Reply to an atheist

This is a recent service.   WE have a set of CDs to sing the hymns to when the organist is away and these were used.

Welcome and notices 

Announce that it is a different order of service with moments of silence for reflection about a minute each time.

Chalice lit

HYMN No 3  We sing the joy of living 2:1

Meditation

‘Sit quietly and focus on this service - tune into its history - the prayers and celebrations of generations before ours  - a place that has provided comfort and reassurance.    A place to find peace of mind.

Prayer + Lords Prayer (spoken)

In a world that is so busy, so time consuming, making so many demands, pulling this way and then that, it is difficult to find time for God.

In a world that seems so full of unfairness, full of wars and attacks on the innocent, it is difficult to understand God.

In a world where people escape into refugee camps and have to stay in them for years; in a world where many are starving and many are malnourished, it is difficult to understand God.

In a world where religion causes conflict, where religion breeds hate for people and contempt, it is difficult to understand God.

In a world like this it is difficult to keep faith in God.  When prayer seems to mean nothing, when hope is displaced by despair, it is easy to turn away and look nowhere.

In our prayer let us remember that the search for God begins within - within ourselves.  It begins by making a space in the busy world and pausing in it - letting nothing but peace and a serene light diffuse into it.  It is here, within, within the silence that knowledge of God begins to return.

Such knowledge brings comfort and understanding.

In the chaos of the world we can begin to walk in the light and know what it means to be a true person in touch with God.  Our prayer seeks to take us on a journey towards a knowledge of God.

AMEN

Lords Prayer

Our Father, which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name.
Thy Kingdom come.
Thy will be done in earth,
As it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive them that trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,The power, and the glory, For ever and ever.

Amen.

Silence

Candles of concern

HYMN No 155 Be true, be lively 2:16

Story     The Simonstown Stallion - about a woman who was always positive no matter how her found fortune dwindled

Silence

HYMN No 133 How can I keep from singing 4.9

Reading   Robert Fulgum ‘All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten'

Silence

HYMN No 177  Community, supporting friends 4:14

Address

I lead a small meditation group.   We usually meet about once a month.  The session consists firstly of us just sitting quietly,   there may be some gentle music playing.    We close our eyes and try to breathe gently and evenly.  

And try to empty our heads of every day thoughts but what usually happens is that your mind does the complete opposite fills up with them - all sorts of things - things you’ve forgotten to do; things you should be doing, people you need to talk to.  They just race round - and we say,  ‘Let them!  Don’t take them on’.    Don’t chase them.    In time the thoughts will fade and you are left with a feeling of stillness and calmness and peacefulness.   We call it centring down.

Then we might practice using our minds - concentrating on colours or on healing, or visualising the scenes as a descriptive piece is read.

We like to think that these exercises help us to know ourselves better; they help us to be more tolerant of life and to be more compassionate.

It is developing concentration and mindfulness.

The ideal of meditation is live in a state of equanimity - of balance.    

It is an ideal - but trying to achieve it is much better than not trying at all.

In Buddhism, such a state of equanimity or balance leads to a feeling of happiness and joy - joy in everything,  joy in the joy of others,  is a phrase I like.

The end point of Buddhist meditation is nirvana - to lose ones own sense of self importance or ego  and to be absorbed in the dharma.    The dharma is the divinity of the whole world,  the divinity in everything.  We understand the dharma to mean that everything is sacred and everything should be treated with respect - from the laying hen we imprison in a cage, to the people we struggle to rub along with on a daily basis.  

All life is sacred and life is joyful and we are part of it.

We are all connected to each other through the dharma - we are all one with everything else.

This is what Carl Jung called the universal consciousness that exists within our own unconscious minds.   Jung said we suppress this universal by believing that our own egos are more important and better informed.

We have a Hindu lady in the group and at the end of our quiet hour she always says, ‘Now read something from Krishnamurti !’

I have a book by Krishnamurti called ‘The Book of Life’.   There are 365 pages with a reading for every day of the year.

Krishnamurti was an Indian gentleman who was educated and trained so that he could take over the leadership of the Theosophists in the 1930s.   At the end of his training, he said, ‘No Thanks’ to the Theosophists and took up a career of lectures and writing.   The Book of Life is described as a profound collection of insights.   He thought it was his finest work and used to say to his audiences - why do you want to be students of books when you can be students of life? 

I usually read what he has written for the date we meet - but not always.   Because some of the readings are so profound that we don’t actually know what he is talking about - so I find another which we can discuss.

What really sparked a debate was the reading for the 16^th December, the date  we last met.

 

Do you know what religion is?  It is not the chant; it is not the performance of puja, or any other ritual.  It is not in the worship of tin gods or stone images, it is not in the temples or churches, it is not in the reading of the Gita or Bible, it is not in the repeating of a sacred name or in the following of some other superstition invented by men.  None of this is religion.

Religion is the feeling of goodness, that love which is like the river, living, moving everlastingly.  In that state you will find there comes a moment when there is no longer any search at all and this ending of search is the beginning of something totally different.

