Finding the Like Hearted, through the Language of Love

Well this might shock you to hear. I have inadvertently become a “Swifty”. Well actually what has happened is that I have received a “Friendship bracelet”, a bit like one of those that Taylor Swift fans make. They swapped song titles with one another, written on the beads. It came through the post on Monday. The wooden beads did not spell out a “Swifty Song”, well at least as far as I am aware. Instead it spelt “Like Hearted”. Folk often say they seek the company of like minded people. I do not, what I seek are the like hearted. The lovely person who sent me this gift obviously realised this.

Earlier that day I had been out walking with Molly. We are not like minded, but I believe we are like hearted. It was one of those walks where I let her take the lead, to follow her nose. She led the way 95% of the time, I just occasionally made an adjustment so as not to end up down some mucky hole. We did finally end up in one of the local parks. I observed many interesting things. A couple who I see often approached me. One of them is somewhat cynical and is always trying to draw me into unpleasant conversations. At one point he muttered about a group of young children who were holding out a rainbow flag and singing “He’s got the whole world in his hands”, it was lovely to see, although he didn’t think so. I also spoke with a few other dog folk and those with children. A diverse bunch of people who talked about a variety of things. Most it seems were fairly like hearted, although one or two were certainly not.

I remember very early in my Unitarian journey I first heard the phrase “You need not think alike to love alike”. I think if there is a spirit that permeates our tradition that this might be it. It is certainly something we ought to aspire to. Of course we all fall short of this ideal. It has been attributed to Francis David who is seen as the father of established Unitarianism and was the spiritual advisor to King John Sigismund of Transylvanin, the Unitarian king who pronounced an act of religious toleration the Edit of Torda in 1568.

Now while “We need not think alike to love alike” is a beautiful sentiment and certainly fits in with the principles of religious toleration. It would appear that there is no real evidence that Francis David ever actually uttered the words. There are arguments as to the original source some claim it was the non-Trinitarian martyr Michael Servetus where as others suggest it was more likely the father of Methodism John Wesley, who asked in a sermon on “Catholic Spirit,” “Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike?”

I do not think it matters who first uttered the words, more the meaning behind them and what has grown and developed from them. What matters to me is the spiritual depth at the core of these simple words. “We need not think alike to love alike.” Or to put it another way we need not be like minded to be like hearted. To me this is essence the Unitarian free religious faith. We are none creedal we do not declare a statement of faith and yet we are held together by a sense of love and understanding. They used to say “Reason, Freedom and Tolerance” but as Rev Stephen Lingwood has said this is not enough.

“Freedom, reason, tolerance and pluralism aren’t enough, not on their own. We need a message to give to people, good News to preach. What good News can Unitarians give to the world? Just this: Love. A Holy Love that transforms, that is powerful and prophetic and justice-seeking. This message has always been at the heart of our faith.”

Of course this is an ideal and certainly not an easy one to live up to. We can rationally think, believe, in ways that uphold “Freedom, reason, tolerance and pluralism” but to truly love and radically accept someone who appears different can be much harder. This involves the heart and a fully exposed and open one at that. In some ways it requires a vulnerable heart and that aint easy. What if they hurt us?

My ministerial mantra is “Come as you, exactly as you are…but do not expect to leave in exactly the same condition” This is an invitation to all, whether you’ve been here forever or have just walked through the door. It is also an invitation to myself, because I know this aint easy. And just like everyone else I need to keep on leaving in a new condition.

It is hard to come as you truly are, to be who you truly are. Most folk fear that they will be rejected for being as they truly are. If they let others see the real them. No doubt it has happened to every single one of us at one time or another. It is hard to say this is who I am, will you still love me and accept me anyway. Well actually maybe here in lays part of the problem. By saying this is who I am are we really showing who we are in a truly open sense. I actually think when we make such statements a barrier is already being formed without us even realising it. Surely it is better to show who we really are and this is about the heart more than the mind, this is about love rather than belief or disbelief, this is about deeds rather than creeds.

