I will hold you in my heart

Dear Gel,

          I shall miss you my friend,
          your bright eyes and your laughter,
          your energy and your humour,
          your patience and your kindness
          to the sad, the misfits and the lame.
          But with you held deep in my heart
          I shall walk again with you,
          my unseen companion, to greet
          the mournful crying of the gulls
          and sing to the welcoming beat
          of lacy foam capped waves.
          This is the loving friendship
          with which, in my latter years,
          I have been richly blessed,
          and from the bottom of my heart
          I thank you, and pray that your God
          will go with you, and bless you.

                                                    Love,  Nome

“In my end is my beginning”

T. S. Eliot:  East Coker

I am a solitary, a country member, a congregation of one, a member of the Fellowship of Non-Subscribing Christians, and an Unitarian.

My youthful Anglo-Catholic Christian faith was the sum of many parts: environment, upbringing, church teaching, my early delight in the colour and the drama of the Parish Mass, the austere beauty of the Edwardian brick church on the hill, the confidence of the community who bowed their heads to the Creator God the Father, offered their hearts to the Saviour God the Son, and gave their thanks to God the Holy Spirit who had led them in safety along the age-old path their fathers too had followed. 

Aged 18, I left home and went up to Cambridge at a time of great religious revival in the University.  Charismatic preachers like the one time Communist Father Michael Fisher SSF drew in the crowds, the Christian Union exhorted us to repent and throw ourselves at the foot of the Mercy Seat and accept Jesus as our saviour, while college chaplains reminded us that as Christians we must look to the needs of the sick, the poor, the dispossessed, the lonely and the mad.  My liberal minded Director of Studies was a liberal convert to Roman Catholicism, my supervisor in medieval studies was a long time supporter of the Modern Churchmen’s Union which had since its foundation in 1898 stirred up a hornet’s nest of protest against its debunking of all manner of dodgy doctrines and illiberal practices both within the Anglican and the wider Christian church.  Many Christians attended church twice every Sunday and  sat up into the early hours of many mornings debating all these exciting but perturbing ideals and ideas. My bed time reading was Eliot’s Four Quartets and a book of the poetry of Rabindrinath Tagore.

Writing now with the gift of the great god Hindsight, I realise that the saga of my drift from high Anglican Christianity to Unitarianism and the Fellowship of Non-Subscribing Christians originated fifty eight years ago in Cambridge.  In the succeeding decades of my grown-up devotion to the teachings of the Church, the echoes of the intellectual and spiritual excitement of that amazing time, the words of wise men generally forgotten, and of our often tortuous undergraduate discussions increasingly invaded my mind and disturbed the spiritual complacency of approaching middle age.  Thus it was that some twenty five years ago, conscience, credal doctrine and dogma overcome at last by enquiry and reason, I slipped out of the Anglican Church.  I sat on my lonely pillar like a Stylite in the desert, hoping that someone would come along and offer me a meal.  In fact, before very long, several good folk did. 

I was made wonderfully welcome by the National Unitarian Fellowship, where I found new email friends from a variety of other religious and spiritual backgrounds.  I was encouraged to consider the wisdom and teaching of other religions, alternative ways to enlightenment, other perspectives on the age old spiritual problems, old doubts and miseries, and to learn from other holy books and other holy souls.  I  embarked on a new journey where I had to find my own path through a dark forest of strange ideas and new perceptions until I emerged into the light of understanding that each Unitarian person must seek their own unique path to God or to enlightenment, must accept their own faith, each choosing their own teacher, or guide.  I began to understand that my attitude to my personal faith must achieve a new humility and openness in the face of such candid diversity. 

