‘Learning from Lionel’ – 25/2/24

Musical Prelude: Spring – The Victorian Kitchen Garden – Paul Reade (played by Benjie del Rosario & Andrew Robinson)

Opening Words: ‘What Brings You Here?’ by Bob Janis (adapted)

What brings you here?

You have come, perhaps,
to be with others who care about
what it means to live, and live well,
on this beautiful blue-green planet we share.

You have come to be with your innermost self,
to feel the deep wells within you
brimming with courage and vision.

You have come to rest, and to be quiet,
to be renewed by not having to be anyone
other than who you are right now.

Maybe you have come to cry out, to rattle
the walls that contain all the prisoners of injustice
and greed and isolation, and to help tear those walls down.

Whatever brought you here – you are well come.

The world needs a few people who are honest,
even to the point of accepting their imperfection;
the world needs a few people who are brave enough to risk
individual comfort for the sake of a larger love;
the world needs a few people who honour their own suffering
as well as their ability to transform pain into compassion;
the world needs a few people who are willing to
step into the unknown, who are ready to come alive.

So, this morning, let us gather in peace and in hope,
let us make room for the infinite possibilities of the spirit.
This time we share is precious. It is good to be together again. (pause)

Words of Welcome and Introduction:

These opening words by my old friend Bob Janis 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, I’m Jane Blackall, and I’m Minister with Kensington Unitarians.

The theme of morning’s service was chosen in connection with this being the last Sunday in LGBTQ+ history month – this is a time for all of us to remember and celebrate the lives and achievements of our spiritual ancestors in the LGBTQ+ community – trailblazers and pioneers (or, to borrow a word that I first picked up from my friend and church member Gaynor – ‘qheroes’ – short for ‘queer heroes’). So, in that spirit, today’s service is titled ‘Learning from Lionel’ – we’re going to spend the next hour reflecting on what we might learn from the wit, the wisdom, and the marvellously messy life of one of my all-time spiritual qheroes, the Rabbi Lionel Blue.

But let’s take our customary moment to pause before we go any further. Check in with yourself: How are you doing this morning? It’s a grey-ish day outside… but what’s your inner weather like? Take a moment to tune in to your feelings and, if you can, to just observe them quite neutrally… and if you’ve discovered any worry, or agitation, or preoccupation, see if you can set that aside for now. Anything you really need to deal with will still be there to pick up again in an hour or so. We make this hour sacred with our presence and intention. Let’s do our best to truly be here now.

Chalice Lighting: ‘This Place’ by Cliff Reed (freely 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 this gathering is part.

(light chalice)

This community is a fellowship of the progressive path –
open-minded, open-hearted – at least, that’s our aspiration.

This is a place to share insights and ideas,
a place to foster faith and sometimes find joy,
a place where we can be ourselves, and let others do the same;
a place where we can be real about our untidy lives
and bring our confusion, our pain, our despair.

This is a place for the whole of life’s experience,
as messy as that may be; a place for healing and solace;
for solidarity and hope; for encouragement and nurture;
a place to face this life – in all its complex shadings – together.

Hymn 196 (purple): ‘We Sing the Faith’

Let’s sing together now. Our first hymn is 196 in your purple hymn books, ‘We Sing the Faith’. For those joining via Zoom the words will be on screen. Feel free to stand or sit as you prefer. Sing up as best you can for this gathering hymn.

We sing the faith, which gives us confidence
for human dwelling in the vast immense
and finding there within the great unknown
that there’s a cosmic law and order shown.

We sing the hope, which shows us there are ways
for living through our very darkest days
and glimpse beyond a path which leads us on
to find the place where new days have begun.

We sing the love, which is creation’s law,
and in a single whole its parts will draw;
and since parts turn and swerve, collide and move,
forgiveness is the final form of love.

Faith, hope and love: we honour each and three
but there’s one virtue which we all agree
stands out among the others far above
and that ‘the greatest of the three is love’.