The search for God, for truth, the feeling of being completely good - not the cultivation of goodness. Of humility but the seeking out of something beyond the inventions and tricks of the mind, which means having a feeling for that something, living in it, being it - that is true religion.

But you can do that only when you leave the pool you have dug for yourself and got out into the river of life.

Then life has an astonishing way of taking care of you, because there is no taking care on your part.

Life carries on where it will because you are part of it yourself; and there is no problem of security, of what people say or don’t say, and that is the beauty of life.

From The Book of Life  by Krishnamurti

It seemed quite inspirational to me - ‘to get out of that pond we have dug for ourselves and go out into the river of life’

It made me ask, ‘What then is the purpose of religion?’  And ‘Can you reach that state of goodness and be in that river of life without ever having a religion?’

The answer to the second part is, ‘Of course’    There are many many people who we would call good and are joyful in the river of life without ever having been near a church.   I always think they were born with that higher consciousness and didn’t have to search for it.

To me the purpose of religion should be to help us reach into that river of life.    Religion should be a process as effective as any meditation course.

It seemed to tell me that the problem with many religions is that they create a pond away from the river of life and they don’t want anyone to leave it..   

They teach that religion is submitting to an authority and renouncing the joy of life - simply be pond joyful and not life joyful.

For many people their church, their pond is a spiritual comfort zone.   In the pond where you can have all your rituals and worship the gods you know.   You know what you believe and you know what everyone else in the pond believes as well.

Our Hindu lady once had a very sad time in her life - and it was her connection to the temple, the performance of rituals and homage to the Goddess Durga that helped her to get through it.   

To my mind, religion should be a stepping stone to that river of life where you know who you are and you feel part of the sacred divinity of all things.

Religions can give structures; they can teach about morality and ethics, they can teach the meaning of love in its giving sense and use their mythologies and histories to explain them and to inspire us to think more about who we are and what is the purpose of life - but if it stops there and the rules restrict people thinking about what they believe, and what is the purpose of it then it’s life in the pond only and no more.

There are religions that say God can only be pleased by the performance of rituals in every aspect of daily life - that non observance will incur a punishment from God - or worse still, God will disappear from them.

There are religions with many gods who have powers both to bless and to hinder their followers.    But their scriptures are a code that tells you how to achieve union with the supreme God - and that does lead into the river of life.

I was listening to the radio in the car one afternoon.   The next programme was the afternoon service from some cathedral or other - and I reached to turn it off - but then paused and listened to it.    The music was beautiful, the singing was quite sublime - almost ethereal -  I wish the words had all been in latin and then I wouldn’t have understood them and fought against them.  

I listened to the scripture readings and then to them saying the Apostles creed.   The only way it could make sense of it all would be to treat it as a mystical religion - with its priests all dressed up and chanting words that meant something quite different to their literal meaning - then they could be describing that spiritual journey to higher consciousness - the journey from awareness through suffering to enlightenment.   It is not a history at all.

In the pond of the Christian church there is a tendency to celebrate the negative - to rejoice in the sin and the guilt and unworthiness - but the New Testament teaching is about overcoming them, leaving them behind and being released into the light of life.

To me religion is two things - it is that community where I am welcomed and feel safe.   Where I can practice my religion - reinforce it through the worship and rituals, where I feel safe to explore and challenge the guidelines of belief - and where I feel happy and where I feel joyful.  Where I can regain my footing when life knocks me off a stepping stone.

The second is my personal religion - where I can say that to me God is that river of life which I can live in joyfully.    Where my prayers are not to a God person or an organisation,  asking for this or that benefit - but are a personal or collective plea made into the river of life - that stream of the universal consciousness - or the dharma.   To me the river of life is beyond and higher than the gods of scriptures.      My religion is a universal religion where everything is sacred and everything is respected.

I have to admit I am a lucky one - I have my meditation and I have my religion - but I am aware that there are many many people in this modern age who have neither - there is a need in them for that river and they are looking for a pond to start in.    We have seen that.    Maybe some will end up in our pond with our meditation and our universal religion.   I hope so. They might if we tell them about it.

Silence

Prayer

In silence let our spirits float; float on a feeling of love; of loving and being loved; of caring about and being cared for.  Let our love reach out to all the people we care about.  Let our hearts absorb the love we know others have for us.

In the silence let our spirits begin to fill with joy and contentment, send joyful thoughts with our love, and feel the contentment of loving.

In the silence let our spirits fill with the joy of seeing the beautiful in the natural world - of mountains, forests and lakes, of the open country and the ocean beyond the shore; of birds and animals and the flowers.

In the silence let our spirits feel a power that is within everything; that is part of our love; that is part of our being loved; that is part of the natural world we revere.

Let us connect to that power that is both within and without; call it what we will, see it as we might.  Let us take its strength and let us give it strength.  We pray to be connected always to that power.

Silence

Collection

HYMN   209   Wonders still the world shall witness 2:22

Benediction

Let us go in peace.  May we enjoy our lives, live for the present more than anything else.  Honour our families and our friends and feel the blessings that life brings to us.

May God bless each one of us and may we share those blessings in the world

Chalice extinguished