Issue 8053

THE

INQUIRER £1 | Issue 8053 | 18 February 2023

Inside this issue…

‘Barmy Bishop’ and his unusual views No election for EC Living with panache

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The voice of British and Irish Unitarians and Free Christians

Love on the kitchen floor

Aidan O’Driscoll writes of the challenge of all kinds of love

Shown above: A banner at a 2022 protest in London. Photo by Matt Brown

The Perilous Road from Zaporizhzhia to Bratislava

By Bert Clough And there was a great fear in the land of Ukraine.

For Russian forces had fired rockets at the nuclear plant near Zaporizhian And a young widow, Yulio, was very fearful of another Chernobyl disaster. She desperately wanted to flee with her family to a safe haven. But she was torn between looking after her elderly, disabled mother and protecting her elevenyear-old son, Hassan.

So, tearfully, she led Hassan to a train station. She gave him a plastic bag of food, a small red backpack and passport and scribbled a relative’s telephone number on his hand.

The 11-year-old travelled the 750 miles alone to the safe haven of Slovakia. He stepped over the border with fearlessness and with a smile. He was Page 2 | Issue 8053 – 18 February 2023

welcomed with open arms by customs officers and Slovak volunteers. They gave him food and a drink and helped him to continue his journey to Bratislava where he found sanctuary; cared for by his relatives.

Millions of refugees like Hassan have crossed over the Ukrainian border; helped by thousands of Good Samaritans in Slovakia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, Moldova and Hungary.

The injured man lying by the side of the road in the parable of the Good Samaritan can be a nation stripped of its home, beaten and left for dead. And the Good Samaritan can be a nation whose people show mercy and give succour to its neighbour.

Bert Clough is a member of Oxford Unitarians, the Manchester College Oxford Chapel Society.

Aidan O’Driscoll looks at the work true love entails

Love’s austere and lonely offices I chose the headline, ‘Love’s austere and lonely offices’ for this article, which offers some reflection on the difficulties of truly embracing love. The title comes from the closing line of a poem by Robert Hayden that suggests that love often requires dutiful office.

Humankind generally makes the case that love is the underlying pillar of our lives. The idea of love is interwoven in all Buddhist teaching and the Buddha exhorts us ‘to radiate boundless love towards the entire world’.

In his first letter to the Corinthians, inherit eternal life, it is necessary to St Paul reminds us ‘And now faith, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’.

“Maybe it’s not so hope, and love abide, these three; Jesus has a wide definition of who and the greatest of these is love’. our neighbour might be. It includes easy. There are ‘other’ The songwriters John Lennon and those who might do us harm, even people involved.

Paul McCartney tell us ‘All you our enemies. To love our enemy is need is love, love is all you need’. truly a big ask.

And people can be The great English playwright Tom So love is not a trivial task. To love, bothersome, messy, Stoppard, in a recent interview, in its many manifestations, presents declared with a Wildean flourish ‘I’m challenge. Love as revealed in an untrustworthy, even very much in favour of love’. act of generosity, in a charitable So, we are agreed then. The ayes or community endeavour, in a cruel at times. ” have it. Love is what it is all about. caregiving relationship, in romantic So why don’t we just get on with engagement, in marriage, in it? Ah, maybe it’s not so easy. reproductive intimacy, in friendship, There are ‘other’ people involved. And people can be in a long-term partnership, such love can bring great bothersome, messy, untrustworthy, even cruel at times. solace and enrichment to the loved. But for she or he who loves, it can be often difficult. Blowing a kiss or giving a Samaritan sets a high bar warm embrace is nice but easy. Lasting love, the kind that A fellow member of the Dublin Unitarian Church, permeates one’s development as a human being – and Pamela McCarthy, addressed our congregation a while that enables us to flourish – must be worked at for the ago about the Parable of the Good Samaritan and how, in most part. many ways, the parable sets a very high bar for loving our fellow beings. In the parable, a priest and a Levite cross Love on the kitchen floor to the other side of the road to avoid helping an injured In her column in The New York Times, Tish Harrison man. I suspect there are many of us who have crossed Warren, an Anglican priest describes the difficult journey to that other side of the road on occasions, to avoid an in the early years of her marriage, reminding us that Jesus’ engagement with a fellow human that would necessitate call to love your enemy, and to love your spouse, can us providing help, emotional support, and possibly love. sometimes be one and the same. Yet her ‘kitchen floor Further, in the parable, Jesus says that if we wish to moments’, when her husband and herself were in tears and Continued on page 6 > www.inquirer.org.uk | Page 3

