Making Home

Sunday Service, 19 October 2025

Led by Rev. Dr. Jane Blackall and Jasmine Cooray

Musical Prelude: Ashokan Farewell - Jay Unger (performed by Georgia Dawson and Toby Morgan)  

Opening Words: ‘Sabbath Home’ by Kathleen McTigue (adapted) 

Here in the refuge of this Sabbath home

we turn our busy minds towards silence,

and turn our full hearts toward one another.

Even in our sorrows, we feel our lives

cradled in holiness we cannot comprehend,

and though we each walk within a vast loneliness,

the promise we offer here is that we do not walk alone.

In this space of silence and celebration, solemnity and music,

we make a sanctuary and claim our place of belonging.

Into this home we bring our hunger for awakening.

We bring compassionate hearts, and a will towards justice.

Into this home we bring the courage to walk on after hard losses.

Into this home we bring our joy, and gratitude for ordinary blessings.

This is a holy space in which we gather.

By our very gathering we bless this space.

And in its shelter we know ourselves blessed.

Here in the refuge of this Sabbath home

we turn our busy minds towards silence,

and turn our full hearts toward one another, once again.  (pause)

Words of Welcome and Introduction: 

These words from Kathleen McTigue welcome all who have gathered this morning for our Sunday service. Welcome to those who have gathered in-person at Essex Church, to all who are joining us via Zoom, and anyone tuning in at a later date via YouTube.  For anyone who doesn’t know me, I’m Jane Blackall, and I’m minister with Kensington Unitarians – I’m glad to be back after a few weeks away – and I’ll be leading our service this morning along with our very own Jasmine Cooray.

Our service today is titled ‘Making Home’. On the front of our order of service today we have some words from Maya Angelou who once said: ‘The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are, and not be questioned.’ That’s one very particular take on what home means. This morning we’re going to explore how we humans go about finding or making some sort of ‘home’ for ourselves, a place or an inner state of safety and belonging, in an unstable, ever-changing, world.

Chalice Lighting: ‘May the Flame Burn True, High and Strong’ by Beatrice Hitchcock (adapted)

Let’s light our chalice flame now, as we do each week. It’s a moment for us to stop and take a breath, settle ourselves down, put aside any preoccupations we came in carrying. 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) 

The flaming chalice is the symbol of our Unitarian faith.

It is an everlasting flame for this community.

It offers its warmth to those who are cold.

It provides light to those who would see.

It transforms this hybrid gathering into a sacred space,

this band of seekers into sacred community,

co-creating this spiritual home, together.

May its flame burn true and high and strong.

Hymn (on sheet): ‘Church is More than Just a Building’

Our first hymn this morning is on your hymn sheet: ‘Church is More than Just a Building’. For those on zoom the words will be up on screen for all our hymns. Feel free to stand or sit as you prefer.

Church is more than just a building,

more than wood or metal or brick.

Church is how we love our neighbour.

Church is how we tend to the sick,

Feed the hungry and heal the suffering,

welcome strangers and give to the poor.

All our service is as worship,

all our presence an open door.

Church is more than a weekly gathering.

Church is faith that’s come alive,

Filling hearts and minds with passion,

peace and hope that ever abide.

Even when our building’s empty,

we are touched by the deepest of grace.

When the holy lives within us

we are in a holy place.

We’re the church in the path we follow,

showing care to those in pain.

In the midst of fear and sorrow,

we’re the church and here we’ll remain,

Seeking justice, showing kindness,

singing praises in all that we do.

Church is more than just a building.

It’s our work toward a world made 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 Harry Lismer Short

Let’s take those joys and concerns into an extended time of prayer. This prayer is based on some words by Harry Lismer Short. They’re perhaps a bit old-fashioned but I find them quite moving. You might 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)

Here, on this quiet Sunday morning, we have gathered once again,

to seek something without which our lives would be strangely empty.

We cannot always put clearly to ourselves what it is we expect;

but we know that if our hearts are open and receptive,

there is a holy gift to be received from our presence here.

We have come with a sense of responsibility for the world in which we live.

We are deeply concerned about many things which seem to have gone astray.

There are sorrows which touch the lives of others and fears which haunt our own days.

Conflict and unease reverberate amongst our communities, writ large and small.

We have come with a sense of responsibility for our own lives.