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 John Saxon

Let’s take those joys and concerns into an extended time of prayer. This prayer is based on some words by John Saxon. 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)

Our words, our minds, fail us –
when we ponder the enormity, diversity,
complexity, wonder, and beauty of this world.
And yet we sense that our lives are part of a larger Life,
that we are indeed connected with everyone and everything
in one interdependent web of being, and that there is something,
both immanent and transcendent, that nurtures and sustains our lives and Life itself:
something that calls us and all life to greater wholeness and harmony. (pause)

So this morning we give thanks for all of the gifts and blessings of life:
for this new day, for the beauty and wonder and mystery of creation,
for our families and friends, for health and work,
for opportunities to learn and love and grow,
for the care and support of others in times of illness or despair.

But we remember, too, this morning, that others – our human kin –
here in this gathering, across the nation, and around the world,
live in poverty, hunger, fear, illness, isolation, violence, and insecurity;
so many are ground down by systems of injustice and oppression,
or are caught up in the chaos and confusion not of their making.

In the silence of this gathering and in the silence of our hearts,
may we hear the call to a wider perspective and a deeper resolve. (pause)

May we live with greater compassion and care for ourselves, others, and creation.
May we touch each other more deeply, hear each other more clearly,
and see each other’s joys and sorrows as our own.
May we strive to be and become more than we are:
more loving, more forgiving, more kind, more honest,
more authentic, more open, more connected, more whole.

And even as we strive, may we also truly accept ourselves,
just as we are in this moment, and know that we are enough.

May we face all that comes our way with hope, faith, and courage,
knowing that life is ultimately good and that we are not alone. (pause)

And in a few moments of shared silence and stillness now,
may we speak inwardly some of those deepest prayers of our hearts —
the joys and sorrows we came in carrying – in our own lives and the lives of the wider world.
Let us each lift up whatever is on our heart this day, and ask for what we most need. (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 (on sheet): ‘Call Me by My Name’

Let’s sing together again. It’s one we sang a few weeks ago and I’m repeating it in hope we can learn it. In fact I’m going to suggest that we sing the whole hymn twice through today so we learn the tune! I’ll ask Andrew to play it once before we sing. The words will be up on screen.

Call me by my name. Know me in my truth.
Trust the sacred flame that burns in me and you.
Listen to my song. I’m gentle and I’m strong,
With a love I can’t contain. Won’t you call me by my name?

Tell me who you are. Let your truth be known.
Cast away your fear for you are not alone.
Share your hopes and dreams. Together, we’ll be free
To rejoice with all our hearts. Won’t you tell me who you are?

As we come to learn the gifts we each can give,
We offer up in turn a better way to live.
The stories that we share will show us how to care.
You can help me do my part when you tell me who you are.
You can fill the world with grace when you call me by my name.

(repeat whole hymn)

Introduction to Pre-Recorded Reading:

My hunch is that most of you will already be at least somewhat familiar with Rabbi Lionel Blue – but for those who are not, just a few introductory words about him at this point – he was perhaps the most well-known of the contributors to Radio Four’s ‘Thought for the Day’ slot – the three-minute pastoral reflection on the news, from a faith perspective, that is offered in the middle of the Today Programme at 7.45 each morning. Lionel Blue was a regular contributor to this for over 25 years, and became very popular, to the point where he ended up doing one-man theatre shows, just talking about his fascinating life, taking questions from the audience, and famously hanging around in the foyer to chat with whoever wanted a chat until everyone had had enough and they’d all gone home. He carried on doing this up until not-that-long before he died, eight years ago now, back in 2016.

I’ve got plenty more to say about him later on but I just wanted to give you that much information before handing over to the man himself. I was delighted to find a collection of recordings of some of his old ‘Thought for the Day’ reflections – they came out as an audiobook on cassette back in 1990 (which I am slightly horrified to realise is 34 years ago) – so we’re going to play in two of these short pieces back-to-back. It’s about five minutes in total. They give you a little bit of the flavour of what he was about – thoroughly down-to-earth, honest about life’s difficulties, deeply religious but also kind-of irreverent – the only other thing I want to mention is there are some slightly old-fashioned references. He makes mention of listening to ‘the BBC light programme’ on the radio in his youth – that’s roughly equivalent to radio 1 and radio 2 – a mix of popular music and light entertainment. But enough from me. Time to hand over to Lionel.

