Issue 8069

THE

INQUIRER £1 | Issue 8069 | 14 October 2023

Inside this issue…

Peter Tatchell at Golders Green Yoruba faith offers connection It’s a Funny Old World

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The voice of British and Irish Unitarians and Free Christians

Stories make us: telling them makes us whole In her Hucklow Summer School talks, Louise Baumberg reflects on our stories

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…

Like most Black people, I rise on the shoulders of ancestors whose names I cannot know. Our ability to move through our own past is encumbered, cut off at the point where we as human beings are sold like cargo: the point of erasure.

In order to shackle people to ships, you have to untether them from their life stories and their heritage, their bloodlines and their land and their homes. You do all of this untethering, and for the rest of the generations of that person – for the rest of time – there will be no knowing of their stories.

The only way for all people to get any sort of free together is to act as if these stolen stories truly exist; to replace habits that encumber the movement and liberation of our kindred; to remember even the lives for which we know no names.

We show our children now the truths of yesterday and the possibility of tomorrow. It’s this deeper connection with the greater living story that brings a chance of wellness and repair for all life.

Glen Thomas Rideout

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In excerpts from her Summer School talks, Louise Baumberg writes of how our stories shape us

Speaking our truth It sometimes seems that the world is getting more harsh – more combative, more polarised, with less respect among people. I can’t say for sure – because in some places, some contexts are making great improvements. And the bad things always do get more exposure because of the shock value which drives clicks and advertising. But I do know that there is lots of scary stuff out there, lots of places where we can’t feel safe to share the truth of our lived experience.

We see people being torn down became foster carers in 2017, in and we can’t help them. We might response to the crisis of 2016, and be fearful of ‘being real’ in case of have been welcoming unaccompa“As the novelist Mia hostile comments either in-pernied asylum-seeking children into son or online. And not just hostile the family since then. Our youngest Couto said: ‘Listen, and comments – out there in the real son, now adopted, came to us first you will realise that we world there are places where to be as an unaccompanied asylum seeker LGBTQ+ and be your authentic self more than four years ago. In 2018 I are made not from cells means that your life is threatened. started my MA in Refugee Care. I or from atoms. We are There are places and situations learned so much that was useful and made from stories.’” where to be a person of colour relevant for working with refugees, means there is an additional risk but much also that contributes a of harm when just going about the really useful perspective to any tasks of everyday living. human interactions, circumstances Martin Buber, philosopher, existenor systems. (So please bear in mind tialist and nominee for the Nobel Literature and Peace where I may give examples from the refugee experience, prizes. His writings on dialogue and relationships between these apply to any human interactions, or situations.) people were particularly influential. He writes (and I have From 2020, the pandemic brought horribly stressful famchanged his language so that it speaks to us more univerily issues, some of which have had long-term effects on sally): myself and others close to me. People all over the world The basis of human life is twofold, and it is one – the wish of will have experienced illness, bereavement, poverty, loneevery person to be confirmed as what they are, even as what liness, mental health issues, and other dark times which they can become, by other people: and the innate capacity in may be continuing to affect life today. humankind to confirm their fellow humans in this way … AcBut there are other ways to look at it. I came across a tual humanity exists only where this capacity unfolds. quote which said, in part: ‘Whilst it’s crucial we recognise It is all about our stories, how we tell them and what they the challenges and difficulties brought on by this crisis, it’s make us believe about ourselves. Or, as the novelist Mia equally important to acknowledge our inner strength.’

Couto said: These two stories – that the pandemic brought ongoing Listen, and you will realise that we are made not from cells or problems and grief, and that it proved our resilience and from atoms. We are made from stories. taught the importance of community – don’t contradict A huge part of my recent story is that since 2016 much each other. They can both be true and they are both true. of my work and family life has been with refugees. We What can we take from this? We can see that even when Continued on page 4 > www.inquirer.org.uk | Page 3

The pain of losing stories

Continued from page 3 >

telling our own stories we can tend to tell a thin, stereotyped story that diminishes us, rather than a thicker story of resilience. And because our stories feed into our identity, this can diminish our whole sense of ourselves.

Refugees lose their stories Christmas Island is an Australian territory – a small tropical island which lies south of Java, about 2000km from the Australian mainland. It is one of the islands on which Australia has put an ‘offshore immigration detention centre’.

