My Faith

Below is a story of my faith perspective I shared with a congregation of over 100 at the Closing Ceremony for FUSE 2014 in Worthing on the 22nd of February.

I'm going to start by saying I visited my first Unitarian service on this day in 2009. I didn't come back for another four and a half years in which time I have been on a huge journey of self acceptance a journey I'm still on so thanks in advance for listening.

All this last week I've known that today's celebration would require me to speak about my Unitarianism. And a few disparate moments have strung themselves together into a narrative to share with you today.

On Tuesday with for some reason a conversation started up on Twitter with my ex someone I broke up with just over nine years ago. I explained I'm visiting Bristol in June, where he now lives and talk of Coffee shops and the explanation of why I'm visiting led to the question from him of "pardon my ignorance, but what's a unitarian?" I realised I didn't have a useful answer, that I could condense into 140 characters... I didn't want to simply say... Me, I'm a Unitarian... And while I was fussing trying to find what to say, he said "ok. I've Wikipediad it. Seems an interesting concept". And it is an interesting concept... But it's far more than that.

The thing this is someone I started dating 14 years ago,  when I was a Roman Catholic. I'd grown up in the Catholic faith, my father is Polish and my mother, though not Catholic, herself agreed to us being raised as tiny defenders of The Faith. I wasn't, until more recently, what someone might even describe as a lapsed Catholic. I actually took my faith incredibly seriously. I wasn't on the edge of the communities I belonged to, I was, typically for me, in the middle "being noisy". In choirs, music groups, and planning committees young adult events. I was on the service reading rota. And for a time I taught in a small Catholic primary school in the suburbs of Birmingham. On several, all memorable occasions, other Catholics, I barely knew, suggested that maybe my vocation lay in "nunning". I couldn't explain in 140 characters the journey I have taken from that place to standing in front of you today and saying I'm a Unitarian. Even this time last year,  when I appeared on a video shown at the GA,  I self described as an IT Specialist,  which is my job!

The second thing I would like to talk about is Music. For me personally music has always been the most constant and centering force on my life, listening, playing, singing, making, experiencing. And something I shared with my ex (and luckily with my husband) is going to gigs and those concerts, for us, are meaningful and connecting and deep.

I have seen two great gigs this week... The band here (we used to make things) and on Wednesday a small group of amazing musicians from Portland Oregon called The Decemberists.

I heard the lyrics of the first song on Wednesday and they were:

Cause we know, we know, we belong to ya
We know you built your life around us
And would we change, we had to change some
You know, to belong to you

I was struck by the depth of philosophy in this simple slightly humorous song and how people connected with the band and each other and loved being there. Much as we did here last night.

I apologise to those who know this story or part of it, but the reason I was in a Unitarian church for the first time six years ago is my twin sister who also sings and loves music. She is a Pagan who is a Unitarian because,  as well as the acceptance of her path, she loves that we sing as part of our worship!

And in this circle drawn to accept us both as we are, loving who we love and believing as we we believe, we can stand side by side in the same place of worship and belong equally. Valued for and valuing what we actually hold dear. Which is that connection with others who are like and unlike us... And although as twins in some ways we couldn't be more alike it is how we are unlike that makes us who we are. And in Unitarianism I can comfortably be myself.

How do I feel about extremism?!

The title of this post is a serious question.

Very serious, because sometimes you can ignore events that happen in far away countries, or to people you don't know. Or that are so removed from your everyday existence that giving them a second thought takes genuine effort.

And them something happen's like last weekend's EDL march and counter march by Unite Against Facism happens. The contentious issue which has been causing debate for at least seven years is the redevelopment of a derelict ex-manufacturing site alongside the road which allows much of the local traffic to bypass the centre of the town. (The BBC carried the latest decision in November)

In Dudley. In my town. The place I grew up.

I remember Christmases, marveling in the department store in the Toy Department at the toy train that ran back and forth above the shelves.

The tiny "world famous" sweet shop, the chemists, the supermarket, the fountain, the market, visiting the shoe shop to be fitted for new shoes.

The BBC carries the story the day after the march with two pictures 

And I have stood there, I have walked those streets, I have driven my car those corners, I have visited those shops.

I feel deeply, but I can't put what I feel into soundbite. And there are those who would say I don't have a right to an opinion. I'm not Muslim, so why would I care about the right of those from that faith to build a place of worship and I'm not English/Anglo-Saxon/Local. Go back about three generations back in my family you've covered most of the UK and also a significant geographical area around two of the largest cities in Poland.

But it's still my town.

A place, that for all it's faults, I still love. I love the people, I love the quirky 1960s architecture of the pedestrian bridge, I love the fact that we have a real genuine historic castle! I love our crazy accent and dialect.

I even moved back here, I brought my husband down here from Scotland. I work for a local health trust because I believe that local people deserve high quality care, all local people, from whatever racial, social-economic or religious background.

We don't get a lot of love from the rest of the UK, from politicians, from those who mock: our accent, our local food, our bare and decaying high street, our poor housing, our aging and increasingly ailing population.

But love is exactly what we need. It's not as simple as being on the correct side or opposing something... we need to start loving.

We need to love our town, we need to be able to take pride in it.

We need to love our neighbours, and recognize and celebrate our commonality.

All many of us could do during the march was stay away. I chose to stay home, as much as I would have liked to show some civic pride, show some resistance to extremism. Previous protests have resulted in violence and damage. And as much as I value my freedom, support liberty and the right to protest those sort of stories make me quite afraid. No one wants violence... and in the event their was none.