Issue 8074

THE

INQUIRER £1 | Issue 8074 | 6 January 2024

Inside this issue…

HMCO looks to the future Groundhog Day, again Climate Justice gathering planned

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The voice of British and Irish Unitarians and Free Christians

Finding midwinter light Nancy Jay Crumbine on walking into the dark

THE

Inquiring Words…

The Unitarian and Free Christian Paper

“I cannot be awake, for nothing looks to me as it did before, or else I am awake for the first time, and all before has been a mean sleep.”

Walt Whitman

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Faith in our Future

Unitarians for Climate Justice plan gathering at Essex Church Kensington on 3 February Unitarians for Climate Justice (U4CJ) was formed nine months ago to help connect Unitarians who want to get involved in the global struggle to tackle climate change, environmental degradation, and the exploitation of indigenous people and the global poor.

We have planned a Gathering for all Unitarians and friends who want to be part of this – perhaps the defining moral issue of our era – to meet; hear informed speakers; share our anxiety and hope; and plan how we may join our small voices and efforts to the growing number working tirelessly for a better future for all earth’s living beings. It will be at Essex Church Kensington 10.30-17.00 on 3 February. Book a ticket via Eventbrite at: http://tinyurl.com/U4CJevent We are excited that Clare Farrell and Dr Tim Harrison have agreed to join us for the day and speak about their approaches to environmental work.

Clare is a fashion designer and environmental activist, whose sense of urgency about the climate crisis led her to be an original organiser of Extinction Rebellion. She will talk about how her devotion to defending life on earth and finding the limits to her own courage, has changed her life; as well as addressing how an exploration of faith and our relationships, can help us confront the world’s ecological crisis successfully and compassionately.

Tim’s background is in ecology with a particular interest in ornithology, who has worked for The British Trust for Ornithology. He is currently working as a teacher in Suffolk and is passionate about engaging young people in environmental issues and the natural world. He will lead an interactive session on the topic of ‘environmental eating’, which has profound implications for tackling both the climate and extinction crises.

The day will also have a session for creative expression to help us tap into the deep roots of creativity that can sustain and nurture our faith in our struggles with present reality, and finish with a Climate Vigil led by Unitarian Minister in training, Shana Parvin Begum.

Refreshments and a vegan lunch will be provided. The session is free but we would welcome a donation to help with expenses.

So many people right around the world are now joining together to make a difference– let’s make 2024 a year where UK Unitarians bring their unique voice of faith and hope to the struggle.

Rob Oulton is a founding member of Unitarians for Climate Justice.

Nancy Jay Crumbine on the possibilities of Epiphany

The divine breaks through Into the darkness of our days, in the imperceptible lengthening, comes the chance to wonder and be amazed.

Each glint of light, gust of snow, fox’s pounce, infant’s face invites us beyond itself to what we cannot know.

Tradition has it that the magi, those astrological wisemen bearing gifts, arrived 12 days late, 6 January to be precise, walking short days into long dark nights. system we call the meaning of our lives is shattered by the evanescent light of a sleeping baby in the arms of a shell-shocked homeless teenager crouched in the dark …

“Eliot suggests the magi then what? wanted the birth of a The gentle light of that child transforms these men utterly. Mark king and they got the it well, set down/This set down/This, death of kingship itself.” they choose the journey despite its Folly indeed, these wisemen of apparent folly. Within their journey Eliot’s in his ‘Journey of the Magi,’ into darkness and when they find travelling such a long journey: the themselves in a dark stable rather ways deep and the weather sharp, to than in a glorious palace, in a stable see an infant ‘king of the Jews,’ the which was a hard and bitter agony most downtrodden poverty-stricken colonised people on for them, like death, they have the same choice we have earth. And then the magi choose to travel at night, further on a daily/hourly basis: to accept or not to accept, to into the darkness, for what? To see an infant ‘king’ of a expect or not to expect, the unexpected, the unwanted, worthless people? Eliot suggests they wanted the birth the hard and bitter agony of our own mortality, the of a king and they got the death of kingship itself, ‘no transformational joy of birth. longer at ease’ in their palaces, their Kingdoms, in the ‘old dispensation’: …

A cold coming we had of it, Just the worst time of year.... the very dead of winter. …

At the end we preferred to travel all night, Sleeping in snatches, With the voices singing in our ears, saying That this was all folly.

There was a Birth, certainly, We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.

