These are a selection of snippets from the first days at Unitarian College Manchester, from arrival to settling in. When I write I do so in the first person, I convert reports from he to me/ my. However, actual quotes in "quotes" retain the third person.
I met my first equivalent 'Sea of Faither' today, a visitor and ex-college student now on internment. He was saying fucking this and fucking that, and that we all, G, me, this D and the Singapore chap... were all eyeing the talent. He's the equivalent in that he said you can't be an atheist and the Baptist chap I know at the S of F can't be if he just takes his values seriously. Paul Tillich. He was objective, I said. "Well, the subjective end." G said he says Jesus is nearer God, but added, "and all that shit." The Singapore bloke said it's good to have people like G in the college to make it more sane...
...some in the URC secretly had meetings and drew a letter about Unitarians being heretics expunged in the 4th century...
...What I wondered is how this D could perform and he said he just says the usual tradition and that "poetry" can be quite moving. But the Singapore chap (he's white, worked there) didn't see them easily be ministers and no way is D looking forward to it, a life of it.
...In the denominational time [the tutor] interviewed me and H. Except that he told a string of funny stories. H said he knows G and got stick for it in raising objections to aspects of the core curriculum. He said G, V and KA [Unitarian] went around together and were called 'the Celtic Fringe'. I said that this Baptist is a classical Unitarian and yet KA is an Arian. Yes he is ~ thus we were discussing Lindsey and Priestley...
But whilst there was this depth, and such like me saying yes Arianism stayed a while but came to the Presbyterians later than the Anglicans, with H it was very different. A [tutor] already said we should be taken separately and this is so. it was confirmed. H knows his church and that's it.
...I said to G about being approached to do Federation worship. My response was that first principle is that I do nothing against my conscience. The question is whether, I said, I pass on tasks I don't agree with to others or if [then] there is an implication of collective involvement. What does it involve? [I'd asked] I said the answer [before] was morning and evening prayers and I'd help giving the cup and bread. "That's out," I'd said. So I said to G [Principal], who heard all this, that it is a bit absurd. We don't know about B ... but N isn't going and if we don't he's left there without students supporting him [and] it is a bit absurd.
So, secret 2, he said he's going because they may set up an "LEP" and we could not join that. I explained to H waht an LEP is, that it is the answer to the failure of ecumenism from the 1960's and the idea is that if it is done locally where compatible it'll hold up. And it dawned on me, so I said it, that this would be a beacon to other churches, "a whoopee". So G suddenly said he's glad I'm here because he can see the politics of it all which doesn't interest him. There was a follow up comment though that they might throw it out.
...He thought an LEP [was] totally out because also the Quakers would not accept it. I said this was in The Inquirer. But I mustn't say anything about an LEP so I said I'll keep mum.
...The outing was very good ~ warm, slighly muggy and with the URC. G [Principal], H and me in G's car, and URC in some cars. ...
So these URCs, including the fundies - one was the one who is Welsh and preached about the cross to excess the other day on tape - looked at the church to start with. A descendent of the Greg family gave us a quickie of the history.
...the 6 pm Sunday indicates a lousy congregation. It is a very pretty church and that creates a good business in weddings. The minister checks that the previous marriage has irrevocably broken down but it is right to remarry them, she reckoned. The church is now owned by the National Trust who have done maintenance ~ but a cost of that is that the organ must not have replacement plastic keys for where there was ivory missing.
My reaction to all this is that we are living in a peculiar historical period when churchgoing is collapsing. It has lost relevance, and doing say a Buddhist style meditation might be a way to create an alternative. I reckon that we might do a service but follow with something very different which involves sitting around, new music and so on. Perhaps a bar of a kind with drinks available 9would have to be non-alcoholic).
And we went from there to the mill, where on the one hand Greg provided a nice locality and some workers' service welfare and on the other hand ran what I called a rural Colditz...
I find museums ambiguous and would have preferred to sit and watch the cows.
......And this big steeple lay ahead of me and it was it. A huge place, nothing less, and of course a wedding was going on (and on). The village green feeling is ruined by the road...
...I saw MC [a minister] sat in a rather old and rusting car. Someone was talking and she said she had to go. But she spoke to me saying, in puzzlement, that he'd said she'd baptized some child. I said I'd come to look, that I'm taking a service there some time... Any tips? Shout? [I asked]. No, project my voice. What to avoid - theology? They'd call themselves Christian; she said she'll go four fifths of the way as long as they go one fifth. She said they are a tolerant bunch but missing not having a minister. Treat them warmly. If I do anything strange then a service order is a good idea so they can follow it.
She asked if I am settling down at UCM. "Sort of," I said. I was asked where tomorrow [I said nowhere and suggested her church]... There she said it is the same gothic style, but thankfully smaller ("Like painting the Forth Bridge," she called Monton), and she said I'd be very welcome there.
In the Somerville room [her church] isn't among the leaflets/ mags so I don't know itstime. And secondly I ought to at least have an intro at Chorlton to see what it is like. I fear the worst, really, but I ought to present myself and enter into some discussion, though it seems that Chorlton doesn't offer much. And I don't want it to, really, at the moment and I'd rather do pastoral things etc. later. Not that they are on offer, but participating in plans for the use of the building if there's a theological conflict and if they are limiting me is no good. Obviously I'll go with what G [the Principal] says on this, and tomorrow I hope I'll hear something more. I intend though to slip in without introducing myself until after the service.
Anyway, from Monton I went through Manchester down the A57 and up the A62 to Oldham ~ quite far away. I never found the church...
...I thought... I might be at the pub again. But no, and the later suggestion was to go to the fish and chip shop.
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