For the first time in years I looked again at the teachings of various of the world’s religions and realised that many of the precepts of Jesus could be found in older religions or would be incorporated into later religions - love of God, hospitality to be offered to strangers and neighbours, care for the creatures of the natural world.  These precepts, which I also followed, were so widely acknowledged throughout the whole world that the the core of what was left of my old Christian faith seemed now to be but a part of a wider, older, deeper universal faith, and that was exciting. For too long I had embraced a Christian faith that had about it an imposed corporate certainty which could be reassuring, but could also suffocate the individual spirit, and put down the free thinker as a child who, having once escaped the apron strings, is rounded up by the thought police and returned to its loving, smothering Mother.  Armed with the Unitarian principles I had learned from the NUF, I felt released into the custody of my own individual beliefs or non-beliefs, which could be as hazardous as it was exciting, but it seemed to work.  

I found from the very beginning of my connection with my open minded friends in the National  Unitarian Fellowship and the Earth Spirit Network, wonderful encouragement and support for my journey of faith - particularly from the two ladies with whom I have worked and shared such a long and treasured email correspondence.  Many of the rest of those good Unitarian people can seem to be, in one sense, just names on an electronic page, images in a photo gallery or characters who appear in an Unitarian TV video.  But Joan and Liz are as real to me as my daughter downstairs and Chris my friend and carer in the flat above, while many of the ‘just names’ are as real as the kindly neighbours who live in our Square. 

I began to write small fables for grown-ups and poems in which an emoting-by-proxy narrative would calm the ruffled feathers I had tended to raise in the the Internet Forum when first falling back into my old robust debating style.  To write for a group of folk with whom I was becoming at ease and whom I very much respected, was a precious and fulfilling occupation.  Both the research and the actual process of writing not only emerged from the faith I already had but then, in its turn, re-enforced that faith. Take for example the tale of the small brown Vogelkop bower bird, who searches the waste discarded by humans  to find objects vividly coloured and sparklingly  beautiful with which to decorate the bower he prepares each year to attract a new compliment of wives. He is an energetic eco warrior - a recycler of old rubbish tossed aside by folk who don’t care, and then he transforms a potential pollutant into a useful and decorative contribution to the lives of his families.  Or read the story of the compassionate outcast fox who saved the the lives of the Indian Running Duck ducklings -  what  lessons might these be for us mere lords of creation?

Unitarian openness and tolerance is a safe raft upon which to sit while paddling the best one can across the torrent of a hundred conflicting waters.  But where to paddle next, and who was the shadowy figure who sat beside me and accompanied me along my path, a stranger etherial, and without a name?  Faith, God, the religious life, spiritual awareness are for me all part of the Circle that is the eternal renewing of life and death of men and of the natural world in which we have the privilege to live, and is also at the heart of the Unitarian Earth Spirit Network.  I am not a Pagan by conviction, but I have for nearly as long as I can remember found God mirrored in his creation, an indistinct image perhaps - but a window into eternity that the nine-year-old-I-once-was recognised one summer afternoon on an Exmoor hillside.  Suddenly this window had been opened for me again, and every ride I took along the cliff showed me God - in the tiny purple vetch along the path, the red valerian at the edge of the shore and the great herring gulls wheeling and dancing across the top of the lace edged waves.  The presence of God was literally everywhere - how could I not believe that my purpose on earth was to love God and my neighbour as myself, and to care for God’s wonderful creation? 

As do so many Unitarians, I came to have faith in the inherent goodness of every person; in the necessity for free and truthful enquiry and freedom from the constriction of formal creeds; in the right of every individual’s opinion to be heard and honestly considered; in our obligation to seek to honour differences; in the worth and wisdom of every religion and spiritual path grounded in love; in justice and equity for all; in our commitment to respect and protect the world in which we are privileged to make our home; and the essential equality due to everyone regardless of religion, race, sexual orientation or gender.

As my confidence in my Unitarian journey of faith increased, so did my abiding respect for my Christian roots.  I could see the possibility of my old fashioned affection for the early dissenting Unitarians of the Protestant Reformation metamorphosing into a serviceable cloak to warm my spirit as it pursues its unfamiliar pilgrimage.  Further encouraged by my membership of the Unitarian Christian Association and latterly by the Fellowship of Non-Subscribing Christians I began to study seriously again the person and the personality of Jesus the teacher, prophet and guide, the radical Rabi from Galilee, concentrating now on his relationship with God whose children we all are, and his relationship with all those children of God for whom he urged the men and women who would follow him to care. His Sermon on the Mount, the message of the miracles and his thirty or so Parables which present us with his ethical and social teaching, together with the two great commandments he gave us to love God and to love our neighbours, are the abiding sources of my Free Christian faith. 