Last Sunday afternoon I attended the “Altrincham Interfaith Group” Afternoon tea. It was a lovely occasion. Many people coming together who think differently about faith and belief but are inspired by a loving spirit. Several representatives from different traditions were invited to offer blessings at the commencement. I was one. I said something like the following, it is similar to my invitation at the commencement of worship. “Let us invite a loving presence, how ever we may understand it, to be amongst us and to awaken from deep down within us all. May we open our hearts, listen with the ears of our hearts and speak our truth in love, for the language of the heart is universal.”

There were several interesting speakers during the tea, they spoke of the work that they are engaged in the wider community. Such vital work in these divisive times. Councillor Eve Parker being one of them. Eve is the Community Cohesion Lead and in 2024 launched Trafford Faith Action Network. Dr Eve Parker is a theologian and on the faculty of the school of religion and theology at the University of Manchester. One thing she said really resonated with me, this was that tolerance alone is not enough. Something deeper was required. This is a sentiment I have felt myself, for some time. I feel something deeper is required, something rooted in loving understanding, a recognition that we are all formed from the same heart and spirit despite what are sometimes seen as our difference. Love and respect must be at the heart of things.

I was chatting with a young man on Tuesday morning. He is on a spiritual journey, exploring all kinds of things. He seems drawn particularly to Eastern Traditions. He asked me if I was a priest. I said well not exactly. I then attempted to explain the difference between a minister and a priest. He then said oh yes you a Unilateral minister aren’t you. I said well not exactly I am a Unitarian minister. I smiled as I remembered a conversation I had in the park recently when a man said “You are the Humanitarian” minister aren’t you. I quite like that description actually. I spoke with the young man a little about our free religious tradition, before I was distracted by Molly’s need to go for a poo in the grass area in front of the town hall.

It can be challenge attempting to articulate our faith. People no doubt come up with a variety of views. They used to say “Freedom, Reason and Tolerance.”, which was the simple nineteenth century position. I have over the years attempted to come up with my own, here are three elements I have identified in my time.

One is authority. We say that authority lays within the enlightened conscience of the individual, that we are not only free but encouraged to seek our own truth in matters of faith. That personal experience and reflection upon these experiences is our final authority that no one can tell us what we ought to believe. That does not mean that we can believe what we want, more what we must. We believe what our experiences teach us.

The second is respect and celebration of difference. Now some describe this as tolerance, but I don’t think that is enough. I am with Eve here. I’m not decrying tolerance, if only we human beings could be more tolerant of one another. That said I still hear judgement in the word tolerant. As if in claiming this word what people are saying is “I am tolerating you and your view, but I still think you are a crank.” I don’t see respect and celebration in this. If I accept that I have freedom to reach my own conclusions and believe that this is a wonderful thing, then to judge or merely tolerate another for the conclusions they reach is neither truly respecting or celebrating this approach. Also, such judgement seems to lack humility.

This leads me to the third aspect, which I see as humility and the openness that this breeds. This stems from the idea that whatever conclusions I have reached today I have not sealed this truth. Again, this is something to celebrate, the openness that true humility brings. That by rejoicing in the truth that others may reach I can myself experience a deeper revelation if I listen with an open mind, heart and soul. Truth is always subjective. I know myself that my view on faith and many things has shifted at times in my life. This is because my experiences have changed, as have my reflections upon them and my ability to listen to others experiences and their honest reflections upon them too.

These three “freedom, respect and humility” are key to my understanding of my chosen Unitarian faith. These three little words “freedom, respect & humility” just about sum up my understanding of my chosen free religious tradition.

People experience and understand the spiritual aspects of their lives in different ways and when they try to explain these experiences they often articulate them differently. They often use different words to describe the same thing. Or use the same words to talk about different things. The words themselves can often get in the way of describing the experiences that people all have. That said what else do we have to describe what often cannot be fully understood.

One of the great blessings of my job is that people, often complete strangers, tell me about experiences that they do not understand; often experiences that their rational minds don’t believe in and yet they have experienced them all the same. Experiences that have changed them for ever. I love these conversations, they are the language of the heart alive. Such conversations open up the ears of my heart.