We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation …

When the value system on which we base our entire lives, upon which the majesty of our importance rests, when this

On their lunch hour, I am told, a small group of New York businessmen journey through the streets of Manhattan, going the incredible distance from wealth to poverty in that city, to sit in hospital wards and rock drug-addicted infants in their arms. What brings them? What was their journey like? What did they expect to find when they got there? Were they led all that way for birth or death? Or both.

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“Once, and again and again, a child is born and the sun stands still.

Light pours from its face as astoundingly as it did from that child the magi journeyed to see.”

Shown left: Shutterstock illustration

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The miracle that happened keeps happening the world over. Once, and again and again, a child is born and the sun stands still. Light pours from its face as astoundingly as it did from that child the magi journeyed to see, as delicately as it does from the faces of those ICU babies in New York, as from the faces of asylum-seeking children at our borders, infants born in war the world over. Each completely unique, each astoundingly sacred, each the face of God. A child is born. Does it matter? Is it a statistic, this child, or is it a miracle to which wise men from far away, busy wealthy men, are called to come and see? Is it, this child, just another soldier, or is it a discreet self, marked as no other, come to teach us and forgive? …

The Unitarian interpretation of winter remains: that the divine breaks through where we least expect it, in the darkest times, in the creche of teenagers, hungry, tired, filthy, and lost. God is born to us, the living, the imperfect, with every birth. Angels abound, stars point the way, but it is ours to make the journey. Miracles happen in bleak times, in odd places, when we are least prepared. They are ours to choose. This January I want to pay attention to the advent of the light that lasted, the birth that taught us.

This January I want not only to raise my glass to miracles but to learn to anticipate them, to allow them to bring me joy even before they have arrived. Even in the darkest days, I want to pay more attention to the journey. …

In our house growing up, we had a creche – I still set it out to this day – with a mixture of small plaster figures, the little baby Jesus 2 centimetres long, the magi 7 centimetres tall. It had real straw for the roof of the

three-sided barn, sheep, cows, the donkey, shepherds kneeling, Mary and poor Joseph who always seemed to end up in the shadows. My mother placed the magi at the far end of the table on which the creche was displayed.

Each of us got to move our ‘king’ every day closer to the creche. I loved the anticipation generated by this participation, the sense of journey. …

On the Thursday before the first day of this winter, as the light faded yet again so early that the feelings of powerlessness and hopelessness washed over me – these snowless days, too hot, too short, the news too horrific, the fragility of our freedoms too acute – on this, a week before the Solstice, I walked out to the pasture in an effort to revive my energy. What was left of the sky was overcast, the tiny creek running more than it should this time of year, the birdfeeders still not hung out, the bears not yet in hibernation.

In our small pasture all year long, I pile up dead branches in a feeder pile for our family solstice fire by the pond.

Seeing it that Thursday, the pile next to the fire ready to be lit, I thought: Why wait? You can’t chase away darkness with a stick. You must light a light. So I lit the fire, throwing dry pine and buckthorn branches into it, watching chunks of the fallen linden tree go up in flames. No profound thoughts, no immediate lifting of the spirit, a small feeling of peace perhaps: I had at least done something, just the littlest shift.

After an hour or so, I noticed the crescent moon over the house and took a picture: flames in the foreground, my small farmhouse in the dark background with the sliver of moon above. After staring at the fire for another long time, I had the thought to send the photo to my friend Kristina. Then another friend came to mind … then another.

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And so way leads onto way. A tiny decision to take a short walkabout in the pasture leads to my heart flowing over with the thought of friends, the thought of all the people I know trying so hard to stay afloat, to fight the fear that permeates the air, to find joy, despite everything.

Not unlike my friend’s tiny nudge for me to be sure to speak of the war in my Christmas sermon by sending me news that Bethlehem – that settler-besieged mostly Arab Muslim city which, with its few surviving Palestinian Christians, survives on Christmas tourism – had to close for the season.

Not unlike my friend’s daughter begging her, given the rise of violent antisemitism, not to go to synagogue just now, and my friend saying to me: Davka! Now is the time to go.

Not unlike a recent moment when a person of some intelligence told me that she had a feeling that something was going to happen that would prevent a certain presidential candidate whom she loathes, the one who recently told a rally that immigrants were poisoning the blood of Americans, that something was going to happen to prevent this candidate from running. As she talked I understood her days were coloured by this feeling, that her determination to get every last person in the US to vote was inspired by her belief. It wasn’t a hope but more like a miracle she was anticipating, a position without evidence, not rationally defendable, but a position nonetheless. It was a certain slant of light, which I felt, upon hearing it, as a slight shift in my own perspective.

