Identity

Sunday Service, 28 September 2025

Led by Rev. Michael Allured

Musical Prelude: I Am What I Am - Jerry Herman (performed by Andrew Robinson)  

Opening Words: ‘I Am Not I’ by Juan Ramon

I am not I

I am this one

Walking beside me whom I do not see,

Whom at times I manage to visit,

And at other times I forget.

The one who remains silent when I talk,

The one who forgives, sweet, when I hate,

The one who takes a walk when I am indoors,

The one who will remain standing when I die.

Words of Welcome and Introduction: 

These words from Juan Ramon welcome all who have gathered this morning for our Sunday service. Welcome to those who have gathered in-person at Essex Church, and to all who are joining us via Zoom from far and wide.  For anyone who doesn’t know me, I’m Michael Allured, and I’m Minister with Golders Green Unitarians.

Our service today is on the topic of ‘Identity’, a quality that goes to the centre of our being, sometimes, though not always, in good and affirming ways.

In our strength and fragility we are gathered with our joys and our woes, each with our gifts and our failings, aspiring to feed our best selves. 

May we be present with open minds, loving hearts and outstretched hands.

Chalice Lighting: ‘Reminder of the Inner Light’ by Gregory David Miller

Let’s light our chalice flame, as we do each week. It’s a moment for us to stop and take a breath. This simple ritual connects us with Unitarians and UUs the world over, and reminds us of the proudly progressive religious tradition of which this gathering is part.

(light chalice) 

This fire is a reminder of the light within us all;

the yearning for freedom,

the longing for truth,

the flame of intuition,

the torch of conscience.

We dedicate this gathering to the remembrance of this Holy Light.

Hymn 8 (green): ‘O Life that Maketh All Things New’

Our first hymn this morning is number 8 in the green book: ‘O Life that Maketh All Things New’. I don’t think this is one you sing often so I’ll ask Andrew to play it through. For those on zoom the words will be up on screen. Please stand or sit as you prefer.

O Life that makest all things new,

The flowers of earth, the thoughts within;

Our pilgrim feet, wet with thy dew,

In gladness hither turn again.

From hand to hand the greeting flows,

From eye to eye the signals run,

From heart to heart the bright hope glows;

The seekers of the light are one.

One in the freedom of the truth.

One in the joy of paths untrod,

One in the soul’s perennial youth,

One in the larger thought of God;

The freer step, the fuller breath,

The wide horizon’s grander view;

The sense of life that knows no death,

The Life that maketh all things new.

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. We’ll go to the people in the building first, then to Zoom.

So I invite some of you here in person to come and light a candle and then if you wish to tell us who or what you light your candle for – please keep it brief – be considerate of others. I’m going to ask you to come to the lectern to speak, as we want people to be able to hear 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 Lyn Cox

We’re moving into a time of prayer now.

Words interspersed with drops and pools of silence for your own inward reflection. You might first want to adjust your position for comfort, close your eyes, or soften your gaze. Take a few moments to find the posture that helps you feel comfortable, more aware.

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)

This morning, as we consider identity and perhaps with it purpose and meaning, we give thanks for the ability to begin again: after the disaster, after the tragedy, after the loss, after meeting the challenge set before us. Grant us the courage to continue on the journey, the courage to speak up for the well-being of others and ourselves and the planet.

May we forgive each other when our courage falls short, and may we try again.

Grant us hearts to love boldly, to embody our faith and our values in living words and deeds. May our hearts open to embrace humility, grace, and reconciliation. Grant us the ability to learn and grow, to let the Spirit of Love and Truth work its transformation upon us and within us.

Grant us the spirit of hospitality, the willingness to sustain a fit dwelling place for the holy that resides in all being. Grant us a sense of being at peace with ourselves and in the world with who we are, even as we are in motion.

May we cultivate together the strength to welcome every kind of gift and all manner of ways to be on the journey together.

(short pause)

We gather together each Sunday with hearts full of life’s sorrows and joys. 

We try to make sense of life in general and often our own lives in particular. 

We long to find light to counter darkness, goodness to stand up to evil, generosity in place of meanness, connection and companionship not isolation and despair, compassion over unkindness.

We long to find hope and healing poured out through the hospitality of hearts.

Spirit of the Universe of our hearts and many names be with us now.

(short pause)

If you are holding someone in your heart this morning, I invite you to say their names aloud in the coming moments of stillness, and if you’re online please unmute and say the name or type it in the chat box. In our naming people in our hearts may we hold them in our thoughts and our prayers this morning.