There seems to be two common themes to these experiences. One has been the transformative nature of them and the second that they have never dared tell another soul about them, for fear of ridicule. It truly is a humbling blessing that they feel that they can speak to me about them.

I remember one such occasion a few years ago when I went to buy a new laptop computer. One thing I had to was my profession. This led to a very interesting conversation. He began to recount an experience that happened many years ago, that had totally transformed him and his experience of life. He made me smile as he insisted he wasn’t a religious man, as he couldn’t get along with dogma and the like but he experienced something that day that had transformed him and that he was now able to experience this in every aspect of his life. As he spoke I just smiled and listened and told him how many people have had similar experiences including myself and how the two characteristics he described were common, the fear of speaking about them and their transformative nature.

Now while there has been these two themes - the fear of speaking about them and the transformative nature of them - prevalent in many of the conversations I have had, I have also noticed many differences too. I suspect that this due primarily to each individuals religious backgrounds, which must influence the conclusions they have come too. What has struck me though has been the honesty and integrity in which what has been described has been recounted. I have never spoken to many of these people again and yet what they have said has been permanently etched on the soul of me. I have also noticed that each time I have listened to others and shared my own experiences something in me has opened up and I have felt that spirit once again. How many times have I smiled and been warmed and yet shivered at the same time? God only knows.

This to me is how the language of the heart operates, it has the capacity to transform our lives. I believe that we can all be transformed by the language of the heart. It begins by learning to listen with the ears of our hearts and to speak with the tongues of our hearts. For it is the language of the heart that carries the voice of transformation. It can bring about transformation not only in all lives who are touched by it, but also the lives that they themselves touch.

With this in heart and mind and in the spirit of freedom, respect and humility I believe that a new world can begin to be born. Let us not be held back by what we think we know. Let’s open all our senses to the spirit present in all life. Let our ears be opened to the language of the heart, spoken from every tongue and let us speak the language of the heart in our every interaction.

For the language of the heart is Universal it breaks down any and every barrier and touches and transform all who have ears to hear…

May we listen with the ears of our heart. May we speak our truth in love. For the language of the heart truly is universal.

Below is a video devotion based on the material in this "Blogspot"

Looking for like hearted people

In Bringing God Home: A Traveler's Guide" Forrest Church wrote

"Universalism is an exacting gospel. Taken seriously, no theology is more challenging-morally, spiritually, or intellectually: to love your enemy as yourself; to see your tears in another's eyes; to respect and even embrace otherness, rather than merely to tolerate or, even worse, dismiss it. None of this comes naturally to us. We are weaned on the rational presumption that if two people disagree, only one can be right. This works better in mathematics than it does in theology; Universalism reminds us of that. Yet even to approximate the Universalist ideal remains devilishly difficult in actual practice. Given the natural human tendency toward division, Universalists run the constant temptation to backslide in their faith. One can lapse and become a bad or lazy Universalist as effortlessly as others become ice-cream social Presbyterians or nominal Catholics."

It got me thinking about my own ministry...Do I backslide in my own faith?

I recently spent a weekend away with a group of what some might call “like minded” friends at Great Hucklow. I almost didn’t go as I was recovering from gastric flu and I certainly wasn’t my usual vibrant self. I must have been bad as I couldn’t stomach the marvellous cooked breakfast on offer there.

Over the weekend we explored prayer and meditation and ways in which we might enhance our personal spiritual lives. It was based around the 11th Step of Alcoholics Anonymous "Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out." It was wonderful to engage with different people, from all kinds of back grounds and differing spiritual beliefs. People who when they spoke of God, or a power greater than themselves, did not necessarily mean exactly the same thing. I didn’t do as much talking as I normally would at such events and spent most of the weekend just loving the company of these people and listening. Of course I did chime in from time to time, but mainly I listened.