My Non-Subscribing Christian faith, which has no truck with compulsory Creeds, is centred once more in the teaching and example of the life of Jesus, and the living out of his commandments.  It is nurtured by the companionship of the welcoming Non Subscribing Christians of the Presbyterian Church of Ireland whose hearts are open to all honest seekers.  In the words of The Rev. Chris Wilson the Minister of Moneyreagh Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland: 

“I believe my own calling to be to preach the Kingdom of God, not as a millennial event, but as something realised in and through loving acts, the loving community, ‘realised eschatology’ as the theologians would have it.  This means the imperative, to reach out to others, to love God and neighbour as self, in particular when our neighbour seems different.  Liberal Christianity affirms all to be the children of God, of all faiths, of all creeds, of all traditions and classes, however we may differ from one another.” ["Fellowship", issue 1]

I see my life as a spiritual journey I make through a constantly changing landscape, and as yet unfinished. But now in the Autumn of 2015 the Circle would seem to be almost complete.  The interwoven pattern of the Dance of Life and Love is ready to be taken from the loom, and my erstwhile shadowy companion Jesus is revealed in the clear light of day and is no longer seen through a glass darkly.

She walks now on that quiet path

in a valley whose name is Content.

The enervating heat of noon is past

and the healing breezes of evening

steal silently out of the shadows. 

The child she used to be takes

her hand, and whispers to her

that what there is, is all there is,

and all there is, is gift enough

to be made of, or not, as she wills.

She feels the presence of the past,

the high peaks, the bottomless pits,

loving and loss, sadness and joy,

her young self, and her strong self,

while a man whose yoke is easy

leads her gently into the morning.

Naomi Linnell,  Broadstairs

Autumn  2015

St Francis, il Poverello d'Assisi

Saint Francis, il Poverello d’Assisi

Travelling through the Spoleto Valley, the Saint
preached to a company of his feathered
brothers and sisters who had waited
patiently for him in a glade beside the hot
and rock-strewn road.
From the topmost branches
of the tallest trees to the drab bushes
green-dulled with dust thrown
up by a thousand travelling feet,
they watched as the Saint approached.

The Poor Man of Assisi robed in a tunic of humble
undyed peasant wool, bleached by the burning sun
and stained by the rich dark soil of Umbria,
stopped in the centre of a vivid circle
of finely marked plumage. 
Jays elegant in pale coral and black trimmed
with elegant stripes of blue, crests raised,
chattered high up in the trees
and then fell silent as the Saint
raised his hands in a gesture of love.

Eurasian Nuthatches in waistcoats of pale brown
and coats of drab blue-grey, ceased their scurrying
and their busy walks down old gnarled trunks
where a hungry bird might find insects and seeds,
and lifted up their thin black beaks to honour him.
A Little Owl, Athene’s darling, in a sweetly specked robe
of brown and cream, bowed his head in the face
of the unaccustomed mid-day sun,
while jade Kingfishers and Yellow Wagtails
stretched out their wings to bid welcome to the Saint.
 

“My brothers and my sisters, I greet you”
Francesco spoke in a voice those sweetness
 echoed the passing stream and, with a countenance
as fair as a lily, he smiled upon his avian congregation.
“Here, my brothers and my sisters, we may see
the wonders of God: our brother the resplendent Sun
who lights up the day and our sister Moon
who makes lovely the bleak darkness of night;
and the wind and the rain which scatter and nourish
the burgeoning grains which feed us.
“Praise God for our sister Water whose rivers
slake our thirst and make clean our land;
for brother Fire who warms the long nights of winter
and for our sister Mother Earth, in whose demesne
we have found a a secure place to build our nests,
there to rear our precious  fledglings.
Go in peace now my children and take with you
as you fly the blessing and love of Him
who made you and gave to us all
this extraordinary world.”

