in the age-long quest for meaning and value in life.
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