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… The tradition of New Year Resolutions has a very old history in this Jewish
tradition.
Sometimes our New Year Resolutions produce little successes along the
way, but all too often we return to being the same as we were; we slide
back to being very much like the character we used to be. We yearn for
transformation; we want a better and more fulfilling life; we pray for
serenity, strength and compassion. But nothing seems to happen.

The entire talk by the Rev Geoff Usher on New Year’s resolutions can be found here.

by the Rev Rex A E Hunt

Historians and theologians are quite direct with their assessments of Australian colonial religion.
Scottish born theologian, James Denny (1856-1917), stated Australia was
“the most godless place under heaven”. (Quoted in Breward 1988)

In 1788 when the First Fleet arrived in New South Wales from England,
Governor Arthur Phillip not only established a penal colony,
a goal for the 736 convicts—548 males, 188 females—and to a certain extent
the marines and officers who accompanied them,
he also won the land for ‘protestant’ Christianity.(Breward 1988:2)

His orders included the charge that he
“enforce a due observance of religion and good order among the inhabitants of the new settlement, and that you take steps for the due celebration of publick [sic] worship as circumstances will permit.” (Woolmington, quoted in Thompson 1994: 1)

Likewise the oath of allegiance at the foundation of the colony included
“a rejection of the doctrine of transubstantiation, presumably to ensure that no taint of Romanism entered even a prison colony.” (Breward 1988:2)

Exiled from home and family perhaps forever,
both marines and convicts found their new land ‘alien’…

The full text can be read here.

“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in,
where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike”
(John Muir, 1912)

In the weeks between my first Covid jab in late April
and the first calendar days of the southern hemisphere winter and our Flu injections,
the 12 year young Japanese Maple (Acer Palmatum) in our front garden,
(a seedling gift from a mate when we were leaving Canberra)
was undergoing a time of transition.
From the gentle chlorophyll green sea-of-life-filled foliage—a miracle of evolution,
to its chosen orange and burgundy seven-acutely pointed, lobe leaves…
Not an all-at-once process, but a gradual must-do life-saving transition
as its energy from photosynthesis is diverted to the roots, resulting in
autumn technicolored leaves pirouetting to the ground in a light wind—plop,
to become crisp brown litter and our garden’s spring fertiliser.
Nature outdoors.
Nature approaching the cold of winter clad in a brilliant palette of colours.
Nature inviting us to appreciate daily experiences of wonder.
As Albert Camus wrote: ‘Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.’

The full text of this talk by the Rev. Rex A E Hunt can be found here.

How can Unitarianism be regarded as a religion when we have so many different points of view among the members?

This is the problem that the Rev Geoffrey Usher examines in the talk which can be read here. This talk should be read in relation to the previous post by the Rev. Geoffrey Usher.

“To feel religiously is to speak with the tongues of poets…
Like the language of art, poetry, and friendship, the language of religion
is suggestive, not descriptive or definitive”
(Bernard Meland)

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967), the widely regarded American poet, author, Chicago journalist, and three-times Pulitzer Prize winner—twice for poetry, once defined poetry as ‘the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits’.

Intrigued, I began to search for its context. Now I didn’t discover where he actually placed the comment—in a poem, that is— but I did find where hundreds of others have quoted it. So I am prepared to accept it as a genuine Sandburg saying.

By-the-way, of poetry Sandburg also wrote nearly 40 other so-called ‘definitions’.
Some of those are:
Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away.
Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.
Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during the moment.

It wasn’t until I read the comments of another poet, who also wrestled with his
‘hyacinths/biscuits’ definition, that I reckoned I began to appreciate some of the meanings attributed to it that made it attractive to many.

‘The putting together of unlike things to give us a new view of our world’.
(Joan Monahan) A ‘synthesis’ view of life.
oo0oo

As it happens one of my theological mentors, Bernard Meland (1899–1993), said of Sandburg’s poetry comment that it also defines life, “for life, too, is a synthesis of biscuits and hyacinths.” (Meland 1934:279)
(Meland changed the order…)

This is the intrduction to a thoughtful address by the

Rev Rex A E Hunt, MSc(Hons), GradDipCommMgt.
• Religious Naturalist • Social Ecologist • Progressive Liturgist
( further information can be found at www.rexaehuntprogressive.com

The full talk can found here.