‘Thresholds’ – 18/06/23

Musical Prelude: played by Peter Crockford

Opening Words:

Good morning, welcome to Kensington Unitarians. My name is Eleanor Chiari and it is a great honour to have been invited to speak to you in this beautiful chapel this morning.

Thank you for making the time away from the busy bustle of your life, away from your everyday worries and urgent tasks. Let’s take a few moments to settle.

If it feels comfortable, close your eyes and rest your hand on your heart and ask yourself ‘How am I feeling right now?’ don’t judge, just feel. Notice any tension you are carrying in your body and breathe into it for a moment. (PAUSE)

Whatever the state of your heart you are welcome here today exactly as you are.

When you feel ready, open your eyes and look onto the other people gathered here today. Faces familiar and unknown. Each carrying their own story of joy and pain, their own unique journey to this place on this morning. Welcome each other! This time is for you and for us.

For those who are joining us from home, hello! there are x people in the chapel, we welcome you too, exactly as you are!

I hope that what we build here together in word, song and spirit helps you come a little more alive to yourself, to reach out for the presence of what some people may call God or to find whatever it is you are seeking here.

Whether you come here to reflect, to pray, for community, or just to rest- this time and this place is for you. So welcome.

Chalice Lighting:

I now light our chalice as unitarian congregations do across the world.
(light chalice)

May the light of this chalice reach out to those in need of new beginnings
May it illuminate the dark places at the threshold of grief and uncertainty
May it bring hope and light to all our radiant becomings.

Amen.

More Introductory Words:

We are three days away from the Summer Solstice, when the northern hemisphere enjoys the longest day of the year. It is a time in which the earth expresses its full potential, small birds take their first wingbeats away from the nest, plants stretch out and expand into full bloom, and we too can go out into warm late evenings to connect with our communities and the wide open sky. It is a time to express our passions and strongest feelings and as with all seasonal changes, a time to go gently and reflect on all that came before and prepare for the darker months ahead.

As much as the Solstice is a time of feasting and celebration, it also contains within it the looming promise of the return of winter. For pagan people whose livelihoods and wellbeing depended on the sun, the Solstice represented a time of joy and danger, a threshold time.

The Romans had a wonderful God that they called upon to protect and bless physical as well as symbolic thresholds. The god, Janus, from which the month of january derives its name.

Janus has two faces, one at the front and one at the back of the head. Sometimes the faces represent a young man on one side and an elderly man on the other, at other times the god has the face of a woman on one side and the face of a man on the other. Janus is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, frames, and endings.

He or better they, to use the non-binary pronoun, protect and honour moments of transition and change and are called to mark the passage of time so that we may notice and honour it.

So as pagans prepare to gather to contemplate the sunlight streaming through the great stone threshold at Stonehenge, I would like us to take the opportunity this Sunday to reflect on thresholds, to look back and ahead, and to delve deeper into the meaning of change in our earthly lives.

Today’s service will be divided into three parts:

Part 1: At the threshold – considering where we are in this time of change and in which you will be invited to share in your candles of joy and concern.

Part 2: Lost Words – standing at the threshold of environmental change will reflect on the book ‘lost words’ and what it can teach us about how to approach this time of environmental catastrophe.

Part 3: Into the unknown – formless and borderless dreaming-will bring some thoughts for and from the future.

I hope that by exploring thresholds together, personal, environmental and technological, we may be moved to consider what gifts we can bring that may help us in the urgent work of dreaming the world we need for tomorrow.

Hymn 125 (purple): ‘One More Step Along the World I Go’

But let’s sing our first hymn. One more step along the world I go.

One more step along the world I go,
one more step along the world I go;
from the old things to the new,
keep me travelling along with you;
and it’s from the old I travel to the new,
keep me travelling along with you.

Round the corners of the world I turn,
more and more about the world I learn;
all the new things that I see
you’ll be looking at along with me;
and it’s from the old I travel to the new,
keep me travelling along with you.

As I travel through the bad and good,
keep me travelling the way I should;
where I see no way to go
you’ll be telling me the way, I know;
and it’s from the old I travel to the new,
keep me travelling along with you.

Give me courage when the world is rough,
keep me loving though the world is tough;
leap and sing in all I do,
keep me travelling along with you;
and it’s from the old I travel to the new,
keep me travelling along with you.

You are older than the world can be,
you are younger than the life in me;
ever old and ever new,
keep me travelling along with you;
and it’s from the old I travel to the new,
keep me travelling along with you.