(The others are Nauru and Manus.) These centres hold people who have tried to reach Australia and claim asylum – mainly irregular maritime arrivals. They have been told resettlement in Australia is not an option, and they are held for an indefinite period. There are many tragic stories of those who have been held, isolated, with no hope. Some are moved around these offshore and onshore detention facilities for years.

Predictably, Christmas Island detainees suffer a range of mental health issues. Many of them endured torture and appallingly difficult events in their own countries and harrowing journeys as they fled. And now they are detained with no freedom to exercise any control over their own lives.

Poh Lin Lee, a therapist, was employed to provide mental health support. She wrote an academic paper about the experience and was also the subject of an award winning documentary: Island of the Hungry Ghosts. (It is available to stream in the UK on Amazon Prime.)

Like the refugees themselves, Poh Lin has no power to change their situation. All she can do is spend time with them, sometimes just for one session. There is nothing she can do for them materially except hear their stories.

Poh Lin is trained in narrative therapy and her focus is on enabling her clients to tell the thickest stories of themselves that they can – not a thin story of torture, suffering and despair which is undoubtedly true. But to support them to find more – to find their resilience, the acts of resistance, their values, their very identity. She enables Mohammed to find his memories of the countryside of his childhood. She meets Daryoush - who describes himself as a ‘bad man’. She invites him to tell her the story of his life before he left Iran – reminding him that he is still a dynamic community-minded entrepreneur, to help him reconnect with the identity that is capable and caring. When Ali shares his story that everyone in his life disappears, he and Poh Lin agree to say goodbye at every session, in case it is their last. This is the principle of, ‘Making Now Precious’, the title of her account of the work.

We learn from narrative therapy how important it is to hear the stories, all the stories of others, without judgement and, if we can, help our friends to tell more of their stories to realise how strong and amazing they are.

Lee’s Making Now Precious leads me back to Buber’s work. It Page 4 | Issue 8069 – 14 October 2023

is such a beautiful intention to have in our interactions. Buber writes, ‘A human being becomes whole not in virtue of a relation to himself (only) but rather in virtue of an authentic relation to another human being.’ Sharing the stories of our real experiences puts us in an authentic relation with another human being. And therefore it is in that relationship that there is the possibility for us to move towards wholeness.

Stories corrupted by dominant systems We are all parts of multiple systems – the ecological systems which make up the whole of life on planet earth – but also economic systems, organisations, and society. The importance of recognising that we exist in a wider world of systems that impact on us means that we can recognise that any difficulties that we have are probably not due to personal failings but to a system that restricts certain groups, an environment that fails to provide opportunities, a society that tells us that some people have less value than others.

Subjugated people adopt oppressors’ narrative WEB Du Bois was an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, poet, researcher and editor (and first African American to be awarded a PhD at Harvard). Taiwo Afuape and Gillian Hughes explain that he, and then later Michel Foucault: ‘understood dominant knowledges as stories or discourses (the spoken, written or behavioural expectations shared within a social or cultural group) that are dominant because they are accepted as ‘truth’, not questioned, and are maintained by social structures. ‘Subjugated’ knowledges, stories or discourses are those which are ignored or dismissed, such as the experiences, views or values of those who are marginalised. Du Bois argued that we are, ‘ever confined by our social, cultural and historical position in the world but potentially emancipated by our appreciation of the ways we are oppressed.’

Foucault is saying that the dominant stories, the ones with power, have been internalised by the individual and are the lens through which the individual is interpreting the events of their lives and shaping their own identity. This means that, not only do we sometimes tell or believe a single story, these stories are also often the stories of those in power – thin stories that oppress us.

Liberation psychology is the opposite to a culture that sometimes tells us that if we meditate more, if we do our gratitude diaries, if we volunteer, if we exercise enough, we will be able to fix our anxiety, our depression. Liberation psychology is the opposite of the ideology that tells us that we are poor because we are not thrifty enough, we are not organised enough.

Liberation psychology heals Liberation psychology seeks to understand the person within their socio-political, cultural, and historical context.

Therefore, distress is understood in the context of an unjust

See Helen Simpson’s story of Summer School on page 9.

Shown left: Hucklow Summer School 2023 participants. Photo provided by Jane Blackall

environment that psychologises and individualises distress.

This realisation turns things on their head and we recognise that the environment and social structure are the root causes of distress.