Pre-Recorded Reading: ‘Thoughts for the Day’ by Rabbi Lionel Blue

You wake up on a Monday morning, switch on the radio, and wonder what sort of world you’re in. You’ve got your own personal problems – there’s the tax form falling through the letterbox, an awkward interview with your boss, and what’s more there’s no marge left in the fridge – you feel gruff and growly already. And when you turn on the radio you shoot bolt upright and whimper, because there’s been yet another plane disaster, this time on the M1, which you’ve driven up and down so many times. Death is very very close. You need a cup of tea fast.

Some people say God is everywhere and in everything, so evil doesn’t really exist, it’s just goodness in disguise, we can’t see it, that’s all. I once tried to see the world that way, and it made me cross-eyed. Neither concentration camps nor plane disasters are good in disguise; dead bodies, weeping relatives, are never good. Some people take the opposite line and say ‘if hell exists, then this is it’. But that doesn’t fit the facts either. I meet too much goodness and love in this world for that, too much charity, too much kindness. I think things go wrong when disasters happen because the world is an incomplete sort of place. Like you and me, it’s struggling towards its own perfection, but it hasn’t got there. It’s still going through its birth pangs.

So what’s our place in it? Well, I once sat in a church not far from a concentration camp and thought about all the tragedies that had happened there. ‘Why, God, didn’t you take a hand in it?!’ I cried. Then I thought, ‘How can God have hands? He’s pure spirit. But if He hasn’t got hands is He any use?’ Then suddenly it hit me: we are God’s hands in the world, and He works through us to complete His creation.

So don’t dive back under the duvet as you hear the news this morning. Religion means facing facts, not fleeing from them. Get up quickly, have your cup of tea, and work out what you can do. Can you comfort someone on the plane, or give something to a disaster fund? It’s a dreadful Monday morning, that’s true, but that’s why you’re here. You might look and feel a mess, but you’re God’s representatives, his hands on earth, working to complete his creation. It’s what you were created for. So come on, get up, and get on with it!

(short pause)

I bumped into him outside the psychiatric hospital. He looked lost, as patients do after the discharge. He could go home now, if he had one, which he hadn’t, because his wife had had enough and left him. I pieced his story together while we waited. We were going the same way, so we stopped off at a café to celebrate his release with beans, bangers, and doughnuts. But how was he going to get started in an empty flat when there was nothing to wake up for?

‘Join the club’, I said. ‘Lots of people can’t get started. Some can’t fill in a form, some can’t post a letter, some can’t cope with the washing up, and have to eat out. In my twenties, I couldn’t get out of bed. I lay there listening to the letters sliding through the letterbox, and the ringing phone. It wasn’t laziness, but fear. They were demands which turned into threats as I delayed.’

‘Now comes padre’s pep-talk on the power of prayer…’ he said, caustically. He was entitled to his feelings. ‘Prayer didn’t save me’, I said. ‘It was the BBC light programme. If I turned it on when I woke up, my world wasn’t so empty. If I managed to move my body to the rock and roll beat, it shifted my mood too. I used to hokey cokey round the bedroom and shimmy and shake to the bathroom’. ‘Crikey!’, he said. And I admit a semi-naked Rabbi, on a rug, cutting a rug, is not a pretty sight. But who cares if you’re on your own! ‘Give me some more tips’, he said, beginning to enjoy himself. ‘Well, I sang. Not hymns, but rugger songs, advertising jingles, Rosenkavalier – all parts – and if I could get down and dressed I rewarded myself with a tin of cold custard.’ ‘So God didn’t come into it?’ he said, sardonically, for like many people he was a spiritual snob, who couldn’t see God in ordinary things like cold custard, only in extraordinary, sensational ones.