[pause for names]

We give thanks for those who bring us joy, and pray for the safe keeping of those whom we hold in concern. For all those names, spoken and unspoken, may they be surrounded by the loving kindness we offer them today and in the coming week. 

We reach out with minds and hearts to all who are suffering because of war, famine, being homeless, poverty and the many other injustices and cruelties that humankind and sentient beings endure.  But there is goodness in the world.

Where it is found may it be nurtured

Where it is planted may it give comfort

Where it is given away to another may it spread hope.

For all the named and unnamed we hold in our hearts I light one more candle.

(light candle)

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.

In-Person Reading: ‘Without Wax’ by Jane Blackall (read by Brian)

Many years ago…I learned from a dear friend that the word ‘sincere’ originated from the Latin words meaning ‘without wax’.  It referred to the practice of using wax to make marble look flawless and of higher quality than it actually was so that it could be sold for a higher price. Coloured wax would be rubbed in to conceal the flaws and imperfections in the stone…so to be ‘sincere’ is to be ‘without wax’, without concealing your flaws. To be sincere is to be vulnerable and real. 

(n.b. I have since discovered that etymology is not true! Which is ironic…)

Hymn (on sheet): ‘Blue Boat Home’

Let’s sing again – our second hymn is on your hymn sheet – ‘Blue Boat Home’.

Though below me, I feel no motion

Standing on these mountains and plains

Far away from the rolling ocean

Still my dry land heart can say

I've been sailing all my life now

Never harbour or port have I known

The wide universe is the ocean I travel

And the earth is my blue boat home.

Sun, my sail, and moon my rudder

As I ply the starry sea

Leaning over the edge in wonder

Casting questions into the deep

Drifting here with my ship's companions

All we kindred pilgrim souls

Making our way by the lights of the heavens

In our beautiful blue boat home.

I give thanks to the waves upholding me

Hail the great winds urging me on

Greet the infinite sea before me

Sing the sky my sailor's song

I was born upon the fathoms

Never harbour or port have I known

The wide universe is the ocean I travel

And the earth is my blue boat home.

In-Person Reading: ‘Integrity and Wholeness’ by Michael Dadson (read by Julia)

Thomas Merton claimed that ‘there is in all things…a hidden wholeness.’

Douglas Wood said: ‘Jack Pines are not lumber trees and they won’t win many beauty contests either. But to me this valiant old tree, solitary on its rocky point, is as beautiful as a living thing can be.  In the calligraphy of its shape against the sky is written strength of character and perseverance; survival of wind, drought, cold, heat, disease.  In its silence it speaks of wholeness – of an integrity that comes from being what you are.’

Michael Dadson continues: A Jack Pine ‘solitary on its rock point’, is one of the loveliest sights I know. But lovelier still is the sight of a [woman or man] with integrity intact…Can we name any such?  Speak such names, picture such people, and you can catch a glimpse of the beauty that arises when people refuse to live divided lives.  Of course wholeness comes more easily to Jack Pines than to human beings: [It] is incapable of thinking itself into trouble!  We are cursed with the blessing of consciousness and choice, a two-edged sword that both divides us and can help us to become whole.  Out there …I sense the wholeness hidden ‘in all things’.  It is in the taste of wild berries, the scent of sun-baked pine, the sight of the Northern Lights, the sound of water lapping the shore: signs of a bedrock integrity that is eternal and beyond all doubt.  And when I return to a human world that is transient and riddled with disbelief, I have new eyes for the wholeness hidden in me and my kind and a new heart for loving even our imperfections.

Words for Meditation: ‘All That is Our Life’ by Linda Hart

We’re moving into a time of meditation now. To take us into stillness I’m going to share some words from Linda Hart. This will take us into a few minutes of shared silence which will end with the sound of a bell. Then we’ll hear music for meditation. So let’s do what we need to do to get comfortable – maybe adjust your position – put your feet flat on the floor to ground yourself – close your eyes. As we always say, the words are just an offering, so feel free to use this time to meditate in your own way.

We come into the presence of all that is our lives,

here in these moments of calm and quiet

and mindful of the spirit of Love and Life

that inhabits every moment.

May we remember in these days

of the fullness of what we know

how joy becomes twined with sorrow,

how love brings tears to our eyes,

how sweetness can come in such strange guises.

