“Hope has to be seen to be believed. It has to be made visible. It has to be something we can feel and touch. We are called to be persons who embody hope for one another. We have to be each other’s partners in hope.”
I have seen examples of this all around me, in the congregations I serve and the communities I am a part of and who love and care for the little oasis of love that are the gardens and buildings of Dunham Road Unitarian Chapel, at Sylvan Grove Altrincham.
Unitarianism and Unitarian Universalism at its core, I believe, is in so many ways about embodying hope for one another. To me this is what it means to live this free tradition. This is not a creed or a statement of belief. We are and have always been a tradition where no one is compelled to believe in anything that their conscience does not allow them to. That said I do see Hope and “Embodied Hope” at the core of our historical tradition. I see it in our present and I know that it is vital for our future. A Hope not merely talked about though but shown through our very being. That there is a goodness at the heart of everything. A kind of “Radical Ok-ness”. This is not a denial of what is wrong in life. More the belief that there is a potential goodness at the heart of everything and that it is true religious living to bring this goodness to life, through our imperfect human being. To me this is what it means to embody hope.
I have in recent weeks received some beautiful emails from families who I have conducted rites of passage services for. They have all expressed the same thing. They have talked about our principles, the sense of welcome. That they feel they are valued.
This place is sacred to many it is holy ground, as it was in the past. I have seen a couple of beautiful examples of this in recent weeks. There was the recent response, of so many, to what happened to the “Wind Telephone”. I have seen it again this week. On Tuesday night I wasn’t feeling too well. I was resting when there was a knock on my door, it was a guy called Chris who likes to sit and eat in the Chapel gardens. He came to tell me he had chased off some flower thieves from the chapel gardens. I had conducted a scattering of ashes in the "Garden of Remembrance", that Sunday. The family had left flowers in Remembrance of their recently deceased dad. Some had been spread and others left in baskets. I witnessed both sides of humanity that evening. At first it saddened me, I know that the thieves must be desperate to steal the flowers, but still it saddened me. My heart though was lifted by Chris, we talked for some time, and I got to know him. Despite his own troubles he was clearly someone embodying hope. He has come to love this place. He doesn’t worship in the chapel building, but he does, in his own way come and find his own peace here. I have been touched by how much this place and community is loved by so many. It embodies both love and hope and it brings that out in them. I know that we who call this our spiritual home have a deep love as folk have for generations. We say come as you are, exactly as you are, but do not expect to leave in exactly the same condition. There are no tests to belong here. You are not asked to believe certain things or live in certain ways. We not only tolerate but truly celebrate difference, diversity. There is a faith in the goodness of life. I feel our purpose is to embody this.
It is not just the land and the buildings though, that are this community. We continued on in our own ways, embodying hope, through the pandemic. We met on line and kept together in other ways, we embodied hope. Others joined us from time to time. Some still do through Zoom. I remember a beautiful moment early in the pandemic when Rev Peter Godfrey joined us. Peter was minister at Altrincham and Urmston in early 1960’s. Send a child to Hucklow began at Dunham Road at this time. He began his ministry at Urmston before then. After the service Alison Jackson told him that she had been the very first child he ever Christened. A beautiful moment connecting past, present and future. In difficult times it certainly brought hope to me and others too.
I cannot tell you how many times over the years, particularly the last few years, so many folk have embodied hope for me. They have brought respair, a fresh hope, a new hope. The church I dream of is to be that kind of spiritual community. A place where fresh hope, new hope is embodied. A place where respair is blessed into being.
May we be people who embody hope for one another.
There has been a Unitarian community in the town of Altrincham for over 200 years. It did not begin here at Dunham Road. It all began in Shaws Lane as members from Hale Chapel instigated the beginning of this new congregation in the neighbouring town of Altrincham. No doubt the passing of the 1813 Trinity Act, which finally legalised the holding of Unitarian views, played a role in the forming of this and other Unitarian congregations at this time and over the following decades.
The congregation grew and thrived over the years and eventually moved to Dunham Road in December 1872. This beautiful chapel, designed by the great Manchester architect Thomas Worthington. They came and formed this fellowship of love that we have been sailing in for many generations. They did so in hope and with genuine enthusiasm. They brought a fresh hope, they embodied it through their lives as folks have continued to do over the generations. As those who congregate do today. Yes, things have changed, including in recent times. Hybrid Zoom worship would have been something from science fiction just a generation ago. Maybe eventually AI will replace me the minister, I doubt it though. It may offer theological correctness, but not humanity.
