Back to School – 04/09/22

Musical Prelude: ‘Chanson Triste’ – P. Tchaikovsky performed by Sandra Smith

Opening Words: ‘The Longing for Something More’ by Gretchen Haley

Every little thing that
breaks your heart is welcome here.

We’ll make a space for it, give it its due time
and praise, for the wanting it represents.
The longing for something more,
some healing hope
that remains
not yet.

We promise no magic,
no making it all better,
but offer only this circle of trust;
this human community that remembers,
though imperfectly, that sings and prays,
though sometimes awkwardly.

This gathering that loves, though not yet enough.
We’re still practicing, after all, still learning,
still in need of help and partners.
Still becoming able to receive
all this beauty and all these gifts we each bring.

Come, let us worship together. (pause)

Words of Welcome and Introduction:

These opening words, written by Gretchen Haley, welcome all those who have gathered this morning for our Sunday service. Welcome to those of you who have gathered in-person here at Essex Church and also to all who are joining us via Zoom from far and wide. Our friends at Brighton Unitarians are joining this morning and we’re glad to have you with us once again. For those who don’t know me, my name is Jane Blackall, and I’m ministry coordinator with Kensington Unitarians.

If it’s your first time joining us this morning, we’re especially glad to have you with us, welcome. Perhaps you might like to hang around for a chat after the service, drop us an email to introduce yourself, or come to one of our small groups to get to know us better. There will be opportunities to join in as we go along but they’re invitations not obligations. And if you’re a regular here – thank you for all that you do to welcome all who come – thank you for all you do to keep the show on the road – and for keeping faith with our Unitarian cause during these times of uncertainty and change. We all have a part to play in co-creating this sacred space, this sense of community, this tradition. Whoever you are, however you are, wherever you are, know you are welcome with us, just as you are. I hope each and every one of you finds something of what you need in our gathering today.

Today’s service is titled ‘Back to School’. It’s the start of a new academic year – for some that means seeing if your uniform still fits and sorting out your pencil case (do kids even use pencils these days?) – for others it means returning to campus or online lectures and seminars – but this morning we’re taking our cue from the saying ‘Every Day’s a School Day’ and celebrating the joy of lifelong learning. In the next hour we’ll be reflecting on the many ways we can continue to learn throughout our lives.

Before we go any further take a moment now to settle ourselves – to become fully present here and now, into this precious hour of peace – wherever we may be. We consecrate this time and space with our presence and intention. So perhaps you might put down anything you don’t need to be holding. Maybe scrunch up your shoulders and let them go. And let’s stop and take a breath. As we breathe out let us release anything that is stopping us from being fully present – any preoccupations or distractions we are carrying – let’s put them down and lay them to one side for an hour or so.

Chalice Lighting: ‘A Place of Searching and Discovery’ by Sue Ayer (adapted)

Let’s light our chalice flame now, as we do each week. This simple ritual connects us in solidarity with Unitarians and Unitarian Universalists the world over, and reminds us of the proud and historic progressive religious tradition of which we are a part.

(light chalice)

We have gathered here in search of answers to life’s questions.
We have come in search of understanding, in search of community.
We have come in search of hope and healing; in search of sanctuary.

Let this be a place not only of searching, but of discovery.
Let this be a place of learning, and also of deep wisdom.
Let this be a place not only of meeting, but of connection.
And let this be a place where healing fosters giving and hope fosters service.

This is our prayer: that we may create here a circle of love, ever expanding,
ever growing, as we seek to sense and to know the very source of our being.

Candles of Joy and Concern:

Each week when we gather together, we share a simple ritual of candles of joy and concern, an opportunity to light a candle and share something that is in our heart with the community. So we’ve an opportunity now, for anyone who would like to do so, to light a candle and say a few words about what it represents. This time we’re going to go to the people in the building first, and take all of those in one go, and then I’ll call on the people on Zoom to come forward.

So I invite some of you here in person to come and light a candle and then if you wish to tell us briefly who or what you light your candle for – do use the microphone so everyone can hear you and get nice and close in so it picks you up properly – I’ll switch that on in a moment. We’re asking people to keep their masks on for this candle lighting, but please do speak up, and GET REALLY CLOSE to the microphone, so that everyone can hear what you’re saying.

(in person candles)

And if that’s everyone in the room we’ll go over to the people on Zoom next – you might like to switch to gallery view at this stage – just unmute yourselves when you are ready and speak out – and we should be able to hear you and see you up on the big screen here in the church.

