So What?

It seems after just two entries, this blog has attracted some readers. I really appreciated those people who read the 'Strangers in a Strange Land' entry and got in touch to tell me about their experiences as Methodist-Unitarians, Catholic-Unitarians, Pagan Unitarians and so on. It is really good to hear so many parallel stories.

However, by far the most read blog entry so far has been 'The Letter' which by pure coincidence I uploaded at the time of the British Methodist Conference. Somehow word got around, and suddenly I had lots of Methodist readers and a lengthy discussion took place on the UK Methodists Facebook page about whether it would have been appropriate for me to stay in the Methodist Church. For the most part, people's comments were polite and helpful and I was tempted to join in the conversation, for I had a few hopefully constructive things to say about the points raised. However, in the end I did not enter into correspondence because I thought there was a danger of me being all about highlighting differences rather than areas of commonality. Confirmation that I was right about this came when one Methodist referred to these pages as 'that infamous Unitarian blog.' In writing this blog my intention is not to be controversial, offend Methodists, or for that matter, anyone else. I am just trying to give an authentic account of my own journey, theological inconsistencies and all. I am happy to say that there was only one openly hostile reference to this blog on the UK Methodists Facebook page, and I am sure it was lack of thought rather than real malice that provoked it, but it was a strong enough signal for me to withdraw to the relative safety of a new project.

A little over a week ago I took a service and with all this controversy around me I wanted it to be as inclusive as possible. From time to time, I am in the habit of preparing service material by virtual committee. I send out an e-mail asking a fairly basic question and whatever results come back are used in the service. What is great about this is that it involves people of different faiths and no particular faith; it has been my experience that people enjoy contributing to the service and are usually curious to discover how it turned out.

You probably won't be excited to discover that on this occasion I was drawing on my experiences as a Study Skills Advisor at Chester University and in the 'virtual committee' section of the service I referred to the fact that very often when university students write poor essays, it is apparent that they don't really have a point. I tell them that one of the ultimate academic questions is 'so what?' This is not just an academic question, of course,  but something most of us ask ourselves at different times and in different ways throughout our lives. So what? Why am I here? What's the point? It is a theme memorably and poetically expressed in the book of Ecclesiastes. How on earth this little gem made it into the Old Testament I don't know. It feels curiously modern and the kind of angst expressed by its author is recognisable by most people who know what it is to have a bad day:


Everything Is Meaningless

1 The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem:
2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!”
    says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
    Everything is meaningless.”
3 What do people gain from all their labors
    at which they toil under the sun? 
4 Generations come and generations go,
    but the earth remains forever. 
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
    and hurries back to where it rises. 
6 The wind blows to the south
    and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
    ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea,
    yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
    there they return again. 
8 All things are wearisome,
    more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing, 
    nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again,
    what has been done will be done again; 
    there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,
    “Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
    it was here before our time.
11 No one remembers the former generations, 
    and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
    by those who follow them.
(NIV version, taken from http://www.biblegateway.com)

Was the teacher right? Is it all meaningless? To prepare this part of the service, I sent out an appeal to friends on Facebook asking them to e-mail me examples of the kind of things that bring meaning to their lives and I collated the results into a PowerPoint which I uploaded onto the internet today. It will become apparent that this is not how it was delivered in church and I apologise for the in-jokes (meant to entertain friends) and my garbled delivery which was a result of working with unfamilar technology whilst full of cold.

It was noticeable that very few people used overtly 'religious' language to describe examples of where they found meaning. However, the themes of belonging, thanksgiving for the world and its wonders, and service to others that most people wrote about are the familiar staples of most religious traditions so let us not lose sleep. The world has not lost its moral compass!

You might not find anything particularly radical in the video below (split into two because of YouTube length restrictions) but it is interesting to note that many people were able to participate in this service without going to church at all.

So What? Video Part 1

So What? Video Part 2


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