Discovering Delight – 25/06/23

June 24, 2023 · by kensin · in Uncategorized

Musical Prelude: ‘Parisian Waltz’ – Christopher Gunning (played by Benjie del Rosario and Peter Crockford)

Opening Words: ‘A Spacious Welcome’ by Shari Woodbury (adapted)

Welcome, you who come in friendship, who long for genuine community…
May you be graciously received here as your authentic self.

Welcome, you who come in curiosity, full of questions or simply open…
May you embrace wonder and encounter new delights.

Welcome, you who come heavy with fatigue, weary from the troubles of the world
or the troubles of your particular life… May you rest and be filled in this sacred space.

Welcome, you who come with joy for gentle breezes, changing skies, and trees in blossom…
May the grace of the greening world leave a lasting imprint in you.

Welcome, you who come with thanks for the altruism of the earth and the gift of human care…
May your grateful heart overflow and bless those around you.

May this chalice be to us a symbol of the community we’re ever co-creating;
a welcoming container of all the light and life we bring and share together.

Words of Welcome and Introduction:

These opening words – by Shari Woodbury – welcome all who have gathered this morning for our Sunday service. Welcome to those of you who have gathered in-person at Essex Church and also to all who are joining us via Zoom from far and wide. For anyone who doesn’t know me, my name is Jane Blackall, and I’m Minister with Kensington Unitarians.

The title of this morning’s service is ‘Discovering Delight’ – it’s inspired by this splendid book and the man who wrote it – ‘The Book of Delights’ by Ross Gay. It’s been around for a few years now, so quite likely a few of you will have come across it before I did, but I recently heard him being interviewed and was really charmed by him and by his reminder that (as the book jacket says) in our complex and sometimes terrifying world it is more important than ever to stake out space for delight in our lives. So over the next hour we’ll be considering how we might put ourselves in the way of delight; how we might attune ourselves to it and get into the habit of noticing delightful moments in our daily lives.

But before we go any further let’s take a moment to get settled and centred and ready to worship. This is an hour in which we can catch up with ourselves. Be grounded and present. So just breathe. Be here now, with your whole self, in this beloved community, as we attend to the life of the spirit.

Chalice Lighting: ‘A Beacon of Hope’ by Christine Robinson

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 gather this hour as people of faith
with joys and sorrows, gifts and needs.
We light this little beacon of hope,
sign of our quest for truth and meaning,
in celebration of this precious life we share together.

Hymn 247 (green): ‘A World of Wonder’

Let’s sing together now. Our first hymn is ‘A World of Wonder’ – it’s number 247 in the green book – for those joining via Zoom the words will be up on your screen to sing along at home. Feel free to stand or sit as you prefer as we sing.

The sun at high noon
The stars in dark space
The light of the moon,
On our upturned face,
The high clouds, the rain clouds,
The lark-song on high –
We gaze up in wonder
Above to the sky.

The green grassy blade,
The grasshopper’s sound,
The creatures of shade
That live in the ground,
The dark soil, the moist soil,
Where plants spring to birth —
We look down in wonder
Below in the earth.

The glad joys that heal
The tears in our eyes,
The longings we feel,
The light of surprise,
Our night dreams, our day dreams,
Our thoughts ranging wide —
We live with a whole world
Of wonder inside.

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 and have it 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)

Time of Prayer & Reflection: based on words by Alex Jensen

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

Your world become, your will be done here, on Earth,
inspiring our aspirations to do and be better.

May we have all that we need to survive, live, and thrive.

Remind us to be gentle; may we love mercy and kindness,
recalling the times when we’ve fallen short ourselves.

Call us also to be firm in our resolve to serve the Good;
may we not be tempted to follow selfish motivations
or reside in narrow privileges, unexamined and uninterrogated;
move us to counter and overcome injustice in ourselves, our lives, our institutions.