The drift of our days

lulls us

allows us to forget

these things we know,

and sometimes we are startled by

the struggle of the ordinary,

the difficulty of what is simple,

sometimes we wish for what is easier,

what gives us less worry,

what offers calm and peace.

Help us, Spirit of Love,

to find the meanings that rest within it all:

that each of us brings our troubles and failings,

our frailties and sorrows,

and that love is everlasting,

never lost,

never gone,

always present.

Forgiveness is real,

Promise always beckons,

even in the presence of turmoil and loss.

May we remain in the presence of the love that abides,

and be awake to what is in our lives,

this day and every day.

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

Interlude: Song On The Sand - Jerry Herman (performed by Andrew Robinson) 

Reading: ‘Daring to Speak Love’s Name’ by Kahlil Gibran (read by Patricia)

Your house is your larger body. 

It grows in the sun and sleeps in the stillness of the night; and it is not dreamless.  Does not your house dream, and dreaming, leave the city for grove and hilltop?....

Your house shall be not an anchor but a mast. 

It shall not be a glistening film that covers a wound but an eyelid that guards the eye. 

You shall not fold your wings that you may pass through doors, nor bend your heads that they strike not against a ceiling, not fear to breathe lest walls should crack and fall down.

You shall not dwell in tombs made by the dead for the living.

And though of magnificence and splendour your house shall not hold your secret not shelter your longing. 

For that which is boundless in you abides in the mansion of the sky, whose door is the morning mist and whose windows are the songs and silences of the night.

Reflection: by Rev. Michael Allured

We’ve got to work on ourselves to make what success we can of life.  That’s about the sum of it.  We’ve got to work on ourselves by working at life.  And often there is absolutely no way of knowing how it’s all going to turn out. 

In the past we would have turned mainly to the holy books of our tradition for not just guidance but instruction. There’s less of that today and in many ways that’s a good thing.  Today, however, we are at the mercies of an avalanche of advice and guidance from a variety of other sources.   And our lives are hard: technological complexities, rapid changes and even perhaps a greater sense of disconnection with the world because in our modern Western context all sorts of things have made it harder to make those connections. 

Overlaying those greater complexities in life or buried underneath them the same challenges remain to us: how can we live and survive when we are afflicted by these events called LIFE?  Health conditions: our own and the ones affecting those for whom we care?  Frustrating situations: getting through to actually speak to a human being.  Annoying people and their habits: x means well but doesn’t realise how that thing x does or doesn’t do drains me.  Big things and little things alike can wear us down. 

And it’s really not helpful when someone points out with that wise look that others are far worse off.  We know. We know our woes are all relative but when we’re going through them it doesn’t always help to be reminded. Yet we do need to reminded: first of the worth of gratitude, second, of seeing what in management speak is ‘the bigger picture’ but we might recognise as the meaning of life and third, of the truth that all things will pass.

So against this canvass what about claiming life? What about empowering it so that we do indeed aspire to live always to be our best selves? 

We can each only do this in our own way working with the warp and weft of our own lives as they are.  We draw on lessons from many sources and being Unitarian we know that wisdom comes not simply from one holy book or even all holy books.  As Rev. Danny Crosby from Urmston Unitarians writes in his regular column in the Inquirer ‘wisdom comes in little things’.  That might  be in the simplicity of berries as we recall from our earlier reading, or the sight of the Northern Lights.

This week, I’ve found an example of simplicity and empowerment in living our best lives our best selves in the fragments of a life remembered: the life of Jean Gonella, a friend to many gathered here today as we were gathered on Tuesday.

When we are planning to take our leave of a person, particularly if we’ve known her or him, there is a moment when in the preparations we can sometimes catch a glimpse of who the person truly was: who they became in how a life was spent. 

As I prepared to say farewell to Jean I reflected on how she had claimed her life and used it as a way to empower her spirit, some might call it soul, and her physicality to be useful to the world where she found herself.  If you’ve visited Jean’s house you’ll know what I mean when I refer to the yoga room.  It was a yoga studio, a shrine to the symbols of world faiths, a massage room, a place for interfaith dialogue and regular satsang gatherings.

The Yogapedia defines satsang this:

Satsang is a Sanskrit term derived from two roots: sat meaning "true’"and sangha meaning community, company or association.

It can be translated as "associating with good people" or simply "being in the company of truth," and refers to the act of gathering with like-minded, uplifting people, especially those on a spiritual path.