But religion doesn’t need an ‘R’ in the month. So I told him the story of the Rabbi who was marooned in a flood. ‘First a helicopter hovered over him, but the Rabbi gave no signal, for God would find him in his own time. Then a boat passed by, but the Rabbi meditated on in silence. The flood waters rose ever higher and then the Rabbi prayed: ‘I wait patiently for your salvation, Lord. How long?’ A cross voice came from heaven: ‘I’ve already sent my salvation twice, you idiot, and you sent it back!’ Well, God redeemed me via the radio, hokey cokey, and tins of cold custard. Have another doughnut.’

He laughed. ‘Will God come to me too?’ ‘But he already has’, I said, ‘and you haven’t noticed it! Just like the Rabbi in the story. God has already used me to make you laugh again.’ He was puzzling over this theological conundrum when we parted. For the first time, he had forgot his sorrows.

Meditation: Our Spiritual Heroes and Qheroes

How lovely to hear that voice again! We’re moving into a time of meditation now. And in this quiet time I’m simply going to invite you to reflect on your own spiritual heroes (or indeed qheroes). I’ve got the privilege and the platform to lift up Lionel Blue for a whole service as someone whose life and example has been hugely significant and influential to me. But who’s been important to you?

We’ll take that question into 3 minutes of silence which will end with the sound of a bell. Then we’ll hear some music from Benjie and Andrew. So let’s 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 yourself – close your eyes. As we always say, the words are an offering, you can use this time to meditate in your own way.

So as we move into a time of shared stillness now, I invite you to call to mind your spiritual heroes (or qheroes), those people whose life and example have inspired you, and maybe even helped to shape your own life – who are those teachers and guides you would want to honour and give thanks for?

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

Interlude: Après un Rêve – Gabriel Fauré (played by Benjie del Rosario and Andrew Robinson)

In-Person Reading: Excerpts from an Interview with Lionel Blue by Stephen Moss

Rather than trying to give a full account of Lionel Blue’s biography, I thought I’d share a long-ish excerpt from an interview he gave when he was 80, it gives a flavour of his story and what he was about. He was interviewed for the Guardian by Stephen Moss who writes:

You probably won’t find God in Rabbi Lionel Blue’s semi-detached house in Finchley, north London. In fact, it’s so cluttered – he’s a great trawler of junk shops – it’s a miracle if you can find anything. But you might find Fred, (one of the names) Blue gives to his highly informal deity, and you will certainly find Jim, his 84-year-old partner, who makes me a coffee and then tactfully absents himself while radio’s favourite rabbi extemporises a one-and-a-half-hour performance. I’m not sure I can quite call it an interview. Blue, despite being 80 and having been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease last year, still does one-man theatre shows, and I feel as if I am sitting in the stalls.

We are meeting to discuss his new book, The Godseeker’s Guide – a sort of self-help manual for people searching for spiritual meaning. But since Blue’s religion is rooted in his early years – he was an unhappy only child in a Jewish family in London’s East End who, as a young man, was tormented by his homosexuality – inevitably the conversation is more about his own life than the niceties of theology. He has no time for what he calls the “stiffness and solemnities of organised religion” and the congregation he cherishes is the one he has reached through Thought for the Day on Radio 4 for the past 30 years. “It’s a congregation of all faiths and none,” he says, “mainly none.”

Blue doesn’t have any panaceas for his listeners. “When I first became a rabbi,” he says, “I thought I knew the answer to everything. Someone will ask me a question, I’ll look in my books, give them the answer, and that’s that. But as you go on, you realise most of life’s problems have no answer. A loves B, B loves C, C loves A, and you’re poor piggy in the middle. Or the problems with your mortality, like the ones I’ve got now, there’s nothing you can do about it. But you can somehow deal with the problems without nightmares if you make it humorous.”

