Being Brave

A service titled ‘Being Brave’, led by Rev. Sarah Tinker, with readings given by Liz Tuckwell and Brian Ellis, and music from Katie Taunton and Andrew Robinson.

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SPEAKER_01 2:56

As we enter into worship, let's put away for a while the pressures of the world that ask us to perform, to take up masks, to put on brave fronts. Let's silence the voices that ask us to be perfect. This is a community of compassion and welcoming. We don't have to do anything to earn the love contained within these walls. We don't have to be better, smarter, stronger, or braver than we are in this moment. To belong here with us. So let's bring all that we are and all that we love to this hour together. Let us worship together. So good morning. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to this Sunday gathering with Kensington Unitarians here at Essex Church. A congregation that for over 250 years has been encouraging people to think for themselves and to find a spiritual and religious path that speaks to them. A community that gives us space to be ourselves. So thanks for coming and joining us here today, both here in person in Notting Hill, and those of you joining us on Zoom. If we've not met before, I'm Sarah Tinker. I was minister with this congregation a while back now, and I'm always happy to be back with this community. And can I give a special welcome to anyone listening to this service sometime in the future on a podcast or via the Kensington Unitarians YouTube channel? I hope life is treating you well. I've created this service today as an exploration of bravery, of courage and resilience in our human lives. And as always, we're going to hear different perspectives in poetry and song, and there'll be time in stillness for our own thoughts. There's no Unitarian view of being brave, and we could spend a whole day exploring what these words mean to each of us. But we've only got an hour together. So do feel free to bring your own thoughts and your own meaning to this topic today. I've laid this chalice of flame to shine a light upon the brave souls that established this as a place where people could worship in peace and freedom. A chance to be who they truly are. So we might just be singing this for me. It's called When the Knights Won Their Spurs in the Stories of Old. It's got some lovely poetic language, and some language that just makes me smile now. There is reference to a charger, which, you know, to anybody uh born in the 21st century will be something involving a wire and a plug in some way, and not a marvellous uh uh horse to ride. So for those joining on Zoom, the words are going to be up on the screen. Feel free with all the singing today to sit or stand as you prefer. Let's sing of Knights of Old and Their Bravery. People here in the church have got this on their green slip, and I'm not sure if it'll uh appear on screens, but if this speaks to you and you're on Zoom, just send me a message and I'll get the words of this to you later today. Because it I don't know, it just really spoke to me when I found it. It's written by Tess Ward, who's an Anglican priest. Um she's written a marvellous book called The Celtic Wheel of the Year that I have used a lot, and this is an invocation for courage. Healing spirit, midwife of my newness and growth. Attend the fresh shoots of my emerging as I set foot this day. Heal my birthing soul when I pass through the ring of fire and broken waters on my journey through this world. Fuse my backbone metal with your courage, as I stand against all that is unjust. Craft my words that they might meld heart and mind and mend with fiery precision. Befriend my creaturely ways, that I might be friend to all your creatures that share our precious planet. Create in me a prophetic eye that I might see the new thing you are doing this day and have vision for tomorrow. Healing spirit, be with me as I walk this new day. Now let us pray. For our world with all its grievous troubles. Our hearts ache for those suffering through violence. In Gaza and the West Bank. In Ukraine, Sudan and Iran. As well as the people of Venezuela who are dealing with the aftermath of the recent earthquakes. And all places where violence rules. May the spirit of love and compassion touch all whose hearts are hardened or despairing. May the spirit of peace and possibility whisper its healing message in the ears of all whose only response is violence. And in a shared time of silence now, let us pray for all who are suffering and include in our prayers all living beings with whom we share our precious planet Earth home. Those who dedicate their lives to finding solutions to the most difficult of situations. And for the medics who seek to heal the wounded sometimes in the hardest of circumstances. May they be inspired and strengthened in their work. May they be protected and supported in all that they do. At times many of us feel that we are living in a far too complex world. With too many issues calling for our attention and so much that is seemingly irresolvable. Life is confusing and we make mistakes. When we find ourselves in a mess, may we slow down and reconsider. May we discover once again the simplicity of stillness and balance that quiet, calm center in the midst of all hustle and bustle of our inner and our outer world. To be human is to be at times confused and bewildered. So may we remember that when we are about to judge other people all or ourselves and resolve to be a little kinder than we might sometimes be. So let us take time now in quietness for our own thoughts and prayers, for those we love, for the aspects of life that are troubling us, for all that we are carrying this day. And may this be so for the greater good of all beings. So may it be Amen. So we get to sing together again now. If you have a look, if you're here in church at um hymn number 88 in this purple book, you'll see that it's called Let It Be a Dance with words and music by Rick Maston. And Rick was a fine folk singer and composer, and in this song he's using the metaphor of dance to express the circle of life with its good and its bad times, with the darkness and the light that need each other in order to exist. Let's sing and let it be a dance.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