The negative dominant social narrative and oppressions are often internalised. Naming these injustices along with telling stories of resistance promotes wellbeing. A system of oppression – discrimination, exclusion, deprivation, stress, poverty – leads to internalised oppression with resultant feelings of hopelessness, helplessness, anger, shame, a sense of inferiority and vulnerability to psychological distress and addiction. People feel that their struggles are a consequence of personal failure. This has two consequences: firstly that if they are due to personal failure then they are difficult to fix and secondly that failure has become part of their identity.

Naming, and thus externalising, the oppression and negative narrative in itself promotes wellbeing. The story of injustice and acts of strength and resilience can be uncovered and reinforced and then those who have been oppressed gain a sense of urgency to act. Taking problems out of the realm of personal failure is empowering.

Imagine being a young refugee in the UK. Life is hard because the asylum system is grindingly depressing and education and social care are inadequate. You feel hopeless.

Furthermore, the dominant social discourse is of refugees arriving like a ‘swarm’, an invasion, a drain on the economy and this story permeates your identity. You come to feel that you are a ‘rubbish person’.

But this can all change if you are given support to see your strengths. If you can see that the system is unfair, it takes away your sense of personal failure. And, if you can recognise that the social discourse is not the truth, but simply a story that helps politicians, this will take the power out of the story and allow space for your own individual, authentic story.

For liberation psychology, the personal is political. The Covid crisis really highlighted this as the decisions of politicians shaped our lives directly and instantly. But austerity, the state of the planet, the stories we tell about oppressed peoples, are all driven by politics. We may feel

our interpersonal relationships, our church groups, should be outside the political discourse. I understand this wish, but if we don’t recognise the influence of politics on people’s lives what are we saying to those around us? That, for example, it’s their fault that they can’t find somewhere affordable to live, or that their impending homelessness is not something that can be spoken about? Some of us may be somewhat cushioned from the effects of political decisions and societal discourses – if so, we need to recognise how lucky we are – but we cannot live outside these systems and, in order to hear the authentic experiences of those around us we need to recognise the effects of the environment on all our lives.

Can we recognise ourselves?

Sometimes, we – I – get stuck in the thinking that says that there will be a ‘sharer’ of life stories and a ‘sharee’. The danger is that we get stuck in these roles and drawn into the roles of rescuer and victim – like parts in a play which again provide a limited identity for both parties.

Walt Whitman, in his grand poem, Song of Myself, makes an epic journey through a long catalogue of examples of American life.

The poem includes the famous quote ‘Do I contradict myself?

Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.’ It tells an expansive story; it opens our eyes to the fact that we are not limited by one or two roles but have an almost infinite capacity.

And Thích Nhất Hạnh writes: ‘Can we look at each other and recognise ourselves in each other?’

Louise Baumberg Excerpts from Louise’s Hucklow Summer School talks, in which she talks about the damaging stories we can tell ourselves, creating safe spaces for stories and how that relates to the divine, will continue in the next issue of The Inquirer. Find videos and audio recordings here: www. hucklowsummerschool.co.uk/talks/ www.inquirer.org.uk | Page 5

Marking Black History Month, Maud Robinson writes of the Yoruba faith, deeply rooted in Africa

Yoruba religion is a way of life In 1795 the poet William Blake published the book All Religions Are One. The most popular metaphor for this view portrays the great religions as different paths up the same mountain. This is a comforting notion in a world in which religious violence often seems more present and potent than God. But is it true?

The Dalai Lama affirms, ‘the essential message of all religions is very much the same’ – the sweet harmony of peace, love and understanding that religion writer Karen Armstrong also finds at the heart of every religion.

To be sure, the world’s religious Religion may or may not move traditions do share many ethical mountains, but it is one of the prime precepts. No religion, however, sees movers in politics worldwide. You ethics alone as its reason for being. don’t have to believe in the power of “Is religion one of the Hindu teacher Swami Sivananda prayer to see the power of religious world’s greatest forces writes, ‘The fundamentals… of all beliefs and behaviours to stir people religions are the same. There is to action. for evil, or one of the difference only in the nonessentials.’

Is religion one of the world’s world’s greatest forces This is a lovely sentiment but it is greatest forces for evil, or one dangerous, disrespectful and untrue. of the world’s greatest forces for for good? Yes and yes.”

