U-Cafe 27 November 2008 - Question Time

Question Time (based on the BBC programme) will provide an opportunity to put your questions to Rev. Jane Barraclough; Dawn Buckle, Executive Committee member, and Lizzie Roper, Unitarian Young Adults Network, about spirituality, Unitarianism and even current events – its up to you!
Tea/coffee from 7.00pm All welcome

Katrina's Victims Still Need Help - Volunteering in New Orleans - U-Cafe on 23 October 2008

U-Cafe is open on 23 October 2008; 7,00pm for 7.30pm.

Fran Devine will talk about her two weeks volunteering in New Orleans with the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, which is working to rebuild homes and communities following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. She is in touch with the project and can report on the current situation following recent events.

For further information please read the attached article "Katrina's victims still need help" from "The Inquirer" (28 June 2008)

Derek McAuley will then lead a discussion about the role of social action in the Unitarian Vision.

U-CAFE OPEN ON 25 SEPTEMBER 2008

HOW WE CAN USE EDWARD DE BONO'S "SIX THINKING HATS TO EXPLORE SPIRITUAL QUESTIONS"

A WORKSHOP WITH RICH DALEY

Tea/coffee from 7.00pm. 7.30pm start

U-Cafe on 25 September 2008

U-Cafe is closed for the summer break but will resume on 25 September 2008 with the topic :

"How we can use Edward de Bono's "Six Thinking Hats" to explore spiritual questions"

with Rich Daley

7.00pm for 7.30pm. All welcome

Spirit Play with Rev. Jane Barraclough

The final U-Cafe before the summer break will take place on 26 June 2008 at Cross Street Chapel.

"On the shores of endless worlds
Children Play"

Rabindranath Tagore

We will together create a safe and supportive space for meditation and creative play. Working from the inside out, we start with various forms of meditation, and move on to artistic expression of variious kinds. No special skills are required. This is art as process, not product. Please wear old clothes.

Tea/coffee from 7.00pm. All welcome.

Synthesise at U-Cafe in May

John Shiers and Judy Benson, from Synthesise, introduced a stimulating evening at U-Café on 22 May 2008. They described their own spiritual journeys that has led them to establish Synthesise, a social enterprise drawing upon transpersonal ideas to produce social change. A mixed bunch of people; some Unitarian, some not, came along and explored together some of the emergent ideas.

Amongst matters discussed were:

· Political and religious “conversion” experiences and what they mean
· The influence of a religious upbringing to the development of a spiritual life later in life
· The need to value social change in the midst of a consumer society
· Unitarianism as vessel which can contain many differing perspectives

For more information on Synthesise follow the link.

At the core of Synthesise is the motivation to promote transpersonal values for personal, community and organisational development. The word “transpersonal”, is a shorthand way of talking about the connections we have with others, about the sense of the spiritual in our lives, and about the spiritual manifesting through relationship, work and everyday life. The implication of living transpersonally is that our greater connection with each other supports us to work for change, for a more sustainable way of living together. Towards a world that works for everyone.

U-Cafe 22 May 2008 with Synthesise

“CONNECTIONS”
WITH SYNTHESISE

Visitors from Synthesise, a recently formed cooperative social enterprise, will talk about their personal spiritual journeys and how this led them to form this new organization working to establish a more humane and enlightened world.

“For us, the transpersonal is about connection. Connection with a deep and more inclusive sense of self and opening to the mystery which is at the heart of life is what we mean by the spiritual. This is very different than holding religious dogmas which all too often can close rather than open the gateways to the spiritual”

Tea/coffee from 7.00pm All welcome

For further information: http://u-cafecrossstreetchapel.blogspot.com/
To find out more about Synthesise: www.synthesise.org

24th April - The Ministry of Sound

Wynne Simister will explore how musicians have a role in ministry and how the emotional, as experienced through music, should feed the spiritual. Music as part of the whole worship experience can increase the spiritual experience and individual and congregational growth.

Wynne is currently undertaking studies in sacred music at Bangor University. She is organist at Oldham Unitarian Church.