For yours is the Beloved Community, the fire of commitment in our hearts,
and the spirit of generosity and abundance, now and always. (pause)

Let us take a few moments now to look back over the past week, sit quietly for a while,
and inwardly give thanks for those joys and pleasures we have felt along the way:

moments of love, friendship and camaraderie,
bursts of playfulness, spontaneity and generosity,
feelings of achievement, creativity, and flow,
experiences of reassurance and relief, wonder and delight;
all those times when we felt most alive and awake. (pause)

Let us also take some time to ask for the consolation, forgiveness,
and guidance we may need, as we acknowledge our sorrows and regrets:

times of loss, pain, anger, and fear,
periods of uncertainty and anxious waiting,
realisation of our own weaknesses, mistakes and failings,
awareness of missed opportunities, those things left unsaid or undone,
those moments when we struggled and felt like a mess. (pause)

Expanding our circle of concern, let us bring to mind those people,
places and situations that are in need of prayer right now:

maybe friends or loved ones, those closest to our heart.
maybe those we find difficult, or where there’s a conflict going on.
maybe those we don’t know so well, or who we’ve heard about in the news.

And let us take a few moments now to hold them in the light of love. (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 9 (green): ‘So Simple is the Human Heart’

Let’s sing together now. Our next hymn is number 9 in the green book: ‘So Simple is the Human Heart’ (and the words will be up on screen as usual). Feel free to stand or sit as you prefer.

A little sun, a little rain,
A soft wind blowing from the west –
And woods and fields are sweet again,
And warmth within the mountain’s breast.
So simple is the earth we tread,
So quick with love and life her frame,
Ten thousand years have dawned and fled,
And still her magic is the same.

A little love, a little trust,
A soft impulse, a sudden dream,
And life as dry as desert dust
Is fresher than a mountain stream.
So simple is the human heart,
So ready for new hope and joy;
Ten thousand years have played their part,
But left it young as girl or boy.

Introduction to ‘The Book of Delights’:

As I mentioned at the start of the service, today’s theme was inspired by this great little book, ‘The Book of Delights’ written by Ross Gay. The title makes it sound soft and fluffy but what makes the book great, to my mind, is that this book is grounded in reality. It acknowledges that the world is often far-from-delightful in many ways, and it makes the case for seeking out moments of delight anyway, almost as an act of resistance in the face of all the things that might bring us down each day. I’m just going to read you the short preface to the book to give you a bit of context:

Preface to ‘The Book of Delights’ by Ross Gay:

One day last July, feeling delighted and compelled to both wonder about and share that delight, I decided that it might feel nice, even useful, to write a daily essay about something delightful. I remember laughing to myself for how obvious it was. I could call it something like ‘The Book of Delights’. I came up with a handful of rules: write a delight every day for a year; begin and end on my birthday, August 1; draft them quickly; and write them by hand. The rules made it a discipline for me. A practice. Spend time thinking and writing about delight every day.

Because I was writing these essays pretty much daily (confession: I skipped some days), patterns and themes and concerns show up. For instance, I travelled quite a bit this year. I often write in cafés. My mother is often on my mind. Racism is often on my mind. Kindness is often on my mind. Politics. Pop music. Books. Dreams. Public space. My garden is often on my mind.

It didn’t take me long to learn that the discipline or practice of writing these essays occasioned a kind of delight radar. Or maybe it was more like the development of a delight muscle. Something that implies that the more you study delight, the more delight there is to study. A month or two into this project delights were calling to me: Write about me! Write about me! Because it is rude not to acknowledge your delights, I’d tell them that though they might not become essayettes, they were still important, and I was grateful to them. Which is to say, I felt my life to be more full of delight. Not without sorrow or fear or pain or loss. But more full of delight. I also learned this year that my delight grows – much like love and joy – when I share it.

(pause)

Words from Ross Gay. Such a lovely book. So we’re going to hear two of these very short ‘essayettes’ from the man himself, recorded a few years ago, they’re called ‘Tomato on Board’ (about taking a tomato seedling on a journey) and ‘The Marfa Lights’ (about playing basketball with a friend).

VIDEO: Readings from ‘The Book of Delights’ by Ross Gay: ‘Tomato on Board’ and ‘The Marfa Lights’

I am Ross Gay and I am here to talk to you about, or read from, this book that’s coming out February, from Algonquin books. One day I was walking up a hill in Umbertide in Italy, and there were like bees in the Linden trees, and there were flowers all over, sunflower fields, and I was like “well this is so delightful, I should write an essay about this!” And then I said “well it would be more interesting if I wrote an essay every day for a year, about this, and more challenging too”. So the book is an artifact of that exploration, and it ended up being a kind of treatise on delight; the virtues and the labour of delight. So I’m going to read to you a few of them.