When he started doing Thought for the Day, his old teacher advised him to talk about (the problems affecting Jewish people). Had he done so, he probably wouldn’t still be on air 30 years later. “I didn’t think I could add (that) to all the other problems in people’s lives as they ate their cornflakes,” he says. “So I thought, what can I give people? And I went, as I constantly do, back to my own experience. Dad was out of work, Ma was in hospital for a long time, so I was brought up by my grandmother, who was an old Russian peasant woman, a very pious one. I remembered that what kept us going at that time (in the 1930s Depression era) was the humour, so I started telling jokes.”

He has a bracing view of what God offers. “Sometimes people write to me and say, ‘Dear Rabbi, can you give me a prayer or a mantra, or some object of piety which can take away my problem?’ The answer is you can’t, because if I knew of such a thing I would use it for myself. I tell them, ‘What you’re asking from me is not religion but magic.’ Religion turns problems inside out and you see things in them you never saw before. But it’s a very difficult thing to tell people on the radio in the morning – that there are no answers to this.”

So what does he tell troubled people who are seeking God? “I tell them some of the things which have helped me,” he says. “There is no proof or disproof of God; it’s not a theorem. But you can wander into any place of worship you like and just start chatting as honestly as you can with whatever’s there… and see what happens.” He did exactly that at the age of 13, when he was a Marxist atheist who’d been compelled to go through with his bar mitzvah, marking his transition from boy to man. He raged against God for making him gay – he says he was already lusting after the school football captain – and for doing nothing to help the Jews in Germany. “I sat back in a kind of fury and what I got back in my mind was, ‘Well Lionel, you’ve certainly become an adult, even if you haven’t become a man.’ Something was communicating with me because I got unexpected answers, and it was enough for me to be curious about what goes on… This private religion of mine did seem to tell me how to go on ahead. I didn’t exactly believe it, but I began to trust it. I suddenly started becoming a lighter, happier person; I became quite souffle-ish.”

Blue thought about being a monk (as a young man) before reverting to Judaism and starting to train as a rabbi in London. In his mid-20s, he had another crisis and went to Amsterdam to experience all the sex he had been dreaming of, spending three months in cafes and gay saunas. “It was 1955 and Amsterdam was the Greenwich Village of Europe,” he recalls. “I don’t think I saw daylight while I was there. I said yes to everything and met some extraordinary people. I thought I’d dumped the God business. But I remember sitting in a gay sauna in Amsterdam, thinking, ‘What are the 10 commandments of gay life in this situation?'” He enumerates them for me and they are all about treating your partners well. He was, he says, still thinking as a minister. “The religion had stuck to me. I saw both hell and heaven in those cafes and saunas.”

His old rabbi came to see him in Amsterdam and asked him to return to the seminary. “‘No, I can’t,’ I said. ‘I’m going to show you how I’m living.’ I showed him all around Amsterdam at night, and we went and had coffee at 4 o’clock in the morning in a cafe, and he started crying. I thought, ‘Oh my God, I shouldn’t have done this to him.’ And then I saw that the tears weren’t of anger but of merriment. He said he hadn’t seen anything like it since the Weimar republic, and the sooner I got back (to the seminary in London) the better. ‘I can only have one of you Lionel,’ he said, ‘but one of you I’d better have.’ He also told me that the art of civilised life was having your cake and eating it, but being careful about it.” And thus a sweet-toothed radio rabbi, with a healthy commitment to sex, was born.

Blue came out modestly in the 1960s – (he was the first British rabbi to do so) – and was accepted by the Jewish religious authorities (in his Reform tradition) but given low-key rabbinical roles. He would probably never have been heard of again if radio hadn’t discovered him. His quirkiness and humour (have) carried him through. He doesn’t strike me as souffle-ish exactly – he has been in therapy all his life – but he is content. His mother lived into her 90s and he likes to quote one of her last gnomic utterances: “Lionel, what you’ve done in life you’ve done, and the rest is gravy.”