THE

INQUIRER The Unitarian and Free Christian Paper Established in 1842, The Inquirer is the oldest nonconformist religious newspaper.

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Inquiring Words…

In 1973, EB White wrote the following reply to a Mr Nadeau, who sought White’s opinion on what he saw as a bleak future for the human race. White replied: Dear Mr. Nadeau: As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the thing that is left to us, in a bad time. I shall get up Sunday morning and wind the clock, as a contribution to order and steadfastness.

Sailors have an expression about the weather: they say, the weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society – things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed, sometimes rather suddenly. It is quite obvious that the human race has made a queer mess of life on this planet. But as a people we probably harbour seeds of goodness that have lain for a long time waiting to sprout when the conditions are right. Man’s curiosity, his relentlessness, his inventiveness, his ingenuity have led him into deep trouble. We can only hope that these same traits will enable him to claw his way out.

Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.

Editor’s view

Warming the house We’ve just come through the plastic, pink, rose-tinted (or rosé tinted) purported annual celebration of love. Confetti, hot-housed flowers, cards and balloons are all part of February’s landscape – easy, if shallow ways to express love.

Aidan O’Driscoll’s cover article offers an antidote to much of the nonsense designed to separate us from our money.

He refers to ‘love’s austere and lonely offices’, and quotes from a Robert Hayden poem which recalls how a father would bank the fire on Sunday mornings to warm the house for his young son.

It reminded me of a poem my grandfather wrote of how his mum would encourage him to stay in bed until the house got warm. Near the end of his life, my Papa Pat wrote: In fancy I cover the years that have sped, ‘Til once more I’m back in my deep feather bed, As sweeter than ever my mummy steals in, An’ my old heart throbs as she tells me again, ‘Honey stay right here ‘til the house gets warm.’

It had been more than 60 years since Papa had lived at home with his mum, yet the sweet memory remained. These acts of love, the day-in, day-out kindnesses are what get us through the years with the people we care about – and create the memories that last.

MC Burns Correction: In the 7 January issue of The Inquirer, the obituary for the Rev Ashley Hills mistakenly referred to the United Reform Church. The correct title of the denomination is the United Reformed Church.

No election for EC The Executive Committee of the Unitarian General Assembly (EC) has four vacancies this year. Only two candidates came forward, so an election will not be held. John Bates and Wyn Thomas are elected, unopposed, and two more individuals may be co-opted by the EC. The four vacancies include seats held by the convenor, Marion Baker, Hilda Dumpleton and Robert Ince, who leave the EC in April.

John Bates

Unitarian association: 31 years Relevant experience within the Unitarian Community: Member of Cambridge Unitarians from 1991.

Member of Unity Church, Islington from 2012, Chair of New Unity CIO, Newington Green, since its formation in 2015 to 2022. Recently moved back to live near Cambridge, so will renew acquaintance with that congregation. We also visit Plymouth Unitarians from time to time.

Current main occupation: Adjunct Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at London Business School (Retired) Other relevant information: Forty years’ experience founding companies and teaching. Today, I mostly work with start-ups as a mentor. As New Unity’s Chair I reengineered the constitution and built a stronger financial base to support the minister in growing the congregation, raising £2m to restore the building and create a lasting outreach programme.