This one’s called ‘Tomato on Board’. What you don’t know until you carry a tomato seedling through the airport and onto a plane is that carrying a tomato seedling through the airport and onto a plane will make people smile at you almost like you’re carrying a baby. A quiet baby. I did not know this until today, carrying my little tomato, about three or four inches high in its four-inch plastic starter pot, which my friend Michael gave to me, smirking about how I was going to get it home. Something about this, at first, felt naughty – not comparing a tomato to a baby, but carrying the tomato onto the plane – and so I slid the thing into my bag while going through security, which made them pull the bag for inspection. When the security guy saw it was a tomato he smiled and said, “I don’t know how to check that. Have a good day.” But I quickly realised that one of its stems (which I almost wrote as “arms”) was broken from the jostling, and it only had four of them, so I decided I better just carry it out in the open. And the shower of love began. Before boarding the final leg of the flight, one of the workers said, “Nice tomato,” which I don’t think was a come-on. And the flight attendant asked about the tomato at least five times, not an exaggeration, every time calling it “my tomato” – Where’s my tomato? How’s my tomato? You didn’t lose my tomato, did you? She even directed me to an open seat in the exit row: Why don’t you guys go sit there and stretch out? I gathered my things and set the li’l guy in the window seat so she could look out. When I got my water I poured some into the li’l guy’s soil. When we got bumpy I put my hand on the li’l guy’s container, careful not to snap another arm off. And when we landed, and the pilot put the brakes on hard, my arm reflexively went across the seat, holding the li’l guy in place, the way my dad’s arm would when he had to brake hard in that car without seatbelts to speak of, in one of my very favourite gestures in the encyclopaedia of human gestures.

And this one’s called: ‘The Marfa Lights’. My buddy Pat and I went to shoot around at the courts here in Marfa today. We were warming up, shooting twelve-footers or doing slow spin moves and crossovers, when a young guy from the other side of the court (where the rim had a net) swaggered toward us, holding a ball on his hip, the light gleaming in his earrings, and challenged us to a two-on-two, pointing his thumb to himself and back to his buddy draining threes from the corner. We agreed, and went on to kick the shit out of them, 21 to 0. That is a horrible figure of speech, and I leave it in only to expose the violence we easily speak. We got more baskets than they did. That they were only twelve years old is irrelevant, given as this was their home court, and they even had a crowd watching, another little girl who, when one of the kids shouted to the gods, “They’re kicking our butts!” said, “I hope so. They’re grown men.”

Meditation: based on words by Laura Mancuso

We’re moving into a time of meditation now. I’m going to share words from Laura Mancuso, a piece called ‘My Commitments to Myself’, it’s a series of affirmations, encouragements, reminders for practicing self-care so we can live well each day. For me it ties in with today’s theme in that we’re not focusing on delight as a form of denial in the face of life’s difficulties – we’re focusing on delight almost as a form of resistance – and this meditation is about taking good care of ourselves so that we can remain open to delight and not be entirely ground down by all the tough stuff we have to face as we move through life. We’ll move from the spoken meditation into a few minutes of silence which will end with the sound of a bell. And then we’ll hear some music from Benjie and Peter. So let’s each do what we need to do to get comfortable – adjust your position if you need to – put your feet flat on the floor to ground and steady yourself – 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.

As I share each of these commitments, I invite you to take them in, repeat them to yourself.

I take care of myself first, because I am deserving of exquisite care.
I take care of myself to maintain the capacity to help others.

I attend to the needs of my body, and move and stretch every day.
I spend time outdoors, in nature, attuning my senses to the earth’s wisdom.
I ration my daily exposure to the news and am discerning about credible sources of information.
I protect myself from becoming overwhelmed by disturbing reports. I pace myself.
I sit with the reality of uncertainty & impermanence, and allow it to temper my desire for control.
I listen to others’ reactions, which may be different from mine, with equanimity.
I forgive myself and others when stress brings out our shadow selves.

I feel fear fully when I am fearful.
I experience sadness fully when I am sad.
I allow anger fully when I am angry.
I relish joy fully when I am joyful.
I seek out healthy pleasures and indulge in them without guilt.

