Confessions of a New Unitarian

In the last couple of months before leaving Cheshire, there were a lot of goodbyes. In people’s homes, in coffee shops, in two universities and in church there were more goodbyes to be made than I’d realised. Whilst living in Crewe, it turned out I knew a lot of really nice people. By the time I’d done my round of goodbyes I was heartily wishing I’d done more helloing over the past few years. ‘Helloing’ isn’t a verb, of course, but in future I hope to get better at it anyway. It’s not a good state of affairs when you find yourself saying, ‘It’s a shame we haven’t seen each other in a couple of years but I thought I’d pop in to say goodbye.’ That’s like waking the sleeping patient to give them sleeping pills. Wake up! It’s time to go to sleep! Surely that is not what friendship is about. As an escape from the trauma of packing and trying to sell a very reasonably priced and luxurious house (see Rightmove for further details), Tracey and I took a drive to Liverpool and ended up o

A few years ago, I was doing some research on the Primitive Methodist movement in the United States and was amused by this rather serious editorial from the Primitive Methodist Journal: With some of the readers of the Journal the morning of their existence is gone, with others the noon has passed, while with others the night is at hand. Spring time has gone, the summer sun is setting, autumn days are passing, and the white frosts of life's winter has covered some of our heads. We sincerely wish the readers of the Journal a merry Christmas and a happy new year. There is something about this time of year that makes people serious and reflective. Christmas has now gone and any new year celebrations we had are behind us. Maybe that makes us sad or maybe we're relieved, maybe it was stressful. We have been through the indigestion of Christmas and we welcome the high-fibre, low-fat possibilities of a new year. I have long thought of January as a time of re-in