This wishful thinking is motivated in good? Yes and yes, which is to part by an understandable rejection say that religion is a force far too of the exclusivist missionary view powerful to ignore. that only a certain kind will make it The world’s religions share a starting to heaven. point. And they begin with this The Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century popularised simple observation: something is wrong with the world. the ideal of religious tolerance, and we are doubtless They part company, however, when it comes to stating better for it. But this naïve theological groupthink has just what has gone wrong, and they diverge sharply made the world more dangerous by blinding us to the when they move from diagnosing the human problem to clashes of religions that threaten us worldwide. These prescribing how to solve it. differences may not matter to mystics or philosophers of Blake’s book is divided into chapters, each about one of religion, but they matter to ordinary religious people. eight of the world’s great religions in order of influence, focusing on contemporary impact, (which is, of course, debatable).

Religion affects all aspects of life • Islam: The Way of Submission Both tolerance and respect are empty virtues until we • Christianity: The Way of Salvation actually know something about whomever it is we are • Confucianism: The Way of Propriety supposed to be tolerating or respecting. We need to • Hinduism: The Way of Devotion understand religious people as they are – not just at • Buddhism: The Way of Awakening their best but also at their worst. Religion in not merely a • Yoruba Religion: The Way of Connection private affair. It matters socially, economically, politically • Judaism: The Way of Exile and Return and militarily.

Page 6 | Issue 8069 – 14 October 2023

“Yoruba religion has been either entirely neglected or dumped into that ‘primitive’ religions chapter. ”

Shown left: Yoruba women connect at the Osun festival in Nigeria. Shutterstock photo

• Daoism: The Way of Flourishing Yoruba Religion was the only one about which I knew nothing, and I was intrigued by it being called The Way of Connection, so I turned to it first. Books on the world’s religions often include a chapter on so-called primitive religions, as if they were one and the same. Stuffed into these chapters (which often fall at the end of the book) are all sorts of religious traditions that in many cases have far less in common with one another than do the socalled advanced religions. Yoruba religion has been either entirely neglected or dumped into that ‘primitive’ religions chapter. But the religion of Yorubaland and its diasporas is its own thing, as distinct from the religion of the Sioux of North America, as Buddhism is from Islam. And it, too, (according to religious scholar Stephen Prothero) is one of the great religions of the world.

Sixth largest religion in the world By some counts the Yoruban religion is the sixth largest religion in the world, with between 50 and 100 million followers. Nigeria, the homeland of the Yoruba people, is Africa’s most populous country; and the Yoruba are also found in Benin, Togo and Sierra Leone. Even among those who have converted to Islam or Christianity, it is rare to find someone who has entirely banished Yoruba religion from her repertoire.

Yoruba-derived religions are also scattered across the African diaspora created by the transatlantic slave trade.

There are the Yoruba-derived adaptations of Candomblé in Brazil and Santeria in Cuba, and other adaptations in South America, the Caribbean and the United States.

Yoruba slaves took their Orishas (divine or semi-divine beings) underground and then resurrected them in the guise of Catholic saints. Was this a gradual unplanned merging of cultures? Maybe. Maybe not. The Nigerian Nobel Laureate, poet and playwright, Wole Soyinka thinks not. He writes that their strategy was to ‘co-opt the Roman Catholic deities into the service of the Yoruba deities; then genuflect before them.’

Yoruba religion is a pragmatic way of life, more than a rigid belief system. Practitioners care far more about telling good stories and performing effective rituals than about thinking ‘right’ thoughts. They demonstrate almost no interest in patrolling orthodoxy; and are almost endlessly elastic, greeting foreign religious impulses with a ‘yes’, rather than a ‘no’, adapting and absorbing these impulses, and reinventing itself along the way. Wole Soyinka describes this ‘accommodative spirit of the Yoruba gods’ as an ‘eternal bequest to a world that is riven by the spirit of intolerance, xenophobia and suspicion.’

A faith without a creed Yoruba leaders have never gathered to squeeze their beliefs into a creed. They are practitioners more than believers. Their practice consists of various techniques for communication and exchange between human beings and orishas. The orishas mediate between human beings and Olodumare, the Supreme Being or ‘Owner of the Sky’.

Yoruba religion sees the human problem as disconnection.

To be human is to be connected, but all too often we are disconnected: from one another; from nature; from the orishas; and from the High God Olodumare. We are even disconnected from our destinies; alienated from our truest selves. Yoruba practices seek to reconnect us across all these divides.

With birth comes forgetting Yoruba religion affirms that each of us has a destiny we have somehow forgotten; it also affirms reincarnation.