(zoom candles)

And I’m going to light one more candle, as we often do, to represent all those joys and concerns that we hold in our hearts this day, but which we don’t feel able to speak out loud. (light candle)

Time of Prayer & Reflection: based on words by L. Annie Foerster

And let’s take those joys and concerns into an extended time of prayer now. This prayer is based on some words by L. Annie Foerster.

You might first want to adjust your position for comfort, close your eyes, or soften your gaze. There might be a posture that helps you feel more prayerful. Whatever works for you. Do whatever you need to do to get into the right state of body and mind for us to pray together – to be fully present here and now, in this sacred time and space – with ourselves, with each other, and with that which is both within us and beyond us. (pause)

Spirit of Life, God of All Love, in whom we live and move and have our being,
we turn our full attention to you, the light within and without,
as we tune in to the depths of this life, and the greater wisdom
to which – and through which – we are all intimately connected.
Be with us now as we allow ourselves to drop into the
silence and stillness at the very centre of our being. (pause)

Giver of all gifts and grace, we know that life is a precious treasure.
Though we would appear at times to squander it,
remember all those ways in which we do not:

When we are happy, accept our outpouring joy
as gratitude for all opportunities, accepted and ignored.

When we are broken, accept our tears and anger
as gratitude for feeling deeply, for our ability to care.

When we reach out to others, accept our caring acts
as gratitude for the gifts of conscience and compassion.

When we choose solitude, accept our silence
as gratitude for the depth of spirit we are seeking.

When we act thoughtlessly, accept our mistakes
as gratitude for the freedom we have in our lives.

When we act foolishly, accept our careless lapses
as gratitude for the lessons we have yet to learn.

When we share our stories, accept the telling of our lives
as gratitude for friendship, family, community, and connection.

When we worship, accept our humble rituals and offerings
as symbols of gratitude for all they mean to represent.

Spirit of Thanksgiving, when we remember to give thanks for life and love,
for knowledge and wisdom, for freedom to act and for freedom from oppression,
accept our obvious omissions as unspoken gratitude for the gifts still hidden in our trials;
for the compassion that emerges from suffering, the growth we gain through sorrow,
for the determination that comes after disappointment, the healing out of illness,
and for the losses that make way for new cycles of life and creation. (pause)

In a few moments of shared stillness now, let us call to mind those people and situations who are on our hearts this morning, and let us hold them gently in loving-kindness. (pause)

And let us hold ourselves in loving-kindness too. Each of us carries our own private burdens.
So let us rest in self-compassion now as we ask silently for what we need this day. (pause)

And let us take a moment to reflect on the week just gone in a spirit of gratitude; let us notice and give thanks for those blessings, large or small, that have helped to lift our spirits. (pause)

Spirit of Life – God of all Love – as this time of prayer comes to a close, we offer up
our joys and concerns, our hopes and fears, our beauty and brokenness,
and we call on you for insight, healing, and renewal.

As we look forward now to the coming week,
help us to live well each day and be our best selves;
using our unique gifts in the service of love, justice and peace. Amen

Hymn: ‘The Flame of Truth is Kindled’

Let’s sing together now. Our first hymn today is ‘The Flame of Truth is Kindled’. For those of you present at the church in-person you’ll find the words on your hymn sheet and for those joining via Zoom they’ll be up on your screen to sing along at home. Please feel free to stand or sit, as you prefer, as we sing: ‘The Flame of Truth is Kindled’.

The flame of truth is kindled,
our chalice burning bright;
amongst us moves the Spirit
in whom we take delight.
We worship here in freedom
with conscience unconstrained,
a pilgrim people thankful
of what great souls have gained.

The flame of thought is kindled,
we celebrate the mind:
its search for deepest meaning
that time-bound creeds can’t bind.
We celebrate its oneness
with body and with soul,
with universal process,
with God who makes us whole.

The flame of love is kindled,
we open wide our hearts,
that it may burn within us,
fuel us to do our parts.
Community needs building,
a Commonwealth of Earth,
we ask for strength to build it –
a new world come to birth.

Pre-Recorded Reading: ‘Back-to-School Supplies’ by Vanessa Rush Southern (adapted) (read by Lucy)

The back-to-school supply section of any store draws me like a moth to a flame. I no longer need spiral-bound notebooks or number-two pencils or a new lunchbox. I’m not sure why I’m drawn to these things since my most recent academic endeavour is years in the past already. But I have a theory.