Reflection #1: ‘At the Threshold’ by Eleanor Chiari

We are always taking one more step along the world and changing at every moment but as we reach thresholds of change, year after year patterns start to emerge that we can give meaning to.

American writer Zora Neal Hurston wrote that ‘there are years that ask questions and years that answer them’ and I wonder if ALL of us, after the past three years especially, are living in a time of questions, a threshold time.

I believe we are. Certainly we are standing at the threshold of two revolutionary moments: an environmental reckoning upon which the survival of every living organism on this planet is resting, and a technological revolution we can only begin to fathom.

So how can we, individual human beings standing on the edge of history, even contemplate taking a step beyond these thresholds? In the face of such radical change and potentially unimaginable suffering and loss how can we move at all?

The ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, wrote that ‘it is in changing that we find purpose.’ And it is also at the thresholds that we discover who we really are. If I think of my own life, the times that I have grown the most and really become myself are the threshold moments when my relationships failed, I lost my job, I fell in love, I gave birth to my children.

Change of course, is always happening. But when change becomes inevitable, when we can feel and see a distinct before and after, that is when the God Janus would have been called to bring their blessings.

Thresholds mark danger and promise, hope and despair. It is no accident that all human societies invented rituals to mark those moments of change. From birth to death, rituals help us honour and protect the thresholds we face as human beings and as collectives.

Many of our institutions and our political systems at the moment feel very fragile and in need of protecting, perhaps because the world has changed so radically around them that they are becoming too small to contain it. Our communities and congregations too need care and time to heal.

To be alive in a time of questions is a deeply vulnerable, frightening and exhausting experience but we must resist the urgent desire to act too quickly. Sometimes staying in the uncomfortable space between, sitting with discomfort, with unknowing is what is needed. But we don’t have to do it alone.

The ritual of candles of joy and concern, which I understand you perform every week, is an exercise in sharing at the threshold of change. To come forth with a joy or a concern is about marking, celebrating and lamenting change. In the sacred space of the candles we pause for a moment together- vulnerable and exposed- and seek the blessing and care of our beloved community.

I invite Liz to lead us in the ritual of candles of joy and concern.

LIZ: 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. Please do get up close to the microphone as that will help everyone hear (including the people at home). You can take the microphone out of the stand if it’s not at a good height for you – it’s still going to be important to speak up – and have the microphone pointing right at your mouth. And if you can’t get to the microphone give me a wave and I’ll bring it over to you. 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)

Prayer: by Barbara J Pescan

In this familiar place, listen:
to the sounds of breathing, creaking chairs,
shuffling feet, clearing throats, and sighing all around
Know that each breath, movement, the glance
meant for you or intercepted
holds a life within it.

These are signs
that we choose to be in this company
have things to say to each other
things not yet said but in each other’s presence still
trembling behind our hearts’ doors
these doors closed but unlocked
each silent thing waiting
on the threshold between unknowing and knowing,
between being hidden and being known.

Find the silence among these people
and listen to it all—breathing, sighs,
movement, holding back—
hear the tears that have not yet reached their eyes
perhaps they are your own
hear also the laughter building deep where joy abides
despite everything.
Listen: rejoice. And say Amen.

Words to Go Into Silence:

Before we can even begin to think of the environmental and technological thresholds we are already crossing, it is important to go within and honour our own personal changes

The irish poet and theologian John O’ Donohue invites us to ask ourselves at any moment:

At which threshold am I now standing?
At this time in my life, what am I leaving?
Where am I about to enter?
What is preventing me from crossing my next threshold?
What gift would enable me to do it?

I invite you to ponder these questions for a time of silence. Take a moment to let go of anything you don’t need to be holding and feel your feet on the floor, if you feel comfortable close your eyes. I will ask O’Donohue’s questions again and after three minutes I will ring a bell to let you know the time of silence has come to an end.

At which threshold am I now standing?
At this time in my life, what am I leaving?
Where am I about to enter?
What is preventing me from crossing my next threshold?
What gift would enable me to do it?

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

Reading: ‘For Longing’ by John O’Donohue

blessed be the longing that brought you here
and quickens your soul with wonder.
may you have the courage to listen to the voice of desire
that disturbs you when you have settled for something safe.
may you have the wisdom to enter generously into your own unease
to discover the new direction your longing wants you to take.
may the forms of your belonging – in love, creativity, and friendship –
be equal to the grandeur and the call of your soul.
may the one you long for long for you.
may your dreams gradually reveal the destination of your desire.
may a secret providence guide your thought and nurture your feeling.
may your mind inhabit your life with the sureness
with which your body inhabits the world.
may your heart never be haunted by ghost-structures of old damage.
may you come to accept your longing as divine urgency.
may you know the urgency with which God longs for you.