Before humans are reborn, our souls appear before the High God Olodumare to receive new breath. Olodumare then allows us to choose our own destiny, which includes the day we will return to heaven, our personality, our occupation, and our own unique measure of good and bad luck. With birth comes forgetting. So, we wander through life veiled from our true purposes, sidetracked by pursuits, in love and in work, foisted on us by our parents, friends, co-workers and spouses. The antidote to this forgetfulness Continued on page 8 > www.inquirer.org.uk | Page 7

In Yoruba, wisdom is embodied Continued from page 7 >

is to recover our destiny, so we can do what we were created to do, for ourselves, our families, and the world.

Specially trained diviners called babalawos use divination techniques to help believers recover their destiny. They don’t dispense any secret wisdom, instead they know how to cast the 16 palm nuts, used for divination. Babalawos cast the 16 palm nuts, and then chant four verses that are associated with the resulting pattern. The client chooses which of the four verses is appropriate to her situation.

The role of the babalawo is to help to call believers back to their original selves, to recover the destinies they chose for this life before it began.

There are different kinds of orishas; those who were present with Olodumare at creation; personifications of natural forces, such as the sea or thunder; and deified ancestors, who once walked the earth as mortals. They all have personalities and preferences; they marry; and they also divorce.

Divinity and humanity are less divided The gaps between the supernatural and the everyday are narrow in Yoruba culture. The distinction between divinity and humanity is also fuzzy; human beings carry within them ashe (the awesome power to make things happen, and to make things change); and orishas are not above even the meanest human emotions.

Some of the most important orishas are: Ọrunmila, the diviner, who delivers messages from above to humans. He is said to know the destiny of humans and orishas alike; and is associated with harmony and stability.

Eshu, the messenger, who delivers sacrifices from below to orishas. Without Eshu, interactions between heaven and earth would cease and human existence would spin into chaos. Images of Eshu can be found in almost every Yoruba home. Sacrifices to any orisha must include an offering to Eshu. If you don’t feed him a little of his favourites – palm oil or tobacco – at the beginning of a sacrifice, he won’t have the energy, or the inclination, to do your bidding. Eshu clears the way for those who attend to him and puts up roadblocks for those who neglect him.

He inserts uncertainty and unpredictability into a world otherwise governed by fate, and then he sits back and laughs at the chaos that follows.

Oshun is the orisha of rivers and sweet water. She was the only female present at creation, and is the orisha of fertility and childbearing. She is a great beauty, covered Page 8 | Issue 8069 – 14 October 2023

with brass bling and awash with husbands, lovers and children. But, in the end, she tired of all the lovers and got herself out of the love racket entirely by turning herself into a river.

In Yoruba religion, wisdom is embodied; drumming and dance are religious practices. During Yoruba trance dancing, an orisha can possess both the body and the spirit of the devotee; and every word, gesture and movement manifests the possessor rather than the possessed. Most orishas live inside the earth and come up through the ground to enter those they possess.

On feast days, men can dance as female orishas and women can dance as male orishas. It is also common for practitioners to switch genders when they reincarnate.

Many Yoruba girls are called Babatunde (‘Father Returns’) and many Yoruba boys are called Yetunde (‘Mother Returns’).

Numbers of practitioners of Yoruba religion in North America are relatively small, but have been growing in recent years.

Devotion brings a good life Grace Jantzen, Canadian feminist philosopher and theologian, suggests that perhaps where religions really compete is on the question of how to flourish. In Yoruba religion the goal is not to be reborn, or go to heaven, but to flourish here and now. It attempts to repair believers’ lives and our world by reconnecting earth and heaven, human beings and orishas, and each of us with our own particular destiny and natural environment. Believers can consult orishas through divination to discern how to resolve problems, but resolutions are temporary and must be repeated. With proper devotion to the orishas, Yoruba adherents can live long, healthy, wise and prosperous lives.

Maud Robinson The Rev Maud Robinson is minister with Underbank Unitarian Chapel, Stannington.

HelenofNorwich Simpson writes of Summer School’s return to Great Hucklow

Free to be ourselves

Shown above: For the first time, Summer School offered an online programme.

Just one week. As we pulled up outside the Nightingale Unitarian Conference Centre in the Peak District National Park we were very excited. It had been years since we’d been to Hucklow Summer School. We partly wanted to be grown-ups and carefully check in to our rooms and start putting clothing in drawers. But a much bigger part of us wanted to rush round the building looking for people we hadn’t seen since the last in-person summer school before the pandemic.