This reading by Jean Olson comes from a Unitarian Universalist book called Becoming: a Spiritual Guide for Navigating Adulthood. The book is described as a spiritual companion for young adults and all who live amid transitions and tensions. Dozens of carefully selected readings address themes that are prominent for people in their twenties and early thirties. Except perhaps the line about graffiti, and most of us have perhaps left it too late to get into that as a hobby. May you speak your deepest truths, knowing that they will change as you do. May you sing the music within you, composing your own melody, playing your song with all your heart. May you draw, paint, sculpt, and sew, showing the world your vision. May you write letters, poetry, biography, slogans, a graffiti, the great novel, laying bare your words to love and hate. May you love even though your heart breaks again and again. And until the end of your days, may your life be filled with possibilities and courage.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

Thank you, Liz. So we're moving into the time of meditation in this service now. And I've called this meditation words of encouragement we have heard. Words of encouragement we have heard. And my suggestion is, if you wish, to think of the word itself. Encourage. You know, that way that other people can really inspire and influence us to be of good heart, to find our inner strength, our inner wellsprings of maybe. I think it's one of those special acts that we humans can actually perform for one another. But don't we all go through times of doubt and uncertainty? And just sometimes, just sometimes when we are wavering, there is someone who offers a helping hand or a steadying arm, someone who lifts us up in some way and reminds us of our capabilities and encourages us to take that necessary next step. So after a few words to lead us into meditation, we'll hold uh a few minutes in silence together and then we'll hear a fine piece of music from our musicians. And I'm probably going to get my pronunciation wrong, but this is a meditation from Thais by Matine that we'll be hearing. It's a beautiful piece. Very pleased you chose that. So as as we move into a time of meditation, uh, you might like to adjust your position a little, get as comfy as you can in your seat or wherever you are. Maybe enjoy straightening a bit or feel your feet upon the floor, connecting you with the earth itself. Enjoying a deepening breath, perhaps. No need to force it in any way, just allowing the body to breathe as it will. That gentle rhythm taking us a bit deeper. Making space for an inner journey, if you like, where we can explore in our own way. Maybe thinking of the people who have encouraged us in some way in life. The people who've helped us tap into our own reserves of bravery when that's what's needed. And we'll share this fellowship of silence together in this peaceful place, and the silence will end with a chime from our belly.

SPEAKER_02 33:52

And it's become very popular on social media for its gentle message of dealing with life's difficult times by taking small steps. It's a useful message for all of us who can feel overwhelmed by life's demands or by our own contradictory impulses. I wonder what small steps you encourage yourself to take in life when you start to feel a bit stuck. This is a poem. My grandmother once gave me a tip. In difficult times, you move forward in small steps. Do what you have to do, but little by little. Don't think about the future or what may happen tomorrow. Wash the dishes. Remove the dust or write a letter. Make some soup. You see? You're advancing step by step. Take a step and stop. Rest a little. Praise yourself. Take another step, then another. You won't notice, but your steps will grow more and more. And the time will come when you can think about the future without crying.