Now one phrase I kept on hearing over the first evening was “Oh it’s so lovely to be with like-minded people”. I heard it from several people. I remember as I listened I thought I’m not sure that we are like-minded, we certainly don’t think about things in exactly the same way. I then thought I am not sure I would want to spend my time with like-minded people, people who thought just like me. They would drive me mad and no doubt bore me to death.

And then it dawned on me. While we may not be like-minded people we are certainly like-hearted. We may not think in the same way, but I suspect that we feel in the same way and we certainly seem to be searching for that same sense of connection and oneness. There was a true sense of unity in the group. We truly were there lovingly supporting and listening to one another, holding differing views about faith and God and spiritual practise but yet united in a common bond and search.

I think this is what I’ve been searching for all my life, not the horror of like-minded people, but the beauty of like hearted folk. It truly was heavenly and it lifted me out of myself and my worries about my physical well-being.

As I drove home in silence enjoying a beautiful winter scene a phrase entered my heart and rose up to my mind “You need not think alike to love alike”. It is a well-known phrase in Unitarian circles and it is certainly something that we aspire toward. Of course we all fall short of this ideal. It has been attributed to Francis David who is seen as the father of established Unitarianism and was the spiritual advisor to King John Sigismund of Transylvanin, the Unitarian king who pronounced an act of religious toleration the Edit of Torda in 1568.

Now while “We need not think alike to love alike” is a beautiful sentiment and certainly fits in with the principles of religious toleration, it would appear that there is no real evidence that Francis David ever actually uttered the words. There are arguments as to the original source some claim it was the non-Trinitarian martyr Michael Servetus where as others suggest it was more likely the father of Methodism JohnWesley, who asked in a sermon on “Catholic Spirit,” “Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike?”

Now personally I do not think it matters who first uttered the words. What matters is the meaning behind them and what has grown and developed from them. What matters to me is the spiritual depth at the core of these simple words. “We need not think alike to love alike.” Or to put it another way we need not be like minded to be like hearted. To me this is essence of the free religious faith that I have chosen to belong to. We are none creedal we do not declare a statement of faith and yet we are held together by a sense of love and understanding.

We are more than just a pluralistic movement at our best we uphold those ideals of universalism that Forrest Church spoke at the beginning of this blog. That said these are not easy ideals to live up to. They used to say “Reason, Freedom and Tolerance” but as Rev Stephen Lingwood has said this is not enough. To quote him:

“Love” Stephen Lingwood from “The Unitarian Life: Voices from the Past and Present

Freedom, reason, tolerance and pluralism aren’t enough, not on their own. We need a message to give to people, good News to preach. What good News can Unitarians give to the world? Just this: Love. A Holy Love that transforms, that is powerful and prophetic and justice-seeking. This message has always been at the heart of our faith: from Francis David, who said “you need not think alike to love alike”, to the Universalists who knew that nothing will ever separate anyone from the love of God, even today when Unitarians work to support the rights of gay couples because we know that love is always a blessing, regardless of gender.

Of course this is an ideal and certainly not an easy one to live up to. We can rationally think, believe, in ways that uphold “Freedom, reason, tolerance and pluralism” but to truly love and radically accept someone who appears different can be much harder. This involves the heart and a fully exposed and open one at that. In some ways it requires a vulnerable heart and that aint easy. What if they hurt us?

My ministerial mantra is “Come as you, exactly as you are…but do not expect to leave in exactly the same condition” This is an invitation to all, whether they’ve been here for ever or have just walked through the door. It is also an invitation to myself, because I know this aint easy. And just like everyone else I need to keep on leaving in a new condition.

One thing I love about the "Living the Questions" group I host is that increasingly over time people are coming as they, exploring with one another openly. They seem to be listening to one another too. Each time we meet this experience seems to grow. I witness true spiritual intimacy amongst this diverse group of people who are most certainly not like minded, but are increasingly like hearted. Each time we meet, we seem to leave in a slightly different condition, whatever subject we explore. People truly are coming as they, exactly as they are, wherever they are coming from.