After securing our room and putting away a shirt or two, we went off in search of old friends. It was most strange as many of the old friends had not come. There were far fewer people this year and many nervous-looking new people. We doled out lots of unsolicited advice in an excited manner to anyone who hadn’t been before like, ‘don’t try to do everything or you will be worn out by Wednesday’ and ‘when someone puts their hand up then you put it up too and it means there is an announcement’. They must have thought us most strange – like they had just joined a boarding school and not a Unitarian Educational Week.

This year was like any other apart from a few notable differences. As usual we had daily theme talks with the whole group followed by smaller engagement groups for more intimate and deeper work. After three years of online summer school during the pandemic, for the first time we had a group of people who joined us from their homes.

They watched the theme talks on zoom and then had their own engagement group with the Rev Jane Blackall. This year the theme talks were all done by the wonderful Louise Baumberg – a return to the previous format. In recent years, different people have spoken each day.

Louise took us on a week-long journey through the theme ‘Telling the Truth of Our Lived Experience’. She reminded us of people around the world and in our own country whose lives can be very different from our own. It helped me remember how truly grateful I am for the safety and acceptance I have found in Unitarianism – acceptance as a queer woman with physical and mental challenges, but who is also celebrated for her ideas and strengths.

The afternoons brought us an excited medley of optional activities from crafting to chanting, from wild water swim-

ming to reflecting on the theme talk in more depth. The last night was a time for singing songs together and myself and five others performed a short comedy sketch.

Its hard to write about the effect of the week because it is different for everyone. I could lay out the timetable for you or send you recordings of the talks, but it would not truly give you the essence of what summer school is. For me it is made up of moments; moments of connection; moments of learning; moments of changing. Perhaps a conversation over the coffee machine. A song sung together that creates a shift in you. A change of heart about someone you initially felt distant from.

Every evening we walked to the Old Chapel and were together for a short service. On one of the days, I led us in a loving kindness meditation that took the loving thoughts out into the whole universe. When we returned to the centre there was the most amazing starlit sky. Many of us stood gazing upwards, some lay on the grass. It was just one of many moments during the week that took me to somewhere different from my everyday life.

I have been to summer school more than nine times. Each time I have come away changed on a deep spiritual level – in a way that has meant the rest of the year pans out differently. Summer school is in the calendar. It marks an event in the year that is important to me and my partner.

We can be truly ourselves, truly Unitarian, truly spiritual beings.

HelenofNorwich is a member of the Octagon Chapel, Norwich. For more information on Hucklow Summer School, see: www.hucklowsummerschool.co.uk www.inquirer.org.uk | Page 9

Unitarian roots in Transylvania Whenever I see the name ‘Transylvania’ I remember that the earliest congregations with the name ‘Unitarian’ began in that region of Romania. I then remember that the language for most Unitarians there is Hungarian, a minority language for a minority community. So, I was interested to learn that recently four young Unitarians from Gellionnen Chapel, near Swansea, members of the group ‘#Blessed’, recently went ‘on the trip of a lifetime’ to Transylvania. In Cluj-Napoca (Kolozsvar in Hungarian), the city considered to be the unofficial capital of the province of Transylvania, they led worship in a Unitarian church. The service included an ‘an Irish blessing, our Chapel’s benediction, a prayer written by Nicola Temple and translated into Welsh (another minority language) and an adaptation of a full body prayer’. That’s a prayer with actions. Part was in English, part in Welsh and part in Hungarian. Inclusivity, participation, multiculturalism and internationalism all at once. Well done #Blessed! *** Some readers will, instead, recall that the monstrous character Count Dracula supposedly came from Transylvania.

This was fantasy fiction, of course, so we can almost set it aside. Someone who is very real, however and has a love for Transylvania is our own King Charles III. Since his first visit in 1998 he has returned to the region many times as his ‘bolthole’, to escape from the pressures of royal duties.

He has several properties there. One of these, the Blue House, is in a quiet village, Viscri, with no TV and no wifi.

The house is open to visitors when he is not there. He is an ardent conservationist and his house includes a botany museum, as the area is noted for having conserved innumerable plants totally lost to all other parts of Europe.

He has renovated properties which can be rented and the income is used for local charity work and for supporting local crafts. Understandably, he is welcome there and loved by the local populace. *** But what of Count Dracula? It is believed that Irish writer Bram Stoker, when he penned the famous blood-curdling horror story in 1897, drew inspiration from the even more blood-thirsty career of the war-making King Vlad of Transylvania, (1431-1476), known as Vlad the Impaler.