SPEAKER_01 35:43

Thank you, Brian. And we get to sing again now. It's um it's quite a meditative hymn based on words of comfort and faith written by St. Teresa of Avila. So I suggest we stay seated for this one. It's hymn 106 in the purple book. It's called Nothing Distress You. Nothing Afright You. Beautiful long competition pool, a huge curved wooden roof, and at one end a separate diving pool. And at the time when I swim, the diving pool is used each week by professional divers for their practice session. And so I get to watch them take truly heroic dives. Just imagine for a moment, you know that very high concrete platform that you get in a diving pool, the very tall one, and they stand backwards on that concrete diving platform. They fall backwards, they somersault several times before they enter the water at such speed and at such such a perfect angle, they make hardly a ripple. It is an astonishing level of skill. And I would say bravery. But then that's because I've been scared of diving into water ever since I bounced off a springboard as a child. You know, the boingy ones, which are the lowest level. I hit the water all wrong. And I managed to now best not listen to this if you are of a squeamish nature. But I bounced, I dived, I hit the water terribly wrong, and it is possible then to turn your eyelids a bit inside out. And it's the most excruciating, horrible thing that even now makes me feel quite queasy. It was agony. And that painful experience, that physical experience, put a stop to my diving career just like that. So I imagine really that each of us has some aspect of life that we avoid out of fear or lack of confidence. Diving into water is frankly just one of many things that activities that I avoid. And of course, counterbalancing that, we each have our own particular area of enjoyment and even expertise, where others might see us as brave. But we know that we're doing something that is meaningful, valuable to us, or or something that simply comes naturally to us. See, bravery and courage mean different things, don't they, to different people. There's a saying, isn't there, that goes something like, be kind, because you never know what hard battle another person is fighting. Sometimes we are so debilitated by what life is throwing our way that all we can do is take those small steps that that Russian writer Elena Mikhailkova describes in the poem that we heard earlier on. In difficult times you move forward in slow steps, small steps. Do what you have to do, but little by little. Don't think about the future or what might happen tomorrow. Wash the dishes, remove the dust, write a letter, make soup. There's bravery expressed in each of those small steps for me. There's bravery in accepting how little control many of us have over what life brings our way. Life just does what it does. And sometimes the only control we have is in how we respond to life. And when life becomes very difficult, something sometimes all that we can do is to accept, to accept that this is what it is. This is the phase of life we are now in. That kind of acceptance, it takes some courage. We're living, many of us, lives that we know to be privileged, and yet still we can be assailed by anxiety and uncertainty. For these are not stable times in which we're living. The affairs of our world seem far from steady or secure. We wonder what is around the corner next in international politics. Child about to go swimming. And underneath there is a quotation from the author Romaine Rowland. There is only one heroism in the world. To see the world as it is and to love it. Now I doubt that that is the only heroism, but that quote did make me think. Because it speaks of those those qualities of faith and hope that require us to face what truly is. And despite everything that we know to be wrong, still to love and accept our world as it is. Still work towards the righting of wrongs, still protest against injustice, still aim for greater equality. And when our own lives feel tough, when we doubt our own wellsprings of courage, we can perhaps be inspired to be something greater by the examples of others, by those who have faced life in brave and even heroic ways. But I wonder who inspires you. I asked some friends to name people they admired for their bravery. And three names kept getting mentioned. I wonder if they speak to you too. Rosa Parks, who sat on that bus in 1955 and refused to give her seat to a white person, and became a leader in the civil rights movement in the States. Nelson Mandela, who endured 27 years of imprisonment and emerged in 1990 still with compassion in his heart and a really quiet determination to bring South Africa's apartheid regime to an end. And the third one who is mentioned is Malala Yousafzai, who at the age of 15 was shot in an assassination attempt by the Taliban for speaking up for the education of girls and women. Oh, and blime, I admire her bravery in continuing to be a public voice for the women who are silenced despite ongoing threats that are regularly apparently made against her. I think sometimes we can imagine channeling that bravery that others have shown, sort of bringing their example into ourselves to encourage us to go boldly forward, to take those difficult next steps. And I know that some of us here also have that sense of a divine presence within us and beyond us, uh the God of our hearts and understanding that something greater than ourselves that we can call on to accompany us as we walk difficult pathways in life. So I wonder who or what helps you to feel brave when you're facing life's challenging times. And let's remember that bravery and fear, they're not opposites, are they? They're