As the Saint delivered his blessing,  a solitary Blue Rock Thrush
turned his face towards the distant shimmering mountains
and sang an ethereal Te Deum of thanks and praise.
For here in this sylvan chapel beside a dusty road,
the quiet eager listeners had been moved
by the tenderness and wisdom
of this man of God. 
A random gaggle of birds they would be no longer,
but the grateful denizens of this hallowed place.
Would that we might follow their example. 

Naomi

Our Christian Faith

Our Christian Faith  edited by Dr Brian Hick,

published by Larkpress,  2015.

Price: £8.00 + £1.00 P&P 

Details from Catherine Fozard [cathy@fozard.com] U.C.A.

“What is it that is deep within me that I cannot understand?

It is Love, Holy Spirit, dearest God!”

This book is a collection of twenty eight essays and two poems written by members of the Unitarian Christian Association, some of whom are also members of the Fellowship of Non-Subscribing Christians.  The project was originally launched for the UCA by the Reverend Bob Pounder and the editorship continued by Dr Brian Hick.  It is a well presented small volume, a stimulating read full of interest and wisdom, all for the  modest price of £8.00.  But be aware of the weakness of the“perfect binding” of the shiny card-thick pages - my month old copy is already showing signs of disjointed wear and tear.

The twenty eight authors include a bundle of ministers, a clutch of Lay Preachers, a basketful of members from gathered congregations and one Non-Subscribing Christian who has never knowingly met another Unitarian - of any persuasion - face to face.  Twenty eight pieces, each unique in its narrative, detail and interpretation, make for a multi layered work with poignant personal accounts interleaved with a more general survey of our Christian faith.  For example:  personal Faith - “I feel in my faith to occupy a narrow middle ground,…a place of vital significance, dearly won”;  our Hope - “The most significant years of Liberal Christianity may be ahead of us”;  Agapé, a loving acceptance -   “All that we share is greater than all that divides”;  Spiritual journeying - “I view faith as a journey and not as a destination - the journey continues and I do not know the destination.  But I hope and pray that God will continue to guide me and inspire me, along all my ways.”  

The result of this eclectic mix is a text fashioned a little like the web of a cack-footed spider.  As a web it could not be described as a miracle of classic arachnid design, but rather an agglomeration of strands - some long, some short, some dense, some delicate. But at its centre it is all wonderfully brought together like Eliot’s ‘still point of the turning world’ - that which is, for us, the living presence in our lives of a man called Jesus.  “[Jesus] … is saying that when you love the Lord your God with all your heart and love your neighbour as yourself, that when you live with love in your heart for all people because you know that all people are made by God and held by Him in His love, then the kingdom is right here and right now.”  It is this first century Rabi, whether he be God or man or myth, who is “the hero of our belief system”; who “has a potential to offer a Middle Way”; and is “the central figure of the Gospels’ esoteric texts which describe the spiritual journey of Everyman (and Everywoman)…” and in whose name “… the great Christian festivals witness to the Human Form Divine…”  This is the Man of God and the Son of Man, who is both our inspiration and at the heart of our heterogeneous Christian Faith.    

“… We shall always be trying … new beginnings, for until the hour of our death we are all beginners.”  We are, indeed, all beginners.  All our contributors have looked back to their own new beginnings and  reflected upon where they are now. But the journeys sustained by our Christian faith are never ended, the Circle is unbroken and our Dance continues. 

Naomi

Holy Week - A soldier's prayer

Holy Week - A soldier’s prayer

I walked through the city guarding a man

who carried a great wooden beam,

going to his death in a place called Golgotha.

Staggering beneath the crushing weight of his burden 

his sweat mingled with the bloody wounds 

our nine tailed scourge had carved, 

and spread about his naked flesh like a cloak

of imperial Tyrian purple vivid in the sunshine

of that never to be forgotten day.

On his head we rammed a crown,

not of gold studded with precious stones

but a crown of thorns from a dirty hedgerow, 

whose vicious barbs stung deep until he wore

a myriad drops of blood  like a necklace 

of rubies about his sad brow.

