Events

Sunday 22nd February
10am Queens Road Unitarian Free Church, Urmston
11.30am Dunham Road Unitarian Chapel, Altrincham
11.30am on Zoom ID 841 9082 8195 no password required

A service exploring the universal principle of self giving love. Exploring example from close at hand, around us and in our community, as well as those from a variety of traditions. It will also explore ways to give from our hearts, not so much give things up and perhaps find ways to give whatever may get in the way. 

All are most welcome. Come as you are, exactly as you are, but do not expect to leave in exactly the same condition.

The following is an extract from the service...

So, I’ve made a decision. This Lenten season I’m going to attempt to let a different spirit live through me. To see what I can give from my heart and soul and attempt to let go of the things that get in the way of that. To not give up things, but to give what I can and give up what blocks me from that.  It is so easy to live in cynicism and say well what’s the point, but who does that serve, certainly not my soul. I’m going to live by the examples around me and do what I can.  I’m going to live in what I consider the solution is as opposed to what I see as the problem. I am going to give love, even if it’s in small ways. I am going to do so while recognising how difficult that is, even to my nearest and dearest. That said I do know that by doing so my outer world is bound to improve and my inner world will become healed, even if it is just small ways.

I will invoking the spirit of Derek Brown in my activities. To live by his example with people. His warmth, his care, his welcome and his good humour too. These were the natural gifts that he had and lived by, in so doing he touched so many lives.

Last Sunday Peter spoke of the many forms of love, not just the romantic kind that is celebrated on Valentines Day. The day before on the walk with my friends we were practising friendship or “philia” love. Now the kind of love I want to talk about giving and giving up whatever gets in it’s way is Agape Love. Some call this “Spiritual” Love. It is the kind of love that the faith traditions speak of, although sadly too often fail to practice. It is what  everyone was invoking at the interfaith events I participating, it is was fuelled the songs of Rogers and Hammerstein and it is what I witnessed in Derek’s life. This is a kind of love that is none exclusive, it is open to all, it is suppose to have no boundaries, instead it builds bridges between the walls we create around ourselves.
Agape is the love that Jesus spoke of in the Gospels. He commanded his followers to “Love one another as I have loved you.”  He is not talking about something soft and mushy here though, please do not be fooled. When he preaches that we should love our enemies he is commenting on the commandment in Leviticus “You must love your neighbour as yourself.” When Jesus spoke of love he was talking about an action that put someone or something else at the centre of their life, rather than themselves; he is talking about yielding for the good of all, instead of self interest.

This message is of course not unique to the Judeo-Christian tradition it is the essence of all the “Great Faiths”. It would appear that selfishness and self-centredness has been the root of so many of humanities troubles throughout our history, therefore it is hardly surprising that the idea of yielding for the good of all is at the core of the great faiths; that putting something other than our selfish needs at the centre of what we do is vital to human survival. The great Chinese guide to statecraft “The Daodejing”, authored by Laozi made similar claims. “The only person who is fit to rule is the man who has overcome the habit of selfishness.”

To quote Dao itself

“The reason there is great affliction is that I have a self.
If I had no self, what affliction would I have?
Therefore to one who honours the world as his self
The world may be entrusted,
And to one who loves the world as one’s self
The world may be consigned.”