What if that did happen? I felt as if someone had gently bumped into me, shifting the way I stood ever so slightly.

If I had asked her if she believed in miracles, she would have said no. But she does. And it gives her a courage and an optimism I covet.

My walk into the darkening pasture, my lighting the fire, was like that: the slightest shift, a gentle nudge, a glint of light. Not unlike the magi’s journey to Bethlehem through the shortest days and longest nights, bearing witness to the terrible beauty that lay before them.

Shown above: Fire and moon photo by Nancy Jay Crumbine

…

On the Winter Solstice, when the sun appears to stand still, when the temperature outside our windows reaches 16C when it has been below 0 for millennia, when slaughter permeates the news, terror can take our breath away. Within that stillness of breath, in such darkness, as each year we wait to see if the sun will rise again, we ask: Is it a birth or a death, this journey, this solstice, as the sun begins again its path toward spring?

We are blessed with life-giving darkness these days and the slant of mid-winter light. We are blessed with journeys we do not fully understand. May these January days bring us not only the light of our precious traditions but the darkness of our sweet planet’s delicate turning under her faithful stars, the quiet of our own sweet turning inwardly and in peace.

Nancy Jay Crumbine The Rev Dr Nancy Jay Crumbine is a Unitarian minister and author of Humility, Anger, and Grace. She gave the 2005 Essex Hall Lecture. She has spoken at Hucklow Summer School and at many UK Unitarian churches.

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Claire MacDonald writes of the future of Harris Manchester College Oxford

A new start for new times We are fond these days of talking about change. As we become a smaller movement with a large history of change and reform behind us, how we move into a future we can’t quite imagine is on all of our minds. For congregational leaders, a large part of that concern is focused on how we educate ministers, what we need from our shared ministry and what shape ministry might be in five, 10 or 20 years from now.

It’s a subject that is often on my tional ministers (including the first mind because, since October 2022, female minister in the UK, the Rev I have been ministry tutor and Gertrude Von Petzold) under the chaplain at Harris Manchester Colguidance of some remarkable prolege Oxford (HMCO), a small colfessors and college principals who, “Exploring the past lege that sits on a quiet street close until the 1980s were Unitarians. to the river between the botanical The college became a full college of enables us to create the gardens and the university parks. It’s the university in 1996, which means future we want to see.” a college with a long engagement that its students now matriculate with Unitarian ministry education, from the University of Oxford. in fact a commitment to providing When the college first arrived in Unitarian ministry training is written Oxford the degrees were awarded into the college statutes and the by the University of London, which ministry tutor sits on the college’s many Unitarians will be aware was governing body. I trained at HMCO the first secular university. Manin 2015-17 and returned here after five years as minister chester College was the first co-educational college in to Lewisham Unity. HMCO is a beautiful place, designed Oxford and today it is also entirely 21+. Everyone who by a Unitarian architect, Thomas Worthington. It is very studies here is an adult learner. The college is no longer small with a strong gothic/Arts and Crafts feel and has primarily a theological training college. As Harris Mana nondenominational chapel with stained glass windows chester College (after a substantial donation from Lord designed by Edward Burne-Jones and installed by WilHarris of Harris carpets) it also educates students in Engiliam Morris’s own firm – Morris & Co. It is one of several neering, Archaeology, Law, English and Medicine among colleges that grew from non-conformist roots, including other subjects and has around 250 undergraduate and Regents (Baptist) and Mansfield (Congregational). These post-graduate students from all over the world. were not included as full Oxford colleges when they were founded but were part of a network of non-establishment A place that holds our history academies and educational institutes. HMCO was foundIt goes without saying that HMCO is an educationed as the Manchester Academy in 1786 to prepare stual institution. It is also a place that holds our history in dents for ministry and to enter ‘the learned professions’, quite unique ways. The walls of the college are lined with it was a college for dissenters, that is those who could not portraits of Unitarian figures. Most but not all are men, accept the dogma of any denomination. Throughout the a problem that two years ago our Principal Jane Shaw 19th century it travelled – to York 1803, to London in addressed by commissioning a series of photographic por1840 and finally to Oxford in 1889. traits of significant women in the college’s history. Among In Oxford the college continued to train non-denominathem are Margaret Barr, Gertrude Von Petzold and my Page 6 | Issue 8074 – 6 January 2024

“The potential present in this historic college is also to revive both Unitarian scholarship and wider congregational connections to the college.”