Mini-Reflection: ‘Learning from Lionel’ by Rev. Dr. Jane Blackall

I love Lionel Blue – I think that much is probably clear by this point in the service – and he’s been a hugely influential figure in my own spiritual journey. It’s not so much his teachings, as such, though I enjoyed his Thoughts for the Day well enough. What really fascinates and inspires me is the story of his life and the way he lived it. That’s why I wanted to share that long excerpt from the interview – to give you a sketch of who he was – though I’d really recommend reading his autobiography, ‘Hitchhiking to Heaven’, if you can get hold of a copy. It’s out of print now but you can still find second-hand copies online and I think we do have at least one copy of it in the church library. I was lucky enough to download the audiobook years ago (it is inexplicably and sadly unavailable now) and it’s wonderful to hear him telling his own rich, varied, and messy life story in his own voice.

So I just wanted to take a few minutes now – this is just a mini-reflection – to highlight a little of the wisdom I reckon I have learned from Lionel down the years. Here are my top three take-aways:

First off: I’ve learned that it is important to be real, to be authentically yourself, even if the reality of your life is messy. And by all accounts (including his own) Lionel Blue was a bit of a mess – physically scruffy, often personally chaotic, and he had to do a lot of work on his own psychological troubles – he endured a lot of turmoil and suffering, including a major breakdown, in his youth. But my hunch is that this life experience – and his willingness to be so very open about it – was perhaps what made him such a relatable and compassionate voice for so many people. He ultimately embraced life’s contradictions, and crossed boundaries all over the place, though always for the greater good, I reckon, and as he broke free of various constraints he invited others to join him on the journey of liberation. Most obviously, he came out as gay, in the sixties, when it was a very risky thing to do.

The second thing I want to highlight is Lionel’s relationship with God. It seems to me that this was absolutely his compass, his reference point, and whenever life was tough and he didn’t know what to do, he would instinctively call out for help. And I think it’s what enabled him to go against the grain, and do things that were a bit counter-cultural, against the rules or the norms of the time. Lionel spoke of his first major religious experience as ‘falling in love with love’, that was his primary understanding of the nature of God, and I think it led him to ask in every situation ‘what would love do?’ And he would do his best to follow God, or love’s direction, even when it was hard to do so. In the opening pages of his autobiography he acknowledges the many names he uses for the divine: ‘heaven, my soul, Inner Voice, Whomsoever Whatsoever, JC, Fred, God, another dimension, Old Smokey, Holy Spirit, He, She, It and possibly more. I have used so many because my beliefs have not stood still in the last half century, nor have my needs. They are all pointers in the same direction.’

The third and final thing I learned from Lionel is a certain sort of religious pragmatism. On the front of today’s order of service I put a quote taken from an interview in the Independent back in 2004. I want to share just a slightly longer quote from that article (written by Paul Vallely) now. He writes:

‘To judge from his massive Thought for the Day postbag, he says, most people come to religion out of need. “There’s some problem in their life. They’re no fools. They know that a little prayer is not going wash the problem away. But they want to know if religion can help them to understand it, to cope with it, live with it, be creative about it. By and large, they don’t care about the provenance of the solution so long as it works.” The same could be said of Lionel Blue himself. As you enter his home in Finchley, by the front door there is a mezuzot, a Jewish scroll symbolising that God is in the house. Inside there is an Orthodox Christian icon from Bulgaria. A Hindu saint presides over the breakfast room. Elsewhere, the whole of the Koran is framed. But there are no “might have beens” among the items: “I have found at various times that these have all been helpful.”’

Lionel took religious wisdom and comfort from wherever it could be found – he once wrote a book titled ‘My Affair with Christianity’ – even when he was at seminary, studying to become a rabbi, he went on holiday to a monastery and was worried about his teachers finding out. But when he owned up his teachers told him ‘Lionel, Judaism is your religious home, not your religious prison’ – I feel that he really took that message to heart (and it’s a phrase that made a big impression on me too). It’s worth noting that he founded the Standing Conference of Jews, Christians and Muslims in Europe and indeed he has some real tales to tell in his autobiography about the slow work of creating the conditions for dialogue and building the relationships which might one day bring about peace. While I was researching this service I came across one of his ‘Thought for the Day’ slots from over 30 years ago in which he speaks movingly (and bluntly) on the long road to peace and justice in Palestine.

