'Identity, Freedom, Liberation' - Michael Allured - New Unity - 20th July 2025
/CHALICE LIGHTING
Each time Unitarians and Unitarian Universalists we light a chalice candle. This simple ritual connects us in solidarity and reminds us of the proud and historic progressive religious tradition of which we are a part.
(light chalice) To freedom, truth and liberty.
WORDS OF WELCOME
Welcome, friends.
Identity, freedom, liberation are medicine for the spirit. It’s a pleasure to be with you today. I invite you to walk with each other on our different journeys as we reflect on what those words mean: for they are the balm that sustains freedom and nurtures us in life – that makes all understanding possible and with it the possibility of freedom and liberation.
We are on ground made holy because of our ancestors, who have gathered here on days such as this - bringing memories, sorrows, worries and joys that make up the circle of our lives. We too draw together this morning with similar human feelings as we pause for a while and reach out to each other as part of the mystery of life.
We search for ways to ease our yearning to find meaning in our partial understanding of the nature of the unknown that some call God.
This is a moment to honour the passing of time as an affirmation of our being part of the Cosmos, connected to the past and future and living in the present.
May our hearts be connected in our strength and fragility to embrace the timeless and enduring ways of goodness and love in service to each other and our world before the mystery within and the mystery beyond.
May we be present with open minds, loving hearts and outstretched hands. May we find comfort in connection through music, literature, painting, dance. May they connect us to one another, to our shared humanity and to that which is greater than ourselves.
CALL TO COMMUNITY
Why do we gather? To find meaning through our connections. Grant us the courage to continue on the journey, the courage to speak up for the well-being of others, ourselves and the planet. May we forgive each other when our courage falls short and may we try again.
Grant us hearts to love boldly, to embody our faith and our values in living words and deeds. May our hearts be open to embrace humility, grace and reconciliation. Grant us the ability to learn and grow, to let the Spirit of Love and Truth work its transformation upon us and within us.
Grant us the spirit of hospitality, the willingness to sustain a fit dwelling place for the holy that resides in all being. Grant us a sense of being at peace in the world, even as we are in motion.
May we cultivate together the strength to welcome every kind of gift and all manner of ways to be on the journey together. (short pause)
We gather together each Sunday with hearts full of life’s sorrows and joys.
We try to make sense of life in general and our own lives in particular.
We long to find light to counter darkness, goodness to stand up to evil, generosity in place of meanness, connection and companionship, not isolation and despair, compassion over unkindness.
We long to find hope and healing poured out through the hospitality of hearts.
Spirit of the Universe of our hearts and many names be with us now.
(short pause)
We reach out with minds and hearts to all who are suffering because of war, famine, being homeless, poverty and the many other injustices and cruelties that humankind and sentient beings endure. But there is goodness in the world.
Where it is found may it be nurtured
Where it is planted may it give comfort
Where it is given away to another may it spread hope.
For all those named and unnamed we hold in our hearts I light one more candle.
(light candle).
MESSAGE
We’ve just marked Pride month when LGBTQ+ communities been able to celebrate our identity and to some extent liberation in relative freedom. Being gay can lead to the death penalty in 12 countries around the world. That’s a stark reality for many who are unlucky enough to be born in one of those countries.
And here in the West let us not be lulled into a false belief that we now live in a tolerant society. The attacks on transgender people are real: brutal and only recently, the leader of the Reform Party said that equal marriage was wrong.
So as we invite each other to consider the meaning of liberation and freedom, let us remember that liberties hard fought for and won with blood, sweat and tears can be taken away in the blink of an eye.
Some have questioned whether Pride continues to be necessary in the UK and America. It’s true, we have made huge strides. But in defence of liberty and freedom these statistics are a reminder of who isn’t free and who doesn’t have liberty:
Over 4,600 trans and gender-diverse people have been reported murdered worldwide since 2008.
In the 12 months leading up to November 2024, at least 320 trans people were killed globally.
That is the reality of our human existence. We all suffer because we bind each other and ourselves up in chains. The human race craves conformity because we as human beings crave order and control. We see greed and power grabs to aid the greed. And so it goes on as we exist physically and mentally in our physical and imaginary cages – partly held by the power of others and partly through our own fear..
In Buddhism there’s a word for this human condition: dukkha, alluding to the fundamental unsatisfactoriness of things or suffering that pervades all aspects of existence. It’s not just physical pain or emotional distress—it’s a deeper existential condition.
Dukkha is the first of Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths. Life is suffering. And the path to ending dukkha is the Eightfold Path. Acceptance and non-attachment are part of the way in that process to nirvana, to freedom and liberation of the soul.
There is much for us to learn from the Buddhist way when thinking about our own path to freedom and liberation – not of the body but of our mind, of our soul. Thich Nhat Hanh encourages us not to rush, not to fight the traffic and stop for the red light. He writes:
The red light is a bell of mindfulness. We may have thought it was preventing us from reaching our destination more quickly. But now we know the red light is our friend, helping us to resist rushing and calling us to return to the present moment, where we can meet with life and peace.
This ’monk Thich Nhat Hanh who’, according to Time Magazine, ‘taught the world mindfulness asks us to sit with the discomfort of our worries and make friends with them, calming them as we might a crying baby.
Is he suggesting to us that if we notice what’s going on its power is taken away? Is he suggesting that acceptance is the way to personal freedom and liberation from suffering: embracing ‘whatever will be will be’? I think so. Yet this path takes hard spiritual and psychological work.
Acceptance is one way to personal freedom and liberation: letting go of the things beyond our control. Developing the art of gaining perspective and realising what’s important is a parallel path. We see from our other two readings – words by Steve Jobs and Holly Butcher - that this realisation takes a lifetime and staring our mortality in the face to realise.
Acceptance is a useful lesson to learn. Yet it cannot surely be the whole answer to enlightenment, the road to personal and societal freedom and liberation? We need fight sometimes too. Another Buddhist quotation teaches us that You have to fight through some bad days to earn the best days of your life.
By all means let us accept the things we cannot change but may we also have the courage to challenge the things we cannot accept. Balance and perspective in action alongside our sitting in stillness and blessing the presence of the present moment. It is through art of balancing in life that we can at least have a chance of finding our identity and a kind of liberation and freedom.
And if that takes a lifetime of practice: starts and restarts, perhaps this widely attributed Irish proverb offers us relief and the release, if only for a while, that we need.
A good laugh and a long sleep are the two best cures for anything.
