News Letter
No. 15, December 2005

THE FAITH OF CHRISTMAS
In the birth of Jesus, God acted to save
humankind - this is the faith of
Christianity's two-thousand years.
Today we may doubt the details, argue with
the doctrines that surround it, but the faith
at the heart of Christmas - this we affirm.

The homeless parents still seek shelter for their child;
The outcasts still wait on the edge of society;
The brokers of power and wealth still guard
their positions, fearfully desensitised to human need;
The innocents still die at the hands of our brutality;
Spiritual hunger still tempts us to seek new stars.
In Jesus the divine Spirit speaks:
Love your neighbour as yourself,
Treat others as you want them to treat you,
Leave self behind,
Take the struggle for humanity to the cross,
if that is where it leads.
Cliff Read (Unitarian Minister)
Writings that have recently inspired our members

Could we not begin to envision a transcendence that enters our life but also calls us beyond the limits of our humanity, not toward an external being but toward the Ground of All Being including our own, a transcendence that calls us to a new humanity? Is there not a new maturity that can be claimed by human life when we cease the search for a supernatural being who will parent us, take care of us, watch over and protect us? Is there not a new human dignity that can be found in the rejection of those groveling patterns of our past through which we attempted to please the theistic deity in the early years of evolutionary history? In place of that groveling, are we not now able to open ourselves in new ways to discover the Ground of Being that is met and known in the self that is emerging as expanded consciousness? These, it seems to me, are the profoundly religious questions of the new millennium.
John Shelby Spong, A New Christianity for a New World

What is this world, really?
My world is beauty, loving, being loved.
It is longing and striving, resting and sleeping.
It is trees and running over moorland;
and birdsong.
It is the glitter
of quartz rocks and the yellow of butterflies
in the heat of the summer sun.
My world is crafting theories to crystallize appearances,
and penning songs to sing them.
It is listening and speaking.
Your world, I see it in your eyes,
is much of these as well.
For the loving, and the rocks,
and the birdsong are ours as well as mine;
the theories and the songs the heritage
of our crowded culture.
Chris Clarke, Living in connection, Theory and practice of the new world-view, 1998


Current Discussion in the Salisbury Fellowship
Engagement GroupsThandeka, Essex Hall Lecture for 2002.
--'engagement groups' of six to a dozen people, belonging to a larger congregation, who meet on an ongoing basis, affirming one another's spiritual life as part of a 'beloved community'. With the help of a facilitator, they share spiritual experiences, learn, discuss, plan, reflect, then work together on projects for their larger community. There is some common ground with the religious education programmes with which we are already familiar; the purpose is rather different but some of the effects can be similar.

Lucy says: "Engagement groups" are found across the Unitarian movement (as well as in other churches and social networks of all kinds). The term is really used as an alternate for "special interest groups" but there is the additional slant, in that the people who join are involved with and to some degree committed to each other, as well as with the subject they share an interest in. We call ourselves a Fellowship, not an engagement group. The self-evident idea that that conveys is very important to me. We travel together as fellows, and we care about each other.
Looking back over the meetings since we decided to call ourselves a Fellowship (May 1999) we clearly have a range of different approaches and a range of different expectations and wishes that our meetings must fulfil. In particular, as our meetings have grown as large as eighteen with the potential for more (some key regulars have been absent for our recent gatherings), it is always going to be hard to have any time together focussing on a narrow range or style of expression for our Unitarian or Unitarian Universalist beliefs. There is therefore room, I suggest, for an expansion of our well-established monthly activity into the forming of engagement groups.
That pre-supposes, of course, that among us there are enough who share an interest in specific topics for study or practice! And it also would be important that these engagement groups be not seen as a threat to commitment to the full Fellowship on which they would be grounded and from which they would take their life. But I am confident that our open and honest talk together would prevent this risk from becoming real.
I observe that we have members who relish the arts (fine art, poetry) and those who love dance and never seem to get enough of it. We have an earth spirit strand too, and a dedication to ecological matters. All of these topics would lend themselves to engagement groups.
But for my own part, worship of the Divine is key and I would like to ask if anyone would be interested in establishing a Prayer Engagement Group. I am fairly certain that we lost one stalwart from the early days because she felt our worship practice was too light for her, and I sometimes feel the same way.

Jo says: I tend to use Thandeka's definition of 'engagement group' as used in her 2002 Essex Hall Lecture, part of which is printed above. She spoke of a group of six to a dozen people who wish to find more intimacy in a large congregation. Because we are such a small Fellowship, with a democratic attitude and opportunity for participation, I would claim that we already have a large degree of engagement. However, there is no reason why smaller groups should not meet, in person or by phone to pursue particular interests. I suggest that if anyone wants to meet between Fellowships let this be known. Those interested, and able, can, together, arrange a time and place.
Personally I would be interested in Lucy's 'prayer and worship of the divine' and could sometimes offer our house as a venue. The reason I have hesitated up to now is because I have difficulty with some religious language. I may well have experienced the divine in meditation and in religious experience but hesitate to give it such a definite name. 'Prayer' and 'worship' on the other hand have implications of entreaty of a supernatural being. I find it difficult to believe in that concept, although I find much that is called prayer helpful. I suppose I am afraid of giving the wrong impression to people looking for a congenial movement. We do, after all, claim that people of all faiths and no faith are welcome to our meetings. To me that doesn't just mean that we tolerate them but that we probably share many attitudes.
Perhaps, all this suggests we should be questioning what different people want from our meetings and trying to provide it as far as we are able. Many of us might be willing to include more prayers in the meetings we lead, for instance.