It is hard to come as you truly are, to be who you truly are. Most folk fear that they will be rejected for being as they truly are, if they let others see the real them. No doubt it happens to every single one of us at one time or another. It is hard to say this is who I am, will you still love me and accept me anyway. Well actually maybe here in lays part of the problem. By saying this is who I am are we really showing who we are in a truly open sense. I actually think when we make such statements a barrier is already being formed without us even realising it. Surely it is better to show who we really are and this is about the heart more than the mind, this is about love rather than belief or disbelief, this is about deeds rather than creeds.

This brings to mind something I heard from a stand-up comedian many years ago. Now he never became famous and I used to see him wandering around the Fallowfield area of Manchester where I lived. He always looked like a bit of a loner, a little bit lost. He wasn’t even particularly funny, but something he said really stuck with me. Now it turns out he was gay and he talked about coming out to his mates about this and how he was full of fear initially but it went ok and they accepted him as he was, with just a bit of laddish humour. He then went on to talk about how he loved football, which was strange for a man originally from Hull. It’s a rugby town and Hull were not a big club then. Now I can’t tell the joke but the basic punchline was this he said it was much harder for him to come out to his hip cool, arty and gay friends and companions that he loved football and loved all that went with it than it was to come out to the football crowd that he was gay. He said these friends found it harder to accept his love of football, than for his football friends to accept him as a gay man.

As he told the tale I saw the sadness and the alienation in him, this sense that he didn’t quite belong. Every time I saw him wandering around, always alone I kind of sensed that feeling grow. Maybe I identified with him in some ways as for a lot of my life I felt this sense of alienation too. Maybe we all do, maybe everyone feels this sense that they don’t truly belong from time to time. Maybe it’s tough to come as we are, exactly as we are…maybe when we come we don’t expect to change either, maybe we think we will always leave in exactly the same condition.

My hope is that when people enter into the communities I serve that they feel that they can be who they are, exactly as they are. Warts and all and beauty spots too. I hope they find amongst us loving companionship and space to search and explore and open their hearts, minds and souls to something beyond the confines of themselves. I hope when they come, even if it is in despair, that when they leave they do so with a deeper sense of belonging and do not feel alone. I hope they find amongst us communities of like hearted, if not like-minded people.

For we may not think alike, but it is certainly our intention to love alike.

I am going to end this little chip of a blogspot with the following...

“One Love” by Hope Johnson


We are one,

A diverse group

Of proudly kindred spirits

Here, not by coincidence –

But because we choose to journey – together.



We are active and proactive

We care, deeply

We live our love, as best we can.

We ARE one

Working, Eating, Laughing,

Playing, Singing, Storytelling, Sharing and Rejoicing.

Getting to know each other.

Taking risks

Opening up.

Questioning, Seeking, Searching…

Trying to understand…

Struggling…

Making Mistakes

Paying Attention…

Asking Questions

Listening…

Living our Answers

Learning to love our neighbours

Learning to love ourselves.


Apologizing and forgiving with humility

Being forgiven, through Grace.


Creating the Beloved Community – Together We are ONE.

The Cathedral of the World: One Light Many Windows

During our recent visit to Transylvania Carolyn and myself were shown around Tirgu Mures. It is a beautiful city, with wonderful architecture, in stark contrast to some of the poorer villages we had visited the day before. Tamas (our host and my colleague) showed us around the Cultural Palace, wow what an incredible place!

In the palace were some beautiful stained glass windows, Carolyn was fascinated by them. She has a love for them, how they are made and the skill and beauty required to craft them; whereas I’m probably more interested in the light and what that light shines on, that pours through these and all the windows of the world.

Inside the cultural palace is an auditorium where beautiful works of creative art are performed, as they are in every major city. I loved sitting there and taking in the atmosphere, while somewhere in the background I could faintly hear rehearsals for the next concert. On the ceiling was a masterpiece of light. I spent several minutes staring directly at the intricate patterns and fell into a trance like state. I was greatly moved by the whole experience and chatted with Carolyn about it afterwards. We saw and experienced the encounter very differently; we are not alike, we see and experience life differently. I believe that this complimented our trip together as we learnt from one another's perspectives.