not either this or that qualities that we have to choose between. No, no, they exist together. The Buddhist teacher and writer, Pemma Shodram, I think puts it really well uh in her book, Things Fall Apart. This is such a great book title, Things Fall Apart. Heart advice for difficult times. And in that book, Pemma writes, The next time you encounter fear, consider yourself lucky. This is where the courage comes in. Usually we think that brave people have no fear, but the truth is they are intimate with fear. Now I can't leave this topic of being brave without mentioning some of bravery's negatives. Don't we shudder when we hear the ways in which the exhortation to be brave is used to encourage youngsters to sign up in times of war. It's perhaps understandable, but it's still shocking. And what's even more repellent to me is the way that the word coward has been hurled at youngsters who choose not to fight in war, those who will not take up arms against a fellow human being. To be a conscientious objector and refuse to enlist surely requires true bravery. The bravery to go against the social mores of one's time and stand in said for what one knows to be morally correct for them. I think another small example of the negative side of bravery is when someone shares their own fears with another person, and instead of having their feelings supported, they're met with an unsupportive response. You know, the kind of, come on, man up, don't cry, could be worse. Others have it worse than you, etc. etc. etc. I imagine many of us have had those kind of words said to us at one time or another. Said by someone who's perhaps trying to be helpful, but who is really invalidating the feelings of anxiety that have just been expressed. And it's tricky, this, isn't it? It's not as straightforward because it is part of any friendship, surely, to encourage one another to keep going and to step out into the unknown. And let's be people with a sensitivity to let others be truthful in expressing their feelings of fear and cowardice. And to say that it really is okay to stay under the duvet sometimes. It's not easy to live life, is it? Being the conscious and the aware creatures that we are. So come on, let's cut each other some slack when we can. Let's recognise that we can't always go boldly in life. Small steps or no steps are sometimes all we can achieve. And yet let's also be great encouragers of ourselves and one another, cheering from the sidelines or walking alongside, helping one another to travel courageously, walking our own particular and unique path in life. So I'm looking forward to hearing of the small steps that you take to help yourself get going again when life feels struck, as well as the brave and bold steps you've made at times in life. For every life is surely made of both small steps and bold steps, as well as occasional splashes of water when we tumble into a swimming pool. Amen. And we've got a lovely rousing, closing hymn now, which is uh 181 in the hymn books or on our screens. It's called Wake Now, My Senses, and it's old favourite. Um, and we're singing it not to the tune in the book but to a well-known tune. Thank you. My thanks as always go to lovely Ramona for hosting at the back, and for you, Aisha, who are co-hosting. Thank you to Katie and Andrew and Edwin for great music today. Um, thanks to our readers, Liz and Brian and Juliet for greeting, and Liz for making coffee. If you stay, if you're online, do stay and have a chat with Aisha, and do stay here in church if you'd like to for a cuppa and uh some good conversation. Um so we've got notices on the order of service sheet, and they've gone out in the weekly email, but just a few things that aren't happening because the numbers are a bit lower at the moment. Um Sunday evening, tonight's heart and soul won't be happening, but the invitation is for you to enjoy Heart and Soul on uh Friday instead when the theme is blossoming, and just sign up with Jane for that, and that's Ditto for the uh Wednesday evening heart and soul. It's hard to know whether to run things at the moment because I know people are struggling with the heat. So if you want to come on Wednesday, do come because it'll be lovely and it's cool in the uh library. And um, so let Jane know you're coming on Wednesday soon. Um and we're not going to run the uh Better World Book Club this week because quite a few of the regulars are away. So you can think ahead for the end of August's book, which is upstream by Dan Heath. And the book Calling In. There'll definitely be an evening discussion of that sometime in the future. I know Liz is collecting um sign-ups for the congregational lunch on the 26th of July. And um, let her know what you're going to be bringing. Next Sunday, your Minister Jane will be back here leading the flower communion. Do bring a flower if you can get hold of one, and if you're going to be online, I think the meditation will be nice if you've got a flower to be with you for that. And there are loads of things happening next Sunday here, so definitely worth coming along to church for the flower communion. Then there's yoga with Hannah, there's the Craftanoon, and the Gaza Quilting Project is ongoing. So all of those are really worth joining in. And um, yeah, thank you to all of you who keep this congregation in touch with one another, it really matters. So it's just time now for our closing words and our then our closing music, a piece of bark. Words by the Unitarian Minister Robert Ross. For all who see God, may God go with you. For all who embrace life, may life return your affection. For all who seek a right path, may a way be found and the courage to take it step by step. Amen.