I am very aware that today we stand on the shoulders of giants as we look ahead as a free religious faith offering hope to a community and world that does at times seem so divisive. May we embody this hope, offer respair. I believe that this free religious tradition that I am a part of has much to offer our world, as those who came before us did. I live with hope in my heart that we can continue to build on those firm roots that those who came before us planted. A solid trunk grew from those roots and many branches have stretched from it, leading to buds and leaves and fruits that have flowered and nourished so many. This house of love is a place where hope is born again and again, despite the cynical times we all live in.
We are connected to both the past and the future, we are links in a chain of history. It is our task to do the best we can with this our link in this time and place. We cannot shape the whole world, but we can do something in this our time and place, in full knowledge that this will influence the whole of history. We can become embodiments of hope. Everything matters you know, every breath, every feeling, every thought, every deed impacts in some way on the chain of life. Everything matters.
This fellowship of love that we sail in today is a place of nurture where the spirit can grow, but not alone. We do not sail this ship alone we do so in community with one another and with that eternal spirit that is present in all life and yet greater than it all. The Unitarian tradition is as much about community as it about individual freedom, something that seems lost in modern spirituality, something that is so needed in our time. We come together in love and to grow and flower in that same spirit.
May we be people who embody hope for one another.
The Chapel, the buildings and the gardens are holy ground. Here the spirit has spoken and been heard, just as the burning bush spoke to Moses. Here the Divine can speak to each, as it has for generations and encourage us to keep on moving forward to new freedoms. This though is not holy ground because it is especially sacred. No, it is holy ground because we who come consecrate it with our presence and the spirit that grows in and through us, that we bring to this place. Our task here is to increase the holiness and then take it out into our world where the worst aspects of humanity keep on desecrating.
May we be people who embody hope for one another.
As Wendell Barry so beautifully put it. “There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places.” It is the task of this our free religious faith to nurture the sacredness from which we are formed and to carry that out into our world, through our lives. Everything matters you know, every breath, every feeling, every thought, every deed impacts in some way on the chain of life. Everything matters. I have felt this, in my body, in my being, in the marrow of myself these last few months. A deepening closeness to this community. It is not just an idea. It has become embodied. Molly has helped, I am certain of this.
May we be people who embody hope for one another.
Like absence of love a life lived without hope quickly becomes empty and meaningless. Please do not get me wrong I’m not talking about optimism here, they are not the same. Optimism is about an expectation of something to come, whereas hope is more about allowing something to grow from within. It is something that must be embodied. It is a form of love incarnating in life, something that begins in our own hearts. Hope is knowing that something beautiful will grow, even from what feels like the worst kind of suffering. Hope always overcomes despair as meaning emerges from the suffering. To paraphrase Vaclav Havel “Hope is an orientation of the spirit...It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out.”
Or as Erich Fromm observed “To hope means to be ready at every moment for that which is not yet born, and yet not become desperate if there is no birth in our lifetime, Those whose hope is weak settle for comfort or for violence; those whose hope is strong see and cherish signs of new life and are ready every moment to help the birth of that which is ready to be born.”
May we be people who embody hope for one another.
So, what can we do in our time and place, how do we plant seeds of hope in our time and place? How do we take care of our link in the chain of life, in the chain of history? How can we ready ourselves “to help bring to birth that which is ready to be born”? How do we become people who embody hope for one another?
Well, I believe that it begins with two things. The first is to truly see our world and our shared life as a blessing, as a beautiful gift that we are a part of. This begins by first of all understanding that we too are blessings. We need to let this form and grow in souls, our hearts and our minds and then bring it to life, to embody such hope. We need to be filled with this spirit, to be enthused by it. To be enthusiastic. By the way that’s what enthusiasm means, from entheos to be filled with the spirit, with God. We need to be filled with this spirit and to set it free and begin to consecrate our world once more. We need to embody it. We need to let hope become an orientation of our spirit and to bless our world with this enthusiasm.
May we be people who embody hope for one another.
Now this maybe over stating it somewhat, but I have a friend who calls Dunham Road Chapel her Vatican. She doesn’t come here often, as she is a traditional Christian. She has been to a few services though and certainly sees this as a special place. She came the other day to sit quietly on the anniversary of her young brother’s death. For her it is a place of hope. It was certainly born here again for her one Christmas Eve.
May we be people who embody hope for one another. Let’s share this hope. Let us bless those we meet with our loving presence. Let’s make all ground holy ground. Let us show the world that everything matters. every breath, every feeling, every thought, every deed, everything matters.
May we be people who embody hope for one another.
Please find below a video devotion based on the material in this "blogspot"
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