While we may well not have thought alike about our experiences together, we both loved them equally. As the father of Transylvanian Unitarianism Francis David is reported to have said “We need not think alike to love alike” This saying seems just a relevant in the 21^st century as it was in the 16^th century.

I recently attended the Manchester Centre for Buddhist Meditation in Chorlton, with the Altrincham Interfaith Group. It was a warm, friendly and interesting evening. There is much of Buddhism that I like, but I know I am not a Buddhist. When I speak and listen to Buddhists, I know I am not a Buddhist. I feel the same way when I speak to people of many faith traditions, the true believers I mean. By the way I feel the same way when I speak to atheists, agnostics and humanists too. I experience the Divine in my life, I’m personally quite happy calling this God but I have not once found anywhere that offers me an absolute truth that I can follow 100%. I found a happy home amongst Unitarians, because here I found space to explore, to ask and to live the questions, to seek in community and of course to serve. By the way this is by no means the easier softer way, quite the opposite in fact.

Forrest Church put so beautifully into words exactly what I mean in his final Masterpiece “The Cathedral of the World” Here he asks us to imagine the whole of humanity standing under the ceiling of the cathedral of the world. Around this cathedral are millions of stained glass windows. There is a light outside of the cathedral shinning through all of the windows; this is the light of truth, the light of God. No one inside is able to stare at the light directly, we all see it passing through a painted window. Each of the windows distorts the light in some way; they only allow some of the light to pass through. Sometimes the light is refracted, by the tinted windows and occasionally it is blocked by the opaque aspects of each window. In some places the light is almost completely obscured.

This metaphor is an attempt to describe a 21^st century Universalist theology, one that speaks powerfully to me. There is one light outside of the cathedral but there are many windows through which we can get a glimpse of the light. Each window is unique in its own way; each window is different; but none gives us a perfect image of the light. Each window is representing different religions, different ideologies, different philosophies, different dogmas, different views about life, the universe, everything. The key is to understand that each window has been fashioned by human hands, often with great skill, imagination, beauty, intelligence and artfulness that said through no one window is the light seen perfectly.

It is important to remember that we are also part of the reality, we are creating it too; we are not passive we are participators. The light is also shinning through us too. So not only are we receivers of the light, we are creators of it too, whether we realise this or not.

From where we view our particular perspective on the light we can begin to believe that what we see is the absolute truth and that the light only shines through our window; that only our window offers the true representation of the light; that what others see through their window is false, even stupid and irrational.  Forrest Church’s Universalism is saying something very different though. He is saying that each window conveys part of the truth and that no one window has a monopoly on the truth. He is echoing the words of the great twentieth century liberal theologian Paul Tillich who said “That which reveals also hides”.

I think it is important to accept that none of us ever glimpses the whole truth, no matter which window we are looking through and as my trip to Transylvania proved two people can look at the same thing and see something entirely different.

As Forrest has taught many times what is required is humility; genuine humility that teaches that we humans cannot know and understand everything. This is a good thing, because by genuinely accepting this we are opened up to a myriad of possibility that we probably believed were way beyond our capacity to experience.

The epistle Paul hints at this in his letter to the Corinthians (1ch 13), those beautiful words on love and charity. Here Paul gets to the very nature of humility when he says, “for now we see through a glass darkly”. He is making the point that even when our knowledge and understanding is not perfect, which I suspect it never can be, we cannot go wrong if we follow love and charity as a guide. Love and charity are universal principles shinning through virtually every one of the windows that the light is pouring through, it seems that the only ones not preaching it are the ones who are trying to throw rocks through the windows that others experience the light through.

I have learnt a lot from Forrest Church, he has articulated what the light through my window seems to reveal. The Universalism that he eloquently articulated and other liberal approaches to religion are not an easier softer way, in many ways its probably more challenging than absolutist approaches to belief and disbelief. This is though the way of openness of truth seeking and love experiencing. That said it is not perfect and it only glimpses at that light "darkly". Can any of us glimpse the light perfectly?