Shown left: Claire MacDonald in the Harris Manchester College chapel.

favourite, the great 19th-century Frances Power Cobb – anti-vivisectionist, suffragist, vegetarian and, amazingly, out lesbian. A statue of James Martineau sits in the Tate library, named for Unitarian Henry Tate. On the walls there are photographs of early 20th-century students and visitors, among them Rabindranath Tagore, that evidence the marked trans-national make-up of the college at that time.

Create the future we want to see Unitarians, and especially ministers who trained at the college, are deeply proud of this history, as is the college itself. While anyone who trained at HMCO has access to the college and is an ‘alumnus’ and a member of the alumni association, lay Unitarians – who also have a stake in our history but who are not taking courses at HMCO – have much less opportunity to be involved. For a long time, that didn’t really seem to matter but there has been far more cultural interest generally, and Unitarian interest particularly, in how exploring the past enables us to create the future we want to see. We have also become more concerned about what we want to save for the future – through Oral Histories, archiving sermons and papers and valuable objects and sharing their stories. In addition, we are often unaware of the stories of Unitarianism’s development. The college is a significant repository of Unitarian history. That history is also a global history.

Many Unitarians from around the world, both in the past and recently, have visited the college for training, research and sabbaticals – often so quietly that we are not even aware in the Unitarian movement that they are here. I remember, when I was training, meeting the Rev Dr Eniko Ferenczi in a corridor and realising that she – a wonderful feminist minister and therapist from Transylvania – was at HMCO on a Fellowship. We became friends and I asked her to speak at the Ministerial Old Students’ Association gathering, only because I met her by chance.

We have riches within our movement that stretch across cultures and back into our past. That is especially the case

in relation to the college’s library holdings and the archives relating to Unitarianism and Dissent. A door in the library office, where recently volunteer Sheila was transcribing college minutes from 1840 in William Gaskill’s handwriting, leads to a set of library stacks. Pull on any drawer and you come upon a treasure trove of materials. Here is a letter from John Paget in 1857 requesting that Transylvanian ministers come to Manchester College for training.

In another drawer we find a photograph of a smiling Margaret Barr in pleated skirt and ankle socks together with her letters. In another lie newspaper cuttings and notes from Keith Gilley’s personal archive. In the bookcases are tracts, books, sermons and magazines in multiple languages. Together with the much larger collection at Dr Williams’s library in London, and the holdings at John Rylands library in Manchester, this cache of materials is important not simply to Unitarians but to all of us. Not simply to Unitarians – but importantly, inclusive of Unitarians.

Considering different legacies As our movement changes, as our idea of what kind of education we need for our future ministers is changing and as we rethink our connection to Unitarian histories to include previously marginalised people, stories and groups, including the legacies of colonialism, planning how this remarkable and significant institution might engage with the past, present and future of Unitarianism and Unitarians globally is part of why I am now here in Oxford.

I arrived at a moment of change. The closure of our sibling training college in Manchester (confusingly called Unitarian College Manchester) had given birth to a new venture – Unitarian College – with a set of competencies and a model for training ministers and lay leaders delivered through a series of 3 residential courses, with additional online learning and placements. I knew when I applied for my role that HMCO would be rethinking what ministry training might be in collaboration with this successful new model. I also knew that the potential present in this historic college was also to revive both Unitarian scholarship Continued on page 8 > www.inquirer.org.uk | Page 7

HMCO has a new start Continued from page 7 >

and wider congregational connections to the college. We needed to make materials available as resources for research, and to kindle and support the intellectual curiosity that can nourish a global, progressive religious movement.

My proposal to the college was to shape and launch a centre for Unitarian and Dissenting Studies by 2025. A centre would hold two strands. One would be research focused, including academic and scholarly research, congregational and public research, oral histories and work on local records. The other strand would be educational. It would include collaborative paths to ministry training and continuing professional education, and we would need to reassess what the college means to the movement, globally, and to create possibilities for engagement.

Unitarian scholarship is important Many Unitarians will be aware of what we do extremely well educationally to support lay leaders and ministers.

What people are less aware of is the importance of wider and deeper study and training to sustainable futures. We do not have Unitarians in theology departments. We don’t have the postgraduate educational offers that, say, the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) has. We don’t especially encourage Unitarian theological or historical scholarship, yet we know it is important. Without it we lose the means to find the stories that can help us shape our future. We lose the traces – of the legacies of colonialism, of Black Unitarian histories, of women, and of theological thinking. We lose the opportunity to engage with the new theologies emerging in this period of dramatic change. Curating memory enables our future path.

We hold a crucial thread between past present and future.