U-Cafe takes place at Cross Street Chapel. Tea and coffee is served from 7.00pm. All welcome.

The Unitarian Path

U-Cafe attenders might be interested in an opportunity to explore Unitarianism in a relaxed atmosphere. "The Unitarian Path" is a chance to explore a Unitarianism over a series of Wednesday evenings in Chorlton from 9 April 2008.

For further information
http://unitarianpath.blogspot.com

Poetry Workshop

Well known poet, Peter Sampson explored with the group how drawing up a list could be used to stimulate thinking to develop meaningful poems. We all had a go but I won't embarrass anyone by reprinting them!

As part of his introduction Peter read one of his own poems:

"Things my father could do"

Spit into the back of the fire

Turn a piece of metal on a lathe

Dance a quick-step

Ride his bicycle for miles with me on the cross-bar

Solve an intractable mathematical problem for his tearful son

Sing a comic song in the Sunday School pantomine

Play the overture "Poet and Peasant" on the piano

Build a perfect replica of a pullman car for my model railway.

The last thing I saw him do was

Fight the pain in his chest to wrestle with the clasps

On the tin trunk which was to be sent off to Cambridge

Containing all my worldly possessions.

When I received a telegram just before Christmas

To tell me I had won an award at Cambridge

He hugged me; he wept.

When he saw me play Richard the Second at school

He was full of wonder that his own son could be somebody

So different from the boy he thought he knew.

As a boy I had never seemed to be able

To satisfy his stern demands

By doing what he wanted or would have liked me to do

- maths, making models, fighting to defend myself -

But when I started to do the things I wanted to do

(Things I could do) he did not stint his praise,

Almost as if he was glad that I could cope

With what he could never understand.

Almost as if

When he knew that I could do without him

it made his day.

Peter Sampson

Peter also drew from our spiritual past with a poem by George Herbert

"Prayer"

Prayer the Churches banquet, Angels age,

God's breath in man returning to his birth,

The soul in paraphase, heart in pilgrimage,

The Christian plummet sounding heav'n and earth;

Engine against th'Almightie, sinners towre,

Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,

The six-daies - world transposing in an houre,

A kind of tune, which all things heare and fear;

Softnesse, and peace, and joy, and love, and blisse,

Exalted Manna, gladnesse of the best,

Heaven in ordinarie, man well drest,

The milkie may, the bird of Paradise,

Church-bels beyond the starres heard, the souls bloud,

The land of spices; something understood.

I've got a Little List" - Poetry Workshop

Peter Sampson will lead a poetry workshop when U-Cafe next opens on Thursday 20 March 2008. This will be an opportunity to explore how poetry can contribute to one's spiritual development and there will be lots of participation.

Peter Sampson is a well known poet, writer and performer.

Tea/Coffee is served from 7.00pm. All welcome. No need to book

12 Step Spirituality

U-Cafe next opens on at 7.00 for 7.30pm on Thursday 28 February 2008 at Cross Street Chapel.

12 Step Spirituality

What are the 12 steps?

What is their purpose?

An evening of discussion and discovery with members of Alcoholics Anonymous and members of other 12-step fellowships.

All welcome. Bring your Friends.

"The Spiritual path is a deeply personal experience"

The first U-Cafe of 2008 was a stimulating and enjoyable event with the largest attendance yet; twenty-four people from a wide and eclectic range of backgrounds. We had ten members of Cross Street Chapel present.

Four members of the Manchester Buddhist Centre (three of whom are pictured opposite; Howard, Munisha and Ursula) joined us and got the discussion off to a good start by explaining why they were a Buddhist.

Phrases that stick in my mind are:

"feel found my spiritual home"

"expanding my mind and heart to the universe"

"spiritual path is a deeply personal experience"

"ethical framework to use in my life"

Discussion took place on varous tools and meditation practices, the relevance of addiction to the 5 precepts and the widespread but relatively unknown social action undertaken by Buddhists in all parts of the world. The evening closed with meditation.

Looking ahead - U-Cafe 28 February 2008

U-Cafe will open on Thursday 28 February 2008 for an evening led by Danny Crosby on "12 Step Spirituality".