I could go on and on about Lionel Blue but that’s all we’ve got time for today. After the service I’d be interested to hear about your spiritual heroes (and qheroes) too – the ones that came to mind during the meditation earlier – maybe we could have another congregational service before long where you tell us about some of those great souls who have meant a lot to you.

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

But it’s time for our final hymn now, it’s number 125 in your purple books, ‘One More Step Along the World I Go’, which I chose because when I went to see Lionel Blue speak in a theatre, many years ago, he got us all to sing it to close the night. Please sing up and let’s enjoy our closing hymn.

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.

Announcements:

Thanks to Ramona for tech-hosting. Thanks to Shari for co-hosting and welcoming everyone online. Thanks to Benjie and Andrew for playing for us today. Thanks to Liz for doing coffee and Julia for greeting. For those of you who are in-person – please do stay for a cuppa and cake after the service – it’s berry lime drizzle this week (despite a berry shortage!) – served in the hall next door. If you’re joining on Zoom please do hang on after for a chat with Shari.

We have various small group activities during the week. A new thing is happening today! In a last-minute addition to the programme Hannah is offering community yoga after the service, if you’re here in person, do have a word with her if you want to know more. If this is something that people are interested in Hannah is willing to make it a regular thing so do let us know. And if you’re joining on Zoom, she does also offer online sessions, details in Friday’s email.

Tonight it’s the ‘Better World Book Club’ online, this month we’re talking about ‘Less is More’ by Jason Hickel, but if you’ve left it a bit late to read that, our next session will be on Sunday 24th March when we’ll be exploring ‘Laziness Does Not Exist’ by Devon Price. I have a few copies of that to lend out if you want to take part. Heart and Soul, our contemplative spiritual gathering, is happening on Friday online. This week’s theme is ‘Art’. Sign up with me if you fancy!

Community singing is back this Wednesday, 28th February, at 7pm so do come along for that. As with all these things if you want it to continue to exist please do turn up and show your support. Sonya is back with her Nia dance classes on Friday lunchtime from 12.30pm.

Next weekend we’ll have our mini-retreat, on ‘The Stories of Our Lives’, the plan is to offer it online on the Saturday and in-person on the Sunday, we have just enough sign-ups to go ahead but the more the merrier so please do let me know which one you’re coming to.

A special request aimed at those of you who are joining us online – we’ve recently restarted our ‘Sunday Conversations’ group once a month after the service to explore the service theme – at the moment that’s in-person only but we are thinking about trying to make it hybrid – but we’ll only do that if there’s actually demand for it so please can you let our co-host Shari know after the service if you’d be interested in joining in with a hybrid conversation, 12.30-1.30, once a month. We think this would be a great way to build connections between our in-person and online regulars but do let us know if it’s something you actually want to happen.

We’ll be back next Sunday when our service will be on ‘Wild Things’ to mark World Wildlife Day.

Details of all our various activities are printed on the back of the order of service, for you to take away, and also in the Friday email. Please do sign up for the mailing list if you haven’t already. 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 Leia Durland-Jones

For those who came before us,
we offer gratitude and thanks.
May their memories be a blessing.

As we go forth from this time and place,
let us be encouraged by their example,
inspired by their courage and their wisdom.

Let us honour them by doing the work
of living boldly, loving mightily, and
doing our bit in the place where we stand
to help create heaven right here on earth.
And may it be so for the greater good of all. Amen.

Closing Music: Moon River – Henry Mancini (performed by Benjie del Rosario and Andrew Robinson)

Rev. Dr. Jane Blackall

25th February 2024