I submitted the centre proposal to our Governing Body in May. It received enthusiastic support. In it I say this: In time the centre could become a repository for the UK Unitarian movement’s historical record and a generative project suggesting future lives for Unitarianism through understanding the past.

In 2023 I put together and held a week-long informal think tank at our Summer Research Institute for five Unitarians who were also scholars attached to Higher Education institutions (a prerequisite for attendance at the SRI). Among other scholars, Dr James Chriyankandeth, a member of the Rosslyn Hill congregation, began to explore the Indian holdings so that we can begin to encourage scholarship in that area and digitise and publicise those research resources. Other scholars, Botond Koppándi (Transylvania), Oscar Sinclair and Colin Bossen and Natalie Fenimore (UUA), explored the archives in other ways. A key element of the new centre will be its international nature, reaching out to global scholars for partnerships and research and to ministers and lay leaders Page 8 | Issue 8074 – 6 January 2024

for CPD. We have had the first visit from the minister and archivist Dr Lehel Molnár, working on cataloguing the Transylvanian holdings, and also on developing partnerships to digitise material, internationally and to share skills around digitising for congregations. The centre can create partnerships that connect people and that look at what has happened to Unitarianism globally in the 20th century, and at what might happen next, encouraging more participation from global majority Unitarians, some of them in new contexts, and recognising the part of Harris Manchester in transnational histories.

On 16 October I held an online meeting to talk with interested Unitarians about the nature of HMCO’s future.

Fifty-three people attended, including HMCO’s Fellow Librarian, Kate Alderson Smith and our Governance and Projects Director, Ashley Walters. Some of them were also from the UUA and Transylvania. The questions that people raised included asking how Unitarians could find out about Harris Manchester College and whether we had any ministry trainees at present.

The college website is a good place to begin – just Google Harris Manchester – and while we don’t have any trainee ministers this year, I am part of the interview panel. We are actively working to make sure both colleges contribute to future training. All ministers who trained at HMCO, or Manchester College as it was, are college alumni and can benefit from that. For more information and to make sure you are on the list – at this moment a new database is being created – please email Shona Nicholson: alumni@ hmc.ox.ac.uk That meeting brought many minds together and I hope to hold more. For many people in our movement, there is a sense that we are in catastrophic times denominationally, and that change of direction at HMCO is an example of the gradual loss of connection to this historic college. I don’t think that is the case, it is simply that things change.

Change takes time especially because the role I have at HMCO as ministry tutor is a one-day-a-week role. Each era grows its own future and, for me, the twin possibilities of strengthening research and creating new collaborative pathways to ministry are new, exciting and creative. We are a small movement. We also have an immense and influential history of sacred social activism and collective wisdom. Harris Manchester College is part of our past, and very much part of our future. If you would like to know more, to visit, to talk to me about your questions or ideas, please email me at claire.macdonald@hmc.ox.ac. uk. I’d love to hear from you.

The Rev Dr Claire MacDonald is ministry tutor and chaplain at Harris Manchester College Oxford.

Celebrate ‘Groundhog Day’ I spend a lot of my life wandering around Altrincham, bumping into people and passing by others; often seeing the same people in the same places and often have similar conversations. This is the beautiful gift of the ordinary, and sometimes it reveals pots of gold. Some might think this dull; but it is not. Yes, it is a bit ‘Groundhog Day’, but it’s a beautiful thing – not the least bit negative. The true ‘Groundhog Day’ is on 2 February (though we don’t really mark it in Britain). Here, depending on our spiritual tradition, we may observe it as Candlemas, Imbolc or St Brigid’s Day. It falls in the dead of winter, flanked equally by the winter solstice and the spring equinox. According to folklore, if the groundhog sees his shadow on this day there will be six more weeks of snow. So the hope is that the sun stays hidden and the groundhog does not see his shadow.

But it’s not the legend of Groundhog Day that interests me. It’s the film that bears the name. It is one of my favourites, and I believe it is a near perfect allegory of the spiritual life, of Joseph Campbell’s ‘hero’s journey’. It is basically a classic Hollywood romantic comedy – but it is far more than that.

‘Groundhog Day’ tells the story of a self-centred weatherman named Phil. He is sent on his annual excursion to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania to record the thrilling moment when Phil the groundhog makes his annual winter trek into daylight in search of the shadowy predictor for the coming weeks. Phil (the weatherman) hates that he has to be there, and treats everyone he meets in ‘the hick town’, with disdain. One year, the weather takes a turn for the worst and the film crew cannot travel. So, they have to spend another night.