What are the 12 steps? What is their purpose? An evening of discussion and discovery with committed members of Alcoholics Anonymous and members of other 12-step fellowships.

7.00pm for 7.30pm. Cross Street Chapel. All welcome. Bring your friends.

Forthcoming meeting - meet some Buddhists

The next opening of U-Cafe will be on Thursday 24 January 2008 at Cross Street Chapel with tea/coffee available from 7.00pm.

Visitors will be several members of Clear Vision, which is based at the Manchester Buddhist Centre. This will be an opportunity to hear a number of individual perspectives of Buddhism from mainly western believers and to ask questions and comment in a very informal way. Those that attended the event with Manchester's Liberal Jews will recall how a cafe-style allowed for mutual exploration in a safe enviroment.

All welcome. Bring your friends. Tea/Coffee available.

Jazz and Spirituality - John Midgley's talk

I am very aware that there are many people in this world who do not like jazz - and will say so. Many a time I have heard people say they hate jazz , or say something like, “Well I like some jazz but I can’t stand that modern doodly doodly do stuff, I like to recognise the tune.“ Well, I have been listening to jazz since teenage years, I can cope with doodly oodly doo and I don't worry too much about the tune. But we’ll come to that later.

The purpose is to talk a little about the similarities I see between jazz and the kind of liberal, specifically Unitarian religion that I have been involved in from being a young teenager too. I am at a bit of a disadvantage because I am not a musician.

There is a certain amount of snobbery in my being a jazz lover. As a teenager, pop music was very much in the ascendant and I quickly came to feel that most if not all of it was dreadful - and I still do not know what people see in Elvis Presley and countless others. So, along with a tiny handful of likeminded pop-music haters I took to disappearing into a quiet corner to listen to jazz. That is perhaps a first clue to my theme. Most of my contemporaries would have nothing to do with jazz and nothing to do with organised religion. So to me, both are to do with being involved in an odd or even despised minority!

Another similarity is the fact that it is difficult to define, both jazz and Unitarian or liberal religion. But in both cases there is enough of substance and meaning for Unitarianism to be a form of religion and jazz a form of music. But also, both keep changing, both keep evolving, neither of them hold still, both constantly have to be thought through - again and again.

Both jazz and religion have a wonderful history. Most people here know that jazz has its roots in the music of the black people that were brought as slaves to North America, to what we call the deep south, around New Orleans. The slaves, and then liberated slaves began to play their kind of music, and this evolved into jazz. At first it was rather crude and hard for white listeners to follow. But the historians love to tell the story of one young black boy who at the age of about 11 or 12 in about 1900, was caught by the police one new year’s eve, running around the streets of New Orleans firing a pistol into the air. He ended up in a reformatory for orphans, where as luck would have it he was taught to play the cornet. When he emerged he joined some jazz musicians in the local bars, developed his skills, and one night, stood up and played this. The opening bars of West End Blues….

The historians will tell you that the world stood still and listened. The boy's name was Louis Armstrong, and the rest is jazz history or mythology.

Another way of getting into this is to look at the characteristics of jazz
Rhythm. All sorts of music has rhythm, but for jazz the characteristic beats are of 4/4 or 8/8, whether fast, medium or slow, giving the music a vitality, an energy. But other rhythms have been introduced too.
Then there is he blues, and I shall come back to this in some depth later. And then there is swing - impossible to define, but you know it when you hear it or feel it.

Then there is improvisation. Now this means, making up melodies, or creating variations on melodies. And this is where people who do not understand jazz start to confused, often because they don't know what’s going on. But jazz musicians see no real point in just playing a tune the same way every time. So, they improvise, they change it, they twist it around and vary it and reshape it, to the point where it doesn't quite sound like what it was.

Sometimes a musician will play and practice a tune, and improvise their variations on it, and then commit those variations to memory. Then each time they play the tune they will vary it in that way, or something very like it. (Some people preach sermons that way!)

