Being Together: finding strength inside
It became clear in March that the spread of the coronavirus pandemic meant that we wouldn’t be able to go ahead with the Unitarian Annual Meetings as planned in early April.
As the situation of the pandemic developed, and lockdown loomed, we recognised that the sense of connection and community that is created at the Annual Meetings would be even more missed because of the enforced isolation we are all dealing with. It also became clear that many people beyond our usual boundaries are becoming ever more in need of a sense of community and the need to dig into inner strength, as people’s lives are turned upside down.
This is what led to us creating Being Together — three days of online worship, talks, workshops, discussion, and virtual coffee breaks. Some sessions had over 150 people taking part, and some were more intimate at 20 or so — all joining from home, mostly via Zoom, a video-conferencing tool. Some of the programme was made up of sessions that had been planned for our Annual Meetings, and some was developed specifically for Being Together — and some sessions were planned out while the event was already underway, as we identified the gaps that needed filling. One of these was the addition of ‘coffee breaks’, which we hadn’t put in the original programme, but of course are essential points of connection in any in-person meeting. These daily coffee breaks gave a chance for participants to chat to each other in ‘breakout rooms’ of four or five people, and to reflect on their experience with old friends and new faces.
Another late addition was the closing worship. We realised early on that it would be valuable to have a sense of ‘leaving’ the gathering together well. I am so grateful that Bob Janis-Dillon, Minister in Cheshire, was up for the challenge of creating a closing worship for us, along with Anna Jarvis, Eleanor Chiari and Kate McKenna. It was a beautiful close, creating a real sense of care and intimacy, showing how a depth of connection can be made, weaving threads between people hundreds of miles apart, through computer screens.
The whole of Being Together felt like a shining example of how skilful, wise, creative and caring our movement can be. I don’t think there was anyone who was totally inside their comfort zone, whether it was in dialling in to a video-conference for the first time, leading worship or meditation online, public speaking, or chatting to the random selection of people arriving in their virtual breakout room. It was beautiful.
We’re so pleased that the technology means that we are able to share the recordings of the sessions, so that those who couldn’t be there ‘live’ can dip in to the experience now. We are making the videos, recordings and other materials available on the website and on the Being Together YouTube channel (if the recording you’re after isn’t there yet, it will be in the coming week).
We started each day with meditative practice, ranging from the words and music of Hildegard von Bingen courtesy of ministry student Laura Dobson in Chorlton, to Qi Gong from Max St John in Cornwall, to loving kindness meditation from retired minister Ralph Catts in Australia.
There were some practical workshops from the GA team, including safeguarding training from Gavin Howell, and a surgery session from Simon Bland for treasurers navigating the impact of the pandemic on their congregation’s finances. If you missed these, but are interested in safeguarding training, or are looking for support in financial planning, please get in touch.
Leaders from congregations across Britain and Ireland shared their experience in panel discussions on innovation in worship, community outreach, communication, and models of ministry. These videos are highly recommended for those looking for inspiration and practical tips in how to try new things in their communities — whether it’s learning from Jane Blackall’s experience in developing Heart and Soul contemplative gatherings, Elizabeth Harley’s work sharing food via Bridport’s Community Fridge, Torry Glinwell’s Creedless gathering in Norwich, Alexis Granum’s experiments in designing rituals for climate grief, Andy Pakula’s work building local community links via the Newington Green Alliance, Mike O’Sullivan’s work with homeless people in Cork, the work of the ministry team in Kendal, or how the team at Norwich Octagon lead their congregation without a minister. And so much more beyond these!
What struck me in hearing their stories was how the work seemed strongest when the innovation was led by the individual leader’s own needs — whether it was for a depth of connection they were missing out on elsewhere, or a desire to address inequality on their doorstep.
We also had an ‘impractical workshop’, courtesy of writer, teacher and coach, Ted Munter, who led a poetry workshop exploring Wallace Stevens’ Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour, and helped us find the words to express what we mean by ‘spirit’. Ted would like to offer an invitation to Unitarians and their friends to join the online class he is developing — the Hamlet Support Group, on Wednesdays at 8pm UK time — where he will help us explore our lives through the lens of the play. (“Most famously, Hamlet asks “to be or not to be,” which is absolutely NOT the question when it comes to thinking about your life. To be or not be? The only answer is: Be.”)
The background story of pandemic was present in many of our sessions, and we explored the impact on faith communities in a panel discussion hosted by Dougald Hine, co-founder of the Dark Mountain Project and a writer exploring the arts and the sacred. I, along with my counterpart at the Quakers, Paul Parker, and Elizabeth Oldfield, Director of the think tank Theos explored how the pandemic is causing a collective re-examining of how we live well.
At the workshop on Using Your Privilege, led by Judy Ryde, author of ‘White Privilege Unmasked: how to be part of the solution’, it was clear that there was an appetite among the 70 participants to explore the issues of systemic racial inequality further, and what our roles might be in dismantling these systems.
Similar issues arose in the very rich discussion between Jo James (Minister in Leeds) and Stephen Lingwood (Minister in Cardiff) exploring Stephen’s new book ‘Seeking Paradise: a Unitarian mission for our times’, in how we might examine the way that Unitarianism has been shaped by colonial perspectives in order to find a way to address the power dynamics we move among.
I’m looking forward to seeing how, as a movement, we might explore these themes further.
Two very different highlights for me came on the Wednesday evening.
First by welcoming the Quaker writer, activist and academic Alastair McIntosh to be our keynote speaker. Over 150 of us joined for his session, and the video has been watched by over 400 people since then, tuning in to Alastair’s exploration of spiritual activism, and touching on the theology of Zoom-bombing. Shana Begum, Ministry Assistant at Rosslyn Hill chapel in London, and Claire McDonald, Minister at Lewisham Unity ran a workshop the following day for us to reflect on Alastair’s talk and consider how we might weave the ideas into how we do things in our communities.
The second Wednesday highlight, I didn’t even take part in, but was over the moon that Elizabeth Harley and assorted co-conspirators led an impromptu online disco. It seems totally fitting for the nature of our movement that someone with a vision and the need to dance can create the space for this to happen…
This is just a taste of some of the things that happened that week, and I know that some of the most valuable interactions happened behind the ‘closed doors’ of the virtual break-out rooms, where people got to weave closer relationships with each other from behind their screens.
So a huge thank you to all the participants, speakers, worship leaders, and staff members for all being part of creating such a strangely magic event.
None of us knows what the coming months will hold, but I’m glad that we’ve built some collective technological courage that will help us be together more closely over the months ahead.