Phil awakens the next morning to the same song he heard the morning before ‘I Got you Babe’ by Sonny and Cher.

He will awaken to this every morning as ‘Groundhog Day’ is repeated over and over for days, weeks, months, years.

It is the opposite of time travel. Time simply stands still.

Every day is the second of February; every day is the same day; every day he is offered the opportunity to experience that same Groundhog Day over and over again, running into the same people, having the same encounters. And, yet, within those very limitations he is offered infinite choices. Where he can eat, how he can respond to each encounter, who he can hurt and who he can help.

He is offered the opportunity to grow and to change every single day. He could become the man he wants to be every single day. He can be the bad guy or the good guy, the funny guy, the happy guy, the free guy or the trapped, the suicidal guy. He is offered the chance to change, which he begins to do as he learns from his mistakes. He learns that he cannot control all that is going on around him, and that

FROM FROM NOTHING NOTHING TO TO EVERYTHING EVERYTHING

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By Danny Danny Crosby Crosby

happiness can only be found by truly living in what is there in the sacred moment.

His inspiration is his producer Rita (played by Andie MacDowell). She is the opposite of Phil, good hearted and at peace with herself. Phil falls in love with who Rita is; he awakens to the longing to be a person worthy of her love and he begins to allow himself to be that person.

Now isn’t this one of those universal messages found within the great stories and religious traditions; that love can transform even the most self-centred of hearts; that we can all aspire to be the best that we can be; that hope can be found in total despair; that you do not need to seek some special place, it is found in the ordinary everyday things of life. This is why I often think of ‘Groundhog’ as I walk around and encounter the people of Altrincham.

Could it be that this Hollywood romantic comedy is the perfect allegory of the ‘spiritual life’? Well, the film’s co-writer and director Harold Ramis (sadly deceased) said religious leaders and writers continually contacted him over the years claiming that ‘Groundhog Day’ is an allegory of their traditions’ key messages. Buddhist have claimed that it illustrates their notion of Samsara, the continuing cycle of rebirth. Phil (the weatherman) is seen as the Bodhisattva who keeps being sent back into the world in order to save it. He never seems to reach enlightenment and, must go through the daily trials in order to help others.

Jewish observers have noted that Phil keeps on being sent back into the world to perform Mitzvahs (good deeds).

The story is not about his individual salvation, but more about perfecting the whole world.

Still others have claimed Christian and Pagan interpretations. It has been suggested that the groundhog symbolises rebirth and the hope of renewal at Easter or spring.

It is worth remembering that 2 February is Imbolc and Candlemas, key festivals in both traditions. The story is also a classic redemption tale, very much like A Christmas Carol. Phil the weatherman is just another Mr Scrooge.

Bill Murray once played a modern-day version in the film ‘Scrooged’. Bill Murray was perfectly cast as Phil the weatherman.

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David Ayton: minister, booklover The Rev David Ayton came to Unitarianism after a career as an Architect with Ayton-Bessent Ltd. based in East Howe, Bournemouth.

Coming from a liberal Christian background he became associated with the Bournemouth Congregation as their Lay Person in Charge (1994-97) before being accepted into the Unitarian Ministry in 1997 when he became their minister. He had trained in Unitarian ministry at the then-named Manchester Academy and Harris College. When the congregation sold their building and went to worship in the Memorial Chapel at St Peter’s Anglican Church in the centre of Bournemouth, he continued to worship and help with the declining congregation. He continued his professional Ministry development at Sarum College, Salisbury where he earned a master’s degree in 2004.

His particular interest was working with people who were struggling with life’s challenges. He did this through his

bookshop and café ministry which was well known in Bournemouth. This was a passion for David and the bookshop was very much secondary to the care and spiritual guidance he offered to people in need.

He was friendly with the Rev Brian Anderson, an Anglican priest, who led our Portsmouth congregation until 2010.

When the Bournemouth congregation disbanded, David gave considerable help to the Southern Unitarian Association as Bournemouth Unitarians were the custodian of funds from Wareham and Ringwood.

Although a private person, and not one particularly interested in denominational structures, he offered considerable wisdom to those who sought out his expertise in architecture, theology and books.

The Rev Martin Whitell

Groundhog Day Continued from page 9 >

I heartily recommend ‘Groundhog Day’. It will warm you through on a cold winter’s night.

Something you might just need, as Christmas is over and we have to yet face the fullness of winter (Let’s hope we don’t get six more weeks.)