Regular meetings in recent months have been led by :

Brenda's theme for the April meeting was 'Being alive.' The chalice was lit as a symbol of hope and love in a world that is often deeply sad.
She used readings, hymns, a short meditation and sharing of thoughts to enable the meeting to remember the joy experienced in real living and growing, along with the inevitable pain and suffering. She cited Jung and Scott Peck as saying that it was also necessary to be aware of death to live life to the full. The meeting closed with singing of the Irish blessing.
Lucy's meeting in May was concerned with the part played by trust in relation to the self, to other people and to God (or ultimate reality). She used a wide range of authorities, including Martin Buber, a new version of the Lord's prayer, a Buddhist creative realization, the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Bishop John Taylor of Winchester.
Jo, led the June meeting in which she looked at Unitarian views on spirituality. There was agreement that the word could mean the feeling experienced on entering a cathedral, when praying, meditating, being in the countryside, reading poetry or meeting a newborn grandchild. Jo claimed that another instance was the excitement of investigating the natural world as shown by Joseph Priestley, the Unitarian minister who isolated oxygen. The American writer of 'a guide for the spiritually curious', in his youth 'gave up church going for ever', spent many years as an industrial chemist, and then became a Unitarian minister. He spoke of the purpose of spiritual growth being self-discovery. He said that human reluctance to attempt a better way of life was like the fear of baby Arctic penguins to enter the freezing sea. Abandoned by their parents, only intense hunger forced them in, but, once there, they behaved as if joyful in their natural environment.
Barbara Smith, (from Trowbridge), in July, told how she lived out the common Unitarian dream of visiting a remote almost tribal community in the Khasi hills of North-East India, which has eight to nine thousand Unitarians. This began nearly a hundred years ago after someone was searching the Encyclopaedia Britannica for a religion that fitted his experience. About twenty years later the British General Assembly of Unitarians was asked to send a worker. A doughty lady , Margaret Barr offered to go, but the authority would only consider a man. Margaret had become fascinated with India after meeting Gandhi and privately answered the call. She was much valued and stayed for the rest of her life, being particularly helpful with education. Barbara was also very welcome. They treated her as if she were a sort of reincarnation of Miss Barr, even calling her 'BongBarr'. The only difficulty was that they insisted, as well as teaching primary school, which was her profession, that she teach older children, give sermons, and say prayers in public. Unitarianism there is still as formal as it used to be here in the nineteenth century.
Anne's theme for the August meeting was 'Inspirational poetry'. She introduced some of her favourite poems, which she said had often been found at times of pain. Perhaps unexpectedly Wordsworth or Blake did not feature. Instead, her favourites included Stephen Spender, Rudyard Kipling and Ruth Sitcock. In 'The Buddha's wife' Ruth Silcot wondered what it was like when your man left his family to pursue his spiritual path. Her current enthusiasm was the American Billie Collins. 'Shovelling snow with Buddha' spoke of the Zen truth that chores needed to be performed as perfectly as possible before meditation should be contemplated.
During sharing of thoughts it was agreed that poetry was a very important part of religion. A Unitarian minister, also a poet, was mentioned, who had shelves of both theological works and poetry books. Over many years books on theology remained pristine but those of poetry became exceedingly dog-eared.
Rona led the October meeting, using material in the latest book by her brother, a Unitarian minister in Vancouver. This book, 'Racovia' is about a community founded in Poland in the sixteenth century. They were a small band of nonconformists, who wanted to protect religious freedom for all, and in particular for their own beliefs and to be in harmony with recent scientific discoveries about the nature of the universe. This radical thinking was later encapsulated in the Racovian Catechism of 1605. It underpins current Unitarian practice of freedom, reason and tolerance and avoidance of dogma.
Lucy opened the November meeting by recognising the deeply personal nature of the understanding of life and being in the Unitarian movement but claimed that in place of dogma Unitarians have a Faith based on experience needing to be acknowledged and strengthened. They use many sources of truth and are not surprised if their views change over time. She suggested that their best answer was to try to approach the divine, which is a force of love in the world, look for understanding of their inner selves and for inner peace.

Dawn Chorus by Brenda Knopf
I do congratulate
That brave bird
That chirps his solo into the gathering dawn
So that the others take it up and fill the wood with song
So with brave souls
Who light the way ahead
For those of us too tired for the task
Who yet can follow where they lead.
Future Meetings will be held at locations in Salisbury starting at 6:30 p.m.(to be confirmed),
currently in the Lounge room of the United Reformed Church, Fisherton Street.

January 15th, Led by Kay
February 19th, Led by Brenda (preceded by discussion on Engagement Groups)
March 18th, MEDITATION DAY with DAVID MONK (see web page)
April 16th, Led by Ian
May 21st, Led by Frank
June 18th, Led by Jo (preceded by planning meeting)

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