Election Statement ‘I wish to serve on the EC because I want to help more people find the Unitarian way of celebrating and reverencing life, love and community.

Our message as Unitarians is right for the times. I feel we need to come together and use our resources of money, buildings, and skilled people towards communicating that message and achieving our agreed goals of love and justice for all.

‘A challenge for faith-based organisations with deep historical roots is that they can become hostage to their past.

Aligning the movement’s resources and capabilities with an agreed goal may require some hard decisions. I can help us make those decisions in a collaborative way, without compromising our spiritual purpose.

‘We should strive to be greater than the sum of our parts, retaining all the vigour of our diversity and our localised autonomy, whilst working together towards a common vision of growth. I can listen, lead and inspire. I can contribute in strategy, finance and governance, and I understand the legal responsibilities of Charity Trustees.

‘Unitarianism has much to offer the modern world. I would be proud to help the movement grow and thrive today and prepare it for a relevant future.’

The Rev Wyn Thomas

Unitarian association: Lifelong Unitarian.

Member of Pantydefaid Unitarian Chapel, Prengwyn 1998-2020 Llwynrhydowen Unitarian Chapel 2021-present Relevant experience within the Unitarian Community: Member of Unitarians Wales committee since 2003, Chair since 2017. President South Wales District Association, 20132015. Ministerial Students interview panel, 2022.

Current main occupation: Complex case officer and Engagement project leader, Tir Dewi. (Welsh rural support charity) Other relevant information: As a trustee of various charities, I have experience and understanding of relevant charity law. My current work involves managing a diverse range of volunteers, as well as forging links and engaging with the wider community.

Election Statement ‘As a lifelong Unitarian, and having served as a minister for 19 years, I am firmly grounded in the Unitarian heritage of which I feel both proud and blessed to have experienced and loved. As a leader in a rural mental health charity, I have seen the practical impact of living our values.

I am passionate about developing a vision for the future of our movement. A future where all voices are heard, respected, and appreciated, in keeping with the inclusive embrace of our faith.

‘Our faith needs to evolve, and I consistently seek opportunities to learn, reflect, and adapt. I firmly believe that as a national movement we must respond to the enormity of the challenges society and our congregations face over the coming years. Within these challenges lie opportunities for renewal and transformation.

If elected to serve, I pledge to be honest and open in what are often difficult discussions, and to always welcome diversity of thought, ideas, and experiences in the process.

‘Our Unitarian faith is important – I believe we have a uniquely valuable contribution to make to the world. Our General Assembly is important – I will serve it to best of my ability.’

www.inquirer.org.uk | Page 5

Austere and lonely offices Continued from page 3 >

bone-weary on the floor, were the them becomes easier. Indeed, just moments when she felt the growth listening to the other can at times in their marriage really began. (See be usefully empathetic.

“So if love and loving the full column, ‘I Married the I must confess to a fascination for Wrong Person, and I’m So Glad I ruins – ruined houses, cottages or can be difficult to do, Did’, here: https://tinyurl.com/ castles. Seeing one, my imagination and other people can TishColumn) immediately flares up at the So if love and loving can be difficult thought of who was born there, who be very unlovable at to do, and other people can be very lived there, and what were their times, is there any unlovable at times, is there any fortunes through life. These ruins path forward? Well one suggestion become storied magic-full places. path forward?” might be to broaden what we mean I am afraid I must also admit that by love. One the greatest thinkers I often take the same approach on the subject of love over the with other people and consider past century is the Dublin-born them storied ruins – fellow humans writer Iris Murdoch. Her approach is to redefine love. who each have led unique lives, have contributed to the For her, the Christian ideal of wishing for your neighbour wonderful human project, and have invariably interesting what you would want for yourself, requires an unrealistic stories to tell. In this way, a relevant engagement with superhuman virtue. Instead, she suggests love as looking. each person becomes easier, perhaps even leading to Murdoch’s loving attention.

