Restful Resolutions – 22/1/23

Opening Music by Peter Crockford

Opening Words: ‘It is Good to be Together’ by Linda Hart

We enter into this time and this place to join our hearts and minds together.
We come to this place: the doors open, the heat comes on,
biscuits are laid, the water heats, and you all come.
What is it that we come here seeking?
Many things: too many to mention them all.
Yet, it is likely that some common longings draw us to be with one another:
To remember what is most important in life.
To be challenged to live more truly, more deeply,
to live with integrity and kindness and with hope and love.
To feel the company of those who seek a common path,
To be renewed in our faith in the promise of this life.
To be strengthened and to find the courage to continue to do
what we must do, day after day, world without end.
Even if your longings are different than these, you are welcome here.
Even if you do not have the strength and the courage to pass along, you are welcome here.
You are welcome in your grief and your joy to be within this circle of companions.
We gather here. It is good to be together.

Words of Welcome:

These opening words, written by Rev. Linda Hart, welcome all those who have gathered this afternoon for our Sunday service. For those who don’t know me, my name is Michael Allured, minister with Golders Green Unitarians. 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.

Many of us make New Year resolutions and most of the many according to research have left them behind by this point in January. As there’s another week of January remaining I invite us to ponder what kind of resolutions feed us and do us good. Today’s service invites us to reflect on the theme of resolutions – restful ones.

Let us take a few moments to settle ourselves and be touched by stillness. 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 lay them to one side for an hour or so.

Chalice Lighting:

For centuries people have told stories,
celebrated life and approached the ultimate while gathered around a fire.

Today we light this chalice that the hearth fire of our hearts may be rekindled,
that our stories may be retold, that we might celebrate life anew
and that we might approach what is of ultimate and [lasting] value.

Let’s light our chalice flame now, as we do each time we gather. 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.

Our chalice connects each of us to what is of greatest worth: one flame, one light
celebrating that we are here, that we belong together and all are truly welcome.

(light chalice)

Hymn 35: ‘Find a Stillness’

Let’s sing together now. Our first hymn, number 35 in our purple hymnbook and for those joining via Zoom the words will be up on screen to sing along at home. Please stand or sit as you prefer.

Find a stillness, hold a stillness,
let the stillness carry me.
Find the silence, hold the silence,
let the silence carry me.
In the spirit, by the spirit,
with the spirit giving power,
I will find true harmony.

Seek the essence, hold the essence,
let the essence carry me.
Let me flower, help me flower,
watch me flower, carry me.
In the spirit, by the spirit,
with the spirit giving power,
I will find true harmony.

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. We’re asking people to keep their masks on for this candle lighting – please keep your masks on – if you use the hand-held microphone, get it really close to your mask, and SPEAK UP, people should be able to hear what you’re saying. I really want to emphasise this – the people at home really want to hear what you’re saying – and if you don’t hold the microphone really close they simply can’t hear you. So point it directly at your face and keep it right up against your mask and that should do the trick. Thank you.

(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 and Reflection: based on words by Victoria Weinstein

We move now into a time for reflection, meditation, prayer, stillness. We are drawn together: all of us: whether we are physically here in this sacred space or are gathering to be here online we call upon the Spirit of Life and Love to be with us now.
In our strength and our fragility we gather to be still with the mystery within and the mystery beyond.
Spirit of Life and Love,
We have gathered again out of our separateness to know that we are not alone.
In our fears, we are not alone.
In our grasping for peace, finding it in fleeting moments,
and losing it again to some turmoil of the mind and heart, we are not alone.
In our cynical moments, our wonderings
Is this all there is?
Is this the best we can do?
we are not alone.
In our pain, we are never completely alone.
In darkness there is compassion given that is to be found in the world
In despair there is comfort if we can only help each other towards it
In doubt there are random acts of kindness that restore us through glimmers of goodness that are like beacons.
For all this we give thanks.
And so through one another we dwell in You, Spirit of healing and wholeness,
for this brief time—
Willing to be held here in an immense and eternal love
whose origins we do not know,
whose reality is irresistable.
It calls us on.
It reaches between us to fill spaces.
It consoles the grieving, and it calms the anxious.
It gives new vision to eyes dimmed by tears and exhaustion,
it opens the ear to deeper truth.
It makes a place in the heart as hope.
Let us rest in this peace, and be held here.
(pause)

Hymn 21: ‘Come and Find the Quiet Centre’

Time for us to sing again. I invite you to feel the stillness through the words. Hymn 21 in the purple hymnbook. for those joining via Zoom the words will be up on screen to sing along at home. Please stand or sit as you prefer as we sing.

Come and find the quiet centre
in the crowded life we lead,
find the room for hope to enter,
find the space where we are freed:
clear the chaos and the clutter,
clear our eyes, that we can see
all the things that really matter,
be at peace, and simply be.

Silence is a friend who claims us,
cools the heat and slows the pace;
God it is who speaks and names us,
knows our being, touches base,
making space within our thinking,
lifting shades to show the sun,
raising courage when we’re shrinking,
finding scope for faith begun.