I am going to finish with words of Bill Murray’s character, Phil. This is how he signed off on his final broadcast, not that he knew it at the time.

When Chekov saw the long winter, it was a winter bleak and dark and bereft of hope; and yet we know winter’s only one more step in the cycle. And standing among the people of Punxsutawney, basking in the warmth of their hearths and hearts, I couldn’t imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous winter.

Please help the Send a Child to Hucklow Fund

It is 62 years since a letter sent to The Inquirer launched the Send a Child to Hucklow Fund to give disadvantaged children from towns and cities the chance to experience the green fields of Derbyshire. This year we had 20 groups come to the Nightingale Centre. All told, just under 400 children.

We have invited 16 groups for 2024, but we are reliant on your donations to keep going. Our fundraising target is £75,000 in the coming year.

It costs approximately £350 per child, including the costs of food, accommodation, outings and treats, and we hope to again provide holidays for up to 400 children.

Gifts will be gratefully received by the Donations Treasurer, Mrs Ruth Taylor, 1 Beech Close, Hanwood, Shrewsbury, SY5 8RA. Please note that the Fund can reclaim income tax paid by any individual (as long as s/he has paid sufficient income tax) if a Gift Aid donation form has been signed. As we are now a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (registration number 1189260), a new form will be needed even if you have previously signed a Gift Aid form. A copy of the form may be obtained via the website or from Mrs Taylor (donations_treasurer@ sendachildtohucklow.org.uk).

Giving with a Gift Aid donation form makes a gift of £20 worth £25 to the Fund. Gifts may now also be made online by going to our website: www.sendachildtohucklow.org.uk or by bank transfer (Sort Code 40-52-40; Account number 00060131). If you shop online, please use easyfundraising, naming ‘Send-a-Child’ as your beneficiary, see www.easyfundraising.org.uk, or use Give as you Live: www.giveasyoulive.com.

All gifts are used for the holidays, except gifts given in someone’s memory, which are put into a Capital Account with the interest used for holidays. Please remember the Fund in your will as legacies are much appreciated and provide valuable income.

Copies of the full 2022/23 Annual Report and Appeal 2024 may be obtained from the Secretary, Christine Hayhurst, 6 McAlmont Ridge, Godalming, GU7 2AR. Telephone 01483 419577, email: secretary@sendachildtohucklow.org.uk Page 10 | Issue 8074 – 6 January 2024

Vince McCully reflects on Remembrance in the face of war

Solemnity and celebration

Shown above: GA President Vince McCully (centre) with other faith leaders on Remembrance Day.

At the Cenotaph 12 November: Stuck for words to describe this occasion. Wish everyone could experience both the solemnity and the celebration, I admit to a little wobble in the third verse of t’hymn.

All 22 faith representatives gathered in the same room before the ceremony.

Still here at Horse Guards soaking up the atmosphere. Certainly the biggest parade I’ve ever been on.

The above, my post on Facebook, written standing in ‘Horse Guards Parade’, amidst all the hubbub of the returning marchers, there are two bands playing in the background, and Princess Anne salutes all as they pass her. These are the men and women of all the services, the Chelsea Pensioners, children of RAF personnel (in the black and yellow scarves), Police, Scouts and Guides amongst many others. All treated with due decorum.

It is a day of remembrance in a spirit of fellowship and community, a national and international coming together, in joint enterprise. Walking to the venue in the morning and catching the eye of police, stewards, officials and marchers I noticed that every face was open and ready to be engaged, the atmosphere buoyant and uplifting, testimony to an air of ‘team spirit’. I saw no frowns – maybe I did not notice them.

On arrival at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and having passed through all the security, I could then put away my invitation card and passport. We, the faith leaders, were all diligently shown into a spacious room for light refreshment. Some were regular attendees and some, like me, were there for just the one time. Everyone mingled freely and I was soon chatting away and shaking hands with Andrew Copson of the Humanists, also the Baptist, Baháʼí, Muslim, Church of Scotland, Jewish, Spiritualist and Zoroastrian church leaders. Everyone spoke freely and the atmosphere was convivial on all sides.

The service of remembrance was solemn alright, parading out in pairs (I was with the President of the Spiritualists’ National Union – Minister Jackie Wright) and standing by the Cenotaph you could hear a leaf fall. A stillness, a certain timelessness encompassed all present, at times it

felt unreal.