Satsang may also refer to a group of people engaged in a spiritual dialogue. Although the term is generally used to highlight the importance of community on spiritual growth, by definition satsang can additionally be considered as a lone relationship with truth.

Satsang is associated with the inner quality of sattva (goodness or purity), which is one of the three gunas (natural attributes) alongside rajas (passion) and tamas (inactivity).

Sattva manifests as thoughtfulness, wisdom, contemplation and a peaceful demeanor. A sattvic person makes a natural satsangi, or "seeker of truth."

Though Jean was laid to rest with the celebration of a Mass it was the practice of satsang as much as the Mass that empowered her to continually aspire to be her best self.

In the end there was acceptance.  That’s why I chose our reading about the Jack Pine: they aren’t lumber trees and won’t win any beauty contests, but they represent wholeness, integrity, dignity, even in the midst of chaos.  Just like Jean and her sanctuary to satsang. 

One of the qualities I admired in Jean was her general equilibrium.  Neither events nor the quirks of people seemed to phase her.  She may have noticed them, even commented on them: but she never fretted about them.  She let them go unlike the monk who continued to admonish his fellow monk for doing what was forbidden in embracing a woman to carry her safely across the water.  Unlike the monk I think she let the unimportant passing irritations go and instead spent her energy on developing herself.

Though not without travel and adventure Jean’s was a life of simplicity: nursing the sick, looking after the body through diet and yoga and feeding the spirit through curiosity and exploration grounded in traditions: touchstones, yes, but not anchors: touchstones that were gateways to the mansions of the skies and morning light.

Who are we and how do we continue becoming?  There are many answers I’m sure.  But one of them is in the life of the Friend to whom we’ve just said farewell, and that yoga room bathed in sunlight and the echoes of the hundreds of satsangs that remain in its primrose coloured walls.

Hymn 146 (green): ‘True Simplicity’

Our final hymn is number 146 in your green hymn books: ‘True Simplicity’.

‘Tis the gift to be simple, ‘tis the gift to be free;

‘Tis the gift to know just where we want to be;

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,

‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gained,

To greet all as friend we shan’t be ashamed:

To turn, turn, will be our delight,

Till by turning, turning, we come round right.

‘Tis the gift to be simple, ‘tis the gift to be free;

‘Tis the gift to share our common destiny;

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,

‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gained,

To greet all as friend we shan’t be ashamed:

To turn, turn, will be our delight,

Till by turning, turning, we come round right.

Announcements:

Thanks to Ramona for hosting and Shari for co-hosting. Thanks to Andrew for lovely music today and to Benjie for supporting our singing. Thanks to Brian, Julia, and Patricia for reading. Thanks to Julia for greeting and Juliet for making coffee. If you are here in-person please do stay on for refreshments and a chat.

Once you’ve had a cuppa you can come back in here for singing with Margaret – she can help us all make a better sound – these classes are free of charge, all welcome.

Tonight it’s the Better World Book Club online – let Jane know if you are coming and haven’t yet got the link – next month we’re reading ‘Chasing the Scream’ by Johann Hari and we have a few copies of that to loan out if you want to come next time.

We have the in-person poetry group this Wednesday, tell Brian if you’re coming. Or you can come to Nia Dance with Nia on Friday. And we have an online Heart and Soul on Friday evening, that’s led by Alex as Jane’s on holiday, email Alex to sign up.

Looking further ahead there will be a Vigil for Palestine here at church on Saturday 18^th October at 7pm. Please let Marianne or Patricia know if you’ll be coming along to that or if you’re able to support them on the day or help with refreshments etc.

Next Sunday our service will be led by Rev Stephanie Bisby, minister with Doncaster Unitarians, and her theme will be ‘Playing with Words’ (relating to Poetry 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.  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.

Time for our closing words and closing music now.  

Benediction: based on words by Lizzie Kingston-Harrison

As we leave here today, we give thanks for the many stories of our lives, and for all those who hold us gently while we tell them.

We leave grateful for the listeners, for those who sit quietly and give us the gift of a version of ourselves born in a moment of tender grace.

And we leave grateful for the storytellers, who, with courage and love give us the gift of their true selves.

May the connections with each other and the world you discover and re-discover feed your hearts and minds and nurture your soul now and always. Amen. 

Closing Music: We Are What We Are - Jerry Herman (performed by Andrew Robinson) 

Rev. Michael Allured

28th September 2025