We have work to do, in tending to our homes, our relationships, our livelihoods.

Often we grow weary and discouraged, yet we know that others depend on us,

and we strive to be faithful and committed in our endeavours.

We have a sense of responsibility for this congregation too, our spiritual home.

Much depends on our faith in these times of change and strife.

We have a sense of responsibility towards one another

and towards all those whose paths cross ours.

We can make or mar one another’s peace.

We can build one another up, or tear each other down.

We ask for light to see things in proportion;

and to see a little further forward on our way;

and we ask for strength, courage, and patience to walk in it.

We ask for kindness and compassion in our hearts,

to understand the needs of those who depend upon us. (pause)     

And in this time of shared stillness let us offer the deepest prayers of our own hearts.

Let us take a few quiet moments now to look inward, to get in touch with what’s real,

what is going on beneath the surface of our lives this morning. Let us notice what we’re carrying.

What troubles us. What questions or uncertainties we are faced with. What hopes we nurture.

From that place of realness – silently, inwardly, ask for what you most need – ask God, or cast it out into the Universe – even if you’re the only one to hear your prayer – name what you need this day.

And let give thanks for what we already have. Look back on the week and recall all those moments of kindness, comfort, joy. Silently, inwardly, take the time to savour those gifts, and take in the good.

And let us turn outwards now, shifting our attention to the world around us, starting with those dear ones closest to our heart, stretching ever outward, all around this planet, holding all beings in love.

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 11 (purple): ‘Blessed Spirit of My Life’

Let’s sing again – our second hymn is number 11 in your hymnbooks – ‘Blessed Spirit of My Life’. It’s almost a continuation of our prayers so let’s sing it in that spirit. Hymn number eleven.

Blessed Spirit of my life,

give me strength through stress and strife;

help me live with dignity;

let me know serenity.

Fill me with a vision;

clear my mind of fear and confusion.

When my thoughts flow restlessly,

let peace find a home in me.

Spirit of great mystery,

hear the still, small voice in me.

Help me live my wordless creed

as I comfort those in need.

Fill me with compassion,

be the source of my intuition.

Then when life is done for me,

let love be my legacy.

In-Person Reading: ‘Fox Holes and Bird’s Nests: What is Home?’ by Andrew McAlister (adapted) (read by Jane)

This reading is taken from a blog post by Andrew McAlister, an Australian writer and long-time meditator, who is an Oblate of the World Community for Christian Meditation. This is what he has to say about the spiritual dimensions of home:

According to one definition of home, I am currently homeless. I have been moving back and forth between friends and family while the future slowly sorts itself. While this sorting happens, putting down roots doesn’t feel like the right thing to do. It’s not surprising then that lately I have been wondering about what home actually is. Recently I re-read these words from John O’Donohue: ‘The word home has a wonderful resonance. Home is where you belong. It is your shelter and place of rest, the place where you can be yourself.’

Place and belonging. Home is about place and belonging. We tend to assume that this place and belonging is only physical. At this point in time I am sensing that, for me, place and belonging is not primarily physical – it is relational. There are wonderful and generous friends who are willing to share their physical home with me, who say that I am a part of the family, that their home is my home. As I grow in accepting this, something else is happening: we are deepening in the ‘place’ of our relationships, the home of our relationships. As this happens we express who we are with each other. In this place of relationship we discover ourselves. There is safety, shelter.

It has been good to be with family during this time – and important. With the passing of our mother, Marie, over a year ago now, family dynamics have changed. Mum was, in many ways, the one who held home as a physical place for us. She is no longer physically with us, so the experience of home has changed. The family home experience, for me, is no longer limited to a house. Home is now something more. Home as a spiritual reality echoes a little more surely in the heart. The relationship I have with Mum has moved the place of home into a broader context, one that goes beyond the physical, to embrace more of the eternal.

What has been important during this time has been faithfulness to the practice of meditation. It has been an anchor point, important for ongoing stability and peace. As home loses its physical foundation, taking on the relational and the spiritual, the contemplative practice of meditating during the course of each day has helped with the letting go of expectation and anxiety around what is next and what is happening. The grace of meditation grounds life in the home within. As it is written in the Gospel of Luke (9:57-58):

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

If we want to be disciples, we must grow in this relational and spiritual sense of home. This home is the heart of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is relational. Wherever there are relationships seeking true love, there is this kingdom. Wherever we are being drawn into the heart of relationship is where we must go. This heart is our home. It is where life is. It is the most important thing from which everything else flows. It is where we all belong.