For so many years, standing in those aisles, I could believe that my past did not determine my present. For so many years, standing in those aisles, the present was full of possibility. Entire worlds of knowledge and adolescent adventure, growth, and change, were possible in the year I was preparing for. Would I finally master Spanish, learn I was a whiz at physics, fall in love with Dante (the one who wrote long ago or the one sitting next to me in class)? Perhaps I would come into my own that year, like some rare flower too long in the bud. At the beginning of the school year everything seemed possible.

Now that I am older there is the danger of losing that sense of possibility, of thinking myself an old dog whose tricks might be modified around the edges but never really significantly changed. There is the danger that you and I start to think that it is practical to live into our limitations rather than press up against them. That we confuse resignation with maturity. That we give over wild rides of the mind or spirit to the young. But it is never advisable to hang up the knapsack of adventurous, expectant living for long.

Maybe that is why I like school supplies. Here is this world that says, in colours and crisp white paper, that all is new and all things are possible again.

Postscript: A woman was seen in Rymans last week. Her eyes settled on a marbled blue fountain pen. When asked why she bought it, the woman told the cashier she needed a river of ink to ride into the new year. He said he didn’t quite understand what she meant, but he’d seen this behaviour in this season, in these aisles, before.

Words for Meditation: ‘Lessons of Another Kind’ by Leslie Owen Wilson (read by Antony)

Thanks, Lucy. We’ve come now to a time of meditation. We’re going to hear a poem to take us into the stillness today – it’s called ‘Lessons of Another Kind’ – by Leslie Owen Wilson, Professor Emerita of the University of Wisconsin School of Education. This poem speaks of the life of the teacher, the nature of education itself, and how (if we pay attention) we will always find that there is more for us to learn. Antony will read that poem for us in a moment or two and it will take us into silence which will end with the sound of a bell. And then we’ll hear some meditative music from Sandra. So let’s each do what we need to do to get comfortable – adjust your position if you need to – perhaps put your feet flat on the floor to ground and steady yourself – maybe close your eyes. As we always say, the words and music are just an offering, feel free to use this time to meditate in your own way.

I came to teach,
To see what I could find
Inside my students’ deeper selves.

I came to try and open minds
Before they were seamed shut.

I came to channel passages,
Hoping to connect hearts to heads
And hands.

I came to entreat,
To coax ennobled thoughts,
Ideals, and love of self and others.

I thought that this must come from inside out
Into the essence of their beings,
Into relationships,
As connections to words and deeds,
And pedagogic styles.

I came to probe,
And sometimes poke,
To make them think,
And laugh
At small and narrowed views.

For I wanted them to see,
With their own eyes,
Beyond the limitations of closed perceptions
Into the beauty and the pain of others’ views.

I came to teach,
But learned instead
That they had just as much
To say to me.

Their lessons were often raw,
Sometimes unformed and yet complex.
I came to give and yet was given.

For through their gifts I saw anew
That I must learn to guard against complacency, conclusions,
And the allure of too soon ends.

I came to grow,
Unknowingly
To shed my false, new scholar’s skin
And metamorphose
Into something new
And strange –
Something far beyond the shadows of my old instructive self.

I came to teach but was changed in other ways,
And now remember that life is still a two-way street.

These were lessons
I needed to commit to memory, again.

Perhaps it is enough to say, I came to teach but learned instead.

Period of Silence and Stillness (~3 minutes) – end with a bell

Musical Interlude: ‘Aria from Suite No 3’ – J S Bach performed by Sandra Smith

In-Person Reading: ‘The Astonishing Question’ by Barbara Rohde (read by Jeannene)

The most important question anyone ever asked me (besides “will you marry me?”) was asked by our first minister the day after I had met with two unhappy and somewhat hostile members of the congregation who didn’t like some of the decisions of the subcommittee I was chairing.

He said: “Well, Barbara, what did you learn from that?”

The question startled me. In his place I would have asked “how was it?” or “how did it go?” meaning “was it terribly unpleasant?” or “did it turn out the way you hoped it would?” or even (I blush to admit) “did you win?”

His question helped me recognise that there are more profitable ways of looking at my experience than evaluating it in terms of pleasure or pain, or how well it conformed to the scenario I had written in my head.

I began, in the following months and years, to ask myself more frequently, “how did this experience change me and the world around me? What did this experience tell me about the nature of reality?”

I began to find that my life suffered unless I maintained a balance of action and contemplation. I found it difficult to possess my experience unless I took time to reflect upon it. I have become addicted to keeping a journal. Although my journal often contains a factual account of an experience, or expresses the myriad of feelings that accompany that experience, more often I use the journal to search for the meaning within the experience, to understand what the experience says to the rest of my life.