In the Spirit let us travel,
open to each other’s pain;
let our lives and fears unravel,
celebrate the space we gain:
there’s a place for deepest dreaming,
there’s a time for heart to care;
in the Spirit’s lively scheming
there is always room to spare.

In-Person Reading: ‘Mark the Time’ by Max Coots – read by Brian

For a special occasion
When love is felt or fear is known,
When holidays and holydays and such times come,
When anniversaries arrive by calendar or consciousness,
When seasons come, as seasons do, old and known, but somehow new,
When lives are born or people die,
When something sacred’s sensed in soil or sky,
Mark the time.
Respond with thought or prayer or smile or grief.
Let nothing living, life or leaf, slip between the fingers of the mind,
For all these are holy things we will not, cannot, find again. (Max Coots)

Words for Meditation: ‘In Silence’ by Edwin C. Lynn

Thanks Brian. We’re moving into a time of meditation now. I’m going to share a few words from Edwin C. Lynn to take us into a few minutes of shared silence which will end with the sound of a bell. Then we’ll hear some soothing meditation music from Peter. So once again 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. The words and music are an offering, feel free to use this time to meditate in your own way.

Spirit of the Universe, God or our hearts known by many names: draw near to us now.
Words tell us of our thoughts. Silence helps us hear our deeper feelings.
In silence we sense the rhythmic measures of all life in the slow repetitive rhythm of our own bodies.
In silence we feel the ebb and flow of life’s breath as the wavers of the larger ocean in which we all live.
In silence we sense a larger spiritual presence of which we are all a part.
In silence we sense the coming and going of human pathways, knowing we can ask no more than to have reached out to others in creative and caring ways.
And in this silence we know that it is the human touch that gives the larger journey its meaning. Amen.

Period of Silence and Stillness (total 3 minutes)

Musical Interlude: by Peter Crockford

In-Person Reading: ‘New Year’ by Robert T. Weston (adapted) – read by Juliet

Last year is gone.
It matters not when it began for it has ended now.
There were other years and some began with a birthday and some with a death; some with one day of the month and some with another.
Some began with a song and others with a lament.

But today – three weeks into this still fresh calendar year – I start another year, whatever the month or season.
It is what lies before me that concerns me now.
There will be decisions and tasks.
There will be drudgery, achievement and defeat.
There will be joy and grief.
All the raw stuff of appearance waiting for me to shape, to fashion as I will.
And it will never become just what I planned.
However it may appear to others I can turn it to knowledge and wisdom or folly.
If it is hard, I can make of it strength.
It may become bone, sinew and steal or ashes and waste.
Some might say “It all depends on what the year may bring”.
But what I make of it depends on me.

Words from Robert T Weston on New Year and choices.

Sermon: ‘Restful Resolutions’ by Rev. Michael Allured

Did you make any New Year resolutions? Or do you not bother with them because within weeks or even days they will be broken? I saw some recent statistics: 9% successfully keep their New Year’s resolutions. 23% of people quit by the end of the first week, 64% after the first month (according to a study with Australian and UK citizens)

I’m usually in the ‘don’t bother’ category: partly because it feels artificial and also because the New Year resolutions my mother announced she was making never usually made it beyond 31 January. Her resolutions tended to be about self-denial or guilt and her attempts to embrace them half hearted.

This year though I’ve been inspired. For my 2023 New Year resolution I’m going to embrace the benefits of rest. I’m going to adopt it as a daily spiritual practice and I invite you to find ways to do likewise.

Resolving to make time daily to rest mind and body came to me as in that half-awake half-asleep state I heard distant voices and disjointed words coming from Radio 4 on Boxing Day morning: rest cure, relaxes the brain activity, lowers cortisol, music, Moonlight Sonata, Beethoven, shifts brain, find two or three activities, body, Sabbath, space, permission, Ten Commandments….

I was able to have a rest over Christmas. I realised how tired I was that body and mind could finally pause and acknowledge the exhaustion. I slept a fair few hours over the past four days as well as nights but still had that feeling of deep tiredness on waking.

The words coming from the radio stirred me from my slumbers and I realised the voices came from the Woman’s Hour studio and they were talking about REST. I was meant to hear this. A light bulb moment: what a useful – no essential – New Year resolution for me – and perhaps for you too.
So my New Year message is to make restful resolutions.

Getting enough rest is essential for not only our physical health but for our spiritual and psychological wellbeing. As Parker Palmer, a world renowned writer, speaker and activist once said:

“Self-care is never a selfish act — it is simply good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer others. Anytime we can listen to our true self and give it the care it requires, we do so not only for ourselves, but for the many others whose lives we touch.”

The importance of rest is a religious idea going back thousands of years. In the story of Creation the Old Testament God takes a day off. After working for six days the seventh (the Sabbath) was a time for restoration, for being with the community, family and friends. It gave us time and space for reflection on our blessings and to find lost perspectives and strength.

When the Old Testament prophet Elijah fled exhausted into the wilderness in fear of his life and pursued by his would-be killers he wanted to give up and die until, so it’s told, an angel brought him water and food. Rested and refuelled, he pressed on with renewed hope.