Words for Meditation: ‘The Most Important Thing’ by Julia Fehrenbacher (Jasmine to read)

We’re moving into a time of meditation now. To take us into stillness I’m going to share a poem by Julia Fehrenbacher which offers a slightly different angle on this notion of ‘Making Home’. The poem 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.

‘The Most Important Thing’ by Julia Fehrenbacher

I am making a home inside myself. A shelter

of kindness where everything

is forgiven, everything allowed—a quiet patch

of sunlight to stretch out without hurry,

where all that has been banished

and buried is welcomed, spoken, listened to—released.

A fiercely friendly place I can claim as my very own.

I am throwing arms open

to the whole of myself—especially the fearful,

fault-finding, falling apart, unfinished parts, knowing

every seed and weed, every drop

of rain, has made the soil richer.

I will light a candle, pour a hot cup of tea, gather

around the warmth of my own blazing fire. I will howl

if I want to, knowing this flame can burn through

any perceived problem, any prescribed perfectionism,

any lying limitation, every heavy thing.

I am making a home inside myself

where grace blooms in grand and glorious

abundance, a shelter of kindness that grows

all the truest things.

I whisper hallelujah to the friendly

sky. Watch now as I burst into blossom.

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

Interlude: To Build a Home - The Cinematic Orchestra (performed by Georgia Dawson and Toby Morgan) 

In-Person Reading: ‘The Wrong Person to Ask’ by Marjorie Lotfi (Antony to read)

Tehran, 1977

Ask me for the measure of rose water

in baklava, how to butter each layer of filo

away from the corner so it holds itself apart

under heat, or the exact crush of pistachio,

fine as rubble, not yet dust.

Ask why the man squatting on our roof

in the worst sun of Ramadan refused even a sip

of my water, waved it away like a drink offered

in rain. Ask about the fountain out back, its patter

of stray drops against sidewalk the devil’s music.

Hitchi, he’d said, I want nothing.

Ask me how to speak one kind of English

at school and another at home.

Ask about the cherry tree at the bottom

of the garden, and the only time I remember

it in fruit: my father smiling, pulling me

from the cleft of its branches in darkness.

Ask about the bars on my bedroom window.

Ask me how many sugar cubes I could slip into

my chai before Maman Bozorg noticed. (Four.)

Ask about giving live chicks in a cardboard box

as a get-well gift for a child with chicken pox.

Ask why the baker mixed the dough for barbari

in an old claw-footed tub before feeding

stretched handfuls into the mouth of the fire.

Ask about the army of ants, daytimes, and the scattering

of cockroaches, nights, how they can fly into dreams.

Ask about Kadijeh and Anola, their mud-walled hut

squat in our rose garden, tending the Shomal house

and their sealed mouths for twenty-five years.

Ask me about chicken soup for a childhood cold,

the beheading of a bird for my benefit, the refusal

to open my mouth in gratitude.

Ask how the grandfather clock of a samovar,

its bubble and hiss, marks out time in the house.

Ask me how to taarof, how to say no

when you mean yes.

Ask about my Ameh, the warmth of her arms around

my skinny frame, her language that seeped across

my tongue. Ask how I can have forgotten Farsi

and the sound of her voice bidding me, night

after night, to sleep, to let the day go.

Ask me how to listen.

Reflection: ‘(Re)Making Home’ by Jasmine Cooray

What is a home made of? And how do we make it, and make it again?

I came to think about this theme watching changing circumstances, in my life, in the lives of others around me, and of the rapidly changing climate, which sees people regularly displaced from their homes.

Migration, the search for a place where conditions for survival may be more favourable, is central to the human story on earth. If you’re lucky, you get to choose when, and how to leave.

More and more on the news we see footage of people’s homes washed away, whole towns and villages, of thousands fleeing on foot, or, if luckier, in vehicles, their lives reduced to a bundle in a sheet or in a plastic bag. As the Somali-Kenyan poet Warsan Shire wrote ‘You only leave home if home is a mouth of a shark’.