Then there is what is sometimes called ‘the bag of tricks’. A musician will have some particular tricks of playing, a certain ways of re-shaping or varying or decorating a tune, and will improvise, using those tricks with whatever they play. (Some people preach sermons that way!)

Then there is spontaneous improvisation - this is when a musician will start with the original - and then quite spontaneously improvise - actually composing new music as they play. This is perhaps the highest form of improvisation- it is regarded as an art form - pure, spontaneous creativity. A very risky, courageous thing to do, but for the musician and the jazz lover, when it happens, it is truly wonderful, almost miraculous. (Some people preach sermons that way!)

Then there is collective improvisation. A band of musicians will chose a tune, play it through a couple of times then take it in turn to improvise, and then play together, all of them improvising at once. It’s at this point that people sometimes get confused because they have lost the tune! But usually, the original tune is in there somewhere and that collective creativity is truly wonderful to the jazz lover’s ear.

And I think that there is an analogy with our kind of religion at this point. There are basic religious themes or ideas, but individuals are allowed the freedom to improvise on the basic belief or truth, and create their own expression of it. And we do this together. So there is the collective improvisation, which can sound like a jumble, but there is enough to hold it together. And no musician says, You must all play it the way I am playing, - this is the right way.

To do that or say that - would not be jazz.

Listen to Chris Barber’s Jazz Band playing All the Gals Go Crazy ’Bout the Way I Walk.

Now, the blues. This is something that is part of jazz, or jazz is part of the blues or the two go together or whatever - the jazz enthusiasts debate this forever.

The blues is often thought of as simply sad music, but there is more to it that that and people get confused because sometimes the blues can get to sound quite joyful, exciting and uplifting.

The black people of the deep south were slaves and even when they were liberated they were oppressed. This comes out in their work songs, and then in the blues. But the amazing thing about the blues is that it will often start sad, but after a while it starts to change. The musician or singer expresses the sadness, the lament, or frustration or oppression or grief, and then the sadness will turn to frustration and then determination and defiance, even anger - and then- the very fact of expressing it, the physical or emotional experience of expressing it, provides a release from it, and the spirit of the person comes bursting through - sometimes as a wonderful expression of the triumph of the human spirit. Joy and hope come through - in the end. Daring to do this is a matter of freedom and social justice. So it is not just a sad song - it is at its best an expression of what it means to be a free person. And that breakthrough of release of the spirit is what jazz fans mean by the indefinable quality called swing. It’s hard to create artififally, and when it occurs spontaneously - it is artistic and the triumph of the spirit.

A simple illustration - Here is a song called The Postman’s Lament - played by Ken Colyer’s Jazzmen. he is suicidal - but joy comes breaking through!

Now I see similarities in this to the experience of worship - which is an opportunity to bring and share your joys and sorrows, dreams and frustrations - in the hope that the experience of expressing them and sharing them will relieve them.

Jazz music spread out from New Orleans, to Chicago then New York and around the world. As is spread it evolved, developed and changed - and there are now countless different styles, and then eras when the old styles are revived, but they are never the same - and there are similarities with the history of religion - and there are traditionalists and progressives, and even heretics (like Theolonius Monk - who once said There is no such thing as a wrong note!)

I must add that it was through listening to jazz as a youngster that I became interested in classical music. For me it is a fairly easy step from, say, Rachmaninov piano music - add the rhythm and the improvisation, and there we have Errol Garner’s piano jazz. There is a depth and serious-mindedness in jazz that is there in classical music too.

So to try to sum up, jazz and Unitarianism, liberal religion, have these things in common which are important to me:

* Freedom - freedom of expression
* Rootedness - the roots of music and religion are there - there is an appreciation of the past
* Individual expression - who you are as a person matters - you can make your personal contribution
* Creativity - and all the risks that that entails
* Improvisation - you do not have to be bound by what the past has thought and done.
* Collective improvisation - if we agree to be ourselves, together, then the collective creates something new and unique.
* The energy - the zest for living
* The hopefulness, the knowledge that the future will bring new ways of understanding and expressing even old and familiar themes.

A final piece to play, Dave Brubeck and his son, Chris - Black and Blue.

John Midgley