Little by little, I am learning that it is not enough merely to taste life to see if it is sweet or bitter. One must discover the nourishing kernel of truth within one’s experience and make it part of one’s self.

Address: ‘Back to School’ by Rev. Dr. Jane Blackall

It’s that time of year again. Even if you’re not personally going ‘back to school’ this week – even if nobody in your house is gearing up to return (and there’s not been a last-minute dash to buy a new school uniform) – there’s a certain back-to-school feeling that descends on most of us in September. Perhaps, like Vanessa Rush Southern in the reading Lucy gave for us earlier, you’ve been minding your own business in Tesco or WHSmith when, under the influence of a ‘Back-to-School’ display, you’ve suddenly become overcome by a pressing urge to get yourself a new pencil case or a lunch box. These rituals which mark a new school year, a new start, suggest ‘all is new and all things are possible again’.

For most of us gathered here this morning, our schooldays are far behind us – at least in the sense of being students on the receiving end of compulsory education – I know that we’ve got a number of teachers in our congregation – and I also know that some of us are perpetual students who can’t resist going back for one more course, and one more course, as there’s always more to learn. And that’s something that we’re affirming in this morning’s service. Our learning is never done – we learn in all manner of different ways over the course of a lifetime – and a commitment to lifelong learning is something worth celebrating. As Jiddu Krishnamurti said: ‘There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning.’ Words from Jiddu Krishnamurti, which are printed on the front of your order of service if you’re here in the building, if you’re at home you can find them on the church website along with the full text of the service.

Unitarians have always tended to be people who value education highly. When our non-conformist forebears were excluded from higher education on the basis of their faith – 250 years ago you used to have to subscribe to the ’39 Articles’ of the Church of England if you wanted to graduate from Oxford or Cambridge – so Unitarians helped set up ‘Dissenting Academies’, where radical thinkers took in those who could not in good conscience profess to believe in things they didn’t think were true, and educated them to university level. Additionally, our forebears advocated for the education of women and girls.

Often when we think about learning, about education, we think about it in terms of institutions – schools, colleges, universities – and I did give today’s service the title ‘Back to School’ after all. I wonder what that word – ‘School’ – evokes in you? Maybe your schooldays were ‘the best days of your life’ – maybe they were more of a mixed bag – maybe it was a downright traumatic experience. I’d put myself in the ‘mixed bag’ category. I loved to learn, and academic-type learning suited me pretty well, but rubbing along with other kids who didn’t love school had its challenging moments. But – weirdly – before I’d even left primary school, the idea of ‘lifelong learning’ had caught my imagination. Once a year – this would be in the mid-1980s – the council would pop a fairly weighty brochure through our letterbox detailing all the courses available in ‘Night School’ across Tower Hamlets (and possibly also neighbouring boroughs). Oh! Poring over the pages of this brochure was right up there with studying the Argos catalogue for potential Christmas presents in my childhood! The smorgasbord of possibilities for adult education in those days was quite phenomenal and I used to dream of working my way through all the options one day. Would I sign up for woodwork? Or pottery? Jazz guitar? Sign language? (Me and mum did sign up for pottery class together when I was ten and the results are still on show in our front room; dad signed up for woodwork and then he built his shed and our outhouse). These sort of accessible self-improvement courses were life changing for many. But within a year or two, of course, government cuts meant the range of courses began to shrink, many adult education centres were downsized or closed altogether, and I never had another brochure to get excited about. That was, and is, a crying shame. Anything that curtails access to education – which makes it a privilege only for the rich – or which saddles people with life-long debt – is, surely, to be vigorously resisted.

Still, there are many different ways to learn, and arguably only a small proportion of our learning happens in classrooms. In our earliest years we learn, less formally, from family and caregivers. We pick stuff up from the world around us. From TV. If, like me, you grew up in a family that were big on TV quiz shows, you probably committed the capital of Burkina Faso to memory at an early age. And this sort of rote-learning-of-facts has its place – especially if you want to try your luck on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire someday – but there’s so much more to learning than just memorising stuff. We learn practical skills by watching others and copying them – we might learn how to make pastry, or jam, or jumpers, just the way our nan used to – we might pick up the know-how for car or bike maintenance while hanging out with an older relative during weekends of tinkering in the garage.