We know that home is concrete geography - as referenced in last week’s service on landscape, and more than this. It is architecture, interior, topography, weather, it is also how you relate to space- where you walk the dog, where you buy your groceries, the pub, the corner shop. And it is made of relationships with those around you: who you see or hear from day to day. It’s who you listen for when you enter the house. ‘Hello?’ The people whose welfare you devote yourself to. Those whose tea preference you know as well as your own face.

And, when we seek to grow up and make our own lives, and for other reasons too, home can be something that we try to escape. Maybe we finally recognise its worth after we have done enough escaping and rebelling, separating ourselves from the nest. Or it might be that severance from home is necessary, and we never return there. 

One could say that feeling at home is a primal need, however home is characterised. When more of our species were nomadic, for example, perhaps home might have been defined more by belonging. Perhaps it is a subtle, liminal sensation - noticed more when we don’t have it, than when we do. Many of us might know the feeling of walking into a new context and feeling out of place.

It might be a continual, Sisyphean quest to try and keep things familiar. But in reality we know that no moment is the same, and that, as they say, God is change.

The poet -philosopher John O’Donohue writes about transience like this: that ‘the future of every experience is its disappearance.’ I don’t mean to speak of this lightly, or to suggest that we deny the heartbreak of it. But to invite the courage to ask, what does it ask of us, if we are challenged to remember that what currently comprises home for us will, in some way, change?

Plenty has changed in what has been home to me. When my partner died suddenly in 2018, I had this sensation of feeling homeless. It wasn't a literal sensation - I had a home, undisrupted by his death, and I had people around me, I had a job. It was more perhaps that he had become the shelf on which my heart lived. He was where I lay my head. And he was holding up the other half of our future dreams. He was not only a form of home in the now, but in the imagined tomorrow. When my recently bereaved friend said to me last week ‘I feel I have nothing’, I understood.

I expect what currently feels like home to me to change. I don’t know if my mother, with whom I live, and who is showing subtle signs of memory loss, will always recognise me. I also don’t know if we’ll be able to stay in our home, up a flight of stairs, or if that might become unmanageable.

And beyond that, what will happen to London, with rising waters, extreme weather, and world leaders increasingly frightening in their warmongering and recklessness? I imagine myself taking shelter in unfamiliar places, having to form quick bonds with strangers in order to survive. I imagine not having the luxury of knowing whether the people I care about are alright. It's perhaps these fears about the wolf at the door that make me think outside my currently safe reality.

These thoughts might tempt a person to make no attachments whatsoever - to never, if you like, take one’s coat off and be here. To avoid the heartbreak of loss and change by always staying at a slight remove, or by never quite landing. And yet, what is a life without the risk of investment? A life where you never lose something is also a life in which you never really have it.

In, perhaps, an attempt to feel more grounded, I’ve spent the last few years, in my free time, learning about plants, their names and uses. I’ve found myself in new parts of the UK, scanning hedgerows looking for a Silverweed or a Herb Robert. On a random layby in Portsmouth or Devon or St Andrews, to greet a plant by name has given me a tremendous and surprising sense of belonging, like walking into a room to have everyone there turn to greet you. I would have previously seen patches of weeds. And now that I know their names, I can really see them. How funny is that, the process of the strange becoming familiar? How then is home about the experience of recognition? And how amazing that a space can change colour in the instant of asking, or being asked, ‘what is your name?’.

Those who have remade home multiple times might be familiar with the fact that what home requires is the intention to make it. You might be lucky and be received warmly, or you might not. Those of us whose family migrated to England have comparable stories about frosty reception eventually melting into friendliness via the building of relationships. We can’t rely on the new moment to have open arms.

I remember reading Camila Batmanghelidjh”s account of setting up the charity Kids Company and choosing to keep opening its doors day after day, fuelled by a tradition of Persian hospitality, even when sofas were routinely destroyed, equipment stolen, and funding threatened. Whatever difficulty it may present, maybe what might be required of us is the courage and openness to remake our idea of home. To think of it as dynamic, with the ability to be reimagined, found in new forms. Is the making of home a meeting point between what we bring with us, our practises, habits and rituals, and what we find in a new context?

A quote from the Tao Te Ching says ‘one thousand miles from home I open the same prayer book. Some nights it was only an obligation: tonight, it is comfort’.

