2006

‘Feeding the Soul: Community, Family and Individual Worship’

What is worship? This week we will explore what the worship experience means to us as individuals, within families and as members of a liberal religious community. What are the elements of worship that speak to us and feed our souls both as individuals and as members of a rich, free flowing community of liberal Christians, pagans, mystics, humanists, atheists, agnostics? Midst this extraordinary diversity how do we find the language and rituals to give meaning to our lives? We shall look at the elements: Holy Space, wonder, the language and music and rituals of reverence, the deep silences of communion and solitude, the listening of engagement and fellowship. The week gives us space to experience, explore and contemplate these elements and discover afresh the needs of the soul.

Engagement Groups

A: ‘Creative Worship… Do We Dare?’ with Lindy Latham and Michael Dadson

Innovative worship can inspire… and alienate. It can stimulate some while outraging others. How can we manage the tension between worship that holds us together in love and understanding and worship that divides? Thinking together, we shall consider the reality that worship needs to feed both the soul of the local community and the individuals within it and also give clear expression to the truth of the wider Unitarian community that it represents. Working together, we will play with ideas for worship which genuinely reflect Unitarian values and needs today, aiming to create worship activities to offer to our own communities.

B: ‘A Call to the Hearth of the Soul’ with Jo-Ann Lane and Lynne Davies

“Anything you do every day can open into the deepest spiritual place, which is freedom.”

– Coleman Barks, Michael Green

How do I inhabit my spiritual landscape? How do I care for my soul within my home (whatever, wherever that may be)? Thomas Moore invites us to ‘live artfully’ – to savour our lives – to pause – to become more aware of the beauty of the Divine in the everyday. We invite you to explore ways of developing spiritual practice within the familiar, the intimate, as a way of reconnecting with the Light and the Depth. “Be still and know that I am here.”

C: ‘Sacred Cycles: Healing Journeys’ with Simon John Barlow and Jane Blackall

Religious festival calendars relate to the yearly cycle of nature: some, such as native and pagan religions, more closely, and others, such as the monotheistic religions, with a more historical bias. All of these liturgical cycles can be seen as expressions of the finite soul’s progression towards infinite Wholeness. We aim to explore the meta-narrative of the yearly cycle as a spiritual journey of healing toward Wholeness. Focussing, appropriately, on the season of summer we will travel the cycle of the year using the vehicles of observation and inspiration, of nature, creative imagery, stories and archetypes, and personal ritual.

D: Children’s Programme with Heather Foster, Mel Prideaux and Vivien Howard