Amen

Hymn (on sheet): ‘The Eternal Now’

Let’s sing now our second hymn: The Eternal Now.

The ceaseless flow of endless time
No one can check or stay;
We’ll view the past with no regret,
Nor future with dismay.

The present slips into the past,
And dream-like melts away;
The breaking of tomorrow’s dawn
Begins a new today.

The past and future ever meet
In the eternal now;
To make each day a thing complete
Shall be our New Year vow.

Reflection #2: ‘Lost Words’ by Eleanor Chiari

In a moment I will play you a song called the ‘Lost Words Blessing’ and is based on a children’s book written by Robert McPharlane called The Lost Words. The book was a response to the removal of words like Otter, Lark, Wren, Conker and Catkins from the Oxford dictionary for children because they were not being used often enough. These lost words were replaced by more technological words as children’s everyday lives have become increasingly less connected to nature. Robert McPharlane’s book, with its beautiful illustrations by Jackie Morris, is a lyrical attempt at reconnecting children to those lost words and therefore also to the animals, plants and insects that are all around in the UK landscape. In gold letters that form acrostic poems, the lost words become magical spells aimed at enchanting children in the present. But many of the lost words are also lost because the animals, plants and insects they describe are on the verge of extinction in this country. 43% of bird species alone in Britain are in danger of going extinct. Every other creature in the book-larks for example- is in danger.

Lost words is a book that holds us on the threshold. It mourns and honours and celebrates what we have already lost but also refuses to accept erasure and creates a new way for us to move forward, together.

What I love about Lost words is not just its singular beauty as a book, but how in its simple eulogy to the natural world that we all belong to it has become capacious enough to hold so much more than just the lost words it cites.

Classical and folk music composers have adapted and are adapting the book to songs like the one I will play you. Spoken word artists have performed it all around the world, and all kinds of community groups have taken up reciting it in public squares and in protest, have sewn quilts and painted their own versions of the illustrations.

One generous donor ensured a copy would reach every primary school in Scotland, including those on far off islands and tiny villages.

Lost Words opens the heart and a space for community and conversation because it is not afraid to name the loss we are all facing. It makes it our collective loss but it sings it, spells it, chants it draws it for us.

Let’s listen…

VIDEO: ‘The Lost Words Blessing’

Enter the wild with care, my love
And speak the things you see
Let new names take and root and thrive and grow
And even as you travel far from heather, crag and river
May you like the little fisher, set the stream alight with glitter
May you enter now as otter without falter into water

Look to the sky with care, my love
And speak the things you see
Let new names take and root and thrive and grow
And even as you journey on past dying stars exploding
Like the gilded one in flight, leave your little gifts of light
And in the dead of night my darling, find the gleaming eye of starling
Like the little aviator, sing your heart to all dark matter

Walk through the world with care, my love
And sing the things you see
Let new names take and root and thrive and grow
And even as you stumble through machair sands eroding
Let the fern unfurl your grieving, let the heron still your breathing
Let the selkie swim you deeper, oh my little silver-seeker
Even as the hour grows bleaker, be the singer and the speaker
And in city and in forest, let the larks become your chorus
And when every hope is gone, let the raven call you home

Reading: ‘Lost’ by David Wagoner

As we enter into this time of catastrophe, of species extinction, we must enter the world with care and let new words take and root and thrive and grow.

We must recognize the change in our environment and leave our little gifts of light where we can.

We must let the fern unfurl our grieving, let the heron still our breathing.

We must recognize ourselves as belonging to this delicate world that is so threatened. Like the half-seal and half human selkie creatures of old folk tales, we must remember our animal natures. And even as the hour grows bleaker, we must become the singer and the speaker because it is our stories, our shared imagination, that are going to allow us to dream the radical new world that is begging to come into being if we are to survive.

SILENCE

‘Lost’ by David Wagoner

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

Reflection #3: ‘Into the Unknown’ by Eleanor Chiari

There comes a time when thresholds are suddenly crossed for us and we find ourselves in a new landscape, which is completely unknown. In recent months much has been written and said about the open access AI Chat GPT and some of you may have tried it. At University College, where I teach, we are already pulling our hair out as students are using it to write their essays for them and there is a lot of fear and catastrophic thinking around it.

If you haven’t heard of it, ChatGPT is a natural language processing tool driven by AI technology that allows you to have human-like conversations with a chatbot. If you ask it questions, really difficult questions, it will answer in a language that sounds like a human is on the other side.