Our King Charles freely admits that he is a descendant, the 16-times great grandson of Vlad. This is through his grandmother Queen Mary. I’m sure that 16 generations have been enough to purge the monarch of bloodlust, replacing it with a love of wild flowers, local cheeses and plum brandy. *** Page 10 | Issue 8069 – 14 October 2023

FUNNY OLD WORLD

By John Midgley

I made inquiries of the Rev Maria Pap, presently serving our Mansfield congregation, who comes from Transylvania. Knowing that many of the villages there have a Unitarian church with a large and active congregation, I wondered if King Charles has visited or met any of these. He will have heard of Unitarians as he has visited one of our chapels, Styal in Cheshire. But, alas, meeting any close to his bolthole village of Viscri seems unlikely. Nor will he have encountered any of the #Blessed members on their visit to the city of Kolozsvar. This is a pity, since as former Prince of Wales, he might have been able to converse with them in Welsh. *** My current bedtime reading is a biography, Edith Sitwell (1981) by Victoria Glendinning. Edith was a poet who also wrote about poetry and an eccentric who also wrote about eccentrics. She is described by Glendinning as ‘A Unicorn Among Lions’. The eccentricity seems to have extended to other members of her family. She had an uncle who was so taken with the name Sitwell that he took it as a first name too. Being a baronet, he became Sir Sitwell Sitwell. I’ve found no Unitarian connections here; indeed, in later life Edith became a Roman Catholic. However, she supported and encouraged the young poet, Dylan Thomas whose great uncle, the renowned Gwilym Marles (his bardic name; 1834-1879) was a Unitarian minister and poet. Many like to think Marles was the inspiration for the slightly eccentric minister-poet character, the Rev Eli Jenkins, in Dylan’s much-loved radio play, Under Milk Wood.

He is described as diligently visiting his flock, ‘with his jelly and his odes’, humbly devoted to their needs. (For my part, I have never composed an ode, but so far this summer have made blackcurrant jelly, redcurrant jelly and quince jelly. I’m now wondering if reading about eccentrics is making me into one.) By contrast with the Rev Eli, Edith Sitwell admits to a serious lack in the area of humility. According to the Oxford Book of Humorous Quotations, (1995) she once said, ‘I often wish I had time to cultivate modesty, but I am too busy thinking about myself.’

Tatchell at Golders Green Continued from page 12 >

‘Some years ago we wrote to the Royal British Legion on a gay issue and in reply Group Captain Mountford….wrote ‘Our members are encouraged to follow their conscience on moral issues…It is only a few liberals in all walks of life who attempt to weaken our society by insisting that these unfortunate individuals should be accepted by the community. If they wish to follow a lifestyle which is repugnant to many people they must not complain because they are ostracised.’

Today we look back on those harsher times, still within living memory, when Dudley was sacked from his job in a cinema when it was discovered he was gay. In 2023 it is unlawful to discriminate on grounds of sexual orientation and same-sex marriage has been legal for 10 years. We should celebrate those Unitarian values and voices that helped transform lives.

Indeed, Derek McAuley, our former GA Chief Officer, spoke with pride at the exhibition of the role Unitarians played on the national stage for same-sex marriage to be permitted in places of religious worship – alongside Quakers and Liberal Jews,. This was not originally a provision

The National Unitarian Fellowship Dorothy Archer Memorial Prizes - 2023 The NUF would like to honour the life and work of our late president, Dorothy Archer. The following information and details regarding annual competitions have been donated from the estate of a well celebrated and generous woman.

The Prize fund has been increased for 2023 Prize £500: Digital innovation on the theme of ‘Technical religion’.

For example, technology supports or substitutes in religious practice, from the rosary bead to the hymn words projected on screens to Zoom and YouTube worship. This prize is offered to an individual or group who can best show how Unitarians can enjoy worship and information whether as individuals in the home or as a community through technology.

Prize £250 A poem, prayer or hymn which best demonstrates Unitarian values in worship Entry is free. Entries should be accompanied by an application form which can be downloaded from the website <nufonline.org.uk/DorothyArcher>

Closing date for entries: 30 November 2023

Note: The National Unitarian Fellowship may use the entries in its publication News & Views and on the NUF website.

For more information email: nuf@nufonline.org.uk

Shown above: In a press cutting, Dudley Cave blesses the union of a lesbian couple at GGU in the 1980s

within the Bill. Derek also reminded us that Unitarians had been on our own journey towards fully embracing LGBTQ+ equality.