I am privileged, as GA president, to visit many of our congregations and I always look out for the roll of honour proudly displayed by my hosts in their chapels and churches. I wonder at the emotions of the folk that erected them; the loss, the grief and the regret for the fallen; the relief, the gratitude and the joy for those that returned. I used the word ‘celebration’ in my post above, it is a celebration of lasting peace, peace for which we must all strive and never more so than now. Years of studying the classics taught me that war is wasteful, wasteful in the extreme, wasteful of lives, of cultures, of property all are sacrificed on the altar of a doomed enterprise and that all wars end when dialogue begins. War is a hateful, wretched and de-humanising business and we as Unitarians and Free Christians always seek ways in which we can work and pray for peace and concord, may we always continue to do so.

I wrote a prayer and made a call for peace during services days after the Palestinian conflict broke out, I wish to share them with you now.

Prayer for peace We pray for the people of Gaza and Israel. The very thought that such atrocities can be justified and meted out to another person, let alone that the victims are innocent civilians, is beyond comprehension. Thousands of people have already been killed, many more maimed and injured.

Dear God, in the name of all that is holy and good, please restore peace to all sides without delay. To kill is not even a last resort, it is simply a sign of humankind’s utter failure to understand anything about God’s will.

Vince McCully is president of the Unitarian General Assembly. www.inquirer.org.uk | Page 11

Ann Howell highlights Unitarians working to end the war

Peace for Palestine

Shown above: James Chiriyankandath, Padmadipa Paul Simmons, Adam Slate, Chandni Luhar-Torres, Rev Julio Torres and Shana Parvin Begum.

Photo provided by Ann Howell

It is unsurprising that the conflict in Gaza has been difficult for Unitarians to grapple with, given the religious implications and the coverage in the media that seems far from unbiased. We have had an urgent call to support the British Red Cross Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territory Appeal, (http://tinyurl.com/RC-Appeal) which is a good start for anyone wanting to do something positive to help those suffering.

Beyond that, a new group has bubbled up to share information and also organise representation at the multiple protests that have occurred in recent weeks in support of peace in Gaza. Unitarian Friends of Palestine support a swift ceasefire and hold civilian victims on both sides in solemn remembrance and their families in careful compassion.

Unitarian Friends of Palestine is now an active WhatsApp (social media) group. Their short-term goals are: • To create a list of verified charities that will give direct aid to those involved in the Gaza conflict and send out to congregations.

• Hold sessions in early 2024 open to the whole movement on: History, hospitality and Palestine prior to this crisis, Faithful Witness, Responses Unitarians can take — political and apolitical, theological response— adding British Unitarian Context) • Create an action plan for the coming year of tasks to help educate the movement and gather support.

For some context, you can listen to the People So Bold podcast episode ‘Peace for Palestine’ (bit.ly/ peoplesobold), where I talk to Adam Slate, ministerial student with a Jewish background who was one of the founding members of Unitarian Friends of Palestine.

Adam stresses that the support of Palestinians is not inherently antisemitic, that our compassion should extend to civilians on both sides and that we should hold our governments accountable for any actions that inhibit a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

There is also a related People So Bold episode with Asma Meer, the founder of ‘Peace of Cake’, a grassroots initiative to encourage dialogue between people of different faiths and culture over tea and cake. Mrs

Meer has held dozens of successful events since the endeavour began in 2013 and most recently has been holding ‘Peace of Cake for the Holy Land’ events, where Muslims, Jews, and people of all faiths can come together and talk about their feelings about the current conflict in Gaza in a protected environment. There are some excellent resources (bit.ly/WhyWeCannotTurnAway) put together by the Unitarian Universalist Association (our American counterparts) on how to engage with this topic at a congregational level, including an informative webinar co-produced by Muslim and Jewish Unitarian professionals. This webinar would be a very useful place to start for anyone searching for ways to learn more about the background of this conflict and how we as Unitarians can respond in a meaningful way that speaks to our faith.

If you would like more information about the podcast or Unitarian Friends of Palestine, please contact Ann Howell, Social Justice Officer for the Unitarian General Assembly: ahowell@unitarian.org.uk PSAP is now the ‘Social Justice Network’ It was agreed at the December meeting that the ‘Penal and Social Affairs Panel’ will now be known as the Social Justice Network’. This name change reflects the evolution of the group from a narrow focus on legal reform to its interest in broader social justice issues, including climate justice, civil rights, LGBT+ rights, and more. The group currently meets monthly by Zoom – and occasionally in person – with an aim to educate the movement and support grassroots efforts to strengthen civil liberties. If you would like to sit in on a meeting or would like more information, please contact Ann Howell at: ahowell@ unitarian.org.uk www.inquirer.org.uk | Page 12