Or you might be a life-long bookworm – many of us are voracious readers, I know – or latterly audiobook readers – the Heart and Soul regulars are always swapping book recommendations. These days the internet has opened up a whole world of information to us – including access to many resources that would previously only have been available to a few – if I can’t call a certain fact to mind, or I don’t know how to fix something technical, my first port of call is to ‘Ask Google’. More often than not, Wikipedia will sort me out, or a discussion group will put me on the right track, or someone will have created a handy YouTube tutorial to lead me through a process step-by-step. Of course, internet-learning has to come with a health-warning of sorts, as along with this great democratisation comes the lack of any pre-filtering, the lack of any guarantee of accuracy, of the sort you might assume (rightly or wrongly) when learning from a more traditional source or institution. The internet is a wonderful resource and we must always use a bit of discernment, question the accuracy and agenda of our sources, and be alert to misinformation and manipulation. In truth, the same goes for any source of learning, but perhaps both the risks and rewards are amplified online.

Another hugely important way in which we learn is from personal experience. Sometimes you might hear people joke that they’ve been to the ‘University of Life’ or even to the ‘University of Hard Knocks’ – it seems to me that such things are usually said with the intention of disparaging academic learning and implying that it has no relevance or value in the real world – but surely learning-from-books and learning-from-life are both valuable and complementary. The reading from Barbara Rohde, which Jeannene just gave for us, suggests that when we have a noteworthy experience in life – it might be an ‘negative’ or ‘positive’ feeling experience – either way the suggestion is that we should ask ourselves ‘what did you learn from that?’ or ‘how did that change me and my understanding of reality?’ And we can also learn from the experience of others – the learning can be especially rich if we mix with people of different ages and backgrounds – people whose life experience are very different to our own. The internet comes into its own here as it can enable us to seek out other voices, people whose paths we might never cross in our everyday lives, and to listen and learn about life from their testimony.

All these forms of learning – and doubtless many others I’ve not mentioned today – are vital. We reach out and grab such opportunities to learn, however they present themselves to us, throughout our lives. And it’s important to remember that we generally learn in a way that’s appropriate to our age and our stage of development – at first we might be presented with a simplified way of understanding something – and over time our understanding will gradually become more sophisticated as greater nuance and complexity is introduced into the picture. It’s generally an error, I reckon, to get too attached to what we were taught in an earlier stage of development. If we don’t remain open to refining, revising, and rethinking, we can get stuck. It’s important to keep our knowledge and understanding up-to-date – scientific understanding in particular is being refined all the time – so for example it’s perhaps more important to comprehend the scientific method, and be statistically literate, in order to interpret ambiguous data and news stories more wisely (rather than simply memorising specific equations or holding tight to supposed ‘facts’ we were taught 40 years ago but which have been superseded by more recent insights). Or in another domain, our understanding of history is being reassessed, as we slowly become more aware of the privileged lenses our history has often been taught through, and the voices and perspectives that have long been suppressed or distorted are at long last coming to light.

Sometimes, it is important to be ready to unlearn, and to let go of what we thought we knew, in order to adapt to a rapidly changing world. Maybe some of our prior understanding was mistaken, or distorted, or an oversimplification of a far more nuanced and complex reality. Some of what we’ve learned is good, truthful, trustworthy – some is not-so-much – and we need to discern which is which. We might think of that process of discernment as the spiritual dimension of learning. It’s something we practice together, here, at church – we pride ourselves in drawing on wisdom from all sources and learning from diverse voices and traditions – but we’re also discerning, critical, and discriminating (in the positive and constructive sense of that word) as we attempt to sort the wheat from the chaff. We hold up new sources against what we already trust to be true, we measure them against our personal experience, and we check for coherence and congruence with our values and principles. And I know many of you are engaged in the same sort of search in your own individual journeys. Seeking truth and understanding – cultivating virtue, discernment and wisdom – doing the work. We are changed by what we learn – it becomes part of us – it shapes our way of seeing and being.

Learning is a lifelong process and – if we’re doing it right – over time we will come to integrate what we have learned from so many different sources along the way – and, perhaps, we will pass the learning onward. So as I bring this to a close I want to return to the words by Leslie Owen Wilson which Antony read for our meditation – just some abridged fragments – it’s written from the teacher’s point of view but as she says ‘I came to teach but was changed in other ways, and now remember that life is still a two-way street.’ – it reminds us how transformative the process of learning (and teaching) can be.