A pious woman in the crowd offered him her veil

that he might wipe away the sweat and blood,

but those who last week cried ‘Hosannah’

this day screamed ‘Crucify’.

His eyes glassy with hunger and pain, 

he fell to his knees and could not rise again.

My centurion  bade a strong Cyrenian take up the beam

and the procession arrived at last in the Field of the Skull.

There we nailed him to his cross and raised him

up where all could see - his mother, his brothers,

his friends, silently weeping at the foot of the cross.

It seemed to me that the sky grew dark,

and the earth shook, but we divided his clothes 

amongst us, for he was dead now

and needed earthly goods no more.

That night we spent drinking and dicing

but I could not settle, remembering 

the love I had seen in the eyes of the dying man,

his body nearly broken, his last breath nearly drawn,

and the spirit of forgiveness and peace hovering

above him as he hung there, prisoner

of the instrument of his suffering and death.

I am an old soldier now, retired beyond the Tiber

to a small farm where I sit in the sun 

beneath my olive trees and muse on the death 

of that long ago man of infinite dignity.

Some said he had not died that afternoon but escaped

to a foreign land, others said he was reverently laid

in another man’s tomb, to rise again three days

hence from the kingdom of the dead.

I do not know,

maybe I shall never know.

But I pray to my gods that his god

welcomed him at last into Paradise,

chosen resting place for those honest souls

whose lives become, for us left here, 

a pattern of goodness and love. 

So may it be. 

Naomi

  

  

Oscar Romero

Remembered in the Corona Chapel of Canterbury Cathedral as one of the Twenty Saints and Martyrs of our Time.  

In this quiet chapel, where the welcome smile

of a winter morning streams through lapis glass

lighting up sun gold slim pillar and wide stepped stone,

I meditate on the saints and martyrs of our time,

commemorated here where once Becket’s crown was laid.

Archbishop, poet, philosopher, minister, priest and nun,

long cherished in the hearts of all whose lives they embraced,

their loving spirits bright mirror of the divine.

They followed their Master far up the dangerous mountain path,

along the edge of the precipice, across the roaring torrent,

into a city of sad madmen, tyrants and thieves.

There, to reject neither the summons to deathbed or prison cell,

the trembling outstretched hand, the empty pleading eyes,

but to nourish the broken and the hungry soul,

to touch with love the outcast and the untouchable,

to break again the alabaster jar and anoint the weary feet.

They went to Bethlehem to greet the Christ Child’s coming,

they sat in the Temple amongst the wondering doctors,

in the wilderness they prayed for him and at his baptism rejoiced,

they walked and talked with him beside the Sea of Galilee,

they wept for him in the moonlit agony of Gethsemane

and in his footsteps trod their own Via Dolorosa.

He, their Child, their Teacher and their Lord. 

Verbum caro factum

Venite adoramus Dominum

In a street in Oslo

March 2015

One day in a street in Oslo, 

a strong ring of loving arms encircled a synagogue,

a thousand Muslims showed the world 

that in the face of the rage that comes at sunrise

and the terror that haunts the darkness of night

they were as one with all the children of Abraham,

Muslims, Christians and Jews, 

and stood united with all people of good will 

that the powers of barbarism and death 

might be overcome

by the gentle healing of universal love. 

On another day, in another street in Oslo,

another ring of arms is made, 

a Jewish ring of protection around a mosque,

and the dance of Love begins again.

How many circles of support and love are needed

to send a simple message to the world?

After the journalists have left with their cameras packed away,

how many thousands of good people must strive

to make clear their continuing compassion?

But when a sudden dancing wind moves on

it leaves behind a fingerprint on the quiet landscape,

the flood recedes but soft pools still lie

in grass once parched and bitter.

So it is in the new joy and prayers of erstwhile enemies

that new friends and new resolutions are made,

until we come at last to recognise the faith

which is the true foundation of our hope

and the bringer of everlasting love.

So may it be

Amen.

                                  Naomi