I remind myself that feelings are transient states that move through me.
They do not last. And they do not define me. Nor do my thoughts.

I balance the urge for self-improvement with compassionate acceptance of myself as I am.
I initiate contact with loved ones, near and far, to let them know I hold them in my heart.
I seek out, with increased sensitivity, those who are the most vulnerable.
If possible, I share my resources with those who need help to survive.
I move away from people, situations, and experiences that do not serve the highest good.
I strengthen my connection to sources of spiritual strength so that I may be replenished.

I acknowledge the nearness of death as a spur for living a full life.
I grieve my losses and celebrate my successes.
I pray for the suffering of all beings to cease.

I remain open to new ways of being,
surprising sources of uplift and joy,
and fresh discoveries of delight every day.

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

Musical Interlude: ‘2nd mov Sonatina for clarinet and piano’ – Joseph Horovitz (played by Benjie del Rosario and Peter Crockford) (3 min)

Poem: ‘Mindful’ by Mary Oliver (read by Chloe)

Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for –
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world –
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant –
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these –
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

Poem: ‘Miniature Delights’ by Anne Ryland (read by Juliet)

You in your new cranberry sweater, glasses askew
reading about James Bond then Elgar.

Being nobody, at home with all the lamps on
and quite shapeless within beloved habits.

The unknown bird at dawn who laughs
an ascending scale of notes in our garden.

Opening a card of bluebells and wood sorrel
to find a letter written in neat fountain pen script.

A conversation lasting six and a half hours,
completing it without being put off or told off.

The vacancy for a part-time shepherd –
wondering how it would blend with poetry.

A slow breakfast at the foot of a castle while ruins
tell their stories and cows promenade the cliff.

A stroll along the pier in my pale blue duffel coat,
greeted only by the seal who wants to flirt.

Smoke spiralling from chimneys, the long breath
of a house, or its thoughts purified by fire.

Listening to Ave Maria, imagining Schubert asleep
in his glasses in case a new song woke him by surprise.

Mini-Reflection: ‘Tuning Our Delight Radar’

I settled on ‘Discovering Delight’ for the title of our service today – mainly chosen for alliteration purposes, now I come to think of it – because to talk about ‘discovering’ delight isn’t quite right. Or at least it doesn’t tell the full story. For me, ‘Discovering’ suggests unexpectedly tripping over delight, happening upon it, chancing on delight almost accidentally. And of course that does happen.

But the core message of this service – and the thing I love most about Ross Gay’s approach – is that he speaks of developing a ‘delight radar’ and strengthening his ‘delight muscles’. It’s not a passive process. In making a practice of delight – committing to noticing one moment of delight each day and writing it down – he trains himself to become more sensitive to it. His ‘delight radar’ becomes ever more finely tuned. This makes sense from a neuroplasticity point of view too – we develop our neural circuits by repeatedly looking out for delightful happenings – and in a way we train ourselves to detect moments of delight – so that in time we’ll find them even easier to notice and appreciate.

Ross Gay is no Pollyanna – he sees all too clearly what is wrong in the world – he does not deny the very real suffering and injustice that is all around him – but with this practice of delight he does not allow himself to sink into hopelessness and despair about it either. Paying attention to what is good – what is still good, and delightful, despite everything – can potentially get us into a virtuous circle. As we notice where our moments of delight are coming from – the people, the places, the activities – we can move towards those sources of joy and even make more intentional space for them in our life.

And we might even choose to see this as an act of defiance, or resistance, against those social and economic forces which seem to squeeze much of the joy out of living for so many of us. For anyone who is struggling to stay afloat, working all hours to make ends meet, holding on to our sources of delight in the face of it all might be seen as a way of asserting our inherent worth and dignity. When we are in tough circumstances it may be that small delights give us the juice to carry on. I’ve put a quote on the order of service today which speaks to that: Rose Kennedy said ‘Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn’t people feel as free to delight in whatever sunlight remains to them?’