After carrying all the burdens and cares of daily tasks to be done, even those we enjoy, we need a period to do the things that nurture our whole selves – mind, body, spirit. That could be taking time to share food around the communal table as some of us did this morning or going for a solo morning swim in an open air pond. It could be gardening or listening to or playing music. It doesn’t really matter what it is: it could be doing absolutely nothing but it doesn’t have to be. Above all we need time for each other.

Most of us here will recall that spreading our work across a whole seven days is a relatively new way of living. We’ve forgotten as a society that rest is the gift we are given and we should not feel guilty for accepting it or feel there is something more useful we should be doing.

By keeping the Sabbath we were given permission to rest. Its necessity was understood and built into our weekly rhythm in an intentional way. In today’s consumerist money-orientated culture we have lost that intentionality. For our own physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing we need to reclaim being intentional about rest.

The author and psychologist Claudia Hammond has written about its restorative benefits: improved memory and cognitive function, our physical and psychological wellbeing. It’s not a weakness and it is not a selfish act. Even world class Olympians need their bodies and minds to be rested to achieve peak performance. So do we. So rather than feel guilty about sitting down for a breather we should perhaps reframe the time with intentionality?

We might even begin to think of rest as an act of worship: accepting it with gratitude as the gift it is: it could be reading, walking in Nature, music, choosing to potter at home alone, taking time to release ourselves from ‘flight or fight’ mode by relearning how to breathe.

By the end of Boxing Day Woman’s Hour I had fully woken up to hear Claudia Hammond gifting to listeners the idea of a ‘rest box’. ‘Put into it’, she suggested, ‘all the things you associate with rest’.
Furnish it with two or three activities that you know will help your mind stop whirring. It can be a physical box or a virtual one. But it’s all yours to retreat to even if it’s only snatched micro breaks across the day. Rest is a worshipful act: for restoring the self and finding the strength to give to each other.

Rest helps us to hear our deeper feelings. Through it we are better able to sense the rhythmic measures of all life in the slow repetitive rhythm of our own bodies; to feel the ebb and flow of life’s breath amidst the wave of the larger ocean in which we all live.

Rest is as important as water to our whole selves, even if our world is a single room. Through rest we sense a larger spiritual presence of which we are all a part.

Go now and enjoy creating your own ‘rest box’ and share with us its benefits. Amen.

Hymn 189: ‘We Celebrate the Web of Life’

The web of life is full of wonder and awe. Integral to our daily spiritual practice is finding space to pause, to notice. Our soul needs those moments when we can pause, where we can rest, when we can feel the wonder, when we stop to stand and stare in respect and reverence for life. Hymn 189 in your purple books.

We celebrate the web of life,
its magnitude we sing;
for we can see divinity
in every living thing.

A fragment of the perfect whole
in cactus and in quail,
as much in tiny barnacle
as in the great blue whale.

Of ancient dreams we are the sum;
our bones link stone to star,
and bind our future worlds to come
with worlds that were and are.

Respect the water, land, and air
which gave all creatures birth;
protect the lives of all that share
the glory of the earth.

Announcements – given by Jeannene

Thanks to Michael for leading our worship today. Thanks to Ramona for tech-hosting and Charlotte for co-hosting. Thanks to Peter for playing for us. Thanks to Brian and Juliet for reading. For those of you who are at here in-person, Patricia will be serving refreshments after the service, if you want to stay and chat – thanks Patricia – thanks Juliet for greeting. There will be virtual coffee on Zoom with Charlotte too so do hang around for a chat.

We have various small group activities for you to meet up. There are still spaces left for our Heart and Soul gatherings (online Sunday/Friday at 7pm) and this week’s theme is ‘Taking Pictures’. Do email Jane if you want to sign up for that – it’s a great way to get to know people more deeply. Coffee morning is online at 10.30am Wednesday if you want to come and set the world to rights.

Our service next Sunday will be hybrid once again, and Jane will be back, with a little help from Rev. Laura Dobson of Chorlton Unitarians, who’s been a regular at Heart and Soul, so some of you will know her well. Laura will be joining us via video to share her thoughts on ‘Kindling Our Sacred Flame’ to tie in with the festivals of Imbolc and Candlemas that are coming up quite soon.

Looking a little further ahead you can save the date for the in-person poetry group which returns on Wednesday 1st February – speak to Brian if you want to find out more – and the GreenSpirit group which are meeting online on 2nd February to celebrate Imbolc (email Sarah to sign up for that). Details of all our events are on the back of the order of service and also in the Friday email.

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.

I think that’s everything. I’ll hand back to Michael now for our closing words of benediction.

Benediction:

As we go back into a world of busyness may we look to this day and all our days to find the moments of rest we need to do the work we are called to do in ourselves and in the world.

May the deeds we do with our hands and the words we speak with our lips and the thoughts we think with our minds and the things we feel in our hearts be at all times worthy of the divine spark within us.

Closing Music: by Peter Crockford

Rev. Michael Allured

22nd January 2022