When the boundaries of Unitarian theology of sexuality were being expanded Keith Gilley and a few members of GGU, Joyce Pearson and Olive Thompson, those respectable ‘ladies in hats’ and pillars of the Women’s League, were the ones doing that expanding. In 1977 Joyce and Olive spoke successfully at the Annual Meetings to the motion ‘that this General Assembly resolves that the Ministry of this Denomination be open to all, regardless of sex, race, colour or sexual orientation….’

Although the Rev Dr Ann Peart, Keith’s successor as GGU’s minister, could not join our celebration, she was present in spirit as well as image. The first ‘out’ lesbian minister, she came out during a Sunday service at GGU and her picture appears between those of Jeff Gould and Derek McAuley on the display panels. Fittingly I read extracts from Ann’s essay Of warmth, of love, of passion: Unitarians and (homo)sexuality. Ann writes about ‘the liberating experience of acceptance of all the varieties of the human condition without requiring people to be what they are not…’ and of ‘insights from being queer, of not fitting in…’

GGU is a sanctuary where I felt I did fit in and was accepted for who I was. That was my experience from the first time I stepped through GGU’s green doors in 1989 and met Dudley and June, who had been (and legally still were, for they never got around to divorcing) the wife of Dudley’s partner of over 30 years. I knew that this was a community for me. Little did I think that 34 years later I’d be standing in GGU’s back garden as the minister offering words of rededication for a memorial bench honouring Dudley, Bernard and June and their story of struggle, survival, inspiration and hope.

A video of Peter’s talk is available on YouTube here: https://tinyurl.com/TatchellGGU The Rev Michael Allured is minister with Golders Green Unitarians. www.inquirer.org.uk | Page 11

Michael Allured writes of the LGBTQ+ exhibition coming ‘home’ to Golders Green

Tatchell is grateful

Shown above: The Rev Michael Allured (right) greets Peter Tatchell at Golders Green.

‘I would love to express my most sincere appreciation to Unitarians for all the great work you’ve done over the decades, not just for LGBTQ+ rights but for the rights of women and other people who’ve suffered victimisation and oppression. You have been standard bearers of progressive thought and actions. So my huge admiration and appreciation to Unitarians… from the bottom of my heart.’

Peter Tatchell, acclaimed human rights campaigner, spoke these words at Golders Green Unitarians (GGU) to mark the arrival of the LGBTQ+ Unitarian Voices Exhibition.

After its launch at the 2023 Annulines when Integroup – co-founded al Meetings the Exhibition’s eight at GGU by Dudley and Keith to panels charting the role Unitarians promote dialogue between gay and “GGUs played such a played in the unfolding LGBTQ+ non-gay people – sponsored Gay prominent role as far story of sacrifice and struggle arSweatshop to perform its touring rived, via Ipswich and Brighton, at play Mister X under Ivon Hitchens’s back as the 1970s in GGU. paradise garden mural. Members of standing up for a group It felt for me as if the Exhibition was the local clergy turned up to disrupt of souls who were a welcoming home. GGUs played the performance. The Daily Telesuch a prominent role as far back as graph published an article under the marginalised.” the 1970s in standing up for a group headline ‘Gay play walkout by vicar’. of souls who were marginalised, The Hampstead and Highgate Express and, for some, beyond the reach of screamed ‘Vicar in gay play rumcompassion. During the ministry pus’ and ‘Heckling minister ejected of Keith Gilley and Dudley Cave, as his assistant, GGU during show at church’. Keith was frequently criticised in led the way in championing lesbian and gay equality. In the local press and GGU acquired a reputation as ‘the gay our GGU archives there is a wealth of newspaper cuttings church’. from local and national press showing how GGU and its Peter also paid tribute to Dudley’s quest for reconciliaminister discombobulated those outside the community, tion with his former Japanese captors: Dudley was as an including even some Unitarians. Among our press cuttings ex- prisoner of war forced to work on building the bridge is a joyful 1975 photograph of Dudley and two women over the River Kwai. Peter spoke of Dudley’s campaign with beaming smiles facing each other and clasping one for the British Legion to acknowledge the sacrifices that another’s hands. Dudley smiles as he conducts the blesslesbian and gay members of the armed forces made for ing of their relationship. It’s a magical photograph because the freedom they didn’t have when they returned home. of what Keith, Dudley and GGU made possible.

He quoted from a letter from Dudley published in 1988 in In the same year GGU caused a flurry of newspaper head- the Pink Paper.

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