Simply trying to understand Another contention in considering love is its measure or More precisely, Murdoch defines love as ‘giving your measurement. Does love have a metric? Is there a balance attention’ to the other person. It involves switching down sheet involved? Should we expect a thank-you or some our ‘fat relentless ego’ and being aware of the world as it reward? Should we count thank-yous and rewards? Our exists outside our own interests. She writes, ‘Love is the answer here should be one of caution to do so. At the extremely difficult realisation that something other than least, it suggests a conditionality that is often detrimental oneself is real’. So defined, ‘loving attention’ is not just to true love. As St Augustine is reputed to have said, about doing good deeds, it is about gaining knowledge.

‘The measure of love is to love without measure’. We love Inevitably, it brings you closer to an appreciation of moral because it enables us and others to live meaningful lives, It truth, or the good. As pure, egoless attention, love is is simply the right road to follow. simply trying to understand other people … a task which does not come to an end. Murdock contends ‘Good is the Believe it’s the right thing to do magnetic centre towards which love naturally moves’.

The Good Samaritan was not looking for any reward for Murdoch’s broadening of the concept of love can also be his kindness. He had no expectation that the two denarii seen as a call to try to be more empathetic towards other he gave the innkeeper on his departure to look after the people – to walk a mile in their shoes so that you might injured man would be repaid. Rather St Luke tells us that understand them more – and so the challenge of loving he said to the innkeeper, ‘Take care of him. Whatever you Page 6 | Issue 8053 – 18 February 2023

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”

Shown left: Photo by Alessandro Alle via Pixabay

spend beyond that, I will repay you when I return’. The Samaritan was a compassionate man who did what he did because he believed it was the right thing to do.

Keep making the enchiladas I read another interesting New York Times piece written

by Ada Calhoun, an adult daughter, about caregiving for a father who had treated her indifferently for most of her life. He was now dying of Stage 4 lung cancer and Covid had arrived. I quote from her article: ‘During quarantine, my husband and I hosted weekly film nights at our apartment, making big meals and screening old movies.

My father said he loved these nights. And yet, he was as distant and difficult as he’d always been. What do we owe our parents? Do we owe them more than what they gave us? If we’ve given them a thousand chances to be better for us, do we give them one more?’

She continues: ‘As I was making enchiladas, yet another dinner that I anticipated my father not quite appreciating, I called my friend Tara and asked how I could keep taking care of someone who made me so angry.

“By doing the right thing”, she said.

“Which is?” I replied.

“Making enchiladas,” was her answer.

‘In dealing with an imperfect parent, I’ve found comfort in doing what is right − putting a plate of food down in front of my dad even if he doesn’t particularly notice.’ (See the full column, ‘My Father Makes Me So Angry. I Take Care of Him Anyway.’ here: https://tinyurl.com/AdaColumn) Always avoid a balance sheet At this juncture, what can we conclude about the difficulty of truly embracing love? Not much, I suspect.

We can accept that love’s embrace will often present difficulty. In coping with such difficulty, we might try some deep listening with and loving attention to the other person. Heck, try considering the other as a ‘ruin’ with a great story. And finally, be very slow to measure love,

and suppress any desire to produce balance sheets of who owes what to whom.

I am fond of quoting Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the French Jesuit priest, philosopher, and palaeontologist, who contends ‘We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience’. In loving − whether it be a small act of kindness or a lifelong devotion – the human and the spiritual, the secular and the sacred, the mortal and the divine, become seamlessly interwoven. It is love, in its myriad of expressions, that enables us to live decent, authentic, and worthwhile lives.

Quiet tenacity of love The poem ‘Those Winter Sundays’ by Robert Hayden, is three short stanzas, about a steadfast fatherly love towards his young son. The poem’s speaker remains largely indifferent or unappreciative, until later in life, when he realises the quiet tenacity of that love.