So the take-home message today is a pretty simple one – in theory at least – over the coming days I invite you to have a go at tuning your ‘delight radar’ or building your ‘delight muscles’. Each day this week, see if you can notice one moment of delight, and write it down (or, even better, share your moment of delight, by telling someone else about it). Ross Gay’s book came to my attention when he was recently interviewed on a favourite podcast, ‘We Can Do Hard Things’, and the couple who host the show said that they’d got into the habit of saying ‘Delight!’ to each other, every time one of them encounters a new delight in the wild. It’s become A Thing They Do. That practice of noticing and sharing reinforces an uplifting spiral. Bonus points for noticing delights in as varied a range of settings as possible – let your delights be both silly and serious – maybe use your senses and find delights you can see, hear, taste, touch, and smell. And of course I’d encourage you to share some of your recent delights with each other after the service, over tea and cake, in the chat box on Zoom, or maybe in the congregational WhatsApp group. There’s your challenge – or your invitation, shall we say – for the week to come.

And with that in mind let’s sing our final hymn which speaks of the delights of this season…

Hymn 268 (green): ‘Moods of Summer’

Time for our last hymn: ‘Moods of Summer’. It’s number 268 in the green book and the words will be up on screen – quite a long hymn this one – it celebrates finding delight in all of summer’s moods.

When the summer sun is shining
Over land and over sea,
And the flowers in the hedgerow
Welcome butterfly and bee;
Then my open heart is glowing,
Full of warmth for everyone,
And I feel an inner beauty
Which reflects the summer sun.

When the lights of summer sunshine
Steams in through the open door,
Casting shadows of tree-branches,
Living patterns on the floor;
Then my heart is full of gladness,
And my soul is light and gay,
And my life is overflowing
Like the happy summer day.

When the summer clouds of thunder
Bring the long awaited rain,
And the thirsty soil is moistened,
And the grass is green again;
Then I long for summer sunshine,
But I know that clouds and tears
Are a part of life’s refreshment,
Like the rainbow’s hopes and fears.

When, beneath the trees of summer,
Under leafy shade I lie,
Breathing in the scent of flowers,
Sheltered from the sun-hot sky;
Then my heart is all contentment,
And my soul is quiet and still,
Soothed by whispering, lazy breezes,
Like the grasses on the hill.

In the cool of summer evening,
When the dancing insects play,
And in garden, street and meadow
Linger echoes of the day;
Then my heart is full of yearning,
Hopes and memories flood the whole
Of my being, reaching inwards
To the corners of my soul.

Announcements:

Thanks to Jeannene for tech-hosting, Maria for co-hosting, Chloë and Juliet for reading. Thanks to Benjie and Peter for lovely music. Thanks to Carolyn for greeting. For those of you who are here in-person, if you want to stay, Marianne will be serving refreshments next door (including carrot cake).

You could stay here all day today if you want – especially if you like singing – after the service we’ll have a singing class with Margaret (that’s free of charge) – then ‘Many Voices’ singing group have got a Pride themed event with guest leader Katie Rose at 1.30 (that costs £12 to enter) – and in the evening there’ll be an interfaith gathering of stories, music, and art on the theme of ‘Celebrating Life’ – organised by ‘Spirit of Peace’ and the London District (that starts at 6.30pm tonight).

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 ‘Leisure’. Please note that Heidi’s cultural outing to the Tate Britain has been postponed; it will now take place on Wednesday 12th July instead (do email or call Heidi for details). And next Sunday I’ll be back with a Pride-themed service including guests from Unitarian Head Office – Lizzie Kingston-Harrison and Rory Castle-Jones will be telling us about the excellent, recently launched, ‘LGBT Unitarian Voices’ history project and travelling exhibition – we’ll be celebrating our radically inclusive history and pondering what it would require of us to live out those same values today.

I’ve got a couple of ‘Save the Dates’ to remind you about: Next month 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 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 (we’re going to get some outside caterers in). And looking much further ahead 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. Do get it in the diary if you can.

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

Benediction: based on words by Gary Kowalski

May the blessings of life be upon us and upon this congregation.
May the memories we gather here give us hope for the future.
May the love that we share bring strength and joy to our hearts,
and the peace of this community be with us until we meet again. Amen.

Closing Music: ‘Stranger on the Shore’ – Acker Bilk (played by Benjie del Rosario and Peter Crockford)

Rev. Dr. Jane Blackall

25th June 2023