What’s the light like, that shines through your window?

Below his Forrest delivering his concept of "The Cathedral of the World" just a few months before he died.

Welcoming the stranger

"Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving. It doesn't matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times. Come, yet again , come , come." 

— Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

These words by the Sufi mystic Rumi speak powerfully to me.

I believe that they teach us what a religious community should be about. Such communities ought to be about welcoming people – whoever they are and wherever they have been.

This welcome is an invitation to join fellow travellers on a journey together. A journey of hope and not despair, that keeps on inviting the wanderer to "keep coming back". The invitation of course is universal, it is open to all.

The importance of welcoming the stranger is at the root of all the great faith traditions. The ancient Greeks cultivated the concept of  “Xenia” or “guest friendship” They believed that the guest may well be a God in disguise and thus treated them accordingly. In Genesis Abraham is visited by three guests, who he treats like royalty. These guests are later revealed to be angels; in fact it is implied strongly that one may well be God himself. They tell the childless and aged Abraham and Sarah that they will have a son.

Being a gracious host is a primary requirement of Islam. The Qur’an 4. 36-37 reads:

“Be kind to parents.and near kins man, and to orphans, and to the needy, and to the neighbour who is of kin, and to the neighbour who is a stranger, and to the companion at your side, and to the traveller...Surely God loves not the proud and boastful such as are niggardly, and bid other men to be niggardly, and themselves conceal the bounty that God has given them.”

This welcoming of the stranger is deeply engrained in the Judeo-Christian tradition. The classic example of this is the parable of the “Good Samaritan” The story tells of a Jewish man who lay on the side of the road beaten, robbed and left to die. He is passed by a Jewish priest and temple official, who both ignore him. Then a Samaritan passes by, a despised enemy of the Israelites. He looks after the man and pays for his shelter at the inn. He welcomes the stranger.

Mother Teresa, an often vilified and dare I say mocked figure, took this teaching to heart and believed that in every suffering and needy person was something of God, she saw Jesus in human suffering. She and others like her saw it as their life task to offer hospitality to the stranger

The monastic tradition has cultivated the practise of caring for the stranger and the poor and needy. Hospitals began in such places. The word hospital comes from “hospitable”. The best example of this has to be the monastery of St. Benedict. Benedict created what has become known as “The Rule of Benedict”, which was a book of rules by which a monastery ought to live. Many monasteries today live by this rule, including some Buddhist ones. The foundation of the rule is listening, deep attentive listening. It begins, “listen carefully, my child, to the instructions...and attend to them with ear of your heart “.

To welcome someone into our lives we need to listen deeply. This is a concept which the Dalai Lama promotes in contemporary time. It is not some ancient practise lost in the annals of time, it is living and breathing, it is contemporary and it is most urgently needed in our time.

In my time at Altrincham and Urmston I have been warmly welcomed by the various faith traditions. I have certainly felt listened to. Inter-faith relations and respect for those who think about religion differently is healthy and strong here. Sadly this is not the case the world over. I suspect that this is why there is so much anti-religious feeling in 21st Century Britain.

Sadly not all people of faith are welcoming of all, whoever they are. Perhaps this is why so many people have rejected religion all together. How often do we hear “I’m spiritual not religious”?

I think many spiritually minded people reject religion because they see it as authoritarian, unbending, dangerous and not a source of loving compassion for your fellow man or woman. My experience of religion has been very different, both within my own Unitarian tradition and through my encounters with the other faiths here in Altrincham and Urmston. I consider myself to be both spiritual and religious. I am religious because I join with others on a spiritual odyssey seeking truth and meaning. My fellow travellers often do not hold the same beliefs and yet we are able to journey together in compassion, helping one another along the way. I am also spiritual because I do not seek authority over others and no one has authority over my conscience in matters of faith. The religion I practise is free and it is deeply spiritual.

The 16th Unitarian Francis David once proclaimed “We need not think alike, to love a like.”

I have found this to be true among the faith communities I have encountered during my short time as a minister. They have made me, the stranger, most welcome.