One of my heroes, the poet and theologian Padraig O’ Tuama is fond of that line from David Wagoner’s poem which says

“Wherever you are is called Here, / And you must treat it as a powerful stranger.”

So I asked Chat GPT to explain it and it told me this:

“here” refers to the present moment, and treating it like a powerful stranger means that one should approach it with respect and attentiveness. It suggests that we should not take the present moment for granted, but rather view it as an opportunity to learn and grow. By treating the present moment as something new and unfamiliar, we can be more mindful and present in our experiences, rather than being caught up in the past or worrying about the future.’

This inanimate computer system gave me an answer that can also be an answer to our discussion about thresholds, about becoming mindful about change and the passage of time.

At the threshold we should encounter the present and the future and treat them as powerful strangers. We should be open and curious. As Padraig O’ Tuama says, we should say ‘hello’.

Chat GPT is ‘here’ but if we move our hearts, and our minds and our creativity towards it, rather than trying to resist it, we may just find wondrous answers beyond its threshold.

In the voice of the ai, just as when we journal, when we recite the lost words or share songs stories and sermons here, we stand at the creative edge between language and understanding. there is an intellectual side to it, a cognitive side yes, but there is also a deeper side to this. Perhaps in the silence between words. In the sounds that words themselves make. When we find words that speak to us and move towards them that is the place of the heart where transformation occurs. There is mystery to the way in which, by moving towards understanding we also move away from self and into a space of spiritual change in which all borders dissolve.

Has it happened to you when words have come to you almost serendipitously and they have vibrated within you even when their meaning was perhaps obscure? At these moments we find that we are not lost but we can intuit a place of infinite belonging which is always there beyond the threshold of language and thought. I think that may be God. And it’s by moving towards, daring to be transformed that we can experience a deeper encounter with the mystery of our lives and the beauty of our complicated and troubled world.

Hymn 102 (purple): ‘May the Road Rise With You’

Let’s sing our third hymn 102 from the purple book May the road rise with you’.

May the road rise with you,
may the wind be always at your back,
may the sun shine warm upon your face,
may the rain fall soft upon your fields,
and until we meet again,
may God hold you
in the hollow of his/her hands.

Liz: Announcements:

Many thanks to Eleanor for leading our service today. Thanks to Ramona for tech-hosting and Charlotte for co-hosting. Thanks to Peter for lovely music. Thanks to Marianne for greeting. For those of you who are here in-person, if you want to stay, I’ll will be serving refreshments in the hall.

We have various small group activities for you to meet up. There are still spaces left for our online Heart and Soul contemplative spiritual gatherings (Sunday/Friday at 7pm) and this week’s theme is ‘Becoming’. GreenSpirit are having a solstice gathering and lunch at Essex Church on the 21st June.

Next Sunday, on 25th June, you could stay here all day if you want – especially if you like singing – Jane, our minister, will be back next week, and our service will be on ‘Discovering Delight’. After the service we’ll have a singing class with Margaret – then ‘Many Voices’ singing group have got a Pride themed event with guest leader Katie Rose – and in the evening there’ll be an interfaith gathering of storytelling, music, and art on the theme of ‘Celebrating Life’ – organised by ‘Spirit of Peace’.

The week after that, on Wednesday 28th June, Heidi is organising an outing to the Tate Britain.

I’ve got a couple of ‘Save the Dates’ to remind you about: As Jane mentioned last week we’ve set the date for an Induction Service this autumn, at 2pm on Saturday 14th October, to mark the start of the new ministry. That’s a long way off but do get it in the diary if you can. Before that, this summer we are going to hold a special celebratory service and lunch, with a dual purpose: belatedly thanking our previous minister Sarah Tinker for her many years of ministry with our congregation, and marking her retirement (as we weren’t able to have a proper ‘do’ at the time), and also thanking Harold Lorenzelli for his contribution to five decades of church music. That ‘End of an Era’ service and celebration is going to take place in our usual Sunday service slot on 23rd July. If you are planning to come to that can you please let Patricia know ASAP so we can organise the catering.

Details of our various activities 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’ll hand back to Eleanor for our closing words now.

Closing Words:

I leave you now with a blessing created by the AI ChatGPT

May you find peace in the present, And hope for the future.
May your spirit be unbreakable, And your heart be open to all.
May you have the wisdom to know, What you can control and what you cannot.
May you find the courage to let go, And to embrace the unknown.
May you find beauty and growth, In the journey of facing the unknown. Blessed be.

Thank you and thank you to Peter for his beautiful playing.

Closing Music: played by Peter Crockford

Dr Eleanor Chiari

18th June 2023