The last stanza reads: Speaking indifferently to him, who had driven out the cold and polished my good shoes as well.

What did I know, what did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices?

See the full poem here: https://tinyurl.com/AustereOffices

Aidan O’Driscoll Aidan O’Driscoll is a member of Dublin Unitarian Church. www.inquirer.org.uk | Page 7

Alan Ruston looks at one clergyman’s journey away from orthodoxy

‘Barmy Bishop’ espouses many Unitarian views The Church of England is getting itself in a mess again over same-sex marriage. Its General Synod meeting earlier this month agreed to allow clergy to bless same-sex marriages, while the church preserves its bar on same-sex weddings. The Observer of 5 February reports that about a dozen MPs are getting together to look at the legislation (Church of England Assembly [Powers Act] 1919) to see if it can be altered to ensure same-sex marriage does take place in parish churches.

There is one former top bishop dria, A Memoir of Faith and Doubt in the Scottish Episcopal Church published in 2012. Richard Hollowho would have had no trouble in way was born in Alexandria, outside accepting same-sex marriage. I am Glasgow, to a poor family with no referring, of course, to Richard developed religious background.

“He called for a less Holloway, the former Bishop of EdHowever, he propelled himself into punitive attitude inburgh, a radical Christian thinker the Episcopal Church and entered whose books have a widespread the religious community at Kelham to promiscuity and appeal internationally. Over the last Theological College, Edinburgh adultery generally.”

30 years he has written in support when unusually young. From there of the recognition of the imporhe went on to serve as a pioneering tance of women in the church and priest in the Gorbals, and widened outside it, the gay community in his experience, not only in other general and the right of homosexuparishes but also in Africa and the als to marry, all issues which many USA. He is married to a woman he Unitarians support. met in America and has three children.

Is it possibly because as a retired Bishop of the Scottish Episcopal Church he’s judged unlikely to be on our waveOrthodox at first length? Indeed, in 1992, he became the Primus of the Once a theological conservative, his first book in 1972 Episcopal Church, the equivalent to being its Archbishop; attacked the type of churchman he was later to become. he remained in that post until he retired voluntarily in Appointed Bishop of Edinburgh in 1986, he was then seen 2000. On the basis of posts held he would not appear to as relatively orthodox in thinking. His personal religious be a religious radical. journey since then has been remarkable, for it has taken him to the extremes of radical Christian thinking. Some A far-out Primus say he has gone well beyond that.

However, this is far from the truth as he was as far out as He did have his supporters in the wider church. Archit’s possible for a bishop to be. The recent appearance of bishop Tutu said of him: ‘He has made our Christian faith his 33rd published book in paperback (at the age of 89) credible. He has stood up very clearly to be counted when prompted me to review it to bring his books to readers’ the Church has had to consider controversial issues such attention. The work is titled The Heart of Things, On Memas human sexuality. He has stood up against a great deal ory and Lament, 162 pages, £10.99. However, readers may of homophobia which has infected the church as well. He be interested in a summary of his active and remarkable is a great advertisement for Christianity.’ His vision has life which is set out in his autobiography, Leaving Alexanbeen reflected in books, articles, book reviews and in the Continued on page 9 >

Page 8 | Issue 8053 – 18 February 2023

“He has stood up against a great deal of homophobia which has infected the church as well. He is a great advertisement for Christianity.”

Continued from page 8 >

media generally.

Dr Holloway’s energy has been prodigious; for he wrote 22 books, mainly published by the Canongate Press, before retirement. Their content was increasingly challenging to orthodoxy; he sees the Bible not as a literal account but a work of theological poetry, open to myriad interpretations. He argued that calling Jesus the son of God was a metaphor, and simply ‘a way of heightening an understanding of an extraordinary man’. But the book which created the biggest storm, published in 1999, was titled Godless Morality: Keeping Religion out of Ethics. Here he wrote: ‘The use of God in the moral debate is so problematic as to be almost worthless, and it’s best to leave God out of the argument.’ He called for a less punitive attitude to promiscuity and adultery generally. And, an admission that he once inhaled a friend’s ‘joint’ led to headlines in the national tabloids – he was called the ‘Barmy Bishop’ and ‘Bishop Free-Love’.