‘I came to teach, to see what I could find inside my students’ deeper selves…
I came to try and open minds… I came… hoping to connect hearts to heads and hands.
I came to entreat, to coax ennobled thoughts, ideals, and love of self and others…
I came to probe, and sometimes poke, to make them think, and laugh at small and narrowed views…’

So, in that spirit, may we remain ever open and receptive to opportunities for learning. And may it be so for the greater good of all. Amen.

Hymn: ‘Praise the Source of Faith and Learning’

Time for our last hymn, ‘Praise the Source of Faith and Learning’, and we’re going to be singing it to a well-known and stirring tune courtesy of Beethoven. Once again the words are on your hymn sheets and will be up on screen. Feel free to stand or sit as you feel moved. Let us sing.

Praise the source of faith and learning
that has sparked and stoked the mind
with a passion for discerning
how the world has been designed.
Let the sense of wonder flowing
from the wonders we survey
keep our faith forever growing
and renew our need to pray.

Source of wisdom, we acknowledge
that our science and our art
and the breadth of human knowledge
only partial truth impart.
Far beyond our calculation
lies a depth we cannot sound
where the purpose for creation
and the pulse of life are found.

May our faith redeem the blunder
of believing that our thought
has displaced the grounds for wonder
which the ancient prophets taught.
May our learning curb the error
which unthinking faith can breed
lest we justify some terror
with an antiquated creed.

Praise for minds to probe the heavens,
praise for strength to breathe the air,
praise for all that beauty leavens
praise for silence, music, prayer,
praise for justice and compassion
and for strangers, neighbours, friends,
praise for hearts and lips to fashion
praise for love that never ends.

Sharing of News, Announcements, Introductions:

Lots of announcements today: Thanks to Ramona for tech-hosting with Jeannene in support. Thanks to Rachel for co-hosting, to Lucy, Antony, and Jeannene for reading, Sandra for playing for us. For those of you who are in-person, Marianne will be serving coffee, tea and biscuits in the hall after the service, if you want to stay for refreshments – thanks Marianne – and thanks Liz for greeting. We are actually looking for more people to help out with coffee and greeting so please speak to Liz or Marianne if you can volunteer. For those of you who are on Zoom today there will be virtual coffee hosted by Rachel afterwards so please do hang around for a chat.

We have various small group activities during the week for you to meet up. Coffee morning is online at 10.30am Wednesday. There are still spaces left for our Heart and Soul gatherings (online Sunday/Friday at 7pm) and this week’s theme is ‘Healing’. The in-person poetry group will be meeting this Wednesday at 7pm so please do sign up with David Carter and send him your poems ahead of time via email so that he can bring a print-out for everyone to follow on the night.

We’ve got an important meeting happening this Thursday on Zoom. This is a congregational conversation to explore ideas about how we can actively cultivate ongoing connections between differing groups within our community once we fully move to weekly hybrid services this autumn. Specifically, this is how about we make sure people who can only attend online and people who are mainly attending in person can continue to interact on a regular basis and feel like one united congregation. We don’t want either group to feel like second-class citizens. There are various options for initiatives and programmes we might set up, so we’d like to hear from people about what they would be most likely to engage with, in order to target our limited resources and energy in ways that would be most fruitful. If you are in touch with members who don’t do Zoom please do encourage them to contact us as it may be possible to offer a ‘watch party’ at church or other channels to enable everyone to participate in this whole-congregation conversation (we’ll only put that on if we know there is demand so do contact us ASAP if you want that to happen).

Our service next Sunday will be ‘Gathering the Waters’. This is a simple ritual of ingathering at summer’s end – as people have been gallivanting over the summer – we’ll symbolically enact coming together again through bringing water to church and pouring it into a common bowl. You can absolutely join in from home – please have your water to hand – and as you pour it at home we’ll have a jug to pour for you here as well. We’re gathering as one community, wherever we are.

The congregation very much has a life beyond Sunday mornings; we encourage you to keep in touch, look out for each other, and do what you can to nurture supportive connections. All this information is also on the back of the order of service and the details were in the Friday email too.

I think that’s everything. Just time for our closing words and closing music now.

Benediction: based on words by Kelly Weisman Asprooth-Jackson

I send you out now, to share yourself with the world, once again.

May its promise and complexity set your mind ablaze.
May you hold fast to what your life has taught you.
May you seek truth and question everything.

And when you have changed the world,
And the world has changed you,
May you return again, to this place,
And share what you have learned with us.

May it be so for the greater good of all. Amen.

Closing Music: ‘Agnus Dei’ – G. Bizet performed by Sandra Smith

Rev. Dr. Jane Blackall

4th September 2022