We all may have rituals that help us to orient in a new space. To make a cup of tea, to open the windows, to put the milk in the fridge. To spread a tablecloth, put a flower in a vase, a photo on the nightstand. In Marjorie Lotfi’s poem ‘The Wrong Person to Ask’, home is habit, recipe and memory, home is both past and present and neither. At home with mum, something that happens every day is the telling and retelling of stories, and jokes. The time we had to put my sister’s electric toothbrush on the balcony because it wouldn't turn off, or when our ceilings collapsed in a flood and the lightbulbs filled with water, or when she brought home someone else's shopping trolley from ALDI and as she put it ‘will never live that down’ - these are told like a rosary, bring small joy into each day.

I can think of so many times I resisted change because I didn’t want to imagine starting again. Or times I was flung into despair, daunted by what felt to be once again the base of the mountain. But Rumi wrote: ‘Do not grieve over past joys, be sure they will reappear in another form’. I can think of many times that has been true. Perhaps like a bedtime story improvised anew every night, to be open to remaking is to say to God give me the magic with which to create and create again, with what I’ve brought with me, and with what I find in this new place. And in creating, still we have life.

Hymn 212 (purple): ‘Where My Free Spirit Onward Leads’

Thanks so much for your reflections, Jasmine. Our final hymn today is number 212 in your purple books: ‘Where My Free Spirit Onward Leads’. Quite a poignant but beautiful hymn, number 212.

Where my free spirit onward leads,

well, there shall be my way;

by my own light illumined

I've journeyed night and day;

my age a time-worn cloak I wear

as once I wore my youth;

I celebrate life's mystery;

I celebrate death's truth.

My family is not confined

to mother, mate and child;

but it includes all creatures

be they tame or be they wild;

my family upon this earth

includes all living things

on land, or in the ocean deep,

or borne aloft on wings.

The ever spinning universe,

well, there shall be my home;

I sing and spin within it

as through this life I roam;

eternity is hard to ken

and harder still is this:

a human life when truly seen

is briefer than a kiss.

Announcements:

Thanks again to Jasmine for sharing her reflections. Thanks to Ramona for hosting and Jeannene for co-hosting. Thanks to Georgia and Toby for lovely music today, to George for accompanying our hymns, Benjie for supporting our singing. Thanks to Antony for reading. Thanks to Marianne for greeting and Julia for making coffee. If you are in-person do stay for tea and cake (I’ve made an old favourite, apple and sultana, and I think we also have some date and walnut). And why not stay a bit longer as we have our crafternoon which is just a simple hangout for a couple of hours when we get the art and craft boxes out to play and chat.  

Tonight and Friday at 7pm we’ve got our ‘Heart and Soul’ online contemplative spiritual gathering – this week our theme is ‘Holding Hope’ – email me if you want to join us and I’ll share the link.

Sonya is back with Nia Dance from this coming Friday at 12.30pm.

The Better World Book Club is reading ‘Chasing the Scream’ by Johann Hari and we’ll be talking about that next Sunday on Zoom. It’s quite a long one but a really interesting read.    

I really want to encourage you to sign up for the course that me and Charlotte are offering online from 30^th October on Thursday evenings: ‘The Religious Life’. We’ve got eight sign-ups already but I’d love to get the group up to twelve participants. Don’t be put off by the title or the word ‘Religious’! It’s a gentle exploration and sharing of our relationship to faith. And a great opportunity to get to know other people in the congregation and from further afield.

Next Sunday I’ll be back to lead our service titled ‘We Need Each Other’.  And Margaret will be here to lead her ‘Finding Your Voice’ singing class so all are welcome to join us for that.

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. Just time for our closing words and closing music now.  

Benediction: based on words by Mark L. Belletini

Go in peace. Live simply, at home in yourself.

Be just in your word, and just in your deed.

Remember the depth of your own compassion.

Do not forget your power in the days of your powerlessness.

Do not desire privilege, and never stint your hand of charity.

Practice forbearance in all you do. Speak the truth or speak not.

Take care of your body, be good to it, for it is a good gift.

Crave peace for all peoples in this world, beginning with yourselves,

and go as you go with the dream of that better world set firm in your heart.

May it be so, for the greater good of all. Amen.

Closing Music: A House is not a Home - Burt Bacharach and Hal David (performed by Georgia Dawson and Toby Morgan) 

Rev. Dr. Jane Blackall and Jasmine Cooray

19th October 2025