Christians tried to catch him out Taking God out of morality created a storm of criticism; the Archbishop of Canterbury was far from pleased by many of the bishop’s comments. But after retirement, he just carried on writing and speaking out. Appointed by Gresham College in London in the late 1990s as one of its visiting professors, I recall hearing his talks delivered to large audiences in a London parish church. They were brilliant, arresting and challenging. Orthodox Christians were there in plenty trying to catch him out. I recall someone asking him to affirm the Trinity, his reply was on the lines of, ‘Ah yes, I was looking at that concept a few weeks ago, and now on reflection see it as of little importance.’ He put his response in a way that it was difficult for protesters to easily get back at him in a logical way. A tall man with close-cropped hair, dressed in black, he was and remains a commanding figure with a very sharp intellect.

Now to his latest book, The Heart of Things. He starts by saying, ‘a friend said of my books that they were a multitude of quotations loosely connected along a string of commentary from me. I replied that, on the whole, that’s what non-fiction writing was, a conversation or argument

Shown left: Richard Holloway photo by Colin Hattersley-Smith ©

with other writers.’ This book does consist of numerous quotations, very often quoting the poetry which speaks to his condition. It is divided into six chapters, which bring out his view of life – Passing, Mourning, Warring, Ruining, Regretting, Forgiving. He finishes each chapter with his own blank verse.

‘Lived my days, loved and was loved’ The longest verse concludes the book, and is his reaction on looking back on his long and vivid life. Here are two extracts from near its end: Let them be, the Gospelling Atheists, they have their reward, But me, saddened by God’s absence, what’s mine?

It should be gratitude. Wherever the world came from, I got here to, didn’t I? Lived my days, loved and was loved.

It concludes with: Now as my own life, spools to its last reel, I’m still not sure if Someone was behind it, Like the projectionist in the old picture houses I went to as a boy.

Maybe at The End, somehow, I’ll know.

But wasn’t it great, the show, I tell myself, As the lights come up and the curtains start to close?

It was, it WAS! AMEN. A thoughtful book, possibly his last, from one of the most interesting and significant Churchmen of our time. His philosophy of engaged doubt has been a beacon to many and remains so for many religious thinkers today.

Alan Ruston Alan Ruston is a Unitarian writer and historian and is a member of the Watford Fellowship.

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Letters to the Editor Bias travels in two directions Vivienne Darbon Maidstone Unitarian Church

To the Editor › Many people of colour wish to draw attention to the unconscious racism that they experience, and rightly so. Any attribute that you were born with is not something that anyone else has the right to use to their advantage, whether with malice, arrogance or just not being aware that something is offensive.

Yet what is offensive about asking someone where they are from? I am ‘white’, whatever that means. Like everybody else, I have been asked countless times where I am from. The answer is Rochford (Essex), and people often reply, ‘You don’t sound like a Lancashire lass,’ thinking of Rochdale. Being misidentified with the other side of the ‘northsouth divide’ is no big deal.

I was once on a bus in Northern Ireland. I stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb, being blonde then. Everybody else on the bus, and where I was staying, and all around, had black hair. A man leaned across the aisle and asked, ‘and where are you from?’ I was visibly the ‘other’, and many of the people of Ireland have bitter memories of the English stretching back centuries. There was no offence meant or taken. He just saw someone who wasn’t local and was interested. ‘Tell me about yourself’ wasn’t appropriate for a 10-minute bus journey when we would never see each other again.

Racism is portrayed as white people offending against everybody else, but it is not a one-way street. Like other ‘white’ people, I have also had a negative reception due to the colour of my skin.

I wasn’t denied a job, but I was denied a companion by a woman who had never met me. You, the reader, should decide which is more significant.

An Indian colleague asked where I planned to go on holiday and I replied Ireland. She said that she always wanted to go there. She was divorced and aged 50. I was a widow of 58. We were both grandmothers. I suggested it would be fun to go together and she agreed. A couple of days later I said we should ask our manager if we could have the same week off. My colleague was almost in tears when she said she couldn’t go because her mother had forbidden it.

I asked, ‘Aren’t you old enough to make that decision for yourself?’ She said that her mother had forbidden her to go on holiday with a white woman, or to become friends with one. I went alone but it wasn’t nearly as good as it would have been with a companion. Was I really such a bad influence?

Surely this is one of the positive outcomes of the ‘individualism’ that is often so bitterly criticised. Being a member of any closely-knit community can be double-edged. All support each other, but given a possessive group leader, it can go on to produce the kind of attitude where we belong and you don’t.

If you think of yourself as an individual, not bound to a group’s values, then perhaps you are more likely to think of others as individuals as well. Then they are not members of a group, with that group’s attributes, but people you value (or don’t) due to their own characteristics.

My Indian colleague’s otherness was interesting. For example, she had completed the pilgrimage of the Sikh faith and I had walked the Camino de Santiago. We compared notes. Our differences turned out to be a point in common.

Far from being reprehensible, I believe in individualism and hope that it grows. I hope that one day it will happen that nobody is suspicious of the other, because everyone is uniquely the other.

Support for Ukraine is admirable Jeremy Goring St Leonards on Sea

To the Editor ›I was moved by Feargus O’Connor’s article, ‘An appeal for Ukraine’ (7 January). My son and I have made many visits to the country, sometimes to Kyiv, but more often to Kharkiv, which is closer to the Russian border and has been more heavily bombarded.

We have many friends there, some of whom have managed to escape to the west, while others have remained, with whom we have maintained contact by phone. We have been heartened by their courage in the face of the appalling conditions that Feargus describes. It is good to know that the Unitarian Peace Fellowship is helping to raise funds to assist the people of that war-torn country.

Live with a dash of panache That Saturday was one of those busy days. I had lots on.

But it didn’t start well. My car was frozen and wouldn’t start. I couldn’t do anything about it as I rushed to open the Hilary Assize for the Altrincham Court Leet. I was made a Freeman of Altrincham, for services to the community, particularly in the area of mental health and addiction, and I serve as chaplain to the Court Leet. I led devotions based on impermanence and the uncertainty of life. We shared a time of silence to honour those who had died in recent times. I knew several of those named; two were close to my heart.

I swallowed hard as I thought of those losses and the impact they’d had. I called breakdown recovery for my car. I had two birthday celebrations to get to. The recovery man arrived, got in my car, turned the ignition – and it started first time. The car had thawed completely.

After much laughter, I headed to the first birthday. It was a chapel member’s 80th, and all the important people from her life were there. Her son gave a wonderful telling of the story of her life, her achievements and the things that mean the most to her. She has lived quite a life, including overcoming a severe form of cancer in recent years, and it was wonderful to share in her celebration.

I went home to take Molly (my puppy) for a walk. I felt guilty, as I wasn’t spending much time with her that day.

I then went out to share a friend’s birthday meal. She is a recovery friend, and it was wonderful to be with her family, her long-term friends and a whole group of friends from recovery. We celebrated her life and – of course – the new life she has embarked upon. It has been wonderful watching this woman grow and thrive in recent times – and to share and enjoy her journey.

I then went home to Molly, who herself recently had her first half-birthday, turning 6 months old. I certainly didn’t need to eat again. I had enjoyed two meals and three pieces of cake. (Very nice cake, indeed.) The cake brought me right back to childhood and memories of baking with my grandma. The taste and texture were identical to the cakes and buns she baked. It was a lovely memory.

Birthdays are oh so important; they should be marked and celebrated. They are truly ‘Holy Days’; an opportunity to honour the sacredness of our lives; a chance to recognise one another’s sacred uniqueness. As Henri Nouwen so delightfully said: We should never forget our birthdays or the birthdays of those who are close to us. Birthdays keep us childlike. They remind us that what is important is not what we do or accomplish, not what we have or who we know, but that we are, here and now. On birthdays let us be grateful for the gift of life.

I have recently had the opportunity to enjoy many 50th-birthday celebrations of childhood friends. Hard to believe I passed this milestone over a year ago. I did not celebrate at the time, as I was going through a difficult

FROM NOTHING TO EVERYTHING

By Danny Crosby

time. It was wrong, and somewhat selfish. I will not do that again.

Some people have two birthdays. (I am not just talking about the monarch.) Folk in recovery celebrate twice.

They mark their sobriety birthday and their belly-button birthday. It’s a kind of re-birthday. Mine is 10 October 2003. A sobriety birthday is the day we each chose to turn down a different path, to begin our life journey again.

We turn from non-being to living. In Love and Death: My Journey through the Valley of the Shadow, a book he wrote during the last few months of his life while he was succumbing to cancer, Forrest Church said of the beginning of his new life after finding sobriety: Taken literally (in Hebrew and Greek as well as Latin), ‘conversion’ is not ‘re-birth’ but ‘turning’. Once converted, we re-direct our journey. The American short-story writer Raymond Carver turned his life around by a decision to stop drinking. From that point forward, he met life’s trials with equanimity and grace. When dying of brain cancer at the age of 49, Carver summed up the nine years of freedom he had enjoyed during what turned out to be the final decade of his life with the same word that leapt to mind when I give daily thanks for a yearlong reprieve from my cancer: ‘gravy’. When we see life as the precious gift that it is, when we celebrate our birthday as a truly holy day we see that everything is indeed ‘gravy’.

They say we only get one crack at life; this is true to some degree. But we can, at times, begin again. When all feels lost, sometimes it’s just the beginning of the end of an old way of being that may lead us down another path. We can begin again in love.

Life is an incredible gift, the ultimate grace, as it is freely given and can end suddenly. I lost a cousin last year. The youngest of seven from the Wolstenholme family, our Cheryl was only 42. None of us knows how long we’ve got left; how close we are to the end of the line. Nor do we know how close those we love are to the end of theirs.

I have another friend who recently received a very bad cancer diagnosis. He is facing it with courage, as he has so many things over the years.

So, let’s go live our lives. It is the ultimate free gift, the ultimate grace, it’s gravy. Go live whatever time we have left, let’s do it in love, service, dignity and grace – and a dash of panache. www.inquirer.org.uk | Page 11

These are the times – a meditation on truth Beauty is truth, truth beauty,- that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

John Keats (1820) from Ode on a Grecian Urn Truth is unblemished and clean, like a snowdrop piercing the hard earth, or a slender branch or leaf, or a curlew`s call across the dark moor.

Truth arrests rottenness. announcing what is green and good.

Freshly, – the air tingles with its purity, The spores of malice are cleansed, False words reveal their tarnished emptiness, The disfigured faces of ignorance crumple in shame.

Truth comes in moments of quiet reflection, bringing shafts of light to our burdened minds, Truth can bring peace after heavy hurt and harm has drained the spirit.

And somewhere in the midst of grief it shines and sparkles with a deeper knowing But these are the times – the times we yearn for, when its boldness might blast a carapace of lies, shake the servile crowd, scour the hollow rhetoric and justly and mercifully and humbly, re – assemble what is beautiful and true: the ravaged pieces of decency and compassion to a fragmented world.

Margaret Kirk

A reading from Worship Words, the Unitarian resource available online: https://tinyurl.com/GAWorshipWords The Rev